[WIP] - True Lich

[Eltoneyes]

True Lich

Lore Friendly Lichdom

 

 

I've been an avid Elder Scrolls gamer for a long time. I started with Morrowind and onward, but I dipped just a bit in Daggerfall. Something that's bugged me about a lot of Lich mods for older TES games is a lot of inconsistencies. I was also irritated by the lack of power or difficulty level of becoming a lich. I've never had the pleasure to play the Illuminated Order mod for Morrowind. From what I hear, it's a fantastic mod. I did, however, play the Lichcraft 2 mod for Morrowind. The goal was to allow the player's character to become a lich in a faster time period. While it did what it set out to do, I felt the rewards were lacking. Even for a lich mod that was supposed to be more powerful than all the others. I also don't understand a lot of the logic in lichdom. Or how people don't follow lore when making liches. For instance...

 

 

Have Liches ever had Phylacteries in the TES series? I don't think so... To defeat liches in Oblivion, for example, you simply had to best them in combat.

 

For a being who transcends death and mortality, why is it such a pain in the rear to disguise oneself? Really, it's just an illusion.

 

Why are liches so weak? Liches should absolutely murder all of their enemies.

 

I've also played D&D. In D&D (at least for older rulesets.) Mages were rather weak at lower levels but got exponentially stronger. Much like other characters. But at the end of the game the mages were grossly overpowered. Despite how unbalanced this may be. I rather like the concept of being an all powerful mage. But it shouldn't be without effort. It should take time and challenging, mind-bending thought to even attempt to become such a creature. In Skyrim, Mages are decent at low levels, but are terrible at higher levels. The spells are just so not up to par with a warrior. A warrior can swing on you all day with a blade that deals damage faster than any spell in a mage's arsenal. The warrior doesn't waste any resources doing this and simply hits a button over and over again. Mages have to spend a long time attempting to cast a spell that will burn through his magicka in seconds. It doesn't have to be like this but it is. Any long-term magic player is at a disadvantage.

 

Why should Magic-oriented players get the short end of the stick with shapeshifting? Warriors get werewolves. Which are pretty decent, and get a large damage buff from the Dawnguard expansion. Thieves get vampires, which can turn into Vampire Lords in a pinch with the Dawnguard Expansion.

 

Becoming a Lich should involve...

 

Adventure - That thing you're supposed to do. Explore lost ruins, go to different worlds. Defeat strange creatures.

 

Puzzles - Not that whale, snake, bird thing. Real puzzles. Y'know, That are meant to be... puzzling.

 

Research - That thing Wizards do all the time. Research! Experiment! Reading! You may not be excited but it's serious.

 

Logic - Binding your soul to a necklace so you can bring your body from hammer space once you die? Nah, just bind your soul to a skull? Makes

more

sense.

 

Actual Quests - Fetch Quests on a whole new level. Get ingredients! Also,

actual

real quests, like talking to mages. Discovering lost secrets!

 

A Proper Lab - Real Wizards have their own labs. Divayth Fyr had his own mushroom tree to work in. Go out and get it!

 

Getting Lost - You're a mouse and this mod is a maze. I'm not going to have you follow a compass the entire time. Anyone can do that!

 

Power - And finally, you're going to get power. Lots of it. Don't lose it, it's a pain to replace.

 

 

What will need to do first? To prevent cheating and serious bugging. I'll make the player unable to play the quest until he cures his Lycanthropy and finishes the main quest. He will also be required to finish the College of Winterhold faction line. And I'm not joking when I say this should all take about 5 hours to do.

 

Going over everything I typed earlier. You can expect real puzzles in this. Not just the sloppy ones or the painfully obvious ones. I'm not holding your hand throughout this and if you're too incompetent to figure out a real puzzle. You might need go and play some real games first. I was a tad disappointed in Skyrim's puzzles. The whole whale/bird/snake thing and the claws. Ugh. I also want to put in serious dungeons. While I won't put in too many dungeons. I want to make them incredibly difficult and long. Not with combat, but with actual planning. You're going to get lost and there will be no compass the ENTIRE time. If you want to transcend death itself you first need to learn how to use a map.

 

Oh and research! I want there to be more books. I love the idea of books. It really makes TES unique and I always felt books were unappreciated. And always ignored in quests. I want the player to learn something about TES. And I want him to pick apart the useful information from the useless information while doing it. I won't be spelling things out, he'll have to find the book himself. (I suggest looking at the titles)

 

Also, for a last note for this section of the post. I want to throw out the fact that liches ARE still killable. I've never seen an invulnerable lich who raised after he was destroyed in combat. The whole phylactery thing won't stand up. If you bring me proof I'll implement it however. If I can figure out how.

 

 

Lich Powers

The Tasty Filling

 

 

Liches are mages who bind their soul to an object. Traditionally, this is a phylactery. However, I dislike the idea of TES being a generic fantasy game. I'd rather the lich bind the soul to their body itself. As such, breaking the body will break the spirit. It will kill the lich. However, killing a lich is difficult because dodging lightning bolts is difficult. A lich is given many powers over human counterparts.

