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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 7947815" data-attributes="member: 2209"><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17532/Van-Richtens-Monster-Hunters-Compendium-Vol-2-2e?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium Volume 2</a>2eLord Azalin: I know not what he called himself-what his true name was--before he transformed himself to lichdom. It does not matter, though, since that person died with the drinking of the lethal potion that began the ritual.Vampire: Senselessly looting burial places can create or awaken all sorts of undead creatures: anchored ghosts, slumbering mummies, and fledgling vampires, to name but a few.Ghost: Ghosts, unlike vampires, draw power not from the passing of time, but from the forces present at the moment of their creation. At the exact instant that a person’s spirit is transformed into a spectral undead, its strength is set and locked by the emotions that surrounded it.The instant of a ghost’s creation is subject to intense energies. Just as the shock of birth is overwhelming to a child (and the mother), so too is the sudden plunge into the frigid, black waters of unlife. The intensity of this shock is based wholly upon the emotional and karmic energies of the transformation. In other words, the stronger the emotional state of those present at the ghost’s creation, the more powerful the spirit that arises.I have, over the years, collected hundreds of documents that profess to detail the origins of numerous ghosts. In many cases, I have been able to assemble a number of accounts detailing the “birth” of a single apparition. One might think that so many references could not help but provide a clear and insightful view of the events leading to the creation of a ghost. Rather, the converse is quite often true. In instances where two or more authors chronicle the details by which a specific haunting occurred, I have found myself confronted with conflicting facts, theories, conjectures, and opinions that cloud the matter as surely as the swirling clouds of autumn hide the face of the moon.Still, putting aside the less reliable accounts, there does emerge a certain pattern in the creation of ghosts. Based on this pattern, I have been able to classify most ghosts according to eight origins. In some cases, this involves the manner of the person’s physical death; in others, it depends upon the events of the person’s life. Occasionally, events that occurred soon after death play a part.The eight methods or motivations by which ghosts seem to originate include: sudden death, dedication, stewardship, justice, vengeance, reincarnation, curses, and dark pacts. There are likely to be other situations through which ghosts may form, but these seem the most common.A ghost can be created when an individual unexpectedly dies. The spirit of the doomed person simply doesn’t realize he or she is dead. A spirit of this type tends to retain the alignment held in life-at least at first.Some ghosts are drawn from beyond the grave out of devotion to a task or interest. A learned scholar who has spent her life researching ancient tomes in an effort to decipher a lost language might return to haunt her old library if she died before completing her studies.In Staunton Bluffs, a young child died tragically at the hands of a transient rogue. The child was so horrified by the attack and so ridden with anxiety over separation from her mother that her spirit returned to haunt the meadow where she had been slain.In my research on ghosts, I recorded many stories of unfortunates set upon by evidoers in the guise of friends, and of innocents fatally betrayed by loved ones. These tragic figure, by sheer force of will, reanimated their mortal shells to wreak vengeance on their murderers. While this type of reanimation is fueled by outraged spirits determined to forestall or avenge their own deaths, the state itself is not one specifically sought by the revenants. In such tales, once the revenants' goals are fulfilled, they happily seek the afterlife for which they were destined.Mentalist liches differ from such beings on several points. First, and most obviously, the liches purposefully sought their undead state. Second, they do not end their unnatural lives with the accomplishment of any goal; rather, unflife is their goal, and it now serves them in the pursuit of further mental endeavors. Finally, these liches are masters of the mental disciplines, rather than unfortunates whose emotional state combined tragically with their force of will to enable them to gain a temporary extension of life.Furthermore, the deliberate destruction of a body, no matter how well meaning, can set in motion a karmic resonance that creates a ghost. As I explained in some detail in an earlier work, the more charged with emotion a spirit is, the more powerful a ghost it becomes. Imagine the anger of a spirit that believes it has been denied blissful afterlife because its body has been desecrated!Senselessly looting burial places can create or awaken all sorts of undead creatures: anchored ghosts, slumbering mummies, and fledgling vampires, to name but a few.Baron Metus, Vampire: ?The Child Vampire: ?The Thundering Carriage: ?First Magnitude Ghost: The least powerful of the incorporeal undead, these creatures are created when just enough emotional energy is available to empower the transformation to an undead state. This is, fortunately, the most common type of spirit.Ghosts of the first magnitude are created the same way as are other ghosts, but they tend to have less dramatic origins.The Loud Man of Lamordia, First Magnitude Ghost: ?Second Magnitude Ghost: In order for a ghost of this type to form, the dying person must be in a state of some emotion. The emotion need not be overly consuming or of great duration, as is necessary for the more powerful spirits to form. For example, someone who dies during a spousal quarrel might have enough emotional energy to attain the second magnitude of unlife, as might an artist who is working on a painting that means a great deal to her. It is sometimes even possible for a person who knows he or she is going to die by the hangman’s noose, for example-to become a second-magnitude ghost. The so-called Laughing Man of Valachan is an example of this sort.Laughing Man of Valachan, Second Magnitude Ghost: It is sometimes even possible for a person who knows he or she is going to die by the hangman’s noose, for example-to become a second-magnitude ghost. The so-called Laughing Man of Valachan is an example of this sort.Consider the case of the infamous Laughing Man, said to haunt the Valachan countryside. I have no fewer than five accounts of his “death.” While they differ in details, the important points match perfectly.The Laughing Man was a hunter who often set traps in the woods near his home. Tending the trap line required him to spend the night in the woods, something many folk-myself included-are reluctant to do in that land. Because of this, the hunter would often go into the woods with several of his neighbors in the mistaken belief that there would be safety in numbers.One night, the group completed the chores and settled down to an evening of stories around the campfire. While the hunter was consumed with laughter following the telling of a joke by one of his companions, a group of bandits attacked them. The hunter was slain by a single arrow that struck the back of his head. Magical conversations with the spirit of the Laughing Man reveal he did not know what happened to him by the fire.Third Magnitude Ghost: In order for a ghost of the third magnitude to form, a person must die while in a highly emotional state. An example would be a man forced to watch as his beloved family was slain by brigands before he himself was killed, dying in the grip of his overwhelming anguish. The karmic resonance of this tragedy might be strong enough to create a third-magnitude ghost. Similarly, someone enraged or horrified to an extreme degree at the time of death might attain this status.Fourth Magnitude Ghost: Among the most powerful of apparitions, ghosts of the fourth magnitude are created only through scenes of death that involve great emotional stress or energy. Spirits of this type are generally warped by the power of their emotions, becoming highly aggressive, evil, and cruel.Rare indeed are the circumstances surrounding a person’s death that are powerful enough to create a ghost of this type. In my travels, I have encountered only a half dozen or so of these evil and dangerous monsters. In each of the cases I came across, the ghost had once been a person who had either embraced death with great fervor or felt himself so powerful that death could hold no sway over him.General Athoul, Fourth Magnitude Ghost: It is said that his devotion to Azalin was so great that even death only meant a new manner in which for him to serve his beloved commander.Martyr of the Moors, Fourth Magnitude Ghost: A man who sought death as the ultimate step in his devotion to a dark and evil deity, only to find that he had been cursed with eternal unlife.Fifth Magnitude Ghost: The emotional intensity needed to create a ghost of this power is so rare that it happens but once in a very great while. I would dare say that whole centuries might pass without a ghost of this type being formed, for which we can all be grateful.Tristessa, Banshee, Fifth Magnitude Ghost: ?Phantom Lover, Fifth Magnitude Ghost: ?Incorporeal Ghost: ?Semicorporeal Ghost: ?Strangling Man of Gundarak: ?Corporeal Ghost: ?Zombie: ?Mutable Ghost: ?Vaporous Ghost: ?Spectral Ghost: ?Humanoid Ghost: ?Bestial Ghost: ?Phantom Hound: ?Ghost Shark: ?Spirit Wolf, Ghost Wolf of Kartakass: ?Monster Ghost: ?Medusa Phantom: ?Object Ghost: I believe that ghosts of this type are formed when an individual is greatly attached to or associated with a physical object. Upon the individual’s death, he is anchored to that object so strongly that the object itself is transformed into a ghostly state.In half of these cases, the ghost object is physically transformed so that it bears the countenance of the individual, appearing to be a painting or engraving of a face or person somewhere on the object. Needless to say, this can be a difficult type of spirit to accurately identify. In other cases, the object itself appears ghostly and insubstantial.Phantom Axe of Gildabarren: With the aid of a talented spiritualist, however, we were able to uncover the truth: This weapon was imbued with the spirit of a dwarf warrior named Gildabarren. Gildabarren had been exiled from his community in his youth, and he had returned to haunt it upon his death. His spirit had focused its energy on the ax, an heirloom of great importance to his family. The karmic resonance surrounding his tragic drowning death was so strong that the ax itself became, in effect, Gildabarren's spirit.Compilers' Note: Dr. Van Richten's many notes reveal that he considered the Phantom Ax of Gildabarren a true ghost and not merely the anchor for a ghost, though perhaps it once was merely an anchor. The battle ax was originally a nonmagical heirloom, but over time the attachment of the dwarf's spirit to it perhaps infused the weapon with magical abilities before it was absorbed into the ghost's