Lich Ritual

There's a ritual sequence of events that one can perform that will transform him or her into a powerful undead spellcaster. The secrets to becoming a lich are highly guarded, and only the most dedicated necromancers attain the coveted power of a lich.

The Decision

Benefits of being a Lich

Being a lich has a lot of perks:

• You'll instantly gain a level upon becoming a lich. More specifically, you'll instantly gain 1000 Experience Points.
• You'll learn the spells Chilling Touch, Lightning Bolt, Poison Item, Poison Bolt, Frost Bolt and Teleport. You will not, however, gain slots for these spells, so you will likely be at -4 or -5 spell slots after completing the ritual. (You will not be able to learn new spells, even from your deity, until you've got some open slots.)
• You no longer need to eat. As a matter of fact, you no longer can eat at all. This is mostly beneficial, and works a lot like having the Endure Hunger skill.
• You gain Poison Resistance, Cold Resistance, Regeneration, See Invisible and Teleport Control. As an undead, you are also immune to death magic ("draining") attacks.
• Liches are bloodless, so Bleeding Wounds won't work on you. As of release 111, vampire bats ignore bloodless targets, and will not attack you. As of release 115, they won't follow you around at all.

Drawbacks of being a Lich

There are a few things that are bad about being a lich, too:

• You can no longer eat. While this is mostly good, it also means you can't eat corpses to gain intrinsics or raise your maximum Mana, and you can never be "full" to gain that hit point regeneration bonus.
• You become Vulnerable to Fire. Even a ring or other item granting Fire Resistance will only allow you to take normal damage from fire.
• You also become Vulnerable to Silver. This is possibly the most serious drawback, as there will be several items you cannot use, such as some rings, a Silver Circlet, or a Mirror Shield. Depending on the random assignments for magic items, this is the biggest reason why you might reconsider the idea entirely. (But see "The Other Leading Brand", below.)
• Life Saved will no longer save your life, as you have no life to save.

Prerequisites

To become a lich, you'll need several things.

• The Raise Undead, Reclaim Soul, and Dark Ritual spells.
• Four friendly, controlled undead]] monsters (zombies, skeletons, ghasts).
• A way to kill yourself.

The Ritual

Becoming a lich requires the focusing of necromantic energies upon one's person, and then absorbing those energies into the body at the precise moment of death. Here's how it's done.

A note of caution: Remove any unidentified amulets you're wearing before performing the ritual. Having Unchanging will cause the transformation to fail, and you will just die. Having Life Saved will cause the ritual to fail, as your life will be saved instead of being corrupted into a horrific travesty of your former mortality. (Also, once you have transformed into a Lich, Life Saved will no longer work for you, as "you have no life to save".) The Amulet of Reflection and Amulet of Poison Resistance will not interfere with the ritual.

Oh yes... take off any equipment you may be wearing that is made of silver! Liches are damaged by silver....

Step One First of all, you'll need to raise a few zombies and/or skeletons using the Raise Undead spell. If for some reason you feel like doing this a more complicated way, ghasts created with the Ghastify spell will work just fine as well. You need four (4) of these in total. The combination of creature types doesn't matter, as long as they're all undead. For that matter, if you somehow have control of other undead monsters (such as through the use of a Holy Wand of Create Monster), they'll work too (and be destroyed in the process). All four do need to be 'pets' of yours, not handy enemies.

Step Two Next, you'll need to arrange your undead. This is best done in a room where you can close the doors. You'll need at least a 3x3 space to arrange the undead properly. You need one undead adjacent to you in each of the 4 cardinal directions (not diagonals). So, you need one each directly above, below, to the left and to the right of you. Use the command action to tell them to stay as you arrange them.

Step Three
Since you have to die in order to complete this ritual, you'll want to be at very low hit points before you move on from here. The best controlled way to achieve this is to quiver a knife and repeatedly fire it into the air above you so that it'll land on you and do a little damage. I suggest a knife because necromancers start with one. When you're low on hit points, make sure you're going to stay that way. use the pray action to check on your standing with the deities that will heal you in an emergency, and make sure they aren't likely to do it in the middle of the ritual. When you've got an ideal situation, get yourself stationed in the very center of those undead.

Step Four
Make sure that the knife you have quivered is actually on your person. You'll need it the turn after casting Dark Ritual. Once you're situated, cast Dark Ritual. This will destroy the four undead, and you'll see a message saying "You are imbued with evil!" This means that you have the Lichform intrinsic, which means that if you die, you'll return to life as a lich. You need to work carefully here though, because the intrinsic only lasts for 2 rounds. This is why you want your hit points to be low before performing the ritual.

Step Five
Kill yourself. Stab yourself with that knife again by firing it into the air. Alternatively, do something even more damaging. like drinking an acid potion or eating a glass bottle. If you've done things right, the damage will be enough to kill you, and you will die. "Evil forces" will intervene, and you'll rise again as a lich. Congratulations!

You instantly gain a level when you become a lich.

Alternative Method

Followers of Tlosh walk a fine line between life and death. Their god cannot heal their bodies, but he can still save them from death in another way. When heavily wounded, a living follower of Tlosh may be granted the boon of 2 rounds of the Lichform intrinsic (marked by the messages "Show your devotion!" and "You are imbued with evil!"). During this time, if you die, you'll become a lich, just as if you had performed the ritual.

The Other Leading Brand

There is actually another way to play an undead character... by casting the Ghastify spell on yourself! You'll keep all your skills and abilities, and gain a paralyzing claw attack, plus immunity to poison, death magic, and hunger. You don't get all those spells, but you also don't get nasty vulnerabilities to fire or silver! If your form was nonhumanoid, you will regain the full set of human equipment slots. You do lose the hope of "life saving", nor can you use the Lich Ritual later.