Armour, Dodge, Parry

[In accordance with making the OSR a better place principles, this is an idea straight from the brain-noggin, there has been no play-testing for this what-so-ever.]

Here's a weird one, mostly from dark souls and such-like.

In dark souls combat scenarios, there are 3 main ways of reacting to damage:

- Tanking it with crazy armour, which reduces it down to manageable amounts
- Dodge roll through it which avoids all damage
- Parry the attack, which not only negates the attack, it also (usually) grants an opportunity to counter attack.

Amour is the most reliable method (as you don't need to actually do anything), though at higher levels it makes dodging attacks harder.
Dodging is the middle of the road in terms of skill, with relatively low risk for the chance to avoid all the damage of an attack.
Parrying is the hardest (and the riskiest) as you forfeit all chance to avoid damage, unless the parry is successful, which also gives you the chance to deal massive damage.

This trifecta of damage avoidance seems pretty cool to me, and is rife with interesting choices, without being over-complicated in the game.

If we wanted to port it over to our RPGs of choice, it isn't quite so simple unfortunately.

Parrying and dodging attacks require knowledge of enemy patterns and good timing on those actions, which obviously doesn't translate well at all.
Armour doesn't quite match DnD style games either, which is a shame.

I think we can make it work though.

We now have three numbers to track in combat in regards to defence (gasp, that's more than one! will it work? no idea).

You have your Dodge Rating, which is tied to reflex/dexterity. This functions like AC in DnD-likes. If an enemy attack roll is under your Dodge Rating, you take no damage.

You have your Armour Rating, which is tied strictly to your equipment. This is damage reduction; the better the armour, the more is subtracted from incoming damage, down to a minimum of 1. Your Armour Rating is also subtracted from your Dodge Rating, or something to that effect.

Finally, you have your Parry Rating, which is tied to your weapon skill. If the natural result of the enemy attack roll is equal to or less than your Parry Rating, they deal no damage, and your deal damage to them, as if you had hit them.

There is something to be said about having "active defence" rolls for things like dodging and parrying. There is also something to be said about keeping rolls down to a minimum, which is what I have gone for here. Hopefully its simple enough that its not going to be overly tricky in play.

It would probably also necessitate smaller numbers that regular DnD-likes, as anyone wearing armour takes less damage all the time if they are hit, but that'll come out in testing I think.

It also opens the door for more interesting "defensive actions". 5e's dodge is all fine and dandy, and LotFP and such's "defensive stance" or whatever it was called is also fine, but with 3 defence types, we can get more funky.

Withstand; forfeit all Dodge Rating, double your Armour Rating.

Dodge; forfeit all Parry Rating, enemy attacks have disadvantage.

Set-up Parry; forfeit all Dodge Rating, double your Parry Rating.

Its a shame I can't quite justify having a nice little defence triangle where each different action forfeited a different defence rating, but we live in an imperfect world, and that's why we can't have nice things.

I like that it seems that each action will be more or less useful depending on your set-up, and the situation, I suspect that much of the time, one will be better, but none will be terrible, and they'll all get their chance to shine.

Hopefully. We'll see I suppose.

Alchemy

The Grand Arts of Alchemy

According to Alchemists, all that is can be divided eventually down into 8 Dominions, through which all matter can be categorised and translated, eventually, through secret and perilous arts. The path of Alchemy is much the same as our modern understanding of science, only mixed in with perhaps equal parts magic, philosophy, and luck. The most dedicated Alchemists end up changes and warped by their secret knowledges, and those that seek the Magnum Opera, are the most twisted of all.

The Dominions of Alchemy

Metal - Base
The name of all base things that are inorganic. Characterised by heaviness, denseness, darkness. The Alchemist with the Knowledge of the Metal domain practices in many ways the most famous of Alchemical practices, the translation of base metals into gold, silver, and other precious metals. Unknown to most, these practices are common, even basic, procedures. The trick is to make it economical. The more immediately useful aspects of the Metallic Alchemist's arts, are the imbibing of properties into metals, such as conductivity to magic, or resistance to the same for example.
Crystal - High
The name of all grand things that bear not the stains of life or the indignities of formlessness. Characterised by beauty, delicateness, lightness. Crystal has many esoteric and unintuitive properties to the uninitiated. Conduction of energies beyond the mortal mind, the focusing and refining of magic, the restructuring of other materials; all these are the realm of the Crystalline Alchemist who knows when to grind, or grow, when to nurture large matrices, or rush small ones.
Liquid - Base
The beginnings of formlessness, labile boundaries and permeable to many manners of things. The most common uses of Liquid Alchemy are the most widely practised; the creation of healing drafts, and other such potions of varying effects. They can range from simple dyes, to deathly concoctions that reek of chemicals. Putties and oils also fall within the Liquid Alchemist's remit.
Aetheric - High
The ending of formlessness; so far removed from being that anything can pass through it. Yet even so it bears many effects on the realms of what is, and is necessary for life (as far as is known), and must in some small way unknown to Natural Philosophy be made up of infinitesimal matter. The Aetherically gifted Alchemist can whip up storms in bottles, or create potent vapours, or remove them entirely from an area.
Flora - Base
The unthinking mode of living flesh and organic compounds. The Alchemist who practices the lore of Floral Alchemy can grow and thus create living things with properties and uses of their desire. Remedies, poisons, drugs, pigments, food-stuffs, all these and more are among the remit of the Floral Alchemist. The most knowledgable Floral Alchemist can even reach past the limits of plants and delve into the secrets of other organic matrices, the powers of soils, certain stones, fabrics even.
Fauna - High
The thinking mode of what lives, which might even give rise eventually to the self, a much sought after goal of Alchemy. The Alchemist versed in Faunal methods can reshape flesh to suit and serve; they can change its material, adapt its purposes, enhance or dull its senses. They can even create small servants to perform small tasks.
Energetic - Heresy
The heresy of the Energetic Alchemist is that they do not deal in matter and being and modes of refinement. The Energetic Alchemist deals in the realm beyond matter to touch on the realms of energy, the base actions of thought, the movement behind the moving. Their currency is lightning, their creations brass and metals in intricate patterns to achieve the impossible.

Alchemical Actions

The Alchemy Roll

In general, most actions you can perform with your secret arts requires either a recipe, or an Alchemy roll. Alchemy rolls consist of you trying to roll beneath your Alchemy skill ranks on a d6, with a number of modifiers attached to the roll. At the DM's discretion, if the task is particularly easy or difficult, the size of the dice can be changed to better represent the challenge at hand.   

Basic Alchemy

This action allows you to turn a material into another material of the same dominion. You need only pass an Alchemy check to do so.

Ascension/Debasement

This action allows you to turn a material of a base dominion into a material of its high dominion, or vice versa. Ascending a material gives a penalty of -1 to your alchemy roll.

Translation

This action allows you to turn a material of a base dominion into a material of another base Dominion.

Infusion/Cancellation

This action allows you to add (infuse) or remove (cancel) a property to/from a material. Ascending a material gives a penalty of -1 to your alchemy roll. You may not infuse additional properties to a material that has more properties than you have ranks in Alchemy.
[In this case, properties refer to special and unusual properties of materials, even those that are not common to their dominion. For example, the healing effects of a potion are a property, the poisonousness of a venom is a property, and the reflectiveness of a metal to name a few.] 

Combination/Separation

This action allows you to combine two materials of the same dominion into a material with both of its component material's properties, or separate a material with at least two properties into two materials of the same dominion with the properties of the original material split between them as the alchemist sees fit. Ascending a material gives a penalty of -1 to your alchemy roll.

Recipe

You can of course bypass all rolls if you posses a recipe, as long as you fulfil the requirement of the recipe. You can learn recipes that you posses in the same way as wizards learn new spells. You can create recipes by passing an Alchemy roll, at your DM's discretion.

Archetypes of Alchemists

Basic
Dealing with lower level materials grants the Basic Alchemist a wide range of knowledge and applicable methods. Note however, that basic does not refer to the techniques and capabilities of the Alchemist, merely the states of matter with which they work. They manoeuvre the modes of matter with expert precision, and restructure, refine, and combine with ease. They seek the Universal Panacea, with which all impurity and ill-humour can be destroyed.
Specialist Dominions: Metal, Flora, Liquid
Magnum Opus: The Universal Panacea
Suggested Recipes: Healing drafts, alchemist's fire, oil of slipperiness, glue bombs.
First Negation: Skin-deep blemishes remove themselves from you. You skin is perfect and smooth.
Second Negation: All features on you become perfectly arranged, mathematically so. Its somewhat unnerving.