essence, becoming the ghost of the dwarf himself. Possibly objects serving as the anchors for ghosts eventually go through this process and become ghosts themselves in a merging of the material and spiritual.Preserved Ghost: ?Corrupted Ghost: It has happened that, where a body has been preserved, the ghost's visage remains unchanged though the ghost is, in fact, corrupted. I have heard stories from a reliable source in the distant land of Har'Akir of a ghost who rose from the body of a mummified priest when the rituals surrounding his death and burial were left incomplete. Distorted Ghost: Some apparitions have their physical appearance twisted and distorted in ways that can hardly be described. These creatures are nightmarish reflections of what they were in life. I have heard it said that they areaspects of the madness that must surely exist in the tortured mind of a ghost.Baying Hound of Willisford: Its origin remains a mystery to me, as does its fate, for I don’t know if it still exists or if some brave adventurers have been able to dispatch it.Beauteous Ghost: ?Steward Ghost, Sentinel Ghost: ?Headless Gypsy: Here we have a man who was cast out from his people, the Vistani, for a crime he did not commit. When he returned to them in an effort to plead for reconsideration, he was sentenced to death and beheaded. That night, his spirit returned in the shape of a swirling cloud of sparkling, shimmering dust.Vengeful Spirit Ghost: This is the restless soul of someone who suffered a great wrong in life. Unable to avenge himself in the mortal world, this apparition rises from the grave to harass or destroy those who maltreated him in life.It matters little, I believe, whether the wrong that has caused such a spirit to rise from the dead is real or imagined. Indeed, in many cases the most evil and powerful of these spirits thrive on the belief that they have been slighted when no evidence of prejudicial treatment exists.Reflection of Evil, Vengeful Spirit Ghost, Keni: It seems that a young woman named Keni was prone to jealousy whenever her husband Drakob even spoke to another woman. I have never found anyone who would even begin to suggest she had cause for this, for Drakob was as devoted and loving a spouse as any woman could want. Her jealousy became so consuming, however, that she was unable to stand the thought of his being gone from their home for more than a few hours at a time. One day, while Drakob was going about his business in the town of Viktal, a fire broke out in their home. Unable to escape the sudden, horrible blaze, Keni died.As the months passed, Drakob mastered his grief. He eventually wooed a young woman named Zjen; two years after the death of Keni, he remarried. On Drakob’s wedding night, however, the image of his first wife appeared in the mirror on a dressing table. The frantic newlyweds destroyed the mirror, only to find that the one they replaced it with was promptly inhabited by the same apparition. Over and over again, they discarded or destroyed mirrors in an attempt to drive this phantom from their life. Eventually, they were forced to flee from their home, for every reflective surface began to bear the image of the dead first wife.The couple’s new house seemed a safe enough refuge for the first few weeks, but soon the jealous eyes of Keni haunted it.Reincarnated Spirit Ghost, Descendant Ghost: A reincarnated (descendant) spirit appears when a being of exceptional willpower chooses to return to life by usurping or possessing the body of one of its descendants. The victim of this possession must be a direct relation; the importance of blood ties in this diabolical relationship cannot be overstated.Cursed Ghost: Ghosts of this type may be created by a curse that is external in origin. For example, a man may offend an ancient and powerful Vistani woman who chooses to retaliate with the dreaded evil eye of the gypsies. Under the power of such a spell, the offender might be condemned to live out eternity at the spot where his misstep was made, until the gypsy takes pity and releases him from the curse.Ghosts may also be forged by a curse brought upon them by wrongs committed during life. These curses are far more horrible than those laid on by an outside party, for there is no quick solution by which the victims may be released from their suffering-suffering they themselves caused.Counting Man of Barovia, Cursed Ghost: My research indicates this is the spirit of a wealthy and powerful banker who had been miserly and stinting all his life. When he passed away, no one lamented the loss of such a cold, cruel person. On the anniversary of his death, the Counting Man was seen wandering the streets of Barovia at night, dressed in the rags of a pauper and begging for change.Dark Pact Ghost: The final method I record by which ghosts are formed is one that I shudder to mention. However, the truth is that some would willingly trade away their humanity for the eternal life of the undead, in order to gain some advantage. They make a pact with evil forces.Of course, entering into a pact with some being or force is difficult, for creatures capable of bestowing the gift (or curse, rather) of immortal undeath in any form are rare. Most commonly, these pacts are made with the vile creatures that, the sages say, lurk in alien realms and planes outside our own world. Those who seek to strike a bargain with these forces of the supernatural must first locate such beings and attract their attention. This in itself is a dangerous and foolhardy thing to do. In almost every case, dealing with such powerful, evil creatures results only in tragedy and death.Once someone makes contact with a creature capable of granting his wish for immortality, he must offer some payment for the "boon." In many cases, this favor will take the form of a service, as material wealth means little to fiends of this power. Often, the task will do nothing to further the goals of the beast, but will instead provide it with chaotic amusement.Eldrenn Van Dorn, Dark Pact Ghost: Over the course of the next few years, he began to study wizardry. His powers grew slowly at first, but he found he had a natural affinity for the working of magic. Eventually, he became quite powerful. In fact, he found he could learn nothing more from his studies and set out to contact the only man who seemed a suitable mentor to him-the dreaded Lord Azalin, master of Darkon. My poor friend seemed hesitant to say the name, and he was slow in telling me of the foul pact of obedience he swore to the dark lord.What Eldrenn did not know, however, was that Azalin was teaching him powers he could never fully contain. In the end, those powers destroyed my friend-consuming his flesh and blood and stealing the magical power he had accumulated in his life. Tragically, death was not a release for Eldrenn. The powerful oath he had sworn anchored him to the servitude of Azalin for all time, even beyond death.Personal Anchored Spirit Steward Ghost: The majority of personal anchors are formed when a person has served as steward to a family line. If the karmic resonance surrounding the faithful servant’s death is strong enough, his soul is transformed into a ghost. His magnitude is dependent upon the emotional energy at the time of death, and he is also a ghost whose origin is that of stewardship. Likewise, in this instance, he is an anchored spirit, for he is anchored to the family he swore to serve.Personal Anchored Spirit Vengeful Ghost: Occasionally, an anchored spirit forms from someone who seeks revenge against a single person.Item Achor Ghost: Compilers' Note: Dr. Van Richten's many notes reveal that he considered the Phantom Ax of Gildabarren a true ghost and not merely the anchor for a ghost, though perhaps it once was merely an anchor. The battle ax was originally a nonmagical heirloom, but over time the attachment of the dwarf's spirit to it perhaps infused the weapon with magical abilities before it was absorbed into the ghost's essence, becoming the ghost of the dwarf himself. Possibly objects serving as the anchors for ghosts eventually go through this process and become ghosts themselves in a merging of the material and spiritual.In order for a spirit to become anchored to an object, that object must have held great significance for the person in life.Gray Lady of Invidia: This woman was obsessed with a small cameo she wore constantly. I believe her young son gave the brooch to her as a birthday gift. The boy was killed in an accident that very day, and she fixed upon the item as a last link to her lost child.When the woman died some years later, her will requested that the trinket be buried with her. Her sister, however, had always coveted the pretty brooch, and she removed it from the body just before the casket was sealed. I the months that followed, the spirit of the Gray Lady drove her to madness and death.Bussengeist: ?Bowlyn: ?Groaning Spirit, Banshee: ?Knight Haunt: ?Ravenloft Scarecrow: ?Valachan Miser, Ghost: Consider a ghost I encountered some three or four years ago, the Valachan Miser. This spirit was all that remained of a large and powerful man who had, over the course of his life, brought great suffering to many people. He was a merchant noted for his greed and treachery in business practices. When he died, his tortured spirit continued to stand by the counting house where he had conducted his business in life. So strong were his ties to this establishment that no magical force seemed able to expel him from it.Desmiand L'Strange, Vampire: ?Phantom Army, Mass Haunting Ghost: The origin of the Phantom Army dates back less than half a century. A pack of twisted mongrelmen from the dread domain of G’Henna fled from their native land and entered the southern reaches of Darkon. Here, they did their best to hide In the forests and live undisturbed. Although those who lived near the mongrelmen knew of their existence and avoided them, the mongrelmen kept to themselves and did not harass the common folk. The locals feared the mongrelmen, however, and they fabricated stories of the mongrelmen’s inhumane treatment of prisoners and of wild, cannibalistic feasts held under the light of the full moon.In time, the mongrelmen became the masters of their recently claimed land. They came to know every aspect of their wooded refuge and were able to move quickly and quietly through the trees and brush. Some even said they had mastered the power of invisibility for use at will.Eventually, the dread Kargat, the secret security force of Lord Azalin, took an interest in these intruders. A legion of Darkon’s most fearsome warriors journeyed south from Il Aluk and came at last to the woods of the mongrelmen. The leader of the legion was a dark and sinister man, a fellow known as Karuk Abjen. His men feared him and trembled In time, the mongrelmen became the at the mention of his name.Abjen ordered his men forward into the forests. They found no sign of the mongrelmen in the outskirts of the wood, and they pressed inward. They did not know that the mongrelmen watched their every move, waiting to learn what these armored men wanted in the woods the mongrelmen called their own.As night fell, one of the scouting parties happened upon a lone mongrelman and captured him. The prisoner was brought before Abjen and brutally tortured