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

[Alzrius]

Funny thing, liches don't appear in the alignment chart for monsters in 1971's Chainmail:

Nor do they appear in the 1974 OD&D alignment chart:

However, from a 1976 article that Gary wrote for The Strategic Review (ergo, before AD&D came out), liches do appear in this five-fold alignment chart:

Here, liches are equally likely to be Lawful Evil or Lawful Good. It's an interesting take on the whole idea of "liches are intrinsically evil beings."

All images are linked from Grognardia.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION] I suppose the words "Any" and "Evil" don't mean what I think they mean.
IIRC, they've been "any evil" since basic, all the way up until Monsters of Faerun in 3.0 mucked it up.

 

[Alzrius]

Alzrius I suppose the words "Any" and "Evil" don't mean what I think they mean.
IIRC, they've been "any evil" since basic, all the way up until Monsters of Faerun in 3.0 mucked it up.

It's already been pointed out to you that there have been good-aligned liches since before Third Edition.

As you can see, Gary was positing good-aligned liches before First Edition even came out, and Echohawk's Complete D&D Monster Index shows that (the good-aligned) arch-lich was around back in Second Edition (the Monstrous Manual and SJR1 Lost Ships).

Simply put, there's more out there than you were apparently aware of.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION] The Arch-Lich is not a true lich, they cannot become demiliches. You're comparing Blackguards to Paladins - similar but different enough to warrant separations.
If you happened to read the lich lore at any point, you'd probably have seen that already, though.
It wasn't until 3.0 that Liches were allowed to be any alignment.

Simply put, there's more out there than you were apparently aware of.

 

[Alzrius]

Alzrius The Arch-Lich is not a true lich, they cannot become demiliches. You're comparing Blackguards to Paladins - similar but different enough to warrant separations.

The question of whether or not becoming a demilich is what constitutes a "true" lich is a matter of opinion. I'll confess that I don't recall anything that specifically prohibits arch-liches from becoming demiliches, but it's been a very long time since I've read the old material.

That said, there are plenty of lich variants that don't/can't become demiliches that seem like "true" liches to me, e.g the Suel lich, psionic lich, etc.

If you happened to read the lich lore at any point, you'd probably have seen that already, though.
It wasn't until 3.0 that Liches were allowed to be any alignment.

Again, that's a matter of opinion. Just because I showed you something that you didn't know is no reason to get snippy.

Simply put, there's more out there than you were apparently aware of.

You forgot to put the quote tags around that. I fixed it for you.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION] It was intentional.

 

[Alzrius]

Alzrius It was intentional.

I don't think you realized why I put those emoticons at the end of my last post.

 

[the Jester]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION] The Arch-Lich is not a true lich, they cannot become demiliches.

I don't see what becoming a demilich has to do with being a "true" lich at all, frankly, but I suppose if your definition of lich includes "evolves into a demilich eventually" that's fine for your definition; personally I would say, on the other hand, that "comes under the heading 'lich' in a D&D monster book" is probably a better metric of whether something is a lich or not.

 

[grodog]

...a little off-topic, but

Regarding the Dragon Magazine [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=26]#26 [/URL] article "Blueprint for a Lich," does anyone know who did the art for that article? I remember an excellent lich pic, but can't find it, or who even did it.

Complicating matters, the article was reprinted in The Best of Dragon Magazine vol. II, and I can't remember which mag I saw it in!

Does anyone know? I'd hate to shell out $30 for them (each) on Amazon to find out.

It looks like there's no art in TD#26 (it's a one pager in the article's original format), so the art you wanted must have appeared in BOD#2. I don't have a copy at hand to confirm, but it's clearly not in TD#26 , so....

 

[grodog]

Funny thing, liches don't appear in the alignment chart for monsters in 1971's Chainmail:

Nor do they appear in the 1974 OD&D alignment chart:

That's because they were added to the game in Supplement 1: Greyhawk

However, from a 1976 article that Gary wrote for The Strategic Review (ergo, before AD&D came out), liches do appear in this five-fold alignment chart:

[snip]

Here, liches are equally likely to be Lawful Evil or Lawful Good. It's an interesting take on the whole idea of "liches are intrinsically evil beings."

I'd forgotten about that one: nice catch. The Holmes basic set (and MM1 book) has a five-fold alignment system, but liches are (perhaps unsurprisingly ) not listed on its chart. Looking at the similar chart on the PHB's page 119, I would surmise that in a 9-point alignment system, liches would be LN, based on their placement in the 5-point alignment system chart.

Random aside: in OD&D, lich touch = paralyzation, no save!