Vecna v Acererak v Larloch? Who's The Most Powerful Lich?

Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood was recently asked who was the most powerful lich: Vecna, Acererak, or Larloch. Here was his reply!

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"Heh. I've been asked this many times before, and although part of me wonders what's the point of all "who's more powerful?" questions, the answer is: it depends. In terms of raw personal BATTLE power, the answer is likely Vecna. Though so much of his power is vested in his Hand and his Eye that unless they can all be in one place, Larloch might pack more punch. Not that he would fight toe-to-toe in battle, because that isn't Larloch's way; he views liches who do that as idiot failures. Larloch's way is to manipulate from behind the scenes to lead anyone seeking him, or trying to cross him, astray, so they never come into contact with him. If need be, he'd hurl his many, many servitor liches at them, most of whom are personally more powerful than Acererak.

Larloch and Vecna both have a wider reach and influence on the worlds around them than Acererak, so if you're measuring that way, Acererak is left behind. But when it comes to measuring Larloch and Vecna against each other in terms of influence, it's a matter of style: Vecna has the greater fear-reputation and is "noisier," and Larloch is more the master manipulator, who works unseen. As in, you may never know how much he's affected you. I can only go by what Elminster (and on rare occasions Storm, or Laeral, or Volo[!]) tell me of the Realms, and the three Chosen of Mystra all think Larloch (even wherever he is now, bested by the Srinshee) is the greater threat. As El put it, "Vecna is a bogeyman, and his relics do harm. Larloch undresses thee and ye never even know it." Larloch plays the longer game, and is more patient and empathic and has a greater understanding of the multiverse, whereas Vecna is more self-centered. I trust El's judgment, because I must; without it, none of us know ANYTHING about the Realms.

Acererak is feared throughout the multiverse because he's an almost-always-active destructive force. However, that's a one-trick pony. "Hah! I shall destroy you TWICE!!!" ;}"

 

[Iry]

When did Larlock do all this stuff? This is the first time I've ever heard of him. Is this in the novels?

Larloch is one of those villains who never seems to get much screen time. He has been in a few novels and publications, but the lions share of his lore comes from articles in Dragon Magazine and Ed Greenwood himself discussing Faerun lore that he is allowed to discuss outside of NDA.

Vecna gets a huge amount of love because he's basically Skeletor. He shows up every saturday morning with a new plot for world domination and almost succeeds, if it weren't for those meddling kids. Even I love him for that (I'm honestly just a big lich fanboy). But it's the fact that he shows up to be defeated (and has some very memorable artifacts) that he gets adventures.

Acererak is infamous for murdering PCs. He's got some lore about working for Vecna and other things he's managed to pull off, but people remember with great fondness the various iterations of Tomb of Horrors (and most recently Tomb of Annihilation). But at his core, his dungeons were made to be eventually overcome and plundered.

Larloch was never intended to be defeated. He's just a spooky ominous foil for the DM to move and shake things at their own table. Ed Greenwood honestly describes him best:

Ah, yes, Larloch. You’ll get to see him (briefly) in my story in REALMS OF THE ELVES, and that appearance will show that as Faraer asked, he can be whimsical, and he knows both boredom and a personal code of honour. It was never my intention to use Larloch to humble PCs (brute force doesn’t humble anyone - - only the ability to awe players does), but - - as with the gods - - he can of course be used that way.

It was my intention, as I was turning the Realms from a purely fictional setting to a 1978-version AD&D game setting, to make it as realistic as possible. One of the necessities in doing that, and in giving PCs challenges, is to have entities around (gods, demigods and divine servants, heads of churches, temporal rulers, established high-level adventurers, and so on) who are stronger than the PCs. This not only gives them future foes and “standards” to measure themselves against and aspire to surpassing, it makes the world seem ongoing rather than newly-created around the PCs as an artificial obstacle course.

Larloch is one of those VERY powerful NPCs. An undead who’s been chasing and accumulating power for so long that he’s beyond possibly being challenged by most (for example) human kings or even archmages. An entity who’s conquered and ruled kingdoms, both openly and through dupes, so often and for so long that he’s quite bored with doing so, and has moved on to manipulating and steering events for his own entertainment (somewhat in the same way that Elminster manipulates and steers, though for different ends). A being so powerful in magic must inevitably “come to an agreement” with at least Mystra and Azuth, and so his doings and ultimate fate are in some manner bound up with theirs: to destroy Mystra may be to doom or destroy Larloch.