for information about his kindred and their purpose in Darkon. Abjen ranted and accused the pitiful creature of being a spy sent into Darkon to learn the secrets of Lord Azalin’s power. In the end, the mongrelman died from the abuse.At the instant the creature’s body stiffened and went slack as the last vestige of life drained from its broken form, a long and terrible howl went up from the woods surrounding the camp. It lasted for many minutes, echoing like the lingering cry of a great, wounded beast. As suddenly as it had begun, the cry stopped. An ominous silence fell across the Kargat legion.Abjen ordered his men to stand ready for battle. All that night, the dark watchmen waited eagerly in hope of earning favor with their vile commander by being the first to spot the mongrelmen massing for attack. Dawn came, but brought with it no sign of the beastly folk who had made the pitiful howling.The Kargat commander called his men together and gloated before them. Abjen cried out that it was fear of the Kargat and its great lord Azalin that kept the mongrelmen in check. They would not dare to attack, he shouted, for none who challenged Azalin’s powers could survive. Finally, Abjen ordered a company of his men to move into the woods and set it afire. The mongrelmen and the forest they had defiled would be reduced to cinders.As the troops dispersed, the mongrelmen attacked. They did not charge in sweeping waves filled with horribly twisted creatures; instead, they attacked in small, fast, silent strikes against individuals. The company of men sent to light the fires vanished, never to be seen again by their companions.At sunset, another ringing cry went up from the mongrelmen. Their echoing howl drifted through the woods, stilling all conversation and sapping the morale of Abjen’s legion. His men were on the verge of panic, but the fiendish Abjen would not let them flee. He took command of a second company and forced them into the woods to discover what had happened to the first company. All night long they moved about, searching for their lost companions. At every step, they were met with flickering shadows, sounds of movement, and lingering traces of the mongrelmen, but never did they actually come across one.As the cold glow of sunrise spread across the sky, Abjen and his tired men returned to camp. They had lost not a single soldier, but neither had they found one enemy body or seen so much as one of the mongrelman foe. To their horror, they found no sign of the dozens of men they had left behind the camp was deserted. Abjen chose to believe the mongrelmen had struck again, for he had vowed to kill any man who deserted him.As Abjen ranted and raved at the dark woods around him, another of the mournful cries rolled out through the trees. Morale among Abjen’s men collapsed in full. They scattered and ran, hoping to find safe passage through the hidden ranks of mongrelmen. Many died instead. Abjen himself was captured by the mongrelmen he had vowed to destroy. It is said that they tortured him for days before he finally died. Those few who lived near the woods of the mongrelmen reported that his cries of pain and suffering were heard all through the night, and that his sobbing pleas for mercy and death filled the days. None moved to help him. Mass Haunting Ghost: It is very rare and happens only when many individuals share a common bond that links them after death as it did in life.A mass haunting always centers on one individual, a leader. It may be that this person is the only true ghost and that the others are merely reflections of its own curse, dragged into unlife by the power of the central figure. In almost every case, the ghost at the core of a mass haunting is of fourth or fifth magnitude.Shadow: ?Wight: ?Wraith: ?Spectre: ?Resident: A resident is a tormented soul, doomed to exist among the living until it can find self-forgiveness. In life, a resident was a person who was offered true love, but lacked the courage or conviction to accept the blessing and thus lost it, becoming embittered.Jonas, Resident: A typical "resident" tale tells of a lad named Jonas, who met a woman on a chance encounter. He befriended her and became very fond of her as time passed. Then she met a suitor who seemed to make her very happy. Jonas, unwilling to face up to the obligations of marriage but also unwilling to end their relationship, watched as his true love married her suitor and raised a family. Jonas tried to bury his anger, jealousy, and self-hatred, but he was unable to forgive himself and move on with his life. His corrupt spirit carried on his rage after his death.Lich: Sometimes, in exchange for assisting evil fiends from unseen planes who desire a foothold into our realm, unwise mages are granted great powers to wield over their fellows. I fear that too many mages pursue this opportunity over the considerations of the state of our world. For these mages, treachery awaits. Wizards who follow evil paths do not understand that one cannot trust a creature that, by its nature, lives to betray.Still other mages seek those secrets of power of their own free will. They hope to gain knowledge that evil and powerful creatures jealously guard for themselves. Such a mage believes that it is better to enter the perilous halls of power himself, using his own efforts, than to rely upon the questionable graces of others. The magnitude of this struggle is great. Evil uses many secrets to pervert our world-secrets so elusive that a mortal must expend every ounce of his strength and spirit to acquire them.This devotion is, no doubt, the means by which the mage is subverted and changed. He loses sight of the pursuits of normal life and becomes obsessed with seeking the keys to power. Eventually, the mage realizes that he cannot learn those secrets in his short lifetime. He finds that he must secure a method of continuing his researches and experiments for years, perhaps even centuries, to come.For this incredibly ambitious wizard, there is but one way: He must transform himself into a different creature, one that will outlive his mortal shell so that he might continue his arcane efforts.During a full moon, this mage imbibes a potion that instantly kills him-yet his spirit survives! His spirit actually dispossesses itself of his body. While in this state, the spirit acclimates itself to dark energies that are the source of pure evil. The spirit of the wizard becomes sympathetic to the heart of evil so that it may learn new and more potent secrets in the future.The spirit eventually returns to the body, but in the interim the body shrivels and mummifies into a twisted mask of death. This corpse rises from its own grave, eyes alight with a scarlet lust for knowledge and power. The mage has died, yet it lives now and forever as a corpse. One must wonder what texts the very First lich worked from, how that ill-fated mage first came by the formula that dispossessed his body of his spirit.[The tanar’ri] first plotted to seed the world with his minions and take the world by force. This proved unsuccessful. Yet intent upon acquiring the world, [the tanar’ri] set about creating minions that were significantly more powerful than the troops previously used. It tempted the mages of the world with great power and knowledge, and it gave them instructions on how to transform their bodies, minds, and even spirits to a higher form of existence--one that would command great magic and allow [the tanar’ri] to assume control of the world with subtlety and plotting.This fragment suggests the origin of the lich, and I am inclined to believe it. There had to be a first lich, someone to formalize a ritual for its creation. That a mortal should gamble without guidance with a ritual that would destroy him if it does not grant him unlife seems unlikely.Considering the many complex factors involved in what is known about the ritual of lichdom, the odds that someone should get it right by pure coincidence are ludicrous. Perhaps these instructions came from a fiend from another plane of existence, perhaps not. But this fragment, couched as it is in mythic terms, is still as fair an explanation as I’ve encountered in my researches of the origin of the first lich.The diary of Mirinalithiar chronicles her descent from humanity to lichdom. There are entries beginning almost from the moment she decided to become a lich to the moment she passed over. This has proved to be my most important source of information about the ritual and processes of becoming a lich. Of course, the existence of such a source is suspect in itself, as it might be a part of a subtle plan of the forces of evil.Much of the journal is cryptic, extraneous, or highly empirical, but I will summarize some of the more pertinent data. Mirinalithiar began her quest for lichdom by investigating incidents of mysterious, high-powered magic. She was searching the telltale marks of what she surmised to be lich behavior. Mirinalithiar achieved a breakthrough when she happened upon an account of how, at a century-old battlefield, the dead rose from their graves-weapons, armor, and all-and marched into a nearby range of mountains. She began to study the history of the area wherein the peculiar events took place, paying particular attention to tales of the mages that lived there and their behavior. She found that the mages were quite powerful, but preferred absolute solitude in comparison to most other mages, who gained power through heroic adventuring. The reclusive wizards defended their abodes from every sort of threat, but only if their keeps or lands were directly in the path of danger.The startling level of their powers was documented, however. Mirinalithiar found that the mages made occasional trips to magical colleges and guilds. There, they impressed and intimidated the high wizards with their abilities. Most importantly, those mages’ studies were invariably concerned with necromancy. All of them were especially interested in spells that allowed communication with the dead and those places where the dead reside.It was Mirinalithiar’s belief that they were seeking information about the processes of becoming a lich. and about methods of contacting some long-dead spirit. Perhaps they sought that most ancient of fiends referred to in the Haedritic Manuscripts. Mirinalithiar attempted to follow that same path to knowledge, and apparently she succeeded.Her journal became decreasingly coherent as she went about the business of summoning and speaking with the dead, and it is difficult to reconstruct the facts from her text. Even so, with a great deal of study and the assistance of several scholars, I believe I have discovered the basic formulae for achieving lichdom.Be warned, you who would use this information for evil intent, that Mirinalithiar was not sane when she recorded these procedures. I offer them only to shed light on the unspeakable desperation of a wizard who would be immortal. Used in the cause of justice, this knowledge is indeed power; used for evil purpose, this knowledge is certain death!According to Mirinalithiar’s journal, once the details of the transformation process are known, the scholar has to practice with rigor the newfound information.Primary among the requirements is the ability to cast key spells. The spells themselves are rare, and