Biological
With a focus one the modes of matter that live, Biological Alchemists can sometimes come across as playing at god, rearranging the stuff of life in the means that suit them. They rearrange flesh as easily as speaking, they nurture and cultivate life at a whim. Life is but another tool in their arsenal, and all manner of servants follow them, fulfilling maddeningly specific purposes.
Specialist Dominions: Flora, Fauna
Magnum Opus: True Homunculus
Suggested Recipes: Temporary animal aspect potions, draft of water-breathing, tangle-weed bombs.
First Negation: Your blood changes colour, and your flesh changes texture. The changes are random, and change every few days.
Second Negation: Plant-like materials sprout from odd places on your skin, and your flesh is slightly spongey to the touch.

Aethereal
The Aethereal Alchemists
Specialist Dominions: Liquid, Aetheric
Magnum Opus: Breath of Life
Suggested Recipes: Smoke grenades, vapours of vigour, sleeping drafts, potent acids.
First Negation: You are always buffeted by a unseen, unfelt wind which only affects you.
Second Negation: You hover slightly above the ground. If you breath hard, it can be heard like wind in a canyon.

Empirical
Empirical Alchemists
Specialist Dominions: Metal, Crystal
Magnum Opus: Perfect Translation [The Fundament Forge]
Suggested Recipes: Specially treated metals, artificial arcanite crystal, conduction rods.
First Negation: Your eyes become glassy, your hair becomes metallic and rigid, your nails are iron.
Second Negation: Your bones become hard and crystalline within you, in some places they jut awkwardly (though painlessly) from your body.

Abstract
Quite what it really is that the Abstract Alchemists really do is up for much debate.
Specialist Dominions: Crystal, Fauna, Aetheric
Magnum Opus: The Philosopher's Stone
Suggested Recipes: Drafts of Elemental Immunity, Draft of Mind Erasure, Living Crystals
First Negation: Solid matter in your body becomes subtly gem-like, your blood runs thin.
Second Negation: Your blood is totally gaseous now, bleeding is more like letting air from a balloon. You breath reeks of ozone.

Heretical/Energetic
Dangerous and deviant, Energetic Alchemists must keep their heresies down in the darkness away from prying eyes.
Specialist Dominions: None
Magnum Opus: The Machine Mind
Suggested Recipes: Lightning in a Bottle, Stun Mines, Trip-Wire Bombs, Kinetic Absorbers.
First Negation: Small jolts of light dash along your veins, your teeth spark sometimes when they touch.
Second Negation: Your joints lose some of their plasticity, your muscles curl like plastic tubing beneath your skin.
Conductions: Instead of Specialised Dominions, Conductions allow you to generate energy from Dominions with an Alchemy Roll. Energy is key to following and powering Energetic recipes. You may not Conduct energy from areas you do not have a Conduction for, though when you choose Conductions, you can choose any Dominion for it.

The Alchemical Path - The Easier Way

If you want a simpler way to progress this skill, then just follow the instructions below.
A character gains the following benefits at the following ranks of Alchemy.

1 rank: The character can perform Alchemy Rolls, and chooses their Archetype.
2 ranks: The character chooses one of the Dominions in their Archetype's areas to become a Specialised Dominion. They show the signs of their First Negation. They gain their Archtype's trait.
Basic Trait: +1 to Translation Rolls
Biological Trait: +1 to Infusion Rolls
Aethereal Trait: +1 to Combination Rolls
Empirical Trait: +1 to Rolls to generate Money
Abstract Trait: +1 to Ascension Rolls
Heretical/Energetic Trait: Conductions rather than Specialisations
4 Ranks: The character chooses another Dominion in their Archetype's areas to become another Specialised Dominion. They show the signs of their Second Negation.
Maximum Ranks: The character can now begin work on their Archetype's Magnum Opus. Should they ever complete it, they show the signs of their Final Negation.

The Alchemical Sephirot - The Harder Way

With each rank gained in the Alchemy Skill, the Character gains a new space on the Sephirot, beginning first with Kingdom at the first rank. Each space can only be chosen if the character already posses a space that is connected to it. Thus, the second space chose must always be Foundation, and after that, the third space can be Splendour, Eternity, or Beauty.
Once the maximum number of ranks have been attained, new spaces on the Sephirot can be gained by expenditure of time and resources equal to those needed to have attained the maximum rank, and by achieving something within the field of Alchemy that has never been achieved before.
[This will probably require some amount of DM discretion. In general, the projects to acquire further spaces on the Sephirot should be grand in scope, and novel in some regard at least. Err on the side of generosity as long as they aren't phoning it in.]  
 

Kingdom

This is gained when you take your first rank in Alchemy. With it, you gain basic access to Alchemical processes and knowledge.

Foundation

This is gained when you take your second rank in Alchemy. With it, you gain a Dominion Specialisation from on your chosen Archetype's areas.

Splendour

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you suffer no penalty to Ascension rolls.

Eternity

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you suffer no penalty to Translation rolls.

Beauty

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you gain an additional Dominion specialisation.

Judgement

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you suffer no penalty to Combination and Separation rolls.

Kindness

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you suffer no penalty to Infusion and Cancellation rolls.

Knowledge

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you gain +1 to rolls involving your Dominons of Specialisation.

Understanding

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you gain +1 to rolls concerning Dominions adjacent to your areas of Specialisation.

Wisdom

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank. With it, you gain +1 to rolls concerning Dominions

Crown

You may purchase this Sephirot area when you gain a new rank, as long as you have all three of Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. With Crown, you can begin the long journey to the creation of your Specialisation's Magnum Opus.

The Magnum Opera

The process of creating the Magnum Opera has never been documented in history, though the results of them have popped up here and there in history, presumably created by non-human hands through their mysterious magics and powers. The ultimate dream of every Alchemist is the creation of their Magnum Opus. Some have come close. By the grace of gods, perhaps you will be the first.

Once either the maximum ranks in Alchemy has been gained (if using the easier way) or the Crown has been achieved (is using the harder way), the final project can be put into motion. In no particular order, the Alchemist must succeed on at least 3 Alchemy rolls on a d10 to determine the process of creation. They must obtain the Key Reagent for the creation of the Magnum Opus (which is specific to each Opera) which probably is a great quest in and of itself. Optionally, the Alchemist can also gather up a Catalyst for the reaction, which is not necessary, but makes the final process easier. To create the Magnum Opus consumes the Key Reagent, and requires the Alchemist pass an Alchemy roll on a d12, which can be rolled twice and the better result taken if a sufficient Catalyst is present and consumed. If the roll is passed, the Alchemist must make the Sacrifice, they show the signs of their Final Negation, and their, glistening, gleaming, is the Magnum Opus. Nothing will ever be the same.

The Universal Panacea

Effect: Instant return to maximum hit points, curing of all negative effects, -1 maximum hit points permanently.

Key Reagent: The Roots of the Oolean Poppy Plants

Catalyst: Flesh untouched by Sickness

The Sacrifice: You automatically fail saving throws against poison. 

Final Negation: All blemishes are gone from your body, all deviations smoothed out. You are the perfect (unnervingly and inhumanly so) example of your kind.

The Breath of Life
Effect: You are immune to all the deleterious effects caused by your environment. Inasmuch as they will not kill you, at least. Discomfort and pain are yet your travelling companions.
Key Reagent: An Angel's (or other such space-faring creature's) Lungs
Catalyst: Corpses of Creatures with Elemental Immunities
The Sacrifice: Loss of Homeostasis [you become terribly vulnerable to environmental dangers]
Final Negation: You are always cold, your breath comes out in harsh gasps, dew forms on you at all hours.

The True Homunculus
Effect: If your body is brought back to your Homunculus within a day of your death, you can return from death in a new body.
Key Reagent: Clay of the Garden of Childhood (or wherever mankind was born)
Catalyst: Doppelganger Corpses
The Sacrifice: You automatically fail saving throws against System Shock
Final Negation: Your flesh is sickly and pallid, barely holding itself together. Your mind, however, is sharp as razors, and easily (and harmlessly) removed from your ailing body.

