D&D 5E A Lich with a Clone?

[JoeCrow]

I have a reoccuring villain in my Amberos homebrew world, named Roanoke Major, who's essentially done this.

[sblock]
Roanoke ruled a kingdom and his phylactery was his throne, and he had likewise hidden several clones throughout his kingdom.

Heroes were able to convince his general to turn stag and kill him, dumping Roanoke's soul into the throne. When his kingdom was claimed by another, he took possession of the one who sat upon the throne. However, before he could re-lichify, he was hunted down and thought killed, though his body was never recovered.

Then he showed up a few years later. After that body was destroyed in fire, Roanoke showed up a year or so down the road, once right after the other. That was when those hunting him realized he was using clones. After destroying his latest incarnation, the heroes who had been dealing with him started actively hunting for other possible copies hidden by the wizard.

At one time, there were fifteen Roanokes running around at various power levels. The hero's attempts to hunt down inactive clones instead freed several from statis. Each one claimed to be *the* Roanoke, and it is thought that his soul was somehow actually split between all the active clones to some degree or another, causing many to be mad or to have missing large chunks of memory or skill.

Eventually, the Roanokes were either hunted down or the more powerful ones subsumed the weaker ones. Finally, one remained, and took the title Roanoke Major. Finally ousted from his kingdom, Roanoke Major fled into obscurity. It's thought he has a fortress somewhere in the Ice Mages, where he plots to return and retake his kingdom of the Hawk Lands.
[/sblock]

Hah! That's some Doctor Doom-level shenanigans, right there.

Doom approves!

 

[Dausuul]

By strict RAW, I don't think this works.

If you're interpreting "death" as defined in the Death and Dying Rules, then it happens when the lich's undead body is reduced to zero hit points. If you're interpreting it in a more natural way, then it happens when the living wizard drinks the poison potion and becomes a lich. Either way, at the moment the lich "dies," its soul is bound to the phylactery, not free*.

When you destroy the phylactery, the lich's death has already happened (either when it became a lich or when its body was destroyed). It has missed its window for clone to trigger. The "eternal death" wording doesn't suggest to me that destruction of the phylactery counts as another death. Rather, it just means that the death which the lich has already suffered now becomes eternal.

That said, there is some interesting potential here, enough that I'd consider allowing it to work. I wouldn't do it just to make the PCs' lives miserable--tracking down a lich's phylactery is plenty of work already, without having to then track down the lich again afterward. But what if the clone has a change of heart? Perhaps the wizard, newly restored to true life, looks back on her deeds as a lich, is horrified, and sets out to make up for them. (If going this route, I would definitely rule that clone creates a living wizard, not a lich-without-phylactery.) Or perhaps the wizard's mind would be wiped of everything that led up to her becoming a lich in the first place.

The interaction of clone with lichification is the sort of thing that IMO ought to have unexpected and interesting results.

[SIZE=-2]*Unless the phylactery is destroyed first.[/SIZE]

 

[Umbran]

The Clone spell seems like a great villain spell. An evil Necromancer wants to marry the princess and become the Black King. So he just clones her, kills her, then marries her after she wakes up in her cloning pod.

The "free and willing" bit comes in there.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I have a reoccuring villain in my Amberos homebrew world, named Roanoke Major, who's essentially done this.

[sblock]
Roanoke ruled a kingdom and his phylactery was his throne, and he had likewise hidden several clones throughout his kingdom.

Heroes were able to convince his general to turn stag and kill him, dumping Roanoke's soul into the throne. When his kingdom was claimed by another, he took possession of the one who sat upon the throne. However, before he could re-lichify, he was hunted down and thought killed, though his body was never recovered.

Then he showed up a few years later. After that body was destroyed in fire, Roanoke showed up a year or so down the road, once right after the other. That was when those hunting him realized he was using clones. After destroying his latest incarnation, the heroes who had been dealing with him started actively hunting for other possible copies hidden by the wizard.

At one time, there were fifteen Roanokes running around at various power levels. The hero's attempts to hunt down inactive clones instead freed several from statis. Each one claimed to be *the* Roanoke, and it is thought that his soul was somehow actually split between all the active clones to some degree or another, causing many to be mad or to have missing large chunks of memory or skill.

Eventually, the Roanokes were either hunted down or the more powerful ones subsumed the weaker ones. Finally, one remained, and took the title Roanoke Major. Finally ousted from his kingdom, Roanoke Major fled into obscurity. It's thought he has a fortress somewhere in the Ice Mages, where he plots to return and retake his kingdom of the Hawk Lands.
[/sblock]

Well played, sir.

Yeah, after reading the spell in reply to the OP, my thoughts were "Wow. Why wouldn't every high level wizard have a dozen or more clones stashed away somewhere." Story-wise, that's not typically the case.

Also, it seems the clone spell exerts some sort of pull on the soul when the original creature dies (hence the "and willing" clause... Which might put a crimp in the "clone and kill a captive" scenario). So what happens when there's more than one clone body pulling at the soul? My quick solution is "only one clone at a a time", or that they activate sequentially, in the order they were created.

