Source for the AD&D Lich?

[Jhaelen]

Maybe from the Russian legend of Koschei the Deathless?

Well, the idea of protecting yourself from being (permanently) killed by safekeeping your soul somewhere else is quite common.

See 'The Golden Bough' or (*gasp*) 'Harry Potter'. It's something an advanced mage should be capable of.

 

[hamishspence]

True- I was thinking more about the earliest incarnation of the concept of an object being used to ensure the person cannot be permanently slain.

I think Koschei actually stored his soul in the object in the myth, whereas for D&D liches, their soul is in the body, and only flees to the object when the body is destroyed, before generating a new body (in Libris Mortis).

 

[Jhaelen]

I think Koschei actually stored his soul in the object in the myth, whereas for D&D liches, their soul is in the body, and only flees to the object when the body is destroyed, before generating a new body (in Libris Mortis).

True, that's a (minor) difference.

I've often wondered why it's called a phylactery, btw. While the literal translation fits, it doesn't appear to have any connection with the Jewish praying device.

 

[Elphilm]

I would be amazed if the following excerpt did not serve as an inspiration:

The intruders went forward, feeling that impulse which leads the victors to exult over a vanquished enemy. Malygris sat unbowed and upright, his black and tattered fingers clutching the ivory chair-arms as of yore, and his empty orbits glowering still at the eastern window. His face was little more than a bearded skull; and his blackening brow was like worm-pierced ebony.

"O Malygris, I give thee greeting," said Maranapion in a loud voice of mockery. "Grant, I beseech thee, a sign, if thy wizardry still prevails, and hath not become the appanage of oblivion."

"Greeting, O Maranapion," replied a grave and terrible voice that issued from the maggot-eaten lips. "Indeed, I will grant thee a sign. Even as I, in death, have rotted upon my seat from the foul sorcery which was wrought in the vaults of King Gadeiron, so thou and thy fellows and Gadeiron, living, shall decay and putrefy wholly in an hour, by virtue of the curse that I put upon ye now."

-- Clark Ashton Smith, "The Death of Malygris"

 

[wingsandsword]

True- I was thinking more about the earliest incarnation of the concept of an object being used to ensure the person cannot be permanently slain.

I think Koschei actually stored his soul in the object in the myth, whereas for D&D liches, their soul is in the body, and only flees to the object when the body is destroyed, before generating a new body (in Libris Mortis).

I think the idea that the soul is in the body and flees to the phylactery later is a 3e-ism. I'm ~2000 miles from my library now, but I recall back when we played 2e we always played it that the soul was always in the phylactery from , hence why destroying the phylactery instantly killed the lich (none of this 3e "just make a new one" stuff).

However, as I said, my copy of Van Richten's Guide to the Lich (the 2e era book on the subject) is a long way off, so I can't go to the source material.

I also am pretty sure the idea that a new body magically generates at the phylactery is also a 3e-ism, I remember plenty of lich lairs in back in 2e that had a supply of corpses lying around near where the phylactery is stored for backup bodies for the soul to inhabit.

I remember one adventure having a plot point of a fancy crown that detected as necromantic being treasure. None of the wizards had a pearl suitable for Identify on them, so we carried it back with us. After a run-in with some orcs, we left the bodies lying in a ditch, hastily buried fairly near our campsite, which the spirit of the lich jumped to from the crown so our lookout at night spots one rising from the grave and we jump to attack it, and end up fighting a lich, in an orc corpse, without spells/spellbook, but still a high HD undead with all those other nasty lich abilities.