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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 2776023" data-attributes="member: 707">I had always invisioned the Lich as something akin to the Cryptkeeper, from Tales of the Crypt, or perhaps like the mummy (pre-rejuvenation) from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.  Skeletal, but not a skeleton.I've never had to make this ruling, but a part of me understands where the DM is coming from.  Skeletons don't have working muscles.  They don't have lips (even dried-out, crusty ones,) or vocal cords or lungs.  So one could extrapolate from that that skeletons cannot speak, whereas zombies and vampires and liches can.Naturally, as others have already pointed out, there is magic in this game of ours, and it's easy to handwave that away and rule that the same magic that animates the skeleton in the first place (bypassing its need for muscles with regards to movement) also provides it with the ability to speak (bypassing its need for muscles with regards to voice).However, if there's anything I've learned on these boards, it's that different DMs have different foibles regarding "realism."  It seems that we all have little bits of realism that are important to us, regardless of the fact that any and all of them could be handwaved away by the simple phrase "It's magic."So in this case, I won't judge Joker's DM deciding that skeletons not speaking is one of those little bits of realism that he wants.I would hope, though, that Joker's DM would work with him to come up with a solution to the situation which was both acceptable to his sense of realism, and at the same time acceptable to Joker's vision of what he wants his PC's skeleton minion to be capable of.</blockquote>

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