only an wizard of great power and knowledge who fears not to dabble in the horrid art of necromancy can cast them. Still, this is not a particular hindrance to a mage whose hunger for knowledge is ravenous. As I have postulated, one cannot acquire great power without already having it. Hence, power is the key, power that begets power, ever corrupting the mage while preparing the mage to accumulate even more might.Once the spellcasting considerations are satisfied, the wizard proceeds to the next, equally important step: the making of a phylactery, a vessel to house his spirit.The phylactery usually is a small boxlike amulet made of common materials, highly crafted. Lead or another black or dark gray material is frequently used. Inspection of an amulet may reveal various arcane symbols carved into the interior walls of the box, and those grooves are filled with silver as pure as the mage can find. These amulets are never made of woad, and rarely of steel. Brightly colored metals, such as gold, are infrequently used. (Mirinalithiar's account is extremely unclear, but it may not be the color that is the problem. The relative softness of the material and its subsequent likelihood of being injured may create this restriction.)The mage understandably has no desire for anyone to learn what ritual is being undertaken, or the appearance of the arcane symbols and etchings he must use. Thus, the mage alone will melt and forge those precious metals, as well as learn whatever other crafting skills are necessary to design and construct the phylactery.The vessel that becomes a lich's phylactery must be of excellent craftsmanship, requiring an investment of not less than 1,500 gp per level of the mage, with more money needed for custom-shaped amulets. It is, of course, possible to obtain a normal amulet of good craftsmanship without paying for it, but the amulet to be used as a phylactery must be constructed for that specific purpose. The craftsman who builds the amulet need not know of its true intended purpose.Though the phylactery is normally a box, it can be fashioned into virtually any item, provided that it has an interior space in which the lich can carve certain small magical designs. Silver is poured into these designs, and a permanency spell is cast on the whole. The designs include arcane symbols of power and the wizard's personal sigil. Should the Dungeon Master wish to actually illustrate them for the players, he or she should feel free to create unique designs to fit the campaign. The wizards personal sigil is a mystical sign of personal significance, and identifying it may convey great power over a lich.Once the box is constructed and the designs are crafted and properly enchanted, four spells must be cast upon the phylactery: enchant an item, magic jar, permanency, and reincarnation. When all of these spells have been cast, the amulet is suitable for use as a phylactery, but only by the specific wizard who made it. The manner in which the spells are cast and the time at which they are cast are not important, except that the permanency spell must be cast last of all.The rules governing the creation of a phylactery are not immutable. A Dungeon Master can create a wonderful adventure around the attempted creation of a phylactery by a would-be lich. The necessity of fine craftsmanship, the ritual casting of powerful spells, the occurrence of a rare astronomical event, and many other factors might come into play in the completion of the device. The Dungeon Master is encouraged to customize not only the phylactery, but the process of creating it, too.The Potion of TransformationWith the phylactery constructed, the next step requires the mage to cast his spirit into his newly enchanted box. To do so, however, requires the inclusion of the most secret aspect of becoming the lich-the potion of transformation. The ingredients of this potion are unknown to me, and it was only by chance that I even came to know of its existence. Mirinalithiar’s journal mentions it but once as “that foul brew from the heart of evil.”After consultation and speculation with my many scholarly sources, I have concluded that the poisonous venom of a number of rare creatures must be involved, as the potion kills the mortal wizard almost instantly. Of course, after my near fatal experience with my old friend Shauten, I am sure that another one of the ingredients is the heart of a sentient creature.In any case, I do know (from Mirinalithiar’s journal) that the mage must drink the potion when the moon is full. If successful, the mage is transformed into a lich. Otherwise, the mage immediately dies. The success of the potion and the ability of the mage’s constitution to handle the consequences are the ultimate tests of the mage’s skill, knowledge, and fitness.To initiate the transformation, to break the link between his body and spirit and forge it anew between his spirit and the phylactery, the mage must drink a special potion that is highly toxic. This potion, if properly made, will cause the mage to immediately transform into a lich. If any error is made in the formula or in the concoction and distillation of the potion, irrevocable death results.To create the potion, the mage may blend several forms of natural poisons, including arsenic, belladonna, nightshade, heart’s worry, and the blood of any of a number of poisonous monsters. Also necessary are a heart, preferably from a sentient creature, and the venom from a number of rare creatures such as wyverns, giant scorpions, and exotic snakes.When the ingredients are properly mixed, the following spells must be cast upon the potion: wraithform, cone of cold, feign death, animate dead, and permanency. The potion must be drunk during a night with a full moon. Upon ingestion, a System shock roll is required. If the mage passes the test, then he has been transformed by the potion into a dreaded lich.If the mage doesn’t survive the shock, he is dead forever, with no hope of any sort of resurrection. Not even a wish will undo the lethal potion. Only the direct intervention of a deity (or the Dungeon Master) has any hope of resurrecting a mage killed in this manner.In order to affect the world, the lich must have a method of interacting with it. This means the spirit of the lich must attach itself to a body. After entering the phylactery, the spirit must remain for at least three days (perhaps less for extremely powerful mages). After those days have passed, the lich may reenter the body from whence it came. This act of transference is quite demanding upon the host body. Because of this, the lich must rest for a week after reentering its former body. During this week, the lich is unable to cast spells or undertake strenuous physical labor. It is only able to exert enough energy to care for itself, and perhaps read and meditate.A person has to possess a spirit at least tainted, if not twisted, by evil to want to become a lich. The realization of the goal is even more twisted.Some of the ingredients in the potion of transformation are exotic and fatal poisons of mind-boggling strength. When drunk, these ingredients do more than alter the body-they alter the mind extensively as well.A lich initiates and completes the process that transforms it from living being to undead. While the prospective lich still lives, it begins an elaborate, dangerous, and expensive ritual in which it is the principal, if not the only, player.Skeleton: Lich Salient Ability Animate Dead by Touch.Zombie: Lich Salient Ability Animate Dead by Touch.Ghoul: ?Crimson Arcanus, Lich, Antirius the Red: ?Moonbane, Lich: ?Malygris: ?Phantom's Bane, Lich: ?Mystical Ghast: ?Bloody Hand of Souragne, Lich: ?Quasimancer: Let us begin with two basic prerequisites. First, the use of wizard magic apparently requires some force of will. It is not enough to simply comprehend the workings of a spell: one must have the determination to drive magical forces to a desired end. Therefore, a candidate for quasimancer must retain at least part of its former life essence-its personality, if you will-in order to use magic. Second, the casting of magic almost always demands the use of the hands and other body parts in order to shape the spell. Therefore, a quasimancer must have a physical body, possessed of some dexterity.Mummies, vampires, and liches satisfy both prerequisites, but mummies and vampires are difficult to control, even for a lich. (I do not believe it is possible for one lich to control another.) Also, both vampires and liches are already capable of wielding magic, so endowing them with spell abilities would be redundant.I conclude, then, that the lich raises a special form of wight to serve as a quasimancer. The minion retains a small part of its former identity, and a freshly animated wight still maintains a viable physique for spellcasting.Furthermore, such a creature is subject to the same absolute control exerted by the lich upon its lesser cousins, yet its orders from the “general” would include the use of offensive magic. To support my hypothesis, I have observed that quasimancers exhibit hand-to-hand combat techniques and other innate abilities common to the wight.Let me caution the reader not to take this text too literally. The ghast also satisfies the prerequisites for a quasimancer. Perhaps the lich can endow even the lowly skeleton with the ability to cast magic. Then again, perhaps such magic is not possible. Whatever the case, we cannot rest upon absolutes, for liches make new breakthroughs in spell research even as I write this guide, and even as you read it.The quasimancer is specially raised by the lich, then magically endowed (see the spells create minion and confer in the Dungeon Master Appendix later in this volume).Vassalich, Lesser Lich: ”Yes,yes! It was horrid, horrid! Not just dead things-living things too. Men! A man became a lich before my eyes! He swallowed a stone- diamond or something, I don’t know. Then the lich slit its rotted wrist open with its own fingernail and blood-no, not blood ooze, gray ooze ran from the black hole! And the man drank it! He drank the lich’s blood! He drank it, Dolf! And he fell down and screamed. And he changed. He shriveled. He died! He lay there, dead, and-”“And what, Harmon?”