Lich

Thematically, liches often represent what great power and great horror awaits for mages who refuse their eternal rest. While many undead are brought back from restlessness or ritual (see the fanon Grand Unified Zombie Theory), liches are one of the only undead who premeditate their on undeath. When viewed through this lens of desperation, magic acuity and singular focus, it is no wonder that liches become larger-than-life super-mages, megalomaniacal supervillains of the fantasy world.
Liches vary in their goals, spellbooks, and fashion style, but they tend to be incredibly willful. As they're usually also unaging, they can range widely in age--some liches have long since forgotten their days of birth, and may consider their day of death as the day they were created proper. 
== Overview ==
Liches seldom require sustenance outside of arcane, necromantic energies for simple maintenance... However, the same ambition that drives a wizard to breach the veil of death tends to also drive them to keep studying, seeking, and prodding at the world's mysteries. In settings where nature is the natural birth, growth, death and decay of the world, a lich represents an unnatural aberration that should have some side effects and consequences. Perhaps the land around a lich's lair is cursed, and only the unliving wander the land, the sky overcast in a perpetual winter.Fanon (See Lichcursed Terrain, below)
Liches in general might be known-about in a setting using Hidden Lore (Undead), Occultism, Thaumatology, and even Theology (if the setting has a cultural connection between undeath and unholiness), while legendary (and possibly, still reigning) liches may even be covered by History. Hidden Lore (Undead) would be the in-universe skill for the Grand Unified Zombie Theory.
== Lichcursed Terrain ==
Whether they're deep and diabolical characters or simplified cartoon villains, liches in a Dungeon Fantasy game are big personalities, personalities that are so big they often start changing the weather. Sometimes this is represented by a dark cloud looming over their lair, and an air of malevolence, the tree trunks twisted into angry or mournful faces. 
A lich's home turf should have something very wrong about it. Perhaps the animals are slowly being replaced by undead. Perhaps there's "leftovers", bodies of long-dead (or recently-dead) arcane experiments that were let loose on the countryside. Perhaps there are crags in the ground where great spires of basalt or bismuth stick out from the cliffs, showing a path where some elemental deity or Elder Thing was summoned but couldn't be contained, only eventually banished or put down by the lich themselves. While some agents and patsies of liches may be more discreet, the raw magical effect a lich has on their homeland should be no less subtle than a bushfire. 
== Lich Templates and Stats ==
=== Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 Lich ===
Note that Skinny gives -2 ST and HP vs. slams and knockback
=== "Classic" Lich ===
It is unclear why Fantasy's Lich does not have Unhealing (total) as part of the package. The absence of Magery/Power Investiture is due to this being effectively a lens on a once living mage. "Racial Skill Modifiers" follows the rules on Basic Set p 452 rather than those for Racial Skills
==Non-Thematic Liches==
=== Puella Magi Madoka Magica Lich ===
Each magical girl's power is tied to their wish in some way and is unique.
The only clear example is Akemi Homura who wished to go to back in time to save her friend Kamame Madoka from dying/becoming a magical girl and gained the power to stop time. For the other the connections are either unknown or are not clearly defined.
*Tomoe, Mami: can produce an endless supply of guns which she can fire off as fast as they appear
*Miki, Sayaka: fights with a sword and is fast. In unclear just how her wish to save a musician's arm so he could continue to perform (and win his love) relates to her power.
{Clrr}}
=== 3x3 Eyes "Lich" ===
If you consider a Sanjiyan Unkara a living phylactery then their Wu could qualify as a Lich though it, again, is easier to build them from scratch then to make them a lens:
Wu [214]: Independent Body Parts [15]; Regeneration (Very Fast) [100]; Unkillable 3 [150], Unaging [15], and Magery (Ritual) 3 [35]; Supernatural Features (Mark of Wu on center of forehead, 无) [-1]
==See Also==
*D&D Lich in GURPS
==References and Notes==
*GURPS Zombies pg 69
*GURPS Fantasy pg 112
*Madoka Magica: Truth about Soul Gems
Category:Undead
Category:Racial Templates