What about liches?

[Palude]

Ok, so now we know that vampires are actually evil undead spirits controlling somebody's reanimated body while enslaving its soul for memories, and often impersonating it for the sake of disguise.

What about liches, however? Are they, too, evil spirits enslaving a former living soul, and using its body as a vessel? In this case, wouldn't the Xykon we know from SOD actually be trapped, and the character we know as the lich Xykon a completely separate entity?

[Zmeoaice]

Possibly, but Redcloak wouldn't know about it.

Also, we don't know if all vampires are spirits controlling somebody's reanimated body while enslaving its soul for memories, only that a few vampires have been.

[Palude]

Possibly, but Redcloak wouldn't know about it.

Also, we don't know if all vampires are spirits controlling somebody's reanimated body while enslaving its soul for memories, only that a few vampires have been.

That certainly can be the case about vampires; but I think it is more probable that they are all equal in this respect.

As for Redcloak, however, I believe he may have suggested exactly the hypothesis I brought up when he had his last quarrel with Tsukiko. He said that Xykon had some strings in which he "unknowingly dances"...a figure of speech, maybe, meaning that Xykon is being manipulated by him. In face of new evidence, however, it can also be interpreted as "I know what Xykon actually is, and he is enslaved by an evil undead spirit which I can manipulate, since undead are tools, weapons to be used by the living as they see fit".

[137beth]

It is not in any way consistent with Xykon's transformation and behavior in SoD.

Consider:

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

Show

a)After becoming a Lich, Xykon wanted coffee, exactly like he did as a human. He was horrified to discover he could no longer taste coffee. If it were a negative energy spirit possessing him, this would have been impossible, because a negative energy spirit would never have been able to taste coffee, and so would not have developed a craving for it in the first place.
b)Aside from no longer eating, lich Xykon behaves exactly the same as human Xykon. Identically. There was no sudden personality change. After failing to taste coffee, Xykon switches to his old favorite hobby from life: torturing/killing innocents. There was no "corrupting pull towards evil" or any of the other BS that gets thrown around in alignment threads. Human Xykon thought and behaved exactly the same as Lich Xykon.
c)Eugene made his blood oath when Xykon was still alive. If that Xykon is really destroyed and the lich walking around is someone else, then Eugene's oath would be fulfilled, which it isn't.

All the evidence points to lich Xykon being the same person as human Xykon.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Liches do not work in the same manner as vampires, since the point of a lich is to prolong the life of caster who turns themself into a mage, not being in control of your body would defeat the purpose of that transformation. Plus, Xykon acts exactly the same way both during and after he is alive.

[RedSand]

It's not just inconsistent with Xykon; it's not consistent with Malack. Remember this scene?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0878.html

If that was just a negative energy spirit pretending to be Malack, why would it be kind-of nostalgic for brothers it never had? Why is there so little a disconnect between the person and the spirit?
Personally, I'd guess that the different way dwarven spirits are handled by the gods means different things for their undead. Or perhaps Durkon's class makes him a tool for the gods, regardless of what state he's in, and Hel's just taking advantage of him.
Either way, having the Xykon of the first half of SoD not be the Xykon in the actual strip would undermine his entire arc(or whatever you'd call it) in that book. It would render the loss of what little humanity he had moot. It'd be cheap and unsatisfying. It would mean the guy Roy's fighting technically has nothing to do with his Blood Oath, since Xykon was alive when he did that.
Regardless of the lore perspective, from the story perspective it's basically impossible.

[Keltest]

Lichdom is a deliberate process undergone by magic-users to preserve their soul on the mortal plane to escape death. They specifically bind their soul to the phylactery so that it has a non-lower-plane location to escape to on the destruction of its current host (Ie the body). The body becomes undead, but the soul is still in control. Any change in personality can be explained by the increase in mental stats in combination with the pseudo-immortality and lack of fleshy desires.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

It's not just inconsistent with Xykon

It's not inconsistent for Xykon at all. So far, the spirit possessing you has only been applied to vampires and, as you point out, there is some debate on whether or not it applies to all vampires. There is no inconsistency for Xykon, as there is no other lich for us to compare him to.

[Bulldog Psion]

There wouldn't be much purpose in becoming a lich if that were so, and since it's a voluntary process, I think we can discount the Durkonesque theories.

[Zmeoaice]

It is not in any way consistent with Xykon's transformation and behavior in SoD.

a)After becoming a Lich, Xykon wanted coffee, exactly like he did as a human. He was horrified to discover he could no longer taste coffee. If it were a negative energy spirit possessing him, this would have been impossible, because a negative energy spirit would never have been able to taste coffee, and so would not have developed a craving for it in the first place.

