The Lich King

## Life Before Undeath

The Lich King was born in the year 587 AG, and in life, he was known as Brenin the Wise. Brenin led an expedition known as the Suicide Corps across the sea to The Great Void. Upon reaching the bottom, Brenin encountered a powerful being that imbued him with great power, lichdom, and visions. He had visions of the future that depicted eldritch horrors invading the material plane and laying waste to all life that resides within it.

## Life After Undeath

The lich received the souls necessary to sustain his life from the Void. Any creatures that die in the Void feed his phylactery and keep the lich alive. With his immortality, he spent several years gathering power, pulling strings, and formulating plots. But the future he had seen was soon approaching, and he decided that in order for the world to be saved, it must first cease their petty squabbles amongst themselves. The largest culprit of this would be the long-standing feud between the humanoids and the "monster races". He attempted to simply merge the two groups together on a small scale. But he underestimated the boiling hatred between the two groups, starting a war between the group for three long years. And worse yet, the Lich King was viewed as the sponsor of the monster races.

Three years into the wars, The Lich King attempted to make peace between the two sides through standard diplomacy, but a major mistake caused the entire movement to fall apart. The diplomacy mission was meant to be two unarmed, fluent Common-speaking Orcish diplomats from a relatively passive tribe, who were sent Khiba. But unbeknownst to the lich, the diplomats wanted to ensure their protection, so they called in a favor from a much more hostile tribe that did not speak Common to attend them during their meeting and post warriors nearby, "just in case". Unfortunately, the city discovered their camp, and moved in to destroy them before they were able to do anything rash. The attack by Khiba was seen as an outrageous atrocity by the monster races, and thus, they launched a full scale attack against the capitol as soon as they were able. The attack was repelled by the city, especially with the selfless help of the heroes Johnny and the Jets, who made a name for themselves at the battle.

Although the situation did not come even close to the outcome the Lich King had wished for, he had come to an amazing realization: the monster races had banded together to wage war on Khiba, their common enemy. So in order to band the humanoids and monster races together, they would need a common enemy... and that common enemy would be himself. The Lich King created an army of undead and set them loose as he pleased, he frequently made a show of just how evil he was, and he played up the rivalry between himself and the adventurers called Johnny and the Jets. His secondary goal with his frequent attacks were to cull the weak so that the strong survive and are better trained for the coming apocalypse. All the while he purposefully spread rumors about the location of his phylactery in order to weed out the strongest adventurers to ensure that those spearheading the attack against the infiltrators are well trained enough to handle them. Due to risking himself as he did, the Lich King was eventually confronted by Johnny and the Jets in a climactic final battle. And with the aid of The Crimson Trio, they stripped the lich of his magic and sealed him away in the pocket dimension he had created to hide away from them.

Despite his questionable methods, his cruel plots did yield some results. Nearly two decades after his downfall, Johnny and the Jets were gathered once again by Adam McClarrin to root out concerning issues in the city he governed: Grimharbor. Cults worshipping great eldritch gods from beyond the stars were growing and causing havoc throughout the city, but more concerning was an interrogation that revealed this activity to be mere experiments for the coming future. The cults were attempting to summon a great old one in all its glory over Khiba's capitol. The adventurers, with the help of humanoid and monster race alike, were able to stop the summoning before the monstrosity was summoned, but not before the creature destroyed most of the capitol. The capitol was eventually rebuilt over the rubble, and Khiba changed it's name to New Khiba, in order to memorialize the event.

## Imprisonment

The Lich King's pocket dimension was moved to The Sunken City, a taboo place where few dare to venture. So began his indefinite sentence of solitary confinement. He spent this time in an inactive state, attempting to gather enough strength to gain some use of magic, however small. He used all the power he could muster to watch the world outside his cell through the eyes of the skulls of the undead that once served him. In doing so, he had discovered the true origin of the Imperium Fungus plague, and promised The Rainbow Raiders that this information would lead to the cure, but would only give it in exchange for freeing him. This was no easy task however, as they had to track down each crimson weaver for their portion of the spell capable of freeing him.

The Rainbow Raiders proved to be successful in this venture, and collected all three components. The party then freed the lich, who convinced them not to kill him, as he knows that there is a war in the near future, and he has had nothing to do for the last few hundred years except strategize for potential battles. So by not killing him, they now have an extremely capable strategist on their side, who will aid them in whatever side they choose.