Lich
In fantasy fiction, a lich (; from the Old English , meaning "corpse") is a type of undead creature. Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith's "The Empire of the Necromancers" (1932), had used "lich" as a general term for any corpse, animated or inanimate, before the term's specific use in fantasy role-playing games. The more recent use of the term "lich" for a specific type of undead creature originates from the 1976 "Dungeons & Dragons" role-playing game booklet "Greyhawk", written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz. Often such a creature is the result of  a willful transformation, as a powerful wizard skilled in necromancy who seeks eternal life uses rare substances in a magical ritual to become undead. Unlike zombies, which are often depicted as mindless, liches are sapient, retaining their previous intelligence and magical abilities. Liches are often depicted as holding power over lesser undead soldiers and servants. Historical background. "Lich" is an archaic English word for "corpse"; the gate at the lowest end of the cemetery where the coffin and funerary procession usually entered was commonly referred to as the lich gate. This gate was quite often covered by a small roof  where part of the funerary service could be carried out. Liches are sometimes depicted using a magical device called a "phylactery" (from a Classical Greek word meaning amulet) to anchor their souls to the physical world so that if their body is destroyed they can rise again over and over, as long as the phylactery remains intact. In literature. The lich developed from monsters found in earlier classic sword and sorcery fiction, which is filled with powerful sorcerers who use their magic to triumph over death. Many of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories feature powerful wizards whose magic enables  them to return from the dead. Several stories by Robert E. Howard, such as the novella "Skull-Face" (1929) and the short story "Scarlet Tears", feature undying sorcerers who retain a semblance of life through mystical means, their bodies reduced to shriveled husks with which they manage to maintain inhuman mobility and active thought. Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of "Dungeons & Dragons", stated that he based the description of a lich included in the game on the short story "The Sword of the Sorcerer" (1969) by Gardner Fox. The term "lich", used as an archaic word for corpse  (or body), is commonly used in these stories. Ambrose Bierce's tale of possession "" features the word in its introduction, referring to a corpse. H. P. Lovecraft also used the word in "The Thing on the Doorstep" (published 1937) where the narrator refers to the corpse of his friend possessed by a sorcerer. Other imagery surrounding demiliches, in particular that of a jeweled skull, is drawn from the early Fritz Leiber story "Thieves' House".