 

A lich is given four modes. These modes represent how it is playing. With our definition of a mode, Vampires would have two modes; flying and walking. Our lich will have four; A ritual casting stance, a walking stance, a hovering mode, and a levitation mode. When the player is playing Skyrim. He will be playing in his disguise. There are no penalties for disguise. The only difference is that when your health reaches zero. You become a lich in stance mode with no magicka. You can't die in your disguise mode, but you simply transform into a more vulnerable state. When the player removes his disguise without being hit and reveals his true nature, he starts in walking mode. It's simply a skin change really. This way, a player looks like he can smoothly and quickly melt away his skin in a fire and reveal a skeletal core. The transformation should be MUCH quicker than the werewolf animation.

 

The modes are simple and are alike to the Vampire Lord. He casts his spells in hovering mode and does "physical" attacks in ground mode. Realistically, in ground mode the lich siphons magicka with his palms from his enemies. He also does slight health damage and knocks the target back if it's small enough. The lich only goes to ground mode in a battle when his magickal reserves reach 0. Ground mode is vulnerable because you cannot use spells and simply attack to gain back magicka. Your magicka regeneration speed is slightly faster, however, and you move slower by running than hovering.

 

Hovering mode is where you can use all of your single hand abilities. Unlike the standard wizard, a lich can cast spells thought of as too strong for a standard wizard instantly. There is no power-up for simple one handed spells in hovering mode. Simply click and shoot. The spells in hovering mode are quite powerful. However, single hand spells consist entirely of destruction and weak forms of conjuration (For a lich). Simple reanimation and explosive beams are what you'll find here.

 

 

It should be important to note that a lich has no armor value and can get hurt very fast. Unless in ritual mode, a lich's magica passively replaces health.

 

 

Levitation Mode is more of a way to get to difficult to reach places. I'm not sure if this can be added at all. But it would allow the player to move fast and through air, as if levitating. While levitating, a lich's magicka would be stunted and would be drained at a constant rate. You would not be able to cast spells. Higher level liches would spend magicka more efficiently.

 

Finally, Ritual Mode is where the lich's true power can be shown. It's very dangerous to be in ritual mode in battle but it's the trademark of a talented lich because it is where you get those fun yet generic powers. Like summoning an undead army or transportation. While in Ritual Mode, the healing abilities that usually heal a lich are gone. And a lich does not learn restoration magic (It is usually unneeded.) Instead, all of the lich's spells are buffed. While the lich moves slower than normal running speed and has no regeneration powers whatsoever, he gains access to his two handed magic abilities. These abilities are the most powerful spells and powers that the lich can perform. They usually consist of conjuration or mysticism. Whereas Hovering Mode consists primarily of destruction magic.

 

A lich also has access to a single power which is reusable throughout all forms. Lich sight, which allows the lich to see creatures through walls and see in the dark better. It has no cool down and no time limit. And can even be used in your disguise. (Don't worry, I don't think anyone will notice that slight red glow in your eyes.)

 

 

Other Stuff

Things I want to Add and Progress

 

 

List of things I want to add or change...

 

Commanding Armies - Find some way to manage your army globally without any micromanagement. Maybe assign a single creature to communicate with?

 

Waging War - I want to raid villages. Or militia camps. It might simply consist of leading undead into a city.

 

A Wizards Tower - Not sure if an underground lair for the lich or a wizards tower. I'm pretty skilled at interiors. Not sure...

 

Companions? - I may be able to disable them? I don't think anyone likes you enough in Skyrim to guard you despite being a lich.

 

 

Progress...

 

Lich Model - 0%

Polymorphing - 80%

Interiors - 5%

Plans for Puzzles - 80% (I've found a decent use for graph paper now.)

Plans for Dungeons - 10%

Spells - 10% (I have about 10 planned out but will think of more along the way)

Quest -

All Written

Books - I dunno how long or how many books I'll use. I want to incorporate vanilla books too so I'll probably sleep on this.

Exteriors - 0% (Hnng)

Sound - 0%

Voices - Never

 

I'll have to sleep on it, but I suck at exteriors and I don't know if I'll do sound. At the most your undead commandos will growl at you or something. Most intelligent communication will simply be in lost tomes of magic from lost wizards. It's more of a solo quest anyways. Currently, my priority is to get a placeholder for the polymorph and do the interiors (This includes dungeons).

[Punisher150]

This is a really great idea. I am also a long-time Elder Scrolls fan and things like this are what I have always wanted to see in the game. There needs to be many more dynamic game play experiences like these. I was always disappointed that you could only fight and hear about magic rituals and things like the Lichs. I always wanted there to be a quest to become one or things of the sort. If you need help with this, I can help, though my modding experience is very limited, as I have just begun.

[kadrion1234]

This idea is good but man It requires much , That's part is okay , But It Requires Much to even start the quest... Does it just work if i add lyntcopy (spelling?) And cured it by console? Also i don't mind doing the colleage quests since im mage anyway but why would i do a line of quests For A warriors Guild? You said to pervent a Single bug , But there are many Ways To Prevent bugs without Requiring so much from the player , Anyway Other then that its Great mod And Goodluck.

[lickmybic]

Dont get too ambitious, having too much work ahead of you is how mods die. You can just use the dragon priest models for the lich, maybe incorperate the need for a dragon priest mask into the ritual, the mask you chood would indicate the dragon priest model you use and gives the lich the bonuses of the mask. Walking mode you could possibly just use draugr animations, and ritual could just have a ward symbol at the feet of the priest.

[contaejus]

My mod "Lich's Soul" requires dawnguard and it is a cheat, but you have to kill a keeper to get the weapon and spell used with my mod.