Complete Guide to Liches Now Available

[goodmangames]

Hello everyone,

The long-awaited Complete Guide to Liches is now available. You can pick it up at your local game store or get it online at www.goodman-games.com. This is the book that humanizes the lich, introducing such new concepts as the redeemed lich (a lich that discards its life of evil) and the philolich (a reanimated lover of a bored lich), as well as covering all the basics like creation, new spells, and new variants.

You can find preview art at www.goodman-games.com/3003preview.php . Here's some more info...

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LICHES
GMG3003
48 pages, $13.00

Do traces of humanity remain after a spellcaster's transformation into a lich? The answer is yes. This guide to liches humanizes the evil monster that has traditionally been relegated to the lowest levels of dank, dark dungeons.

Necromancers pursue the path to lichdom for many reasons. Some are truly evil with dark plans that will take centuries to complete. But others are looking for nothing more than immortality. The transformation to lichdom is shrouded in mystery and secrecy, and few who undertake the process fully understand all the implications. Many are completely unaware that the enigmatic rituals that promise immortality may have sinister side effects. Thus it is possible that some liches were once paladins pursuing a centuries-long plan of good, or researchers who only wanted a few more years to complete their studies. Over time, the necromantic energies of the creation rituals corrupted them, and now they are evil liches... but the spark of humanity remains.

The Complete Guide to Liches introduces the concept of the redeemed lich, who has sloughed off his undead life of evil, and the philolich, a mortal lover reanimated by her lich companion to keep him company as he whiles away his centuries. The "typical" lich is examined in detail, along with several new varieties, including the monstrously powerful drowlich and the time-challenged novalich (whose more limited creation rituals give him but one year to complete a specific task).

The Complete Guide to Liches is a stand-alone, world-neutral sourcebook covering everything you ever wanted to know about liches. It is the seventh volume in the Complete Guide series. Each Complete Guide is exactly what it sounds like: a complete guide to playing a given kind of monster. As a GM, you'll learn how to run that monster, both in combat and role-playing situations. The Complete Guide to Liches can be inserted easily into any fantasy setting.

Writer: Michael Ferguson
Cover Artist: Jim Pavelec
Interior Artist: Brad McDevitt

 

[trancejeremy]

What I've always wanted to know, is do dogs follow Lichs around? Dogs really like moldy old bones, for reasons probably best left unknown...

 

[goodmangames]

What I've always wanted to know, is do dogs follow Lichs around? Dogs really like moldy old bones, for reasons probably best left unknown...

Depends on whether it's a hambone lich or a chickenbone lich...

 

[caudor]

It's good to hear this one is out...I'm looking forward to it. Liches are one of my favorites.

By the way, please keep those 'classic look' adventures coming (i.e. Idylls of the Rat King). It was SO excellent. Can't wait for more.

Cheers.

 

[goodmangames]

What I've always wanted to know, is do dogs follow Lichs around? Dogs really like moldy old bones, for reasons probably best left unknown...

Depends on whether it's a hambone lich or a chickenbone lich. Dogs prefer hambones...

 

[jaerdaph]

I picked this up yesterday at my FLGS in the shadow of the Empire State Building - nicely done. I really like the cover art too.

 

[Malak]

I really like the cover art as well... very nice indeed.

While I'm here, I'm not historically a D&Der, so I was just wonderting..

Are Liches a D&D invention, or are they a development of some myth or other that I'm just not aware of? Never spotted them in my fairly extensive folklore wandering, just in fantasy roleplaying where that are clearly an Undead staple!

 

[jaerdaph]

Hi Malak,

This is a great article about the origins of D&D monsters:

Literary Sources of D&D by Aardy R. DeVarque

Here's the specific entry about the lich:

"Lich, lych
A lychgate is an entrance to a churchyard where a body rests before burial--"lych" means person or dead body (From German "Leiche", meaning "dead body, cadaver, corpse"). The D&D lich is very similar to a character from Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander, a magician with an unnaturally-extended life who can only die if the item in which he has stored his soul is broken (in this case, a bone from his little finger); however, the term "lich" is never used in the book. The origin of both the D&D lich and Alexander's character is probably the Russian folkloric character "Kotshchey the Deathless", an unnaturally long-lived magician (or demon) who was almost impossible to kill. (Kotshchey himself was written up with D&D stats in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, reprinted in Monster Manual II.)"

 

[goodmangames]

By the way, please keep those 'classic look' adventures coming (i.e. Idylls of the Rat King). It was SO excellent. Can't wait for more.

Glad you liked it. Don't worry, there are more on the way! "The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho" is at the printer now. The third book in the series won't be out until later in the year (probably December), because we had to delay it to get the artist we really wanted: Erol Otus himself, who will be doing the front cover. You can't get much more retro than that!

 

[goodmangames]

Hi Malak,

This is a great article about the origins of D&D monsters:

Literary Sources of D&D by Aardy R. DeVarque

That's a really interesting site... thanks for the link.