(• • • • Entropy,  • • • • Life,   • • • • Matter,   • • • • Spirit,  • • • Prime,  • Mind)                            

Dead Magic  109

While the Order of Hermes commonly used potions and rituals to prolong life (and other Traditions created similar Effects within their own paradigms), only within the Order did the dread of mortality and the drive to master magic become so great that a mage risked life and soul for a spell to ward off the reaper.  The formula for lichedom, though buried by time and suppressed as heresy, promised a way out.  Still, the offer of perpetual existence remains a tantalizing shadow to those mages whose fear of death, desire to finish some great deed, or drive to Master their Art pushes them beyond rational measures.

Ironically, the formula for lichedom is marginally easier to cast than most comparable immortality spells.  Indeed, a mage need not even be a Master to use this magic.  The temptations of the dark road, perhaps.

While some mages cheat mortality with age-defying spells, lichedom relies on a means to welcome it.  The mage surrounds himself with the trappings of his magic and ego.  Through the strength of his dedication, he severs his Avatar from the changing, living world about him.  At the end of the rite, he kills himself and invokes the final step, which causes his Pattern to linger perpetually on the cusp of life and death.  No longer truly alive, yet not wholly dead, the mage lives the half-existence of a liche.  Already straddling the threshold of death the liche need no longer fear its ultimate demise.

The Order's records of lichedom are far from complete, and many Hermetics consider lichedom and abominable state.  Thus, the rite is rarely copied or archived; some mages even destroy any records that they find regarding lichedom.  Chroniclers and theorists of the Order might keep fragmentary ruminations on the process, but it is certain that no whole and complete copy exists except, perhaps, among the tomes of a liche who still exists today.

Because Order records are so fragmentary, the rite of lichedom is poorly understood, and the steps are often personalized by the few mages who pursue it.  The mage starts by building a special edged or piercing weapon (or weapons) with which he kills himself.  This weapon is made first because it accompanies the mage through the remainder of the rite.  The traditional Hermetic paradigm prescribes that the item be made of silver, though other materials might also function.

Once the weapon is complete, the mage must reclaim every piece of his Avatar and sever all external ties to it.  This means that the mage must capture and destroy every Talisman he has empowered and every sympathetic link that he has tied to his soul.  He must even murder his own familiar, if he has one.  A mage with a fragmentary Avatar must track down and reclaim the lost pieces; one with a phylactery must somehow manage to keep it on his person for the duration of the rite.  Brands and damaged pieces of an Avatar do not hinder this portion of the rite, but if some piece of the whole Avatar has somehow been split from the mage, it must be recovered.

Once the mage has severed ties to his magical self, he must purge his Pattern of any external magic.  Only his own willpower can keep him alive beyond the shadow of death.  The mage must isolate himself, with no magic but his own nearby -- no magical items, no spells placed by others, no intruding supernatural forces.  Surrounded by his magic, he allows it to suffuse his Pattern.  Some mages supplement this step by ingesting potions, often laced with their own flesh and blood, thereby internalizing and concentrating the magical energies that they carry.  Other mages focus on meditation, sensory deprivation or other mental techniques to hone their personal energies.  For a year and a day the mage must wait in solitude, with no other magical spells or beings disturbing his concentration, as he steeps himself solely in his own magical will.  Most mages at this step are so obsessed with their magical development that they spend the time to further refine their techniques.

Cloistered away and empowered by his own spirit, the mage finally takes the last plummet down the precipice of mortality -- he must quaff a specialized potion, which requires components harvested from Bygones and materials renowned for their longevity and power (dragon's blood, demonic ichor, mercury, grave dust and other foul, rare and poisonous materials).  With the weapons previously created, the mage kills himself and removes the seat of his life -- this may mean severing his arteries, piercing his chakra points, or even stabbing his own heart. The fluid of the potion sustains him and halts the death of his body.  At this point, if the mage's rite is successful, he becomes an undead corpse and hovers on the boundary between life and death.  The rite cements his Avatar and soul to his corpselike frame, while his Pattern becomes mutated into something between Life and Matter.  If he fails....