Perfect Translation - The Fundament Forge
Effect: You can create whatever you want, no rolls necessary, gram for gram.
Key Reagent: A Tongue of the Immortal Flame
Catalyst: Vast, VAST amounts of Gold
The Sacrifice: You have the Midas Touch
Final Negation: Your skin is gold; your eyes, gemstones; your blood, a flow of rubies.

The Philosopher's Stone
Effect: You will never die of age, or age related concerns. You maximum hit points cannot be decreased.
Key Reagent: A Heart of an Immortal
Catalyst: The Blood of Many Races
The Sacrifice: Addiction to the Elixir of Life (instant, no save possible)
Final Negation: Your breath is a hurricane within you, your flesh studded with gleaming crystal, your remaining meat a wild kaleidoscope of colours.

The Machine Mind
Effect: Oh shit, its a sentient AI. Fuck. What have you done?
Key Reagent: The Recursive Connection Theory (said to be held by the Djinn Technocrats)
Catalyst: Copious amounts of Lightning
The Sacrifice: You automatically fail saving throws against Devices
Final Negation: Your veins are wires; your meat tubes, metal pipes; your flesh nets, gauze.

[Final Designer Notes]
This is designed for a system like LotFP, where skills are ranked from 0 to 6.

Forest Gods

The Forest God

Deep in the Woods, wild spirits roam freely between the boughs and the bushes, hidden from the unclean gaze of man. The Mightiest of these Spirits are the Living Avatars of the Forests themselves, striding tall between the trees of the Mightiest Forests. Within their realms, which they never leave, they are the undisputed masters, though they act more as guardians and nurturers than Tyrants. Usually. Druids revere them, and rangers respect them, and only the fool-hardy anger them. They tolerate men, though not gladly, their only concern is their Forest, which they will protect at all costs. They aren't quite gods in the sense of almighty men that live in the Sky, but they are worldly, and powerful, and Gods all the same.

Aspects

This is the main aesthetic of the Forest God, combine this with the Forms table to determine what it actually looks like. This is actually all one big d20 table, don't be fooled; it is merely arranged into 3 subtables (and a little bit at the end), and the result tells you which sub-type your aspect is arranged into, plant, elemental, or animal. This affects how you roll on some further tables, and the types of powers and followers the Forest God can have.

Plant Aspects
1 -  Wood
2 - Vines/Brambles
3 - Flowers
4 - Fungus
5 - Leaves
6 - Roots
Elemental Aspects
7 - Stone
8 - Mud
9 - Earth
10 - Tar
11 - Water
12 - Cloud
Animal Aspects
13 - Horn
14 - Fur
15 - Chitine
16 - Swarm
17 - Feather
18 - Bone
Unaligned Aspects
19 - Roll Twice, within the same sub-table
20 - Panopoly, roll once within each sub-table

Form

The shape of the Forest God, made of its aspect. It is always larger than a man, towering over him at least twice as high.

1 - Man
2 - Elk
3 - Faun
4 - Wendigo
5 - Bear
6 - Eagle
7 - Spider
8 - Torrent
9 - Snake
10 - Boar
11 - Beetle
12 - Owl

Features

Additional cosmetic features for your Forest God if you wish. Should probably only have one or two at most.

Plant Aspect Gods roll with advantage, Animal Aspect Gods roll with disadvantage
1 - Too Many Horns
2 - Too Many Limbs
3 - Too Many Eyes
4 - Home to Many Birds
5 - Home to Many Insects
6 - Home to Many Animals
7 - Always Shifting and Moving
8 - Scribed with Ethereal Runes
9 - Smoulders Within
10 - Emits Mist and Fog
11 - Roots Itself into the Earth
12 - Embedded with another Aspect

Terrain/Sacred Space

Where the Forest God dwells within the Woods, where their essence dwells in slumber, where supplicants offer their sacrifices and where the rivers carry the votives by secret water-ways. If Gods can only be killed on their home planes, this is where the Forest God can be slain. Though of course, in their Sacred Space, their powers are at their fiercest, and the God's followers will always come running if violence is brought to the Sacred Space.

Plant Aspect Gods roll with Advantage, Elemental Gods roll with Disadvantage
1 - A Great Lake
2 - A Roaring River
3 - A Huge Cavern
4 - Many Standing Stones
5 - A Stinking Swamp
6 - A Peaceful Clearing
7 - An Almighty Tree
8 - A Vine-Choked Valley
9 - A Flower-Blanketed Field
10 - A Fungal Grove

Followers

Forest Gods should always have at least two sets of followers, maybe as high as five. Destroyed sets of followers should be regained (and rerolled) at the next equinox or solstice. They are fiercely loyal to the Forest God, and often times as intelligent as men if they would otherwise not be. If you don't recognise an entry, just take a peek below, there should be a little description there for you. Or make up your own. Doesn't bother me.

Animal
1 - A Wolf Pack, lead by a King of Wolves - Best 2 of 3d6
2 - A Family of Bears, lead by a King of Bears - d4 + 2
3 - A Swarm of Insects
4 - A Swarm of Birds
5 - A Group of Boars, lead by a King of Boars - 2d8
6 - A Herd of Elk, lead by a King of Elk - 3d10
7 - A Roost of Owls, lead by a King of Owls - 2d4
8 - Clutch of Snakes, lead by a King of Snakes - 2d6
9 - A Unicorn
10 - Wild Fae - d6, exploding

Plant
1 - Dryads - 2d6
2 - Treants - d3
3 - Vine Horrors - d3
4 - Shambling Mounds - d3
5 - A Flowering Colossus
6 - A Forest Giant
7 - Myconids - 3d4
8 - Moss Hermits - d3
9 - Bracken Wolves - 2d3
10 - Wild Fae - d6, exploding

Elemental
1 - Naiads - 2d6
2 - Elementals - d4
3 - A Stone Giant
4 - A Flinty-pede
5 - Earth Motelings - 5d6
6 - A Lightning Bird
7 - A Stone Oracle
8 - Kelpies - d3
9 - A Fog Serpent
10 - Wild Fae - d6, exploding