I do like the idea of soul fragmentation, and the consequences that might imply. Madness, most likely. Or, tapping into Egyptian mythology, maybe specific parts of the soul are peeled off. What would the clone be like that is only the Ib part of the soul? What about the clone that's missing the Ib? The Sheut is the part of the soul that forms one's shadow. What an interesting clone that would be ...

How many clones can a soul be split between, though? Wisdom score? Wisdom bonus? Int, Wis Cha bonus combined? What happens to the clones if the soul is spread too thin? Do they fail to animate? Or do they become... something else?

Can a being with a partial soul become a lich? Simple answer, No. More interesting answer, maybe. A lich with a partial soul again, might be something different, something other than a regular lich. Again, what would a lich who's shadow soul is the only part in the phylactery be like? What if becoming a lich causes all the soul fragments to reunite in the phylactery? Now there's a full blown lich with soulless copies of itself running around (once more, soulless clones are more interesting than ruling they simply become inert again).

Speaking of limits with consequences, how many clones should spellcaster be able to create? Limited by the original body's Con score, I imagine, either bonus (minimum one) or actual score. What happens when you exceed the limit? Either the spell fails (boring), or the clone is somehow "wrong", only limited by the DMs imagination. Surely some wizard who pushed those boundaries is out there somewhere in his warped clone body.

Well, that was fun.

 

[BigVanVader]

The "free and willing" bit comes in there.

Bah. Details. Maybe he started out as the royal advisor years ago(During which time she WAS ready and willing. And this being Necromancy, I imagine you only have to be ready and willing once.). Maybe deep down she DOES want to marry him. Maybe he's mind controlling her. Maybe he's such a dangerous Necromancer because he's trying to find loopholes around things like that. Maybe he was born with it.

Maybe it's Necrovene.

 

[Mirtek]

I have a reoccuring villain in my Amberos homebrew world, named Roanoke Major, who's essentially done this.

[sblock]
Roanoke ruled a kingdom and his phylactery was his throne, and he had likewise hidden several clones throughout his kingdom.

Heroes were able to convince his general to turn stag and kill him, dumping Roanoke's soul into the throne. When his kingdom was claimed by another, he took possession of the one who sat upon the throne. However, before he could re-lichify, he was hunted down and thought killed, though his body was never recovered.

Then he showed up a few years later. After that body was destroyed in fire, Roanoke showed up a year or so down the road, once right after the other. That was when those hunting him realized he was using clones. After destroying his latest incarnation, the heroes who had been dealing with him started actively hunting for other possible copies hidden by the wizard.

At one time, there were fifteen Roanokes running around at various power levels. The hero's attempts to hunt down inactive clones instead freed several from statis. Each one claimed to be *the* Roanoke, and it is thought that his soul was somehow actually split between all the active clones to some degree or another, causing many to be mad or to have missing large chunks of memory or skill.

Eventually, the Roanokes were either hunted down or the more powerful ones subsumed the weaker ones. Finally, one remained, and took the title Roanoke Major. Finally ousted from his kingdom, Roanoke Major fled into obscurity. It's thought he has a fortress somewhere in the Ice Mages, where he plots to return and retake his kingdom of the Hawk Lands.
[/sblock]

The Simpsons Forgotten Realms already did this

 

[aramis erak]

One other thought - the clone is triggered when the lich creates itself - either the soul binds to the phylactery, or it goes to the clone. A would be lich might make a clone as a backup in case the ritual is wrong... but I as a GM would rule that having the clone causes the ritual to fail.

 

[Balfore]

Ok, so I'm facing this situation with the end of my campaign this Saturday.
I've read thru the thread and I'm lost with all the big words and planes living next door to other planes and mechanics of the process.

How do I allow the players the victory of defeating the Lich and destroy his phylactery, and have the Lich able to show up years later?

I wanted to do the Clone thing, and have hundreds of pods stashed all over the world...maybe even in the Astral Plane with copies of his spell books that all his Simulacrum copied for him.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

How do I allow the players the victory of defeating the Lich and destroy his phylactery, and have the Lich able to show up years later?

Here's two ways to do it:

A) The phylactery the party destroyed was a fake.

B) The lich had some followers/disciples that the party didn't eradicate, and they spent the intervening years doing the long and arduous tasks necessary to reassemble and reanimate the lich.

 

[Leatherhead]

How do I allow the players the victory of defeating the Lich and destroy his phylactery, and have the Lich able to show up years later?

Well, the Lich's soul could go to the Abyss, because of a deal from Orcus who taught the lich the ritual in the first place. From there it gets turned into a Manes, because that's what happens to souls in the Abyss. After that, the ex-lich works it's way up the ranks of Orcus's armies, gaining more and more powerful forms as it goes along.The Devourer from Volo's Guide to monsters, is a good point refresh a higher level party on the ex-lich's new existence.