It's possible that the spirit was very similar to Xykon, or was putting up a facade to fool Redcloak. It's also possible that the Lich Spirit absorbed Xykon's memories instead of having to go through them and remembered the taste of coffee.

c)Eugene made his blood oath when Xykon was still alive. If that Xykon is really destroyed and the lich walking around is someone else, then Eugene's oath would be fulfilled, which it isn't.\

If he's trapped in the Lich's body and/or Phalactery, then he technically hasn't gone to the afterlife yet.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

It's possible that the spirit was very similar to Xykon, or was putting up a facade to fool Redcloak. It's also possible that the Lich Spirit absorbed Xykon's memories instead of having to go through them and remembered the taste of coffee.

This still doesn't answer the question of why a ritual designed to help the person who voluntarily chooses to undergo it would end up with a spirit possessing their body. And this hypothetical spirit does a remarkably good job of copying Xykon, to the point where there is no difference between them as far as the reader can tell.

[SavageWombat]

Thought: the negative energy spirit hypothesis explains why a vampire retains his memories, and yet has become evil as a result of the transformation.

Do liches need such an explanation? Does becoming a lich make you evil, or is it only evil mages who would become a lich? Some people allow non-evil liches.

Maybe it's only vampires that need a "you're a plant who believed he was Alec Holland" explanation.

[Everyl]

Liches are supposed to be "any Evil," and the process for becoming one is "unspeakably evil" for reasons that are unspecified, at least in their SRD writeup. This sort of thing has bothered me for a long time in D&D - why are undead inherently evil? If creating undead traps the soul and prevents it from moving on to its deserved afterlife, that partially answers the question, but what would be evil about willingly turning oneself into an undead creature? Liches don't have any appetites or drives that make them inherently harmful to other things. What makes lichdom inherently more evil than other ways of extending one's lifespan?

What if part of the process of becoming a lich involves subcontracting the animation of one's body out to a negative energy spirit? The mortal's soul resides in its phylactery, safe from harm, and sends orders to the spirit at the proverbial speed of thought, resulting in the lich's body acting exactly the same way that the living person would have. Because this is a willing, negotiated arrangement, the negative energy spirit does what it's told, but it's still free to offer "helpful" suggestions, much the way that the soul-spliced spellcasters goaded Darth V along. Nothing forces the lich to follow those suggestions, but the result is still that liches have a perpetual "shoulder devil" voice encouraging their worst nature - something that would be bound to influence one's actions after hearing it for years, decades, centuries, however long the lich manages to persist.

Now, I don't personally subscribe to this theory, in the OOTS-verse or in my own games. But if you're the kind of person who has trouble sleeping at night without a Grand Unified Theory of Undead Metaphysics, here's a way to reconcile a lich's apparent retention of their original personality/soul with the loss of personal identity/autonomy associated with other forms of undead.

[Koo Rehtorb]

No. Liches and vampires are completely different things.

[Roland Itiative]

It's not just inconsistent with Xykon; it's not consistent with Malack. Remember this scene?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0878.html

If that was just a negative energy spirit pretending to be Malack, why would it be kind-of nostalgic for brothers it never had? Why is there so little a disconnect between the person and the spirit

I have two ways to see that. In the simplest one, it just is on the dark spirit's best interest to put on a façade of being the same being as the living person whose body hosts it. So, Malack waxing nostalgic was just the dark spirit making use of that memory to further perpetrate the ruse. This must come second-nature to these dark spirits, specially after "living" in that body for centuries.

On the more complex angle, maybe Malack (still talking about the dark spirit, the original soul will be referred to as the "shaman", since we don't actually know his name) is so used to the memories of the living shaman that, to it, there is no difference anymore. I mean, at which point does memories you steal straight from the source stop being just information and start being your memories? After centuries, the line must be at least a little blurred, specially if the shaman had a similar personality to Malack's to begin with, so the memories wouldn't clash with how the spirit would deal with any given situation. This angle could work if the Giant intend to delve on these questions, maybe having Durkula genuinely reacting like Durkon would (not saying he should make Durkula turn good, but perhaps they can "synchronise" on the Law part of their alignment), at some point.

As for Xykon, there is no way to determine if the soul on command is that of the human sorcerer. Even things like the coffee tantrum could just be the dark spirit emulating the human, but on the other hand we can't really extrapolate the behaviour of vampires to any sort of undead. But, as far as the story goes, I don't think Xykon will be shown to be anything but the human spirit. I mean, it would take away from the character if all those things he did while undead were not really his doing, specially when the Giant went to great lengths to show that living Xykon was every bit as evil as lich Xykon.