“He got up and spit the stone into the lich's hand. Then he was a lich, too. ”It is sadly simple to conclude that a wizard of questionable values might strike a pact with a lich and become immortal, albeit undead. What mage does not crave the arcane secrets of the universe? What wizard would not consider the advantages of unlimited time to learn new magic? Who among any of u s does not wish to live forever?These sentiments are the genesis of the vassalich: a wizard who undergoes the transformation to lichdom under the sponsorship of a full lich, thus becoming an undead magic-user long before he could accomplish the feat himself.If a Dungeon Masters wishes to roleplay the creation of a vassalich, a number of conditions can be created to carry off a successful transformation. Heroes who prevent these conditions from occurring also prevent vassalich creation.For example, the wizard might have to fail at least two powers check! before the transformation will work. Perhaps the phylactery must be a gem of not less than 10,000 gp value, which the lich can wear ornamentally or keep with the rest of its treasure. Perhaps the new vassalich must rest after the conversion, like its master, but for 10 full days.The transformation itself might consist of joint spellcasting by the sponsor and aspirant. Perhaps the lich casts enchant an item on the phylactery while the wizard drinks the prepared potion (see Chapter One), then the wizard casts magic jar before he dies. Next, the lich casts reincarnation on the wizard‘s body, and the vassalich is created.The vassaiich’s phylactery would likely not be nearly as magical as that of the lich. It might be destroyed merely by inflicting 25 points of damage upon it using any nonmagical weapon. (A saving throw vs. crushing blow might apply.)A vassalich most likely undergoes a process similar to his master’s when he becomes undead. He might drink a poisonous potion or partake of the lich's body fluid as Ruscheider suggested, but his soul then occupies a phylactery.Lich Familiar: A wizard can take its familiar with it into lichdom by forcing it to drink the potion of transformation. After doing so, the familiar makes a System Shock roll at the same level as the wizard. If it fails, the familiar dies and the lich must make a second System Shock roll. If that roll fails, the lich dies irrevocably, just as if he had failed his first roll. If the roll succeeds, the lich still loses 1 point of Constitution permanently, and it must rest two full weeks before memorizing spells or conducting any strenuous activity.The Dungeon Master may declare that a lich can create an undead version of virtually any living monster by casting raise dead upon the expired monster of its choice, then binding it by casting find familiar and charm monster, or something to that effect.Ghast: ?Redfist, Lich: ?Master Ulathar, Mentalist Lich: ?Mentalist Lich: These beasts are towers of iron fortitude, creating and driving their unlife not by magical means, but by the pure desire of their evil will to continue, to enlarge their mental prowess, to stand upon the pinnacle of all that is human and to look beyond at any cost to the rest of the world.Although some liches command powers that are assuredly will-driven in nature or effect, a lich whose very undeadstate is derived from its mesmeric abilities is quite rare indeed. In my research on ghosts, I recorded many stories of unfortunates set upon by evidoers in the guise of friends, and of innocents fatally betrayed by loved ones. These tragic figure, by sheer force of will, reanimated their mortal shells to wreak vengeance on their murderers. While this type of reanimation is fueled by outraged spirits determined to forestall or avenge their own deaths, the state itself is not one specifically sought by the revenants. In such tales, once the revenants' goals are fulfilled, they happily seek the afterlife for which they were destined.Mentalist liches differ from such beings on several points. First, and most obviously, the liches purposefully sought their undead state. Second, they do not end their unnatural lives with the accomplishment of any goal; rather, unflife is their goal, and it now serves them in the pursuit of further mental endeavors. Finally, these liches are masters of the mental disciplines, rather than unfortunates whose emotional state combined tragically with their force of will to enable them to gain a temporary extension of life.Psionicists who have managed to achieve lichdom-not mystically, but through a very specific psionic process.Psionic liches were once living psionicists who left behind the physical demands of life in pursuit of ultimate mental powers.By far the most important aspect of the existence of any psionic lich is the creation of its phylactery. To understand this mystical device, it is important to understand the process by which a psionicist becomes a lich. Before a psionicist can cross over into the darkness that is undeath, he or she must attain at least 18th level. In addition, the psionicist must be possessed of a great array of powers that can be bent and focused in new ways.The first step in the creation of a phylactery is the crafting of the physical object that will become the creature’s spiritual resting place. A phylactery can come in any shape, from a ring to a crown, from a sword to an idol. The item is made from the finest materials and must be fashioned by master craftsmen. Generally, a phylactery is fashioned in a shape that reflects the personality or interests of the psionicist. The cost of creating a phylactery is 5,000 gp per level of the psionicist. Thus, a 20th-level psionicist must spend 100,000 gp on his device.Once the phylactery is fashioned, it must be readied to receive the psionicist’s life force. This is generally done by means of the metapsionic empower ability, with some subtle changes in the way the psionicist uses the power that alters its outcome. In order to complete a phylactery, the psionicist must empower it with each and every psionic ability that he or she possesses. Although an object cannot normally be empowered with psychic abilities in more than one discipline, the unusual nature of the phylactery allows this rule to be broken. However, before “opening” a new discipline within the object, the would-be lich must transfer all powers from the first discipline into it. For example, if a person has telepathic and metapsionic abilities, he or she must complete the empowering of all telepathic powers before beginning to infuse the object with any metapsionic ones. Once a discipline is “closed,” it cannot ever be reopened.During the creation of the phylactery, the psionicist is very vulnerable to attack. Each time that he or she gives the phylactery a new power, the psionicist loses it forever. Thus, the process strips away the powers of the psionicist as it continues. Obviously, the last power that is transferred into the phylactery is the empower ability. The effort of placing this ability within the phylactery drains the last essences of the psionicist’s life and completes the transformation into a psionic lich. At the moment that the transformation takes place, the psionicist must make a System Shock survival roll. Failure indicates that his or her willpower was not strong enough to survive the trauma of becoming undead; the psionicist‘s spirit breaks up and dissipates, making him or her forever dead. Only the powers of a deity are strong enough to revive a psionicist who has died in this way: even a wish will not suffice.Priestly Lich: While mages are considered the most likely candidates to fall prey to the lure of lichdom, it should not be forgotten that priests may walk the road to unlife as well. In most respects, the processes are similar. The priest must, like the mage, discover the ritual to lichdom, whether it is revealed by beings from unseen planes, unearthed From ancient scriptures where it lay hidden in riddles, or unveiled by an evil deity through prayer. The priest, too, must manufacture a phylactery and concoct a poisonous potion to go with it. However, the transformation for a priest is based in priestly magic, ritual, and ceremony. A ritual designed for a mage would afford certain doom to a cleric.During his research, a priest sometimes encounters the secrets to lichdom. Perhaps these secrets are given to him surreptitiously by an evil deity, or perhaps they are revealed by the priest’s own god as a test. Whatever the means, a priest who comes by the secret might elect to take full advantage of it for his own gains. He may justify his actions by saying that in this manner he will serve his deity better, perhaps more powerfully or more everlastingly, but these are rationalizations. The transformation to lichdom is always, at its heart, a selfish course of action.Even acquiring the necessary components for the lichdom ritual--organs from slain, sentient beings andIt seems reasonable to me that priests who espouse neither morality nor immorality, neither good nor evil, arethe most likely to become cleric liches. In the main, these priest serve gods of knowledge, who are often reverenced by mages. These deities promote an ethic of rising to one's own level of ability by one's own hand, which promotes aspirations to lichdom.It might be in the best interests of a neutral deity (for who am I to know theways of gods?) to allow a servant to remain on the mortal world long beyond the age of mortal men, in order to accumulate and relate knowledge and experience to the church. While potions of longeuity or elixirs of youth seem a logical resort in such a case, these concoctions are known to be of questionable effect. They cause stress in the normal fabric of a person's physical being, stretching it back and forth like a piece of rubber, until one potion too many is consumed, and snap!--the body disintegrates. One might rely on potions of longevity for a span of decades if one knew their mysteries (which I, alas, do not), but in due course the hand of death must close upon us all-or most of us, at any rate.Therefore, in the mind of some coldly calculating and inhuman god, it might seem an eminently logical and necessary step to endow a faithful and trusted servant with the information needed to transform into a lich. The scrupulous performance of the research and processes necessary to complete the ritual of transformation, and the success or failure of the rite, would then prove the ultimate test of whether this servant was worthy of lichdom.I have no doubt there are human fiends who strive to find proper candidates for lichdom, and I doubt not their success. Evil religions have their own dark goals to counter the forces of light. To tip the balance, some evil deities surely attempt to find priests among their followings to turn into liches, making them much more powerful tools in some evil design.I have known some servants of these dark gods: they are a paranoid and elitist lot, certainly a mortal reflection of the vile things they worship. To earn the “gift” of lichdom (as I am sure they regard it), there are surely many trials of which only the priests themselves are aware. These tests must be extremely difficult, or I fear the world would be quite overrun with priestly liches; such a station would be highly prized by all creatures of evil bent.Having some understanding of the hearts and minds of evil, I speculate that the tests of lichdom are particularly strenuous because the transformation into lichdom represents an increase in power so significant that the deity may have difficulty maintaining control over the lich. This simple conclusion explains rather well why evil cleric liches fall into two types: those fanatically devoted to their deities, and those madmen attempting to become deities themselves.The fanatics are extremely rare (I know of only one in existence), but they actually are most open about their condition as liches, at least with other followers of their gods. (My knowledge of this was gained through, shall we say, eavesdropping.) They are the high priests of deities of death or disease. They preside over unspeakably foul rites in huge temple complexes, protected and sewed by legions of fanatic followers. Their deities reward their devotion with ever larger insights into the mysteries of magic, faith, and possibly the energies of that plane of negative energy. They are valuable