Kings of Animals
These are beasts always of at least twice as many Hit Die as regular members of their species, and have magnified powers of their lesser kindred. They draw others of their kind to them like magnets, like royal courts. They are the Platonic Ideals of their kind.
Wild Fae
While most Fae are more than content to dwell in the glory of the Faewild, all Woods are in some way connected to the Undying Lands, and these Fae have migrated through to the Mortal World to experience its... grittiness. For some Fae, the thrill of a Duel is hardly as heightened as when the ritual weapon can actually kill you. However, all Fae must have a Lord that they at least respect, and so they congregate around the Forest Gods.
Vine Horrors
They are mostly in the shape of men, or when part of the Forest God's court, the shape of the God. They snake their way through the woods, always rooted to the ground. In their defence, they encase and strangle and suffocate, escaping up the trees or down into the mud if truly at risk. Usually, they merely go about their enigmatic, seemingly purposeless purposes.
Flowering Colossus
Like an animated hill, these hunched beetle-giants of rock and stone carefully cultivate the flowers and mosses that grow upon their backs, leading some to call them Garden Giants. They are gentle, and hard to provoke, but sometimes particularly rare alchemical ingredients will be discovered to grow upon their backs, leading the fool-hardy and ill-informed to attempt to steal from the Colossus. their pulped remains are rarely recognised as such, ground as they have been between the forces of continents.
Moss Hermits
They are the same shape as men, only made of living rock with eyes of precious gems, and cloaks of moss and petals. They own only fishing poles made of still-living wood which they use to fish in the earth itself for jewels, which they use to create new Moss-Hermits. They are very picky about the jewels that they use in their secret rites of creation, and those that don't meet the mark are tossed back down into the muck. They can remain fishing for centuries, as it takes their hooks years to sink down into the earth in some cases, and motionless and patient as they are, the moss will slowly creep over them, encasing them in green. They move only to brush it away from their Gemstone eyes. They are happy to converse with those that speak the language of the stones, dismissive of those that don't, and implacable in their vengeance. They have many friends among the rocks and stones of the earth, and their enmity should not be sought, or lightly made. 
Bracken Wolves
These are the Wolves of the Huntsmaster; meat of mud, ivory of flint, fur of mosses. They have the minds of stones, and so are content mostly to languish and rest to make any cat blush and tut. When roused to blood or anger, they have minds of wolves, and are fiercely strong. They were created as part of the Pact between the Huntsmaster and the Woods, to allow him his hunt-eternal. Such, some rest now in the courts of the Forest Gods, avatars of the Earth as they are.
Flinty-Pede
Long chain-coils of stones and boulders, flinten legs clattering through the ground, basalt mandibles gobbling up the earth, metal-ore-streaks running down their backs. As worms are to soil, so Flinty-pedes are to the deep rocks of the earth. Sometimes, they form friendships with the Forest Gods whose forest's roots seep and snake down into the rock in which they live. Of all the courtiers of Forest Gods, these are perhaps to be feared the most, they bring no signs of their passing, and strike from beneath the very earth you tread on. Their only 'weakness' as such is that they must always be contected to the earth in which they live. If ever seperated from it, they instantly crumble into inanimate rock.
Motelings
Just tiny, cute little elementals. Be careful though, in swarms, they have all the capabilities of their greater cousins, a fact of which they are well aware.
Lightning Birds 
Like their cousins, the Phoenix, Lightning Birds are attuned to that most blinding expression of the Earth's Power. In most weathers, they are the size of eagles, or maybe falcons. When clouds gather, they grow with the strength of the storm that will inevitably follow. They fly at the speed of the flash of light, strike with the force of a thunder clap, and spark and shed blasts of electricity at the touch of water. They are reborn from tiny shreds of blasted wood and earth with the touch of great, momentous storms. These are rare, thankfully, so if you can actually kill one, it will be some time before it can return to hunt you down. And it will return, their memories are long, and uncompromising.
Stone Oracles 
They scratch their messages into the earth; long, gaunt fingers of crystal scoring the future into the muck, eyes of mirror-facets seeing what will come, tectonically accurate, the long-seeing visions of stone with paths as set as the course of stars. They are valuable in every way, their words carry the course of time, their flesh is crystal, and they abhor violence. Almost a dream come true. The Earth is their friend though, and those that would strike down an Oracle would face the Enmity of the World itself, a curse of the greatest magnitude. This doesn't stop some from trying. It never ends well.
Fog Serpents
Normally, Fog-Serpents are the Genii Loci of great storm-clouds, but sometimes they drift down into the woods of Forest Gods to nurture the Forests further. Fighting them is like fighting the weather, in nearly every aspect. They wreath their adopted woods in mists and fogs that coat the ground in ethereal white, and their roar is the distant rumble of thunder. The only blessing we have in the battles against the Fog Serpents, mighty as they are, is that they are almost completely incorporeal. They can summon great winds, and bolts of lightning; but their thick coils, nearly six feet thick, can do you no harm; nor can their great maws swallow you up. Small mercies at least.

Forest God Powers

Forest Gods have Powers from their Aspect equal to the number of Followers they have. They may swap up to one power from their Aspect for a power from another Aspect.
All spells cast by the Forest God are cast as if by a spellcaster with levels equal to the Forest God's Hit Die, and all spells cast at a level equal to the Forest God's Wisdom modifier, unless it would be higher.

Animal
1 - Command Creatures
2 - Set Rots
3 - Inspire Fear
4 - Inspire Rage
5 - Swarm Storm
6 - Wither
7 - Deluge
8 - Ossify
9 - Evolve
10 - Devolve

Command Creatures:
As an action, the Forest God calls upon the creatures that inhabit its domain to serve their lord and Master. In d4 turns, 4 swarms of beasts of the Forest God's choice arrive to serve the Forest God.
Set Rots
The Forest God can cast Contagion as part of a melee attack before making the attack roll, targeting the same creature as the attack. It can do this a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Inspire Fear:
As an action, the Froest God can attempt to cause a living creature to become deathly afraid of the Forest God. The target must make a Wisdom Saving Throw, becoming frightened of the Forest God on a failure for as long as it can see the Forest God.
Inspire Rage:
As an action, the Forest God can attempt to create a boiling storm of fury within a living creature. The target must make a Wisdom Saving Throw, or become so enraged that it must attempt to slay all creatures that it can see, to the best of its abilities. Each time that it takes damage whilst affected by this ability, it can attempt the Saving Throw again, ending the effect on a success.
Swarm Storm
The Forest God can cast Insect Plague once per day.
Wither
The Forest God can cast Blight a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Deluge
The Forest God can cast Tsunami once per day.
Ossify
As an action, the Forest God can attempt to turn a creature into Bone, the target must make a Constitution Saving Throw. It takes d4 dexterity damage on a failure, it is stunned on its turn as its skin begins to calcify, its AC increases by 1 as long as its dexterity is damaged by this ability, and it must make the same saving throw on its next turn to. On a success, the creature takes 1 dexterity damage, and the effect ends. A creature that succeeds on its Saving Throw against this ability cannot be targeted by it again until the next new moon. A creature whose dexterity is reduced to 0 by this effect turns completely to bone.
Evolve
The Forest God can cast Polymorph on a friendly creature a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Devolve
The Forest God can cast Polymorph on a hostile creature a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.

Plant
1 - Shape Wood
2 - Blossom Storm
3 - Spore Storm
4 - Lignify
5 - Sudden Verdence
6 - Blazing Light
7 - Wall of Thorns
8 - Wild Fire
9 - Sudden Decay
10 - Bark Skin

Shape Wood
As a ritual, the Forest God can shape trees, one tree at a time over the course of the ritual, one tree per minute. The Trees can be manipulated into any shape and form the Forest God wishes, which causes no harm to the trees, which continue to grow in their new form once the effect ends. The only restriction to the ability is that the total volume and mass of the trees affected cannot change. The Forest God may also use this ability as an action a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, any changes so effected manifesting immediately.
Blossom Storm
As an action, the Forest God can create a great storm of petals and leaves in a 60 foot radius around it, heavily obscuring everything within the radius. This effect lasts as long as the Forest God wishes, or until it is reduced to 0 Hit Points, and can't be dispelled by anything less than gale-force winds. As a further action during a turn during which this ability is active, the Forest God can thicken the storm further, blinding all creatures except the Forest God within the radius until the start of the Forest God's next turn.
Spore Storm
As an action, the Forest God can create a great storm of petals and leaves in a 60 foot radius around it, lightly obscuring everything within the radius. Any creature except the Forest God within the area that takes damage from any source also takes a further d4 poison damage. This effect lasts as long as the Forest God wishes, or until it is reduced to 0 Hit Points, and can't be dispelled by anything less than gale-force winds. As a further action during a turn during which this ability is active, the Forest God can thicken the storm further, poisoning all creatures except the Forest God within the radius until the start of the Forest God's next turn.
Lignify
As an action, the Forest God can attempt to turn a creature into Wood, the target must make a Constitution Saving Throw. It takes d4 dexterity damage on a failure, it is stunned on its turn as its skin begins to become brown and knotted, its AC increases by 1 as long as its dexterity is damaged by this ability, and it must make the same saving throw on its next turn to. On a success, the creature takes 1 dexterity damage, and the effect ends. A creature that succeeds on its Saving Throw against this ability cannot be targeted by it again until the next new moon. A creature whose dexterity is reduced to 0 by this effect turns completely to wood.
Sudden Verdence
The Forest God can cast Plant Growth a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Blazing Light
The Forest God can cast Dawn and Daylight a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Wall of Thorns
The Forest God can cast Wall of Thorns as an action, though it can only have one instance of the spell active at any time from this ability.
Wild-Fire
The Forest God can cast Firestorm once per day, with the following changes. Each 10 foot cube the spell creates appears one per turn over a minute, and each last 1 minute after the last cube has appeared. Each cube only deals 2d10 fire damage on a failed Saving Throw, or half as much if a creature in it succeeds its Saving Throw.
Sudden Decay
As part of a the damage for a Melee Attack, the Forest God can reduce the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution Scores of the target of the attack by 1d6. It can use this ability a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier.
Bark Skin
As an action, the Forest God can cast Barkskin on all friendly creatures it can see.

