D&D General Lich Mastermind?

[Zardnaar]

So new campaign and I have decided to have a mastermind type villain. The players have already met them.

Basic idea is really ancient lich. They kidnap 1 person a year for internment in stasis.

Their lairs has been sealed up and can only be reached via dimension door at very specific spots. No teleportion circles and warded against teleports except those specific spots.

The lich has split their phylactery into 3 pieces each of which can function as a phylactery.

Hobbies in addition to kidnapping people for stasis is keeping track of their own bloodline down through the centuries. One PC is a very distant relative.

Another hobby is collecting bodies of heroes and preserving them for cloning purposes via gentle repose.

The lich also poses as a bard but is impersonating someone else who posing as the bard. Basically a double fake identity.

So how would you run such a creature? It's been slowly building a community of kidnapped people lost in time and it grows clones of its carefully saved corpses. It wants to rebuild its kingdom.

My basic idea is the PCs find clones in places like tombs. The clones wake up when found by the PCs. They remember dying. A few however are people in stasis. The lich is toying with them. A lot of early dungeons are staged by the villain. Ancient artifacts laid out a bit to conveniently. Ancient languages inscribed with modern techniques or inappropriately aged materials. People from ancient cultures interred with inappropriate timeframe. Eg find an Etruscan Tomb with ancient Egyptian in it. Who is alive.

Small clues like that. Other undead have met the lich and can refer to it. Also thinking of killing off NPCs and speak with dead triggers contingency type magic creating undead.

How Would You Do it? I'm adding side quests and details to my main stories. Later on they should have a showdown with the lich who has doubled as questioner. They have inadvertently been collecting spell components.

Thoughts?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Seems pretty good to me. I'd probably add some organisation that works for him too. Perhaps some bardic spy org. They might not even know who they're really working for.

Edit: In fact I'm a strong fan of making things really messy, so I'd have two separate organisations working for him. One would be a spy group of bards, and one would focus on academic work like acquiring spell books and perhaps magic items.

 

[Umbran]

Thoughts?

1) What level are you starting at?
2) Why is the lich toying with them?

 

[aco175]

I like the idea. As an ancient genius though he would/should have several plans going on all at once. This is the problem with you and the players who are likely not all geniuses'. The grand plans need to be solvable by the players and still be reasonable. Maybe the lich is just overconfident or likes to toy with his minions and feel the need to explain himself like in the movies.

He could also be an artist and poses as a painter all these years to paint portraits of his family lines . The PCs may find a series of halls with hundreds of paintings and discover a series of portraits of his parents and grandparents. There can even be an empty place for his portrait which may chill the PCs.

 

[Zardnaar]

1) What level are you starting at?
2) Why is the lich toying with them?

Newer players started at 1. Campaign started at 3.

Two players took custom origins. One could be his descendent the other interested in his old civilization.

Lich uses patsys to gather ccomponents for epic spell and reintroduce the clones and lost in time inhabitants to the world.

Say Vecna is posing as Acerak who is posing as a mortal bard. It's not them but similar idea.

 

[Umbran]

Newer players started at 1. Campaign started at 3.

Two players took custom origins. One could be his descendent the other interested in his old civilization.

Lich uses patsys to gather ccomponents for epic spell and reintroduce the clones and lost in time inhabitants to the world.

Say Vecna is posing as Acerak who is posing as a mortal bard. It's not them but similar idea.

Okay, then the thought is... these people are so far out of their league, that you do not want them to actually catch wind of what they are dealing with for a long time.

And, these guys are also not yet powerful enough to be gathering epic spell components, nor have they proved themselves worth cloning. They'd be, as yet, nobodies as far as the lich is concerned.

So, I'd play it as There's weird stuff in the area that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It is present, but not directly relevant to whatever they're doing. Right now it is still the detritus of the things the lich has done in the past, rather than stuff he's targeting at them right now.

For now, they are mice, in a place where a tiger lives - the tiger has impact on the other high predators an large prey, but not the mice.

 

[Zardnaar]

Okay, then the thought is... these people are so far out of their league, that you do not want them to actually catch wind of what they are dealing with for a long time.

And, these guys are also not yet powerful enough to be gathering epic spell components, nor have they proved themselves worth cloning. They'd be, as yet, nobodies as far as the lich is concerned.

So, I'd play it as There's weird stuff in the area that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It is present, but not directly relevant to whatever they're doing. Right now it is still the detritus of the things the lich has done in the past, rather than stuff he's targeting at them right now.

For now, they are mice, in a place where a tiger lives - the tiger has impact on the other high predators an large prey, but not the mice.

Oh forgot. Lich sponsors exploration expeditions. PCs are the only ones going it.

One of the components is a side quest as such on a jobs board. They won't be finding it for a bit.

 

[Li Shenron]

The whole idea sounds very cool. I don't know if I personally would be able to pull it off in a satisfying way... I would probably worry all the time that I am not making the lich smart enough, and keep adding a backup plan to a backup plan until the lich is effectively unbeatable.

 

[Zardnaar]

The whole idea sounds very cool. I don't know if I personally would be able to pull it off in a satisfying way... I would probably worry all the time that I am not making the lich smart enough, and keep adding a backup plan to a backup plan until the lich is effectively unbeatable.

That's kinda what I'm worried about.

Not all of the clones and displaced people are pro lich. Mostly he wants to "save" his people. Do his evil deeds and dump them in his new nation.