generals in the ongoing battle between evil and good for the hearts and souls of mortals, and their gods reward their loyalty with bounteous prosperity, ample knowledge, and miraculous powers beyond those of even the “common” lich.A cleric lich is more likely to have salient abilities than is a wizard lich. These may be abilities granted by the Iich’s deity (and thus removable by the deity), or they may be manifestations of a difference or improvement in the nature of the ritual of transformation that invests the priest with lichdom.An evil lich attempting to become a deity is superficially identical to a fanatic, but it gradually subverts the devotion of its god's followers, first portraying itself as a mouthpiece, then as an actual personification of the god's power and desires. The lich walks a thin and twisted line of duplicity, hoping to amass enough of a following (and enough magical items, artifacts of power, and abilities) to promote itself to the status of a deity without its own go divining the lich's ultimate intent too soon and squashing the lich like the two-faced insect it is.Although I certainly have no direct evidence to support it, I believe that a cleric lich has a psychology all its own. The mind of the priest is swept away, shriveled by the potion and shattered by the rites. A cleric is a person of faith, faith in himself, faith in his deity, faith in the steadfast workings of the universe. The change into lichdom is a profound leap of faith in a direction that goes against the grain of the very constants of the universe.The mind of the being that exists after the transformation is profoundly different from the mind of the being that existed before, because it has taken it upon itself to defy the natural ordering of the gods with respect to itself. The cleric lich has set itself above its own god in the matter of the avoidance of its death, and the fact that it finds itself still in existence after the transformation, after having the temerity to defy the universal order, subtly but absolutely shifts the underpinnings of its mind.The cleric lich is created through the same process as is the wizard lich, except that the spells it casts are obviously clerical in nature.Demilich: My best guess at the origins of a demilich is that it is an undead wizard who has lived so long, learned so much, and gathered such power that it has literally achieved a new level of existence. The creature's definition of power itself has evolved entirely beyond the grasp of the mortal mind, so the demilich has abandoned all mortal exploits in order to survey realms in which only the gods tread. Having no interest in the world that gave it form, the demilich surrenders that form, and its body crumbles to useless dust. All that remains is its skull.By the time its body falls into ruin, the lich has learned virtually all the arcane secrets of its world-all things that both should and should never have been discovered. It has had millennia to reflect upon its evil and the nature of power, and it has mused upon things that even the blackest hearts would call vile.Of any of these things, I can never be certain. All I can do is contemplate what they must be like, and, ironically, hope that I never learn the answers to my own questions!Hero's Bane the Invincible, Demilich: ?Ancient Dead, Mummy: Most of the ancient dead were once living, breathing people, but they defied death to walk again among the living-as mummies. Their tortured spirits remain bound to now lifeless bodies.I have infrequently discovered doomed spirits who were compelled to become ancient dead through no fault of their own. Most ancient dead, however, were not innocent victims of powers beyond their control.After years of research and interviews with eyewitnesses who have encountered the unquiet dead (including two interviews conducted magically with the dead themselves), I have concluded that some spirits pass into death with a predilection for returning as mummies. The common factor among these cases seems to be a fascination with and desire for the trappings of the mortal world.A mummy is created through a process in which the subject is only a passive participant. Though an individual can arrange to return from the dead as a mummy, it must depend upon others to carry out its wishes. Planned or otherwise, the process can truly begin only after the subject dies. The first step is embalming the corpse. True, a mummy can be created spontaneously through natural preservation of a body and the spirit’s own force of will. Even then, some external event triggers the mummy’s return.When confronted with the question of the origins of the ancient dead, most sages and mediums are unable to give any credible answer at all. A few priests, adventurers, and seekers of forbidden lore speculate that those rituals and processes used to create the ancient dead were developed after some long-ago theorist witnessed a spontaneous occurrence. One of my colleagues, Deved de Weise of Il Aluk, in Darkon, has offered a succinct explanation of the reasoning behind this theory.As to the probable origins of the creatures you call “ancient dead,” you [Van Richten] must concede that history is full of incidents involving the return of the dead to the world ofthe living. Here in Darkon, the rising of the dead is ingrained in local legend.If as you seem to have documented, departed spirits can return to their preserved bodies through force of will, then it must have been inevitable that some priest, obsessed with death and hungering for an extended life (or desperate to grant such a “gift” to a demanding liege) must have come upon an account of such an incident just as you have) or actually witnessed the event.Armed with this knowledge, the priest would need only the proper research materials and sufficient time to recreate the event.Because I have uncovered conclusive proof that the ancient dead can rise unassisted, I find it hard to contradict de Weise’s reasoning and conclusion. There is a more sinister theory about the origins of the ancient dead, however, to which I must attach greater verisimilitude because it is derived from firsthand knowledge. It comes from the journal of De’rah, a wandering priestess and a gifted medium. This fair lady claims to have been only a visitor to these lands of ours, and in any event she has disappeared utterly. Before departing on her final journey, she entrusted a copy of her journal to a wandering Vistana, who delivered it to me. The fact that lady De’rah could induce any Vistana to serve as a reliable messenger only increases my admiration for her abilities.Once the mummy lay quietly in its coffin again, we sought to discover some method of putting it to rest permanently. While my companions set about trying to decipher the numerous cartouches and hieroglyphs on the tomb‘s walls, l fingered my enchanted prayer beads and chanted a divination spell. Soon, I was conversing with the creature.Q: Huseh Kah, why do you walk among the living?A: Because of the curse of Anhktepot.Q: Who is Anhktepot?A: The first of my kind.From the journal of De’rahIf Huseh Kah was correct in his belief that Anhktepot is the progenitor for all the ancient dead, then it appears that, in seeking his own immortality, Anhktepot loosed an entirely new evil into the land.As noted in the previous chapter, a mummy’s powers are set, but not necessarily fixed, at the moment of its creation. The chief factors that determine the mummy‘s rank are the strength of its attachment to the mortal world, the deceased’s emotional state at the time of death, the intricacy of the ritual used to create the mummy, and the opulence of the mummy‘s tomb. In some cases, other factors can increase a mummy’s rank. These include the power of the creature or creatures creating the mummy, and the amount of respect, fear, or veneration a mummy receives from the living. The legend of the aforementioned Anhktepot of Har’Akir is a case in point.Each ancient dead creature has a dual origin. First, a creature's mortal shell must be preserved so that it may house the spirit even after death. Second, the spirit itself must be compelled or induced to return to its body.Every ancient dead creature I know about falls into one of three subcategories: accidental, created, and invoked. The terms refer only to the processes that preserve the creature's body, and not to its motives or psychic traumas, which I will discuss in a separate section. Be warned that ancient dead whose origins bear no semblance to what I describe here might stalk the land. Undeath is a phenomenon that often confounds mortal understanding.It seems that an ancient dead can form when a corpse is naturally preserved after its living form is suddenly overcome by death. The creature also suffers, usually dying in great pain or turbulent emotion. In many cases, the medium that preserves a body was instrumental in bringing about death—perhaps even directly causing it.Any environmental condition that prevents a body from decaying can create a natural mummy. The most common conditions include burial in dry sand, freezing, and immersion in swamps or bogs. Other conditions might naturally embalm a corpse. My colleague George Weathermay, a ranger of some renown, speculates that quicksand, the cool waters of subterranean pools, and tar pits might also preserve the dead.Ancient dead creatures created unintentionally are extremely rare. They also tend to be among the weakest of mummies, since no outside agent exists to invest them with power.The vast majority of ancient dead rise when preserved corpses are deliberately turned into undead creatures. The typical mummy found in many lands is created from the corpse of a priest, carefully embalmed and wrapped for the ritual that binds its spirit with its body once again. My observations and research lead me to believe that there are two types of created ancient dead: subservient and usurped.Many powerful mummies (and a few of their lesser brethren) have the ability to create other ancient dead, usually by transforming their slain victims through some ritual or arcane process.Sometimes a usurped mummy has a more insidious origin. Even the most reverent and well-intentioned funeral rites can lead to undeath for the deceased if an enemy subverts those rites and lays a curse on the corpse.This subcategory includes the most terrible and powerful of all ancient dead. An Invoked mummy embraces undeath willingly, laying plans for a corrupted form of immortality while still alive.Rather, the reader should understand that the ancient dead rise only under specific circumstances, and these factors often leave their mark on the resulting creature.Servitor mummies are most often created by other mummies or by a mummy cult.Servitor mummies are almost always deliberately created, usually by the creature that later controls them. The tomb guardians of Har'Akir, for example, were created for the express purpose of watching over a pharaoh's tomb.Some ancient dead arise from the same circumstances that create ghosts. This is particularly true of accidental and invoked mummies: something in each creature's psyche maintains a link between spirit and body that outlasts death. This link can arise without a conscious desire on the dying person's part, perhaps providing a path through