Elemental
1 - Shape Stone
2 - Shape Earth
3 - Command Water
4 - Command Wind
5 - Lithify
6 - Liquify
7 - Create Mist
8 - Thunder Storm
9 - Call Elemental
10 - Flash Freeze

Shape Stone
The Forest God can cast Earth Tremor and Stone Shape a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, and Bones of the Earth once per day. It also knows the Mold Earth cantrip, targeting only Stone.
Command the Earth
The Forest God can cast Earth Tremor and Move Earth a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, and Firestorm once per day. It also knows the Mold Earth cantrip.
Control Water
The Forest God can cast Control Water and Wall of Water a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, and Firestorm once per day. It also knows the Shape Water cantrip.
Command Wind
The Forest God can cast Gust of Wind and Warding Wind a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, and Whirlwind once per day. It also knows the Gust cantrip.
Lithify
As an action, the Forest God can attempt to turn a creature into stone, the target must make a Constitution Saving Throw. It takes d4 dexterity damage on a failure, it is stunned on its turn as its skin begins to toughen into stone, its AC increases by 1 as long as its dexterity is damaged by this ability, and it must make the same saving throw on its next turn to. On a success, the creature takes 1 dexterity damage, and the effect ends. A creature that succeeds on its Saving Throw against this ability cannot be targeted by it again until the next new moon. A creature whose dexterity is reduced to 0 by this effect turns is completely Petrified.
Liquify
As an action, the Forest God can attempt to turn a creature into water, the target must make a Constitution Saving Throw. It takes d4 constitution damage on a failure, it is stunned on its turn as it vomits up litres of water equal to the constitution damage it took, and it must make the same saving throw on its next turn to. On a success, the creature takes 1 consitution damage, and the effect ends. A creature that succeeds on its Saving Throw against this ability cannot be targeted by it again until the next new moon. A creature whose Constitution is reduced to 0 by this effect turns completely to water.
Create Mist
The Forest God can cast Fog Cloud and it does not require an action to cast it, though it cannot cast it more than once per turn. It can also cast Windwall a number of times per day equal to its Constitution Modifier. 
Thunder Storm
The Forest God can cast Call Lightning and Thunderwave a number of times per day equal to its Wisdom Modifier, and Storm of Vengeance once per day. It also knows the Thunderclap cantrip.
Call Elemental
The Forest God can bring forth Elementals to serve it faithfully as an action. It can summon a total number of Hit Dice of Elementals equal to double its own with this ability, with no single Elemental having a number of HD greater than twice the Forest God's Charisma Modifier. To manifest particularly powerful Elemental, there must be a natural phenomena of particular beauty, or grandeur home to such an Elemental for the Forest God to call forth.
Flash Freeze
As an action, a sudden wave of cold magics gush forth from the Forest God, freezing the ground in a 60 foot square touching the Forest God, turning the area into difficult terrain. Any creature in the area when the ability is used must make a Constitution or Strength Saving Throw (the creature's choice) or be frozen in place and immobilised. A creature that starts its turn immobilised because of this ability takes 2d6 cold damage at the start of its turn, and it can attempt the saving throw again if it is still conscious, ending the effect on it on a success.

Vampires

Well, Vampires are pretty cool. Here are some tables for Vampires I guess. Look, I'm not good at these introduction things.

The Vampiric Archetypes

The Vampire's archetype informs their powers, and their disposition, how they approach Unlife, their problems, their Vice.

1 - The Lord
2 - The Debaucher
3 - The Impersonator
4 - The Knight
5 - The Arcane
6 - The Black Captain
7 - The Beast
8 - The Shapeless
9 - The Druid
10 - The Thin
11 - The Grave
12 - The Corpse

The Lord:
The classic vampire, brooding, powerful, dominating, proud.
The Debaucher:
She meets you in the parlours, in the salons. She catches your eyes every time, and she always leads the proceedings by example. Eventually you catch her eyes, and she catches your neck.
The Impersonator:
You would never know that it was them. They are slightly pale, but they've just had a period of sickness, its only natural. There wasn't anything off about them was there?
The Knight:
She bears ancient arms and armours, wields them with impeccable skill from centuries of honing and slaughter. A laugh rises from her throat like oil from a well.
The Arcane:
They are thin and gaunt and lifeless, all the energy has left them, and gone into the Great Work. They work the subtle art like a dancer, a musician, elegant and masterful. You will not be able to appreciate it for long. Savour it while you can.
The Black Captain:
He comes riding the black horse, dark and imperious. He raises a hand, darkness seeps from him like water, and the hordes of the dead stalk forth from it.
The Beast:
Vampires have no humanity left, only a pretense and an ego. The Beast has shed even these.
The Shapeless:
This one has left behind everything, even its old shape, it twists and contorts; the powers of the Vampire have granted this one its desires, perfect power over itself.
The Druid:
What is the self but a temporary state between fruit and fallow? The Druid recognises that dust we are, to dust we must return. It is a priest of the earth, an agent of its desires, a witness to the strength of the Great Mother.
The Thin:
Withered and dry, this one lurks on the edges, takes what it can when it can. Barely above an animal. Eyes like a predator. Like a murderer.
The Grave:
Lie rotting and stinking in the earth. Feed worms. Give nothing, take nothing. Master of silence. The only thing that is sacred when you're dead is peace.
The Corpse:
There are no pretenses among the dead. You know what you are, why pretend to be any different? As the living surround themselves with the living, so the dead surround themselves with the dead.

The Vampire's Lair

Lords, Debauchers, and Impersonators roll with disadvantage. Beasts, Shapeless, and Druids roll with disadvantage. 

1 - A Dark and Dead Castle, dry and dust and stone, the ghost of opulence yet lingering.
2 - A Rotting and Ruined Tower, a crooked and broken finger accusing the sky.
3 - A Dilapidated Manor, slowly sinking beneath the weight of years.
4 - Among Society, in the last place you'd expect, or perhaps dare to look.
5 - A high and lonely Mountain Lodge, kept company only by the howls on the wind.
6 - Hidden in Plain Sight; really? It was them? All along?
7 - A grand and echoing Museum/Gallery, figments and fragments of secret pasts.
8 - The deep reaches of the Sewers, keeping the muck and filth at bay as best as they can.
9 - A Graveyard, quiet and empty save for the stone markers of things long since passed.
10 - An incalculably Ancient Temple, they may even remember it being pulled from the earth.
11 - A vast and empty Megalithic Hall, they trace the old paintings with something like fondness.
12 - The depths of the Dungeon, sequestered between devices of pain and the jail cells.
13 - Amongst the hooks and drains of a Slaughterhouse, reclining between remnants of death.
14 - In the secret and hidden chambers of a Pyramid, walking amongst the memories of rituals
15 - The Tunnels beneath the Moor, lurk between roots, huddle beneath stones.
16 - A Sepulcher and the Crypts beneath it, winding and coiling, homes for corpses.
17 - A Cave System, down into the earth like cancer, cysts of stone, veins of rivers.
18 - A Dark Forest, dark boughs, dark roots, dark earth, dark growth, dark beasts.
19 - In the Roots of Trees, hidden halls and archways, drink the sap from the follicles.
20 - Beneath the surface of a Stagnant Lake, stinking and grimy, slick with mud.

The Vampire's Powers

Vampires begin life with only 1 power, but gain 1 more when they break free of their creator's control (or they start with two if they did not begin under the control of another vampire). They gain 1 HD and an additional power every 100 years.

The following lists are suggestions, and having one or two powers outside of the "normal" domains won't break anything really.

Lords should split their rolls between Physical and Mental Powers.

Debauchers should split their rolls between Mental and Sorcerous Powers
Impersonators should split their rolls between Transformation and Mental Powers.
Knights should split their rolls between Physical and Transformation Powers.
Arcane vampires should split their rolls between Sorcerous and Necromantic Powers.
Black Captains should split their rolls between Physical and Necromantic Powers.
Beasts should split their rolls between Transformation and Elemental Powers.
Shapeless vampires should split their rolls between Transformation and Sorcerous Powers.
Druids should split their rolls between Sorcerous and Elemental Powers.
Thin vampires should split their rolls between Necromantic and Elemental Powers.
Grave vampires should split their rolls between Elemental and Physical Powers.
Corpses should split their rolls between Mental and Necromantic Powers.

