Liches

Liches used to be powerful necromancer in life, so powerful to survive his/her death as becoming undead, also known as Liches.

Description

Liches tend to be powerful evil creatures who are stronger now they are Undead than they were when they were alive.

A necromancer is an evil wizard who practices in the necromancy.

Necromancy is the power over the world of the dead. Their powers enable them to raise corpses from the ground to create armies of Skeletons and Zombies.

Etimology

The term lich comes from the Slavic licho, which means evil; an alternative spelling is liche, a word that pairs with modern German leiche, meaning corpse.

Origin

In old Roman Catholicism, the lych or lych gate is a covered area at the entrance to the cemetery where the casket awaits the clergy before proceeding into the cemetery for proper burial. As such, the suggestion as to the fantasy undead creature, the Lich, is of an undead creature that was never properly buried, never made it to the grave. This is different from other types of undead creatures, such as Vampires and zombies, who were buried and returned from the dead. Since most religions maintain that only God or a god can bring someone back from the dead, there is also a suggestion of hubris in the idea of anyone but a deity reanimating dead. Hence, the idea of undead is the idea of an unclean, unholiness.

See Also

necromancer necromancy Skeletons Voodoo zombies

Links

[The Liches]

Mythological Creatures