which an outside agent can create a mummy. This type of mummy strongly resembles a ghost, but the creature is fully corporeal.Sometimes the ancient dead rise in response to events that occur long after their deaths. After many hours of study and countless interviews with priests and mediums who have had some experience with these matters, I have come to believe that beings can pass fully from the mortal world, only to be drawn back when certain conditions prevail. Some force or summons compels the spirits to reenter their mortal bodies.In one case I documented, the creature returned in response to an ancient curse it had successfully avoided throughout its life. Strangely enough, when one of her descendants triggered the curse, the blight fell upon the dead ancestor. The curse was worded in such a way that the victim’s repose in death was interrupted so that she would waken and feel the curse’s effects.I have acquired several accounts of guardian mummies rising to protect ancestral estates, temples, and other areas that were important to them in life. One case involved a dedicated priestess who was interred beneath a temple, returning when the building fell into disrepair. In each of the cases I labeled “recalled,” the individuals appear to have died and departed fromthe world in the normal way, only to return in response to events that occurred long after their deaths.The material I have on the priestess who returned to save her temple from ruin is fragmentary, but she might have been interred with the stipulation that she protect or maintain the temple when necessary. If this is true, as I suspect it is, she is an example of an invoked mummy, recalled by a specific trigger.To many shortsighted individuals, the thought of physical immortality beckons like a sweet. radiant dream. It is true that our world offers many pleasures, but fate has decreed that only mortals may enjoy them. There is no shortage, however, of dark powers all too willing to indulge the misconceptions of the foolish.Natural mummies occur only under conditions that prevent or retard decomposition. Generally, a body must be completely sealed off from environmental changes and protected from scavengers. The medium that covers the body must possess some preservative qualities and must not contain oxygen or plants, animals, or microorganisms that cause decay. All of the examples cited by Van Richten and Weathermay are suitable for creating natural mummies, except subterranean pools. A body immersed in plain water would tend to decay unless the water was very cold, or oxygen depleted, or both. Further, the water would have to be free of living organisms. A submerged body covered with sand or mud is much more likely to be preserved. Note, however, that any body allowed to lie undisturbed might become mummified, including one concealed in a cool, dry attic or cave, or hidden in a barrel of wine.One factor Van Richten fails to note is the preserved body's age. Mummies cannot be created from fresh corpses: the body must be embalmed before it can house an ancient dead spirit. Natural embalming requires 10 to 100 years or more, depending on how quickly the preserving medium acts on the body. Immersion in a tar pit would transform a body fairly quickly. Preservation through freezing in ice or immersion in a bog takes much longer. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master must decide.Many of the ancient dead possess the ability to create their own undead minions. Unlike vampires, ghosts, and lesser undead such as ghouls and wights, all of which create undead automatically, a mummy must take deliberate steps to create undead minions.In addition to spells such as animate dead, some mummies understand the process of embalming and the funerary rituals required to create new mummies. Usually the victim must have died while afflicted with mummy rot, but death from mummy rot isn’t a requirement. Creating a mummy of the third rank or less requires 12-18 hours of effort to prepare the body, and a further 12-24 hours before the spirit becomes permanently fixed into the preserved body. A mummy of the fourth or fifth rank requires very careful embalming and funerary rituals on a massive scale: see Chapter Six for more details.We watched in horrid fascination as the mummy performed a ritual over the bodies, accompanied by a throaty and vulgar chant from the assembly. Soon the corpses stirred with unlife, and an awestruck hush fell over the temple.In Chapter Two, I briefly explained that the creation of an ancient dead being requires a preserved body and some reason for the departed spirit to return to that body. The first step, preserving the body, is not always sinister or evil. Embalming the dead, while not practiced everywhere, is an essential part of solemn and respectable funerary rituals in many lands. I have already warned the reader of the perils of interfering with such rituals. Still, the following particulars might prove to be useful in some circumstances.The first step in preparing a body for proper (that is, ceremonial) disposal usually involves evisceration anddrying. This can take anywhere from 7 to 80 days. The residents of Har’Akir, for example, use an elaborate process that involves drying the body in a bed of natron (a naturally occurring salt) for 40 days. The internal organs are not discarded, but placed in sealed vessels called Canopic jars. Curiously, the Har’Akiri place the heart back after mummification-they consider it essential that this organ remain with the body. The body is then washed out, stuffed with various aromatic herbs, and carefully wrapped in linen bandages.In other lands the ritual is considerably different and might involve baking the body, cremating it so that only the bones remain to be interred, or coating the body with waxes and resins.It is at this stage that the true creation of an ancient dead begins. Powerful spells or alterations to the standard rituals serve to bind a spirit within its body, or to call it back from whatever afterlife to which it has gone. The conversion of a preserved body to an undead mummy usually is fairly rapid, regardless of the mourning period (usually no more than a few days). However, the resulting mummy often lies in “slumber” until wakened by an outside force.In all my dealings with truly powerful mummies (creatures of at least the fourth rank), each deceased was givenfull funerary rites, totaling 70 days or more, and interred in a resplendent tomb. Lesser mummies, by contrast, might not receive any funerary rites at all. This is obviously the case with naturally mummified ancient dead and with most that were created by other mummies. In the latter case, a victim generally is subjected to a ritual that is similar to the local burial rites, but bent entirely toward creating an undead creature.Senselessly looting burial places can create or awaken all sorts of undead creatures: anchored ghosts, slumbering mummies, and fledgling vampires, to name but a few.Finally, a power is abroad in these lands of ours that visits doom upon the greedy and foolish. Through this power, the ancient dead become endlessly trapped in prisons of their own making. Take care not to join them.A RECIPE FOR FINE MUMMIFICATIONLay body on a stone slab.Insert long metal instrument with hook through nostrils and pull brains out. Rinse brain cavity with palm wine.To open torso, carefully slit skin of left flank with sharp stone knife. Withdraw all vital organs through opening: heart, intestines, liver, lungs, and so forth. Set aside. Rinse body cavity thoroughly with palm wine: rinse again with spice infusion. Pack body cavity with herbs and spices, especially myrhh and cassia.To purify flesh, immerse body in oil and resins for no fewer than 40 days. Treat organs with spice and oils. Place treated lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines in individual Canopic jars of stone or alabaster, with stoppers.Test body for doneness. When all flesh has been dissolved and naught but skin and bones remains, wash body again.Plump body and face with bags of myrrh and cinnamon for a natural look.Important: Return heart (center of intelligence and feeling) to chest. Return kidneys to abdominal cavity also, if desired.Sew body incision if desired. Leave small opening so heart may be withdrawn for testing in the underworld.Anoint body with scented oils, or treat with resin, or both.Wrap body with strips of linen treated with gum. Enclose scarab over heart, along with other protective amulets.Place mask over head.Place Scrolls of the Dead between thighs so deceased can reach them easily in the underworld.Place body inside series of coffins, including outer sarcophagus made of stone.Store upright in a cool, dark place.Huseh Kah, Mummy: Once the mummy lay quietly in its coffin again, we sought to discover some method of putting it to rest permanently. While my companions set about trying to decipher the numerous cartouches and hieroglyphs on the tomb's walls, l fingered my enchanted prayer beads and chanted a divination spell. Soon, I was conversing with the creature.Q: Huseh Kah, why do you walk among the living?A: Because of the curse of Anhktepot.Q: Who is Anhktepot?A: The first of my kind.From the journal of De’rahAnhktepot: I first heard the legend of Anhktepot during a visit to the land of Har’Akir, many years ago. According to Har’Akiri folktales, Anhktepot was an ancient king or pharaoh. He became so fond of ruling that he could not bear to think of his reign ending, even in death. He bent all his will toward cheating death and returning to his throne. When he finally died (murdered, some say), his burial was accompanied by a lavish ceremony and the ritual deaths of all his most valuable advisors. If Anhktepot does still walk the dunes of his arid country, he has truly gotten his wish.If the tales are true, a desire to cheat death dominated Anhktepot’s thoughts during life. Furthermore, as a pharaoh, Anhktepot could indulge in his obsession to a degree unimaginable for a common man. He had the resources of a nation at his disposal, and he used them. Anhktepot commanded for himself embalming and funeral rites on a grand scale, with an elaborate tomb to match.My investigations in the land of Har’Akir revealed that the tomb of Anhktepot has in excess of 80,000 square feet of floor space, including a complete temple to a deity of the underworld and no less than thirty subsidiary tombs for the pharaoh’s family, servants, and advisors. Most of the tomb is carved from solid rock, and the structure is filled with monumental statuary ranging from 1 foot high to titanic figures many feet tall. The tomb’s ultimate cost is incalculable by any standards.First Rank Mummy: Ancient dead of the first rank are created spontaneously, with little or no pomp and circumstance.Second Rank Mummy: In many cases, second-rank mummies rise spontaneously if the circumstances surrounding their deaths are sufficiently charged with emotion. In most other cases, mummies of this rank are created by evil spellcasters or by other undead.Third Rank Mummy: Mummies of the third rank do not normally rise spontaneously, though I have no evidence to suggest that they cannot do so. More typically, these types of mummies are created as the result of a powerful ritual or by the hand of a more