Physical
1 - Impossible Strength
2 - Impossible Speed
3 - Near Invulnerability
4 - Regeneration
5 - Impossible Skill At Arms
6 - Life-Vision
7 - Spider Climb
8 - Venom
9 - Echolocation
10 - Swallow Whole

Impossible Strength:
The Vampire has advantage on all strength checks, a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls using strength, and it deals d12 damage with its unarmed strikes.
Impossible Speed:
The Vampire can gain the effects of Haste without using an action, but no more than once per hour. This ability is not a spell.
Near Invulnerability:
The Vampire gains bonus Hit Die equal to half its normal Hit Die, and it gains a +2 bonus to AC.
Regeneration:
The Vampire regains 2d4 Hit Points at the start of each of its turns. This does not happen if the Vampire is exposed to any of its weaknesses, regardless of severity.
Impossible Skill At Arms:
The Vampire gains a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls using weapons, and it gains two additional reactions each turn, which it can use to backstep 5 feet when an enemy moves within 5 feet of it (without triggering attacks of opportunity) and to parry enemy blows (adding +4 to its AC for that single attack). It can only use these benefits whilst wielding a weapon.
Life-Vision:
The Vampire can see all creatures in its line of sight, regardless of (non-magical) obstructions.
Spider Climb:
The Vampire can gain the effects of Spider Climb without using an action, at will. This ability is not a magic spell.
Venom:
Rather than dealing necrotic damage when using its bite attack, the Vampire deals poison damage, and poisons the target, which additionally loses d6 Hit Points each turn it is poisoned.
Echolocation:
The Vampire gains +10 to its passive perception if the creature moving makes any noise at all, but suffers -5 to its passive perception if it is totally silent instead. It also knows the precise location of anything it can hear, even if it is invisible, or otherwise hidden.
Swallow Whole:
When a creature is hit by the Vampire's bite attack, it must make a Strength saving throw or be swallowed whole, suffering 3d10 necrotic damage each turn it remains so. It can attempt to escape as if grappled on its turn.

Sorcerous
1 - The Evil Eye
2 - Dance Macabre
3 - Shadow Transposition
4 - Mirror Transposition
5 - Statue Animation
6 - Portrait Magics
7 - Flight
8 - Invisibility
9 - Hexes
10 - VooDoo Dolls

The Evil Eye:
If the Vampire wishes, each creature that meets its gaze directly is afflicted with a curse, as if by Bestow Curse.
Dance Macabre:
As an action, the Vampire can cast Otto's Irresistible Dance on creatures whose total Hit Die don't exceed the Vampires own.
Shadow Transposition
As part of its movement, the Vampire can magically teleport between any area of darkness without using any movement that it can see (bearing in mind that Vampires can see in total darkness).
Mirror Transposition
As part of its movement, the Vampire can magically teleport between two points, as long as it is touching a mirror at the start and end of the teleportation. There is no limit to the distance the Vampire can travel with this power, as long as it is aware of the locations of both Mirrors.
Statue Magics
As a ritual, the Vampire can magically become aware of anything that it could perceive if it was standing in the place of any statue in its domain. As an action, it can also cause any statue in its domain to animate, as a 3HD creature.
Portrait Magics
As a ritual, the Vampire can magically become aware of anything that can be seen by any eyes depicted in Paintings in its domain, or it can speak through any mouths depicted in paintings in its domain. The contents of any Paintings are also decided by the Vampire's whims.
Flight
The Vampire gains a Flying Speed equal to its movement speed.
Invisibility
As an action the Vampire can magically become Invisible. It can use this ability for a total of 10 minutes each day.
Hexes
As a ritual, the Vampire can cast Bestow Curse, Hex, or Bane on any creature it is aware of, with no limit on range, as long as it possess a part of the creature's body, or an item of significant personal history.
VooDoo Dolls
Over the course of a day, the Vampire can create a VooDoo Doll of a creature it is aware of, as long as it possess a part of the creature's body, or an item of significant personal history. Any injury that the Vampire causes to the doll is felt (but not replicated) by the Victim's body, and the victim must make a Constitution Save or be stunned by the pain. Any injury that would result in serious bodily harm (such as the removal of a limb or vital organ) incapacitates the victim until they pass a Constitution Save on their turn.

Necromantic

1 - Blood Control
2 - Corpse Control
3 - Call Souls
4 - Blood-Limbs
5 - Bone Beast
6 - Control Bone
7 - Cause Disease
8 - Unknit Flesh
9 - Blasphemous Speech
10 - Banshee Scream

Blood Control:
The Vampire can manipulate small amounts of Blood it can see as if by Telekinesis, without using an action. It can also use an action to attempt to manipulate larger bodies of Blood as if using the spell Control Water targeting the Blood. The Vampire can also target the Blood within a living creature to attempt to control them as if with Dominate Person, if the creature fails a Constitution saving throw, rather than the save the spell normally requires.
Corpse Control:
The Vampire can animate corpses under its control as an action. It can animate and control a total number of Hit Dice of undead equal to double its own with this ability, with no single undead having a number of HD greater than the Vampire's Charisma Modifier. To manifest particularly powerful undead, there must be corpses of a creature that was particularly powerful in life.
Call Souls:
The Vampire can manifest angry souls as incorporeal undead under its control as an action. It can manifest and control a number of Hit Dice of undead equal to its own with this ability, with no single undead having a number of HD greater than the Vampire's Charisma Modifier. To manifest particularly powerful incorporeal, undead there must be some resident restless spirit for the Vampire to manipulate, rather than the general haze of wandering spirits it normally calls upon.
Blood-Limbs:
If there is Blood that the Vampire can see, it can manifest the Blood as a necromantic extension of itself, roiling semi-solid material forming additional crimson limbs and armour. The Vampire gains a pool of temporary Hit Points that it can fill from the Blood. The maximum of this pool is equal to half the Vampire's normal maximum hit points. As a bonus action it can add up to 10 Temporary Hit Points worth of Blood to its Blood-Limbs pool. It can use an action to add any number of Temporary Hit Points worth of Blood to its Blood-Limbs pool. For every 10 temporary hit points in its Blood-Limbs pool, the Vampire increases its AC by 1, and it gains an additional Claw Attack that deals half damage. It should be assumed that any pool of Blood can provide Hit Points equal to the damage that was dealt to the original owner of the Blood to cause it to shed that blood.
Bone Beast:
As a ritual, the Vampire can animate the Bones of a creature, or group of creatures into a Bone-Beast, with Hit Die equal to the total Hit Die of the creatures whose Bones constitute the Bone Beast. The Vampire can create a Bone Beast with Hit Die equal to a maximum of two thirds its own, rounded down.
Control Bone:
The Vampire can animate bones to create undead skeletons under its control as an action. It can animate and control a total number of Hit Dice of undead equal to double its own with this ability, with no single undead having a number of HD greater than the Vampire's Charisma Modifier. To manifest particularly powerful undead, there must be the bones of a creature that was particularly powerful in life. The Vampire can also attempt to control the Bones within a living creature, treating that creature's Hit Die as part of the pool of Hit Die the Vampire can control with this ability. If the target fails a Constitution Saving Throw, it is treated as being under the effects of a Dominate Person spell.
Cause Disease:
The Vampire can cast Contagion a number of times per day equal to its Constitution modifier.
Unknit Flesh:
As an action, the Vampire can attempt to unknit the flesh of another creature. The Vampire and the Target make a contested Constitution check. If the Vampire bests the target, the target suffers 3d10 damage as their flesh is warped and torn, and it is stunned for a number of turns equal to the number of dice that showed 5 or more. If the Target is victorious, the Vampire takes d10 psychic damage from the strain of losing.
Blasphemous Speech:
As an action, the Vampire can cast Unholy Word a number of times per day equal to its Charisma modifier.
Banshee Scream:
As an action, the Vampire can unleash a Banshee Scream. Any creature that can hear the scream, and that is within 60 feet of the Vampire must make a Constitution Saving Throw. Any creature more than 30 feet from the Vampire has advantage on the Saving Throw. A creature that fails and that has less Hit Points than the Vampire has Hit Die, is instantly slain. Other creatures that fail, and creatures that succeed and have less Hit Points than the Vampire has Hit Die, have their Hit Points halved. Other creatures that succeed the Saving Throw take 1 damage.