As a storytelling and roleplaying DM, I’ve always been rather puzzled by players who see EVERYthing powerful as a target they MUST destroy (hence the constant demand for avatar statistics, and the constant cries of, “I MUST kill Elminster! I’ve gotta smash Larloch!” or gloating boasts of, “I did it! I tore Elminster apart in my campaign!” Fine, if that turns your crank. But if that’s ALL that turns your crank, what are you going to do for kicks tomorrow? You’ve just killed Elminster, and Larloch the day before, and you tore apart Szass Tam and Manshoon before that, and laid waste to Shade and Thay and personally ate the last Phaerimm the tenday previous . . . now what? Is that the only way you can enjoy D&D?

My players are living proof of how much satisfaction one can get by sparring with foes for (literally) years, and ending up in grudging mutual respect (with the PCs inwardly gleeful because they’ve manipulated the foe into doing something they wanted him to do without him realizing it . . . and so have demonstrated for themselves that they’ve moved beyond “my blade swung faster, and I drew more blood and so beat you” adventuring, into being truly worthy of significance in Faerûn, because they have now managed to accomplish things WITHOUT brute force.

In the same way as too many PC dragonslayings depend upon the dragon being played as a dumb brute, it’s highly unlikely that any PC party will have the sheer power to take down Larloch - - and in any war of attrition against his many, many liches and modified powerful undead minions (forty blazing bones over here, a demi-lich over there, various hulking gigantic undead concoted of many battle dead yonder,deceptions galore ("That wasn't Larloch, that was your KING enspelled to look like Larloch! NOW you're in trouble!"), traps that release disease, poisoned this, poisoned that [like, ahem, the PCs’ drinking water] etc. etc.), a party of PCs would have to be stupid indeed not to figure out that destroying Larloch just isn’t worth the effort.

Like most gods in most situations, Larloch doesn’t NEED to stand and fight when it’s not to his advantage. Like gods, he doesn’t need to sleep, and most PCs do. So he’ll just have his minions harry them until they're stumbling-exhausted, and then throw MORE minions at them. Larloch isn’t insane or stupid enough to need to show up in person to gloat; subtly controlling things from afar is what he DOES, and enjoys. So PCs can expect to find themselves attacked by civil authorities in whatever realm they’re in, and then brigands, and then a few guilds, never being allowed to sleep without yet another undead attack - - and even zombies and skeletons can wear you down when they come in waves, dozens daily, for day after night after month.

And if the PCs DO win their ways through all the liches to Larloch, “he” will almost certainly be just another lich (loaded with explosive spells) set up as a decoy, with dozens of hidden liches waiting to pounce on any surviving PCs who ‘celebrate’ after they take Larloch down. As the REAL Larloch watches (magical scrying) from afar.

Myself, as DM, I’d be wondering: “Such a glorious game, so many opportunities laid out before your PCs to devote your time to, and THIS fixation is the best you can come up with? Are you SURE you’re adventurers?”

I take the view that if a DM tells you that a city your PCs are visiting is surrounded by a ring of hills, it requires a lot of PC insanity to try to destroy the hills “just because they’re there.” Consider Larloch a hill, part of the furniture of the Realms Ed has presented to you, not a target. Sounds like the very worst sort of power-gaming to me, and although we all need an outlet to just SMASH something once in a while, I’d hesitate to call this approach “roleplaying.”

However, to deal specifically with some of the queries raised about Larloch here and on the Realms-list (and if a Candlekeep scribe would be kind enough to repost this entire reply over there, I’d be grateful): I have NEVER postulated Larloch as a being who “cannot be destroyed.” I have suggested that PC attempts to down him reveal stooge-lich after stooge-lich (so that a PC who wants to talk to Larloch and manages to pique his curiosity enough to get an audience could indeed chat, and if they entertained Larloch enough could gain courteous, useful answers from him - - though to a good DM this would be a great chance to roleplay a “difficult” conversation that leaves the PCs involved quaking in their boots, throughout - - but a PC who thought they could dupe Larloch into a party ambush by trying to talk with him would discover that they’d destroyed not the real Larloch, but merely one of his many, many servitor liches, whom he was speaking through).

Of course any DM can do anything he or she wants in their own Realms campaign. If taking out Larloch entertains your players and they attempt it, fine. I’ve created an undead that should (like the old Rod of Seven Parts) give them several stages of victories and hard fights before they truly emerge victorious.