powerful sort of ancient dead.Fourth Rank Mummy: Ancient dead creatures of fourth rank rise only after a powerful ritual has been completed and their bodies have been interred in elaborate tombs. Usually the deceased took active roles in planning their funeral rites and burial, fully intending to return to the physical world as mummies. Many of these individuals believe themselves to be so powerful that death has no sway over them; others actively embrace death in an attempt to seize greater power or to gain control over the afterlife.Lamenting Rake of Paridon, Timothy Strand, Invoked Fourth Rank Mummy: Most accounts identify this creature as a ghost, a spirit so consumed by excess and debauchery in a famine-plagued land that it was condemned to walk the city streets where it once lived and witness revelries it could no longer share.The journal of the doomed man, however, reveals a different tale: Timothy Strand squandered a bright future and a family fortune by making his life a continuous frolic. When he felt an early death approaching, he poured all his remaining wealth into an ornate tomb, which also was to serve as a temple to an evil deity. As part of this dark pact, Timothy was guaranteed a continuing life, surrounded by comfort and luxury. To seal the pact, Timothy had himself slain and embalmed. He expected to return from death and did, as a mummy able to appreciate-but never to enjoy-the pleasures of the flesh.Fifth Rank Mummy: Fortunately, the wealth and labor of an entire nation is required to invest a mummy with this level of power.Bog Monster of Hroth, Mummy: The Bog Monster of Hroth was one of several armed raiders who were lured into a bog, entrapped, and slain by the defenders of a town the raiders meant to pillage. The raider who later returned as the bog monster must have felt a strange and awful mixture of fear, humiliation, and frustration as death overcame him.Upon hearing his story, we questioned Jameld at length and discovered two key facts. First, the victim's corpses invariably rotted very quickly. Second, the bog had been the site of an unusual battle many years before.According to Jameld, a band of minotaurs-strange creatures with the heads of bulls and the bodies of huge men-had once tried to raid the town. The elves, however, were wary and laid an ambush for the monsters. Using their superior woodcraft, they surprised the raiders near the bog and inexorably drove them into it. The last phases of the battle took place in pitch darkness, after the moon had set. Both sides relied on their night vision during the fight.Further questioning revealed that the minotaur chieftain had been last to die in the battle. Volleys of arrows had driven the creature far into the bog until it finally sank from sight, thrashing and cursing.It now seemed likely the monster from the bog was the restless, naturally mummified corpse of that minotaur chieftain.Lich-Priest Pythian: ?Quinn Roche, Rotch, Mummy: I have recorded many stories involving a dedicated collector of fine armor. This wealthy man, Quinn Roche, ordered that the choicest items from his collection be placed in his tomb along with him. It is said that when one of the items was later stolen, Roche rose to regain it. A second account alleges that Roche rose when groundwater seeping into his tomb caused valuable armor to rust. The collector came forth not only to see that this armor was restored, but also to insure that his precious collection would not be so endangered again. Yet another tale maintains that Roche awoke to tirelessly pursue a victim who owned a rare suit of plate mail of etherealness, which Roche (spelled Rotch in this particular manuscript) sought to add to his collection. After studying these materials carefully, I concluded that these stories, which cover a span of 260 years, all refer to the same being, which rose several times for different but obviously related reasons.Ahmose Tanit, Iurudef Hamid, Mummy: ?Animal Mummy: In some cases, the preserved body of a common animal can be reanimated as one of the ancient dead. Nearly every animal mummy is created deliberately, as an animal has neither the intelligence nor the force of will to return to the mortal world on its own.Nevertheless, an extraordinary animal can return on its own, especially if it was carefully interred upon its death.Hissing Cat of Kantora, Mummy: In life, this creature was a mage's familiar that wasted away and died after its mistress, Caron de Annemi, met an untimely death. The slain wizardess's companions carefully laid the animal to rest to commemorate their fallen comrade, whose body could not be recovered. The cat returned a generation later when a foolish young wizard claimed de Annemi's research into illusions a s his own.Monster Mummy: Though many other types of creatures have physical bodies, not every body remains a suitable vessel for a spirit once death overtakes it. Evil spirits such as the rakshasas of Sri Raji, extraplanar creatures such as aerial servants, and created creatures that never were truly alive, such as golems, cannot return as ancient dead.Monster mummies can be created only from living creatures native to the Prime Material Plane. Extraplanar creatures such as elementals and tanar'ri, or creatures that never were truly alive (such as golems), cannot become mummies.Most humanoid race do not practice funerary customs elaborate enough to create mummies. When encountered at all, humanoid mummies are created servitors or naturally preserved creatures of the third rank or less.Composite Mummy: These mummies are almost certainly created. (My years of undead hunting have bred in me a sense of caution that prevents me from saying “always.”) They are constructed from bits and pieces of several different creatures, sewn or otherwise joined together in the same manner as flesh or bone golems are fashioned. Some humanoid parts invariably decorate the mix, and a humanoid spirit animates the mummy.Parts of any creature with a corporeal body, however, can be used to construct a composite mummy.Baboon Animal Mummy: ?Bull Animal Mummy: ?Cat Domestic Animal Mummy: ?Cat Great Animal Mummy: ?Crocodile Animal Mummy: ?Dog Animal Mummy: ?Eagle Animal Mummy: ?Hawk Animal Mummy: ?Elephant Animal Mummy: ?Horse Animal Mummy: ?Camel Animal Mummy: ?Snake Constrictor Animal Mummy: ?Snake Venomous Animal Mummy: ?Hugh Ignolia, Mummy: One such case immediately springs to mind: the tale of Hugh Ignolia, an aspiring artist in Il Aluk. lgnolia became obsessed with completing a massive, epic painting that he hoped to present to Lord Azalin. The artist expended a considerable fortune assembling the finest materials for the work, including some exquisite paintbrushes made from rare and exotic materials imported from distant lands. True to his nature. Lord Aralin ridiculed the artist when lgnolia presented his painting, and the poor wretch was driven mad. When lgnolia rose from the grave, he set about retrieving his rare paintbrushes, even though these implements had only led him to disappointment and madness.Sage of Levkarest, Mummy: ?Senselessly looting burial places can create or awaken all sorts of undead creatures: anchored ghosts, slumbering mummies, and fledgling vampires, to name but a few.Imhoptep, Mummy: ?Son of Kyuss: ?Senmet: ?Tiyet: ?Confer (Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation, Necromancy)Level: Wizard 9Range: TouchDuration: SpecialArea of Effect: One creatureComponents: V, S, MCasting Time: 1 roundSaving Throw: NoneThis spell is cast in conjunction with create minion for the purpose of creating a quasimancer (see Chapter Seven). When the confer spell is cast upon the created minion, the undead creature's mind becomes attuned to spell memorization. The lich then plants the spell repertoire of a 9th-level wizard (including number of spells and levels) within the minion's mind. The quasimancer can afterward cast the implanted spells at its discretion, as if it were the wizard who memorized them. The lich must expend spell energy equal to the level of the spell placed in the quasimancer's head. In other words, to place a 5th-level spell in the quasimancer, the lich must expend the equivalent of a 5th-level spell from its daily allowance of carried magic. The quasimancer can receive spells from its master only once: when ill of its spells are cast, it becomes a nindless undead.Note that the quasimancer must have all spell components necessary to cast the spells implanted in its mind. This spell cannot be cast upon any undead creature other than one raised by a create minion spell. Casting this spell upon a living person instantly causes insanity that can be cured only by a psionic being using psychic surgery or someone using a wish. The material components of this spell are the minion and a bit of brain tissue from a sentient being of at least average intelligence.Create Minion(Necromancy)Level: Wizard 9Range: 10 feetDuration 1-20 daysArea of Effect: One creatureComponents: V, S, MCasting Time: 1 roundSaving Throw: SpecialThis spell is used in conjunction with confer in order to create a quasimancer (see Chapter Seven). When the lich casts create minion, a corporeal undead minion is animated and reinstated with a portion its former life essence, giving it artificial intelligence and spellcasting potential.In terms of physical traits, the minion becomes, in effect, a wight, having all the abilities and statistics of that creature (as per the Monstrous Manual tome). The newly created minion is entitled to a saving throw vs. spell (as a 5 HD creature) to avoid failing under control of the lich. If it succeeds, it will do its best to escape the lich, then go on a killing spree, resentful of the knowledge that its time of existence is limited. (Some created minions may attempt to find a wizard and force him to cast permanency upon them, thus negating the 1d20 day expiration of the spell.) A minion that fails its saving throw falls under complete control of the lich and acts as its master's agent in the field. Its intelligence allows it to command other undead in its master's name, and it remains susceptible to the confer spell.A created minion under a lich's control makes all saving throws at the level of its master. It is immuneto enfeeblement, polymorph, electricity, insanity, charm, sleep, cold, and death spells. It exudes a fear aura, 5-foot radius, requiring a successful save vs. spell of an onlooker who must flee for 2d4 rounds if the save is failed.Casting this spell upon a living person requires the victim to make a successful save vs. death magic or the person immediately dies, becoming a created minion entitled to the saving throw against control detailed above.The material components of this spell are the body to be raised and a bit of brain matter from a being with at least average intelligence.Animate dead by touch: The lich is able to cause zombies and skeletons to rise with a mere touch. Such creatures are turned by clerics at a level equal to the lich that raised them, as long as the lich is within 200 feet of those undead. The lich may raise as many creatures as are available. All undead created in this fashion rise as 2 Hit Die creatures that behave as common zombies and skeletons, except as noted above.</blockquote>

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