Is there a History of how the Phylactery and Liches came to be?

DMKastmaria said:

Gardner Fox's contribution is that he was, AFAIK, the first author to use the term "Lich" for an undead sorceror. Originally, the word just meant "dead person" or "dead body."

Click to expand...

Originally originally, in Old English, it simply meant "body, form", and combined with the prefix "ge-" (pronounced "ye") meant "alike", hence our modern word "like" to mean "the same", as well as the suffix "-ly".

This has been "This Word in Old English", by Iosue se Hragra. Góde níhte ond God bletsie.

trancejeremy said:

The concept of the D&D Lich apparently came from a story by Gardner Fox, who is mostly forgotten now, but was a comic book writer who also wrote fantasy, and one was featured in a story of his, "The Sword of the Sorcerer"

(This was discovered years ago here, actually)

Not having read it, I don't know if it explains any of your questions.

Click to expand...

Dead post but thought i would add for future finders of this dead thread, but the most similar early version of a lich's phylactery from dnd that i have found both come from H.P Lovecraft; the terrible old man, and two black bottles.

Howdy, I was on the YouTube live for the book launch of Ed Greenwood and Rhys Yorke’s new FR book, and they mentioned that an upcoming book in the series will introduce lore about liches. The first novella/adventure book in the series is on DMsGuild. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/549436/souls-for-the-taking-the-return-of-larloch-book-1

Great thread!
Questions I never pondered to ask but can help establish richer setting lore for my players who enjoy that kind of world-building, which is most of them.

I thought I read somewhere that Orcus was involved in the origin of liches (DnD canon stuff). Like providing the knowledge of the rites and just letting more evil come of it. He likes to pull a pin from a hand grenade and leave it in the closet with someone after closing the door. Doesn't have to involve clerics to have a demon/Godly origin. Demons love giving knowledge to arcanists

The first time I remember reading about a lich and phylactery was in Lloyd Alexander's 1967 book, "Taran Wanderer." I'm referring to the wizard Morda, who drained his entire life-force into his little finger, then cut it off and hid it in a safe place.



I don't remember Morda being referred to as a "lich" in the text, though, nor his little finger being a "phylactery." But the way he was described in the story is very similar to the description of a D&D lich. So much so, that when I started playing D&D a few years later and read the description of the lich, I thought "oh so it's basically Morda, then?"

Koshchei the Deathless obtained immortality because he hid his death inside an object and he's from Russian fairy tales centuries ago.