Mentalism

1 - Domination
2 - Minions of the Night
3 - Sow Mistrust
4 - Uncanny Whispers
5 - Utter Silence
6 - Cause Terror
7 - Blood Frenzy
8 - Induce Despair
9 - Nightmare Manifestation
10 - Moonlight Illusions

Domination:
The Vampire can cast Dominate Person on any creature with Hit Die equal to or less than its own. Creatures with 1 Hit Dice are allowed no save against this ability. A creature that succeeds on the Saving Throw against this ability cannot be affected by it any more.
Minions of the Night:
As an action, the Vampire calls upon the Nocturnal creatures that inhabit its domain to serve their lord and Master. In d4 turns, a Swarm each of Bats, Rats, and Gnats arrive to serve the Vampire.
Sow Mistrust:
As a ritual, the Vampire can attempt to sow discord and thoughts of betrayal amongst a group of creatures with total Hit Die equal to or less than the Vampire's own Hit Die that it has seen within the last 24 hours. Each creature must make a Wisdom Saving throw, and each creature that fails will now no longer fully trust their allies. At a minimum, affected creatures will refuse all beneficial spells and actions from their team-mates; attempting saving throws against spells cast on them, gaining no benefits from Help actions, etc. This effect lasts until the Vampire rests.
Uncanny Whispers:
As part of its action, the Vampire can cast Dissonant Whispers against a creature that can hear it within 10 feet. If it attacks a creature, it can only target that creature with this ability that turn. 
Utter Silence:
At will, the Vampire can cause an area of 100 feet around it to become supernaturally silent, as if affected by a Silence spell. Other sounds from a further 100 feet away are muffled and subdued, and can only be heard from half as far away as normal.
Cause Terror:
As an action, the Vampire can attempt to cause a living creature to become deathly afraid of the Vampire. The target must make a Wisdom Saving Throw, becoming frightened of the Vampire on a failure for as long as it can see the Vampire.
Blood Frenzy:
As an action, the Vampire can attempt to create a boiling storm of fury within a living creature. The target must make a Wisdom Saving Throw, or become so enraged that it must attempt to slay all creatures that it can see, to the best of its abilities. Each time that it takes damage whilst affected by this ability, it can attempt the Saving Throw again, ending the effect on a success.
Induce Despair:
As an action, the Vampire can drain the spirits of those nearby. All creatures within 30 feet of the Vampire must make a Wisdom Saving Throw. Creatures that fail and have less Hit Points than the Vampire has Hit Dice are incapacitated for 1 hour. Other creatures that fail are affected as if by a Slow spell. None of the effects of this ability are magical. Creatures that succeed on their Saving Throw against this ability cannot be affected by it again.
Nightmare Manifestation:
The Vampire can cast Phantasmal Force against any creature it can see. If the Vampire knows the Creature's darkest fear, it can instead cast Phantasmal Killer. It can only cast Phantasmal Killer once per day with this ability.
Moonlight Illusions:
As a ritual, the Vampire can cast Hallucinatory Terrain on any or all parts of its domain as it wishes. It can only use this ability, and the effects of this ability only manifest, on nights when there is visible moonlight.

Elementalism

1 - Decay Iron
2 - Entomb
3 - Ice Affinity
4 - Darkness Control
5 - Withering Touch
6 - Aging Touch
7 - Control Weather
8 - Control Flame
9 - Liquid Night
10 - Control Water

Decay Iron
As an action, the Vampire can destroy a number of pounds of iron with a touch equal to their Hit Dice.
Entomb
As an action, the Vampire can force a creature it has grappled down into the earth, 2 feet down below the surface. It takes 10 rounds worth of digging to unearth the creature again, though using proper tools increases the effective "rounds" of digging a creature does each turn to d4, though rolls of 4 also deal that much damage to the entombed creature.
Ice Affinity
The Vampire is immune to Cold Damage if it wasn't already, suffers no penalties for trying the move on ice nor for trying to see in blizzard conditions. It also gains an effective burrow speed equal to half of its movement speed that it can only use to move through ice.
Darkness Control
Without using an action, the Vampire can effectively cause any light source to dim to the brightness of a candle, or increase in brightness as much as it wishes, by increasing or decreasing the darkness in the area. It can manipulate the shape of darkness in any way it wishes too, even if such a formation should be impossible.
Withering Touch
The Vampire can cast Blight with a range of touch and number of times per day equal to its Constitution modifier.
Aging Touch
As an action, the Vampire can age a creature it touches. The target must make a Constitution Saving Throw, aging d4 years on a success, and by 3d4 years on a failure. The target's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores also take temporary damage equal to the number of dice it was aged by from the system shock.
Control Weather
The Vampire can cast Control Weather and Call Lightning as rituals.
Control Flame
The Vampire can cast Pyrotechnics and Investiture of Flame a number of times per day equal to its constitution modifier, and Firestorm once per day. It also knows the Control Flame cantrip.
Command the Earth
The Vampire can cast Earth Tremor and Move Earth a number of times per day equal to its constitution modifier, and Firestorm once per day. It also knows the Mold Earth cantrip.
Control Water
The Vampire can cast Control Water and Wall of Water a number of times per day equal to its constitution modifier, and Firestorm once per day. It also knows the Shape Water cantrip.

Transformation

1 - Misty Form
2 - Demonic Form
3 - Animal Form
4 - Dust Form
5 - Swarm Form
6 - Perfect Disguise
7 - Stone Form
8 - Ethereal Form
9 - Shadow Form
10 - Unwholesome Plants

Misty Form
The Vampire can assume a Gaseous Form as an action, as per the effects of the spell of the same name.
Demonic Form
The Vampire can assume the form of a Demons or Devils as an action, with the limit that the Demon Form can have a number of Hit Die equal to or less than the Vampire's own. Any damage dealt to the Demon Form also carries over to the Vampire.
Animal Form
The Vampire can cast Polymorph on itself a number of times per day equal to its Constitution modifier.
Dust Form
When reduced to 0 Hit Points, the Vampire dissolves into dust, and blows away on an ethereal wind. It can then act as normal, though it only exists ethereally, with a number of hit points equal to its Hit Dice. The Vampire can only reform its Physical Body whilst resting within its coffin. If reduced to 0 Hit Points while in Dust Form, it is slain permanently regardless of the presence of Deadly Weaknesses.
Swarm Form
As an action, the Vampire can assume the form of a Swarm of Insects, replacing its stats with the Swarms, except for mental statistics and magical abilities. It can do this a number of times per day equal to its Constitution Modifier.
Perfect Disguise
The Vampire can cast Disguise Self on itself at will. The DC to discern the Illusion or to dispel it, or even to detect it magically, is equal to the Vampires's Hit Die, or its Intelligence score, whichever is higher.
Stone Form
The Vampire can cast Flesh to Stone and Passwall on itself at will.
Ethereal Form
Once per day, the Vampire can cast Etherealness.
Shadow Form
At will, the Vampire can become a shadow, becoming virtually invisible in the darkness. None of its statistics change whilst in Shadow Form.
Unwholesome Plants
The Vampire can animate plants under its control as an action. It can animate and control a total number of Hit Dice of plant-creatures equal to double its own with this ability, with no single creature having a number of HD greater than the Vampire's Charisma Modifier. To manifest particularly powerful plant-creature, there must be particularly large and potentially magically charged plants to be animated.

Weaknesses

Vampires have 4 Weaknesses. Each Weakness has a severity, from Weakened to Deadly. One of the Weaknesses must be Deadly severity. When you roll each Weakness, roll a d4 to determine the Weakness's severity. Weaknesses 1 to 5 roll the d4 for severity with disadvantage. Weaknesses 16 to 20 roll the d4 for severity with advantage.

Severity
1 - Weakened
2 - Repelled
3 - Immobilised
4 - Deadly

Weaknesses
1 - White Lilies
2 - Tears of True Love/Grief
3 - Social Rules
4 - Disorder
5 - Mirrors
6 - Holy Items
7 - Living Wood
8 - Diseased Blood
9 - Copper
10 - Coffin Nails
11 - Bone of Virgins
12 - Rope from a Hanging
13 - Antivenoms
14 - Ink
15 - Blessed Water
16 - Sunlight
17 - Salted Flames
18 - Silver
19 - Flint
20 - Lightning

The Vampire's Vice

Each Vampire has a vice, or maybe more than one. This they cannot resist.

1 - Food
2 - Art
3 - Pride
4 - Violence
5 - Sex
6 - Themselves
7 - Drugs
8 - Drink
9 - Pampering
10 - Pain
11 - Gambling
12 - Hunting
13 - Sloth
14 - Riches
15 - Beauty
16 - Envy
17 - Dark Knowledge
18 - Sowing Betrayal
19 - Betrayal
20 - Contest

The Tell-Tale Sign

This is that tiny crack in each Vampire's facade, the physical flaw that betrays them. Some of these can be hidden, or avoided. But the Vampire can never remove the Tell-Tale sign, and they must always be diligent of it, or risk their nature becoming known. 

1 - Pale and dry skin, supernaturally so.
2 - They can't quite hide the look of hunger.
3 - Their irises are a terrible shade of red.
4 - They blister and blight at the touch of copper.
5 - They cast no shadows, or reflections.
6 - Cats and other such 'elegant' animals hate them.
7 - Water freezes in their presence.
8 - It is always cloudy near them, storms are especially terrible near them.
9 - Grave-stones crack at their passing.
10 - Glass and reflective surfaces frost over near them.
11 - Condensation forms constantly on the eyes of statues and paintings near them.
12 - Rats are abhorrently large and aggressive in the Vampire's domain.
13 - The Vampire's foot-prints are taloned and animalistic.
14 - Holy Symbols tarnish and dirty at their passing.
15 - Smoke coils into demonic and leering faces in their presence.
16 - Food rots and spoils in seconds in their presence.
17 - Wood dries and creaks and weakens at their passing.
18 - Living plants desiccate and wither at the Vampire's passing.
19 - The Vampire cannot touch silver.
20 - Water will not stick to the Vampire, nor soak into its clothes.

Minions

The Vampire has a set of minions for every 3 full Hit Die it has.

1 - Miserable Men (3d8)
2 - Twisted Beasts (2d6)
3 - Swarms of Nocturnal Beasts (2d6)
4 - Swarms of Insects (2d6)
5 - Zombies (5d6)
6 - Skellingtons (5d6)
7 - Spawn Vampires (d6)
8 - "Built-Men" (d6)
9 - Ratfolk (3d6)
10 - Minor Demons (d4)
11 - Lamenters (d6)
12 - Bound Spirits (2d4)
13 - Gaunts (d4)
14 - Blood-Wraiths (d4)
15 - Raven-Knights (d4)
16 - Sycophants (3d8)
17 - The Brain-Washed and Broken (4d10)
18 - Shades (2d6)
19 - Ghoules (3d6)
20 - A Necromancer

Weirdo Minions

Built Men - Your classic flesh-golem/frankenstein monster. Hideously strong for a creature with the form of man, but lacking self-actualisation, they just follow orders and are easily subducted by the Vampire's dominating presence.

Lamenters - The dead who still have too much life to live when they die, and freed from mortality, find that their old desires and ambitions pale in the face of eternity. Apathetic and unconnected, some will enter the company of a Vampire to seek new heights of depravity and a break from monotony, for a time at least.

Gaunts - Elves cannot die, this much we know. Dead Elves however, can be turned undead, and Gaunts are what they become. They are yet more alien than those most inhuman peoples, and they are just so much more than us humans, they can't help but take the air we breath, drain the liquids from our eyes, steal the skin from our flesh, pull the the teeth from our mouths. They don't even really try to. It just happens.

Blood-Wraiths - Some truly desperate Vampires seek battles like hyenas seek lions; they are looking for easy meals just being left around. Such vast quantities of blood seeping down into the ground inevitably come into contact with the ancient dead, and wandering spirits of the earth; they fuse and merge, and from these places of incredible slaughter rise Blood-Wraiths. They are easily controlled by Vampires, lacking all sense of self as they do, even the presence and unconscious thoughts of the Vampire is pressure enough to assert control over them. They become crimson mirrors of their host-lord, wandering as the Vampires thoughts wander, reflecting its deeds in and as red shadows.

Raven-Knights

These are Vampire-Spawn of a sort, though only the most dishonorable warriors end up as Raven-Knights. The cowardice and hate in life is twisted into black fury and supernatural calm under the Vampire's curse. To the Raven-Knight, this is ecstasy. They are suddenly powerful and masterless, nearly. They pledge loyalty to the Vampire, because that is what they feel like they should do, they serve because they know this is right, and the way they will earn what the Vampire has given them. This is of course, all the mental prodding of the Vampire Master. They stoke the black coals in the Raven-Knight's soul, whilst also silently, without any tell-tale signs, tying the chains of dependency in the Raven-Knight's mind.

Super-Duper Weirdo Variant

So, Vampires drink blood right?

Well, you know what blood is? THATS RIGHT, ONE OF THE FOUR HUMOURS. Some vampires devour the other humours. Heres which ones drink which:

Sanguine

1 - The Lord
2 - The Debaucher
3 - The Impersonator
They are the classic Vampire, social and hedonistic at times, introverted at others, but always supremely self-assured. They have affinity with air, and heat, which they crave. Time has little meaning for them, convinced as they are that the world does actually revolve around them, and they don't put much effort into remembering things, assured that what is important will "stick". Sanguine Vampires drink the blood from your veins, gulping it down even as it spills from their mouths and coats their chins and chests.

Choleric
4 - The Knight
5 - The Arcane
6 - The Black Captain
The thing that drives Choleric vampires more than than anything else, is the allure of mastery, over themselves, magic, others, it matters little as long as there are none who can surpass them. They have affinity with fire, and are plagued by mood-swings. Choleric Vampires drink a strange pale liquid from their victims, who often survive the experience, but will invariably be struck down by terrible sicknesses before the month is up.

Phlegmatic
7 - The Beast
8 - The Shapeless
9 - The Druid
They are selfless (as far as Vampires can be), such that they give up what they are, or serve things other than themselves. They have affinity with water, and apathy. They care deeply for nothing (save their vice) and are quiet, and ever so slightly curious. Phlegmatic Vampires drink in the vapours from your lungs, steal the very breath from your mouths.

Melancholic
10 - The Thin
11 - The Grave
12 - The Corpse
They are dead on the inside. They have affinity with the earth, the cold. Obsessed with tragedy and perfection (of a sort) they will frequently forget their pasts. Melancholic Vampires drink the bile from your body, and if the shock of their feeding (they are the least careful and elegant of all vampires after all) then you will die shortly after, as poisons build up in your body, and the very food you eat corrupts you.

Liches

Liches
So I've ended up writing about an undergraduate dissertation's worth of words about Liches of all things. Most of it is just weird and wild forms of Liches, non-standard stuff to be sure.

[Pontification Warning: Flee while you can]
I think this was mostly fuelled by some guy (or gal, who knows) on reddit who dismissed the idea that you could have a level 1 Lich, or that a level 1 character could become a Lich. To this I say POPPYCOCK AND BALDERDASH!!! A Lich (for my purposes) is a being who's soul has been removed from its body, and thus is reduced to an undead existence, immortal and undying yet sustained by its Phylactery, which contains the last dregs of its old life. I don't see why this has to be the purview of only high-level wizards, or even that the person who becomes the Lich is even necessarily the person who made them a Lich. It opens so many doors and opportunities (some of which have been explored below).
And please, this isn't an attack against that person. We are all free to like what we like, and who am I to impose rules on other peoples imaginary elf-games? If you like the "purity of what a Lich is" as presented in monster books of your system of choice, just ignore all mentions of Lich, and just steal the ideas you like (if any). I think that's kind of the point of ever doing anything in a public DnD blog like this one. Take what you like, leave what you don't.

Any, enough self-righteous pontificating; Liches.

I've got a mere 8 tables/idea mines for you today:
- Types of Lich
- Special Liches (more like unique Liches, those who twist the idea a little less than the ones above)
- Lich Phylacteries
- Lich Ambitions
- Lich Madnesses
- Lich Lairs
- Lich Weaknesses
- Lich Powers

The Types of Liches are twists on the formula (well 18 or so of them at least are) of a crazy old magic-man with his soul in a box in the basement. Sometimes its the box, sometimes its the old man. One of them is a druid, one of them is a monk, and a Paladin too. I tried to represent as many classes as I could. The other main goal was to present the idea that there are many different ways to become a Lich. Not all of them as "good" as others, but not all of them will be available to any given person. Sometimes you have to make do with what you have, and deal with the consequences later. But they are all, loosely at least, Liches.

The Special Liches are more like unique Liches, those ones who followed the instruction manual, but added their own special steps, rather than reinventing the wheel. Just, read them and see.

Lich Phylacteries are just that, a list of potential objects a Lich might use as a Phylactery. These are ones for those Liches who want to last. The more personal the object, the more connection the Lich has to it, the stronger the bond the Phylactery forms with the soul within