[factotum]

This sort of thing has bothered me for a long time in D&D - why are undead inherently evil? If creating undead traps the soul and prevents it from moving on to its deserved afterlife, that partially answers the question, but what would be evil about willingly turning oneself into an undead creature?

I read the lich transformation slightly differently--the desire to become immortal in an undead body is not itself "unspeakably evil", it's the procedure for doing so that is, and so only someone who was already irredeemably evil would actually go through with it. As for most other undead, I think they're inherently evil because they're always created by evil beings--undead are powered by negative energy and are thus inherently opposed to the living, so no Good cleric would create one.

[Sunken Valley]

If Xykon was a negative energy spirit, why would he care about the gate plan at all or stick with Redcloak? Surely he'd have a different agenda. Plus, even before the reveal, Vampire Durkon behaved differently to Durkon, saying he was nothing without his magic when the real Durkon would smack things with his hammer, spells or not. Xykon has identical battle tactics to his old form.

[Bulldog Psion]

Liches are supposed to be "any Evil," and the process for becoming one is "unspeakably evil" for reasons that are unspecified, at least in their SRD writeup. This sort of thing has bothered me for a long time in D&D - why are undead inherently evil?

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

[Domino Quartz]

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

Would you PM me too?

[Koo Rehtorb]

The process to become a lich is unspeakably evil, presumably because it involves some horrible process like sacrificing the souls of a dozen children to fuel the ritual, or whatever.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

Could you PM as well? I'm very interested in this kind of topic and would like to hear your theory.

[Morty]

Liches are supposed to be "any Evil," and the process for becoming one is "unspeakably evil" for reasons that are unspecified, at least in their SRD writeup. This sort of thing has bothered me for a long time in D&D - why are undead inherently evil?

Because the writers didn't put any thought into the alignment system, is my guess. They just slapped Evil alignment onto every undead creature, because they're walking dead, scary and stuff, and didn't think about it too hard.

At any rate, vampires are vampires, and liches are liches. They're two entirely different kinds of walking corpses. There's no reason to draw any analogies between them.

[hamishspence]

Ghosts are "Alignment: Any".

And there's plenty of background material in Libris Mortis for playing the rare nonevil member of a Usually/Always Evil undead type.

[Palude]

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

Would you please PM me too?

[Falbrogna]

Also, we don't know if all vampires are spirits controlling somebody's reanimated body while enslaving its soul for memories, only that a few vampires have been.

This. We don't know how much Hel's interference counted against normal vampirization.

[Everyl]

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

Sure, I'm interested in hearing any theory about unspeakable evil that is, in and of itself, unspeakable.

[Keltest]

I have a theory about this with fairly robust support, but it involves delving into topics profoundly forbidden on these forums. May I PM you about it?

Id like a PM too, if you don't mind. This is an interesting topic.

[Zmeoaice]

Would you please PM me too?

PM me three

[Vinyadan]

I don't say that it would be impossible in theory, but I think that someone who built a phylaktery would know it, if it were meant to store two souls in it.

[Raimun]

Liches are supposed to be "any Evil," and the process for becoming one is "unspeakably evil" for reasons that are unspecified, at least in their SRD writeup. This sort of thing has bothered me for a long time in D&D - why are undead inherently evil? If creating undead traps the soul and prevents it from moving on to its deserved afterlife, that partially answers the question, but what would be evil about willingly turning oneself into an undead creature? Liches don't have any appetites or drives that make them inherently harmful to other things. What makes lichdom inherently more evil than other ways of extending one's lifespan?

Thing is, Good and Evil in D&D are not just philosophical concepts but instead, concrete forces. There are planes of existance that are literally made of an alignment, like Evil. Everything native to an Evil plane is just that: Evil. It's even possible to channel those forces and blast people with pure Evil, which harms Good people but doesn't harm Evil people. Or you could channel Evil to a corpse and animate it as an undead. So, the more there are undead, the more Evil there is on the material plane. Read about Negative Energy Plane (which powers undeath). It's not a fun place at all.

Undeath also screws the natural order of life and death. The body does not compose and the soul does not reach afterlife to meet its eternal rest or damnation. Remember, this is pretty crucial to D&D-cosmology. Of course, Evil D&D-gods don't mind people creating undead, since it means material plane becomes that much more Evil... which is what they are after, you know.