Clearly, the rite of lichedom is so dangerous that it suits only the rare mage who's desperate enough to try it.  Worse still, there is no concrete way for the mage to know whether his formula is successful or correct except to kill himself in the attempt.  No two liches have ever used the same formula.  It's possible that some steps might be omitted, while it's almost certain that most liches have undertaken unnecessarily terrible steps simply because there is no way to know what the formula requires.  For someone willing to undertake this hideous transformation, nearly any abominable sacrifice seems reasonable.  Mages who lack the skill to use some of the required magics might will seek out alternate steps to make the rite easier.  It's said that crazed wizards hoping to become liches have slaughtered their entire families, undertaken personal mutilations and sucked out the very souls of other mages in order to fuel their transformations.

Once a mage has paid the terrible price and taken the steps that cannot be undone, he becomes one of the undead.  His body no longer heals or grows, and indeed may suffer the ravages of time, but it never dies unless slain by magic.  If the rite is not performed properly, the mage simply dies; if it is only partially successful, the mage may survive a short time, but decompose and die within a few days or weeks.  A successful liche can barring excessive Paradox or magical injury, expect to "live" forever.

System:  Despite its terrible costs, lichedom is fairly straightforward.  The mage in question needs to do some heavy research -- many rolls of Intelligence + Occult or Investigation, many visits to libraries and mentors, and so on.  Such research is best roleplayed.  A mage who openly looks into such materials risks the censure of his peers and the possibility of seized records, madness-inducing tomes and righteous hunters who hope to stamp out even the study of such abominations.

The research process is part of the rite.  The mage makes his Arete rolls based upon his research and execution of the proper steps.  If the mage has done only sketchy research (one or two successes), he may only get to roll one or two dice.  Similarly, if he executes the steps shoddily or imperfectly, he may suffer a difficulty penalty, while extreme attention to detail may give a bonus as described under Abilities Affecting Magic (Mage Revised, p. 155).

The final casting of the rite occurs as the mage prepares to the potion for the infusion of lichedom.  Successes accumulate to generate the duration and degree of success.  To finish the rite, the mage must invest one point of Quintessence for each health level that he has and must score enough successes to perform a phenomenal Effect (10 or more successes).  The rite is naturally vulgar, so the base difficulty is 9.  A permanent duration is, of course desirable, but if the mage doesn't score enough successes, the spell may not let him exist long as one of the undead.  The mage generates successes as he makes the elixir, drinks it and kills himself.  Naturally, wound penalties apply to the task of finishing off the potion while the mage stabs of slashes himself to death, so the mage is advised to also use a rite to resist pain.

The final task can be done as an extended ritual, to the usual limits of casting time based on the mage's Arete and Willpower.  Note that the mage can only cast the rite himself.  This rite cannot be performed for someone else.  Since the mage must surround himself with only the trappings of his own magic, the rite also cannot be cast with the aid of any Talismans.  The mage must finish the spell using his own knowledge.

With the mage's inward concentration of personal magic and awareness, and the use of Mind and Spirit magic, he manages to shackle his Avatar, soul and consciousness to his body so that they remain even as the dies.  The Life, Matter and Entropy Spheres halt his body along the path to death and transform his Pattern into something on the cusp between.

Various omissions or mistakes are possible, and they can have many detrimental effects on the process.  Without Mind magic, the mage's consciousness departs as he dies; his body becomes a shell without volition.  Without Spirit, his Avatar flees and he becomes a self-willed but powerless walking corpse, with no magical capabilities (and no ability to learn other supernatural powers, since he is not truly a vampire or one of the Risen).  Without sufficient Entropy, the body's death processes do not come under control in the transformation to Matter, and the mage becomes hideously decrepit (losing one point from each Physical Attribute, his Bruised health level and all Appearance).

If a mage fails to complete the rite successfully, he simply dies, and the potion has no effect except perhaps to make the corpse twitch, choke and turn spasmodically.  If the mage botches the ritual, he manages to kill himself, shred his Avatar (permanently destroying it, perhaps) and generate sufficient Paradox to level his laboratory and bestow an Entropic Resonance on the area.  The remnants of the mage's corpse may will become Quintessence-laden chunks of Tass (though a mage would have to eat the pieces to gain the Quintessense)  or become inhabited by something else out there.