What I HAVE done from the beginning is strongly suggest that any DM trying to be “true to the Realms” show PCs the consequences of everything they do. If you try to take out Larloch, this is what else will happen: here’s whom (and what) he keeps in check, or how many liches have now been freed to race all over Faerûn trying to do what they for so long have been prevented from doing . . . and so on. “The interconnectedness of all things” holds sway in the Realms as it does in our real world. If you want to take out Larloch, do you really understand what you’re setting in motion? Are all the unfolding consequences what you really want to have happen?

Any DM is free to alter the Realms as they see fit before players unleash their characters into it, and is also free to let the players topple as many powerful Realms NPCs as they want to. The farther you get from the published Realms, the more ongoing adaptation work a DM is letting himself in for, but doing so isn’t going to upset me. If someone gloatingly tells me at a convention that their character killed Elminster and ate him or bedded all of the Seven Sisters at once and then killed them it’s not going to upset me. (Thought it is, as several gamers have discovered, going to make me puzzled enough to ask them WHY they did such things.)

As Faraer correctly pointed out here (back in November 2004): “The Realms has always worked on the principle that NPCs can do whatever the DM needs them to do, not what the books say, this being a storytelling game rather than a referencing game.” So DMs should feel free to change NPCs to their hearts’ content.

As for Elf_Friend’s question about Larloch’s rivals, this just makes me sigh. The problem with gamers wanting to take down powerful NPCs (and published Realms sourcebooks providing ultra-detailed stats for said NPCs) is that too often the Hammer Problem arises (the old saying: “To a man with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”). We all rush past trying to understand the aims, motives, and essential character of an NPC to get to the crunch details of how we can best him in combat.

Let’s look at Elf_Friend’s multipart question in detail (and please note, Elf_Friend, that these are perfectly legitimate queries that don’t upset me in the slightest; glad you asked): “I’m wanting your thoughts regarding who his rivals are that might still be alive, or undead.”

Answer: I’m not sure Larloch has any direct rivals. For centuries he’s worked at “fading away behind the scenes,” so only legend tells us he’s still around, or what he might be up to. Is he trying to attain godhood? Immortality? Freedom from the machinations of gods? Some mysterious magical goal or goals?

A DM must decide such things in order to conclude whether or not Larloch has any rivals. If you mean: beings of roughly the same power, who COULD be worthy opponents if they came into conflict with Larloch, then all sorts of possibilities arise, from Hesperdan and Iyraclea to Shaaan and dozens more not yet given prominence in the published Realms, to say nothing of the more obvious Khelben, The Simbul, and so on. The DM had better decide what all of them want, and are striving for, too.

Back to Elf_Friend: “To what expense would he spare to get rid of them [the rivals] and/or get them under his control?”
Again, this presupposes that Larloch is a sort of gunslinger with spells, ready to blast or control any adversary that challenges him. He isn’t. Neither are Szass Tam, Manshoon, or Elminster. Proof? Well, if any of them were, most of Faerûn would be hill after plateau after mountain range of blackened, blasted, smouldering ash, not bustling, vigorous kingdoms.

Larloch delights in gaining new magic, developing or creating new magic, and in manipulating mortals (on whims, for his own entertainment and occasionally to reassure himself that he CAN still manipulate them with such skill) without them noticing, without any onlooker seeing his hand at work, and so on. So like Elminster, he doesn’t want to “get them under his control,” but he DOES want to be able to manipulate them at will, into doing the things he wants, without all the bother of ruling them or showing up to give them orders and threaten or bribe or cajole them: that’s the sort of crass stuff he did centuries ago, and has outgrown. Why get rid of a potential rival when the rival’s very power makes him useful to you? As a weapon or tool you can use to shape someone else? Or have that someone else destroy for you, while you sit and watch the fun (a la the Addams Family, and their model trains sent into headlong trainwrecks) you’ve brought about by your own deft manipulations? (“So she hates him, and he hates her? Let’s see if I can have them bedding each other within a tenday, and married before month-end, in a union that will last for decades!”)

Back to Elf_Friend again: “What could a high level character do for him to sit up and take notice?”
Ahem: any adventurer who’s reached “high level” has ALREADY come to Larloch’s notice, and is being watched (from time to time) by Larloch’s spies (most of whom, if they’re not undead, are unwitting spies). Any expressed desire to contact Larloch, best or destroy Larloch, or work with Larloch will cause him to notice. Please note, from all I’ve said above: “notice” does NOT mean send legions of undead to destroy the ‘impudent’ PC, or show up personally in a rage to destroy said PC and thereby step into the players’ elaborately-arranged trap. It means Larloch watches the PC more closely, and tries to manipulate them in small, subtle ways to see what happens.

