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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nikolai" data-source="post: 1595733" data-attributes="member: 10130">Hi all,People posting that Lich (and variants) are Middle English for corpse are spot on. The source of the monster, however, comes from early Sword & Sorcery writings. This monster was then D&Dised, through the various Dragon articles and D&D material that has already been listed, to become the undead spellcaster we all know and love.SourcesI think the big infuence was Clark Ashton Smith. He was one of the "big three" wierd tales writers (along with Lovecraft and Howard). See:<a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsaveroigne" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsaveroigne</a><a href="http://www.eldritchdark.com" target="_blank">http://www.eldritchdark.com</a>He is the big inspiration for how necromany is presented in fantasy. His stories are full of the undead, including undead wizards and necromancers, and he often used the work lich as an archaic word for corpse. It's entirely natural that in the hunt for new D&D monsters, someone who'd read Smith's would think a undead wizard would be a cool foe. And if you have an undead wizard, and a sentence like "the lich walked towards me" (meaning "the corpse walked towards me"), it's an easy step for the word Lich to be come the name of a new monster. I'll have a re-read of his stuff and cite some specific short stories.Ashton Smith's work influence later Conan stuff, both Howard and the pastiches. I don't this Howard uses the word lich (at least in the Conan stories), but he does have revived millenia old sorcerers. The same themes are found in some of Lovecraft's stuff is very close to Smith, who I'm sure used the word lich (if not the monster) in his stories.Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (Lieber): These have the Gods of Lankhmar. They are undead, mysterious and very powerful guardians of the Lankhmar. I don't think the word lich is used to describe them though - or that they are explicitly labelled as wizards.Thieves House from Swords Against Death. The jewelled skull was obviously transformed into the demi-lich. The Gods feature in the background of other Lanhkmar stories though, The Swords of Lankhmar is another story where they have an appearance.So it's all inspired by classic fantasy literature.</blockquote>

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