Once a mage becomes a liche, his body stops being a pure Life Pattern and becomes something else.  Sustained by his formidable will and magical prowess, the mage puts off death by keeping it in a sort of holding pattern between Life and Matter.  This has several consequences:

• Once dead, the mage's body becomes cadaverous, gaunt and slightly bluish, like one would expect of a corpse.  This raises all Appearance-related difficulties by 2.
• The liche does not heal naturally.  Only magic can heal his wounds.  Each health level healed requires the expenditure of a point of Quintessence, so the liche is essentially a thaumivore.
• A liche cannot die form lethal damage, only aggravated wounds -- Pattern damage -- can destroy him permanently.  Since the liche's body is dead, he takes only half damage (rounded down after soak) from bashing attacks, and gets a full soak roll (difficulty 6) against lethal damage.  Lethal or bashing damage may incapacitate a liche and cause his body to become nonfunctional for a time, but eventually the liche overcomes the hindrance.  Remember, wound penalties do not affect magical casting difficulties, so the liche can easily use Mind or Spirit magic to send his astral form to gather Quintessence and return to heal the body.
• The liche's body may continue to decay.  Many liches use some Entropy magic to sustain them, but over time they become unconcerned with such trivialities.  Without special preservative magic, the liche's body rots at the speed of natural healing; After a day the liche loses his Bruised health level; 3 days later the Hurt level rots away and so on.  This rotting is visible and causes the mage to lose Appearance (one dot per health level) as he decays, until the rotting is healed.
• Liches are sterile, of course.  No amount of magic can fix that problem.  A liche might simulate sexuality, like a vampire, but ultimately is a half-dead thing without other ways to spend eternity.  A liche can eat and drink, and its body metabolizes food, but it no longer requires sustenance.
• Since a liche is dependent solely upon his own magic to sustain him, the rite burns out connections with any external magical processes.  The liche cannot have True Faith, Fae Blood or similar Merits.  Any such existing ties are destroyed.  A liche can't become a ghoul, vampire or other supernatural creature.
• Upon completing the rite, a liche gains one dot of both Static and Entropic Resonance.  Furthermore, the liche's Resonance is disconcerting not merely to mortals, but also to supernatural creatures.  Vampires, changelings, even spirits and the like all recognize the liche as some sort of  unnatural abomination.  The smart ones flee.  Even other mages are affected, and have a tendency to hunt down and destroy liches.
• As a static creature, the liche can never gain additional Arte -- ever.  He can continue to improve his Spheres but his enlightenment is frozen along with his body and soul.  Ascension has been traded for the chance to exist beyond mortal limits in the quest for magical power.  A liche can suffer Gilgul; many do shortly before they are permanently slain.  Still, the liche has eternity in which to study, improve and expand his knowledge of the Spheres, and he's damnably hard to kill, too.
• Liches cannot have familiars.  (You killed yours as part of the rite, remember?)  this is true even if the liche never had one in life.  The liche's unliving Pattern cannot properly bind familiars.
• The liche rite cannot be undone with simple countermagic.  Most liches also add other protections to prevent unweaving.  Should the rite be undone, the liche finishes the process of dying and becomes a corpse,.  Thus, reversing the rite also requires some way to raise the dead -- good luck with that one.
• A liche can place its Avatar in a phylactery (see the Phylactery Flaw in Mage Revised, p. 300).  This is a necessity if the liche does not have sufficient Spirit to hold on to his Avatar and soul during the rite itself; the liche can bind the phylactery with Spirit 3.
• Liches have a tendency toward insanity.  Nobody goes through the rite without gaining at least one Derangement.  Over time, most liches become increasingly eccentric, until they find themselves completely unable to relate to the "normal" world.
• The process of lichedom so greatly changes the individual's Pattern that his True Name is distorted.  The subject's old True Name no longer applies.  The rite warps its name; someone familiar with the old name and the liche formula might be able to puzzle ou the corrupted name (Intelligence + Occult, difficulty 9).  There is a True Name that is necessary to affect the individual with True Name bindings, banishments and so on.
• Liches are, of course, Paradoxical, and the rite gives the caster permanent Paradox.  The exact amount is up to the Storyteller.  Certainly in a low-fantasy game, a liche suffers from a great deal of Paradox.