Pathfinder 2E Paizo drops use of the word phylactery

[ReshiIRE]

I'm fairly sure there are still some settings with good liches in 5e. I want to say... Eberron?

(which reminds me of how... interesting it must be to try to convert ancestories and setting details to Pathfinder 2e. So many basic things are flavoured differently, and spells can be quite different. Especially comparing how Pathfinder 2e treats flight versus 5e).

 

[Staffan]

I'm fairly sure there are still some settings with good liches in 5e. I want to say... Eberron?

(which reminds me of how... interesting it must be to try to convert ancestories and setting details to Pathfinder 2e. So many basic things are flavoured differently, and spells can be quite different. Especially comparing how Pathfinder 2e treats flight versus 5e).

I don't think Eberron has any good liches, per se. There are certainly undead there who fall in the category of "things we can deal with", but liches are probably a bit too far.

What it does have are deathless, which are formerly living elves (I guess in theory you could make them from others, but it's part of the main elven culture on the elf-dominated continent of Aerenal). Deathless are elves who in life were considered great enough to be turned into eternal champions of sorts. Unlike traditional undead, deathless are powered by manifest zones to Irian (the Eberron equivalent of the positive energy plane, though it's not "pure energy" the way it's done in the Great Wheel) and the love and devotion of living people (usually their descendants). But deathless generally don't take an active role in the affairs of the living, except to advise. They collectively wield an awesome amount of power, but are bound to their home continent of Aerenal (which is where the manifest zones are).

 

[Parmandur]

Well reading about how relatively common this still is was depressing. I thought this kind of superstition was left behind decades ago.

Liches are still in the game, still function the same. Hell, everyone knows just how bonkers Lovecraft's politics were and yet Pathfinder goes extensively out of it's way to include the Cthluhu Mythos and its creatures by name. If the primary audience of Pathfinder is expected to have the wherewithal to not take the inclusion of Lovecraft's work as a condoning of Lovecraft's political ideas it seems strange to assume people playing this game would take the use of the term phylactery as a reinforcing of negative stereotypes.

Never underestimate the human capacity for evil.

It is admittedly a bit of a corner case, but one that actual people have spoken up about and complained, so it is to be taken seriously.

 

[Parmandur]

Can a good lich use a phylactery? So a wizard who protects the land is dying, his only recourse is to extend his existence. As alignment is becoming a non-thing, I don't see the issue with the P as not all liches are evil. Plus it is s very cool sounding word

It requires continuous human sacrifice, so....no.

 

[Retreater]

Was there a neutral-aligned lich (a druid, maybe?) in Red Hand of Doom? Even if the character was Neutral Evil, its roll in the adventure was as a potential ally, I think.

 

[Alzrius]

Good liches have a long history in D&D; take note of the baelnorn, archlich, and unique entities such as Andres Duvall the bardic lich from MC15 Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix II: Children of the Night (affiliate link), though if I recall correctly, he didn't have a phylactery.

 

[niklinna]

I dunno. It technically is imprisoning a soul. The soul is supposed to pass on but the lunch is capturing his own soul in an unholy ritual that is probably more than a little unpleasant for said soul.

Fair point. I was thinking since the soul isn't in the body anyhow, its physical location isn't so relevant, but in many cosmologies proper death involves the soul moving to another plane of existence, so binding it to the material plane might be how the whole lich process works.

 

[Green Onceler]

The whole sensitivity to language and the offence it can cause sits very strangely with games where the central conceit is killing others.

 

[J.Quondam]

The whole sensitivity to language and the offence it can cause sits very strangely with games where the central conceit is killing others.

The assumption that "the central conceit is killing others" is not even remotely true as a generalization for all gamers and their games. I doubt that was even a fair generalization back in the 1970s and 1980s

 

[Green Onceler]

The assumption that "the central conceit is killing others" is not even remotely true as a generalization for all gamers and their games. I doubt that was even a fair generalization back in the 1970s and 1980s

Then why is so much design space given over to combat and combat abilities?