And THAT preceding sentence of mine should give a good DM gleeful fun to fill years of rich Realms-campaign roleplaying.

 

[Maxperson]

Those are fancy titles, but what has he done? He was a major god for a hot minute before getting kicked out of Sigil by no one worth mentioning. Got owned by his own creations on multiple occasions. He was locked up in Ravenloft for a good while.
I hate to go there, but Vecna is basically Anakin Skywalker. He becomes bitter and twisted because his mother is killed and his right hand man cuts off a bunch of his body parts. He then gets defeated by a bunch of rag tag newcomers just as he is about to achieve true power.

At least Vecna did stuff. Larloch has literally done nothing. He's just a Mary Sue write-up.

 

[cbwjm]

Larloch gets my vote as the most powerful, or at least to me, the most interesting lich of all three.

 

[Iry]

At least Vecna did stuff. Larloch has literally done nothing. He's just a Mary Sue write-up.

I don’t think anyone can top what Vecna did in Sigil. But let’s not forget the near annihilation of Myth Drannor, giving Szass Tam a Death Moon Orb and Thakorsil’s Seat, allowing sanctuary to a clone of Manshoon, saving Mystra’s life during the Spellplague, making an active attempt to become the God of Magic himself, and is a Warlock Patron in 5E.

Ioulaum is the one that has literally done nothing.

 

[S'mon]

I think authors tend to favour their own creations... You could ask Ed whether Mordenkainen or Elminster is the greater wizard & get a similar answer.

 

[Iry]

I think authors tend to favour their own creations... You could ask Ed whether Mordenkainen or Elminster is the greater wizard & get a similar answer.

I definitely recommend reading The Wizards Three articles from Dragon Magazine, for entertainment value alone.

“A good idea,” the Mage of Greyhawk went on. ”I’m pleased that we can trust each other this far.” He fell silent, and they stared levelly into each others’ eyes for a long, cold moment.

Flames seemed to leap and whirl in Elminster’s eyes, just for an instant. ”Aye,” he said. ”Krynn . . . whom can we trust, to speak for that world? Mirthful old Fizban is gone, and we know now—too late—what he truly was.”

“And young, damned Raistlin is gone, and we know him for what he was as well.” Mordenkainen sighed deeply.

”There is another,” said Elminster, ”one who may yet prove to be as twisted and arrogant with Art as Raistlin, and perhaps as dangerous: young Dalamar.”

 

[GreyLord]

It is simple, in the Forgotten Realms, Larloch is the most powerful in regards to Greenwood's description.

He has NO power to really be powerful outside of anything beyond Greenwood's control.

In Greyhawk, if Gary were still alive and someone tried to tell him Larloch was most powerful and force that opinion on him...more than likely Larloch's apparent power would be seen less then a 1st level M-U and Gary would say...and now...what were we doing?

If one wants to cede Greenwood's thoughts on their campaigns, then Larloch can be the most powerful in their campaign as well.

However, in D&D Lore that Greenwood has not been able to touch, Larloch is largely a Mary Sue villain that Greenwood can use to pester high level NPC's (and occasionally PC's) and otherwise is largely powerless in relation to being a mover and shaker.

Thus, in the Forgotten Realms, Larloch is extremely powerful, able to even negate the High Lords of the outer planes in his wishes.

In the rest of the D&D universe...highly irrelevant and not all that powerful.

THAT's the REAL reason no one has really heard of him, not because he's some behind the scenes mover and shaker outside of the Forgotten Realms. Any creator of their own world beyond the realms would say...that's nice, but Larloch didn't cause ANY such things to happen and if they think so, it's only in the flights of fancy and imagination because they have no power to influence anything of that sort in any way they think they do. In my world Larloch doesn't even have the power to appear, much less influence a fly.

It then falls on each campaign or world's creator or DM to determine (if they even want to, some may have no desire to even categorize) who or what is the most powerful.

TLDR; Larloch is most powerful in the Realms, outside the Realms and Greenwood's worlds...normally he's not relevant. Vecna most likely would take top place in those, but even then it's up to each world's creator.

 

[jasper]

When did Larlock do all this stuff? This is the first time I've ever heard of him. Is this in the novels?

And so I can do good research, send me the ebooks with him in them. Otherwise did not happen. Signed print copies using the author's blood will be acceptable too.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Dausuul]

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