Guild Wars 2

Lore n00b here, I just wanted to know exactly what liches were and even more so why my necromancer can turn into one.

Well there are two liches we know for sure, that they are liches. Khilbron and Palawa Joko. There is also Zoldark, who I think is said to be a lich, but not all the rules of the other liches seem to apply to him.

Now what are these rules. First of liches are powerful undead, who keep there personality and can control huge amount of lesser undead. Check in all 3. However Khilbron and Joko also can not simply be killed. Their souls just wander back into their bodies after being slain. To kill Khilbron we had to lure him onto a bloodstone, so his soul was absorded by it, before it could return into his body. Palawa Joko was never killed, only sealed for a very long time. Zoldark however seems to be simply killable.

How does one become a lich in the GW universe? We don’t know. I personally have the theory that Khilbron tapped into Zhaitans magic while using his cataclysmic spell, therefore comming back in his rather draconic lich form (I’m not saying he was a Risen though, he shows no signs of that). How Joko became a lich is completly unknown. It is asumed he was a king in Elona, as I think it’s mentioned during a Halloween quest in GW1. And he had feud with King Oscar Thorn of Kryta, that’s pretty much all we know about his live, pre-Scourge of Vabbi.

Maybe Konig knows some more on the topic, he seems to be a lich himself.

Ha, maybe Konig is…thanks anyway

A Lich is by profession is a powerful necromancer (either dead or alive, but for all practical purposes is their self a transformed “undead”) who can summon the dead and control them to act on its behalf.

I thought Palawa was a Mummy, not a Lich? Pardon me, if I happen to be wrong.

Well a mummy is only different from other undead in the way they were burried. Note that all of Joko’s forces are mummies (except carven effigies, who are elementals), so it’s more a general type of undead. In short, Palawa Joko is a mummy lich, while Khilbron is a normal (draconic?) lich.

@Lechtrixx: Lich is not a profession but a type of undead. They are also always dead (well undead) never alive.

In mythology a Lich is a magician or a king that binds his intellectt to his corpse and uses magic to prevent it from completely rotting away in attempt to gain immortality.

Do those clocked wraith like undead that hover around and are generally elementalists, count as liches?

TheNextGuy.4521:

In mythology a Lich is a magician or a king that binds his intellectt to his corpse and uses magic to prevent it from completely rotting away in attempt to gain immortality.

They usually use phylacteries to bind their souls as well so you can’t kill them by just destroying the body.

I do wonder one thing, though. We have spectres, mummies, liches … where the hell are all the vampires hiding? Besides heavy Blood Magic specced PC Necromancers.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vampire

But actually I prefer if real vampires would stay out of GW’s lore. Next to dragons they are the most overused fantasy creature to exist and I personally never found them interesting to begin with.

Depends on the type, I’d say. For example – those freaks from Necroscope? Not even close to what constitutes a “Modern Vampire.” And that’s why they rock soooo frigging hard.
(Also: Hopping Vampires? That’s just funny.)

Wait, Zoldark was able to be killed? But he kept coming back each time I reentered his dungeon. Resurrecting just like Khilbron did if you killed him off the Bloodstone.

Yeah but every dungeon boss kept comming back like this, it’s just game mechanics. Lich-resurrection would be if he came back directly after hitting the ground.

Lich Form seems to be more akin to GW1’s elite skill “Aura of the Lich” – rather than becoming a lich, you’re taking on aspects of a lich.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

There is also Zoldark, who I think is said to be a lich, but not all the rules of the other liches seem to apply to him.

You refer to the fact that we seemingly kill him?

Who’s to say he – like the Hunter does – didn’t just fake it? The Hunter, for those who don’t know, is a Shiro’ken made by Shiro Tagachi in the Realm of Torment and given magic by Khilbron so that he cannot be killed – effectively, he’s a construct that acts like a lich. We also know of two other (claimed) liches: Mazdak the Accursed (who was killed by Caladbolg, which seems to be an anti-risen/undead/lich weapon) and an unnamed “Risen Lich” seen in Arah story.

As for personality and controlling other undead – even weak undead may retain their personality. It seems to be more about how the undead is made for personality. It’s my theory that those with personality hold a soul in the body while those without are soulless (like necromancer minions). Undead appear to naturally flock to stronger undead as well (based on the pockets of what seem to be Orrian undead remnants in Eye of the North, as well as what happened to Joko’s armies after his defeat by Turai), so just being more powerful automatically grants you power over weaker undead.

Regarding “Their souls just wander back into their bodies after being slain.” – this isn’t necessarily true. For the case of The Hunter and Joko, no indication is made of their soul ever leaving their body. They just get beaten up, perhaps even knocked unconscious, but never seem to actually ‘die.’

And Khilbron’s soul was ripped out by the soul batteries, not the bloodstone – the soul batteries used the bloodstone as a channel for transfering the soul, it seems, but they themselves are what allows souls to be captured (and are where the souls are held).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I personally have the theory that Khilbron tapped into Zhaitans magic while using his cataclysmic spell, therefore comming back in his rather draconic lich form (I’m not saying he was a Risen though, he shows no signs of that).

Your theory for Khilbron would require for him to be a Risen, though. And we know he wasn’t devoted to Zhaitan so that’s definitely not the case.

Lechtrixx.1053:

A Lich is by profession is a powerful necromancer (either dead or alive, but for all practical purposes is their self a transformed “undead”) who can summon the dead and control them to act on its behalf.

In the GW universe, as well as many fantasy stories, a lich is a powerful necromantic undead. In non-GW stories, they tend to have phylacteries which hold their souls – their undead bodies merely being a medium to act in the world, and so long as said phylactery is around, they cannot be killed.

But GW liches are OP in that they don’t have phylacteries. At least, we don’t know of any.

Advent.6193:

I thought Palawa was a Mummy, not a Lich? Pardon me, if I happen to be wrong.

Technically both. Mechanically speaking in GW1 he’d be the mummy creature type – and perhaps he was mummified when killed, though there’s no indications of that. A lich isn’t synonymous with a kind of undead – e.g., skeleton, zombie, mummy – but rather is more of a title to an undead given based on their abilities.

Bard.7215:

Do those clocked wraith like undead that hover around and are generally elementalists, count as liches?

One is called a lich, but generally those seem to be souls – hence their name “wraith.”

Ah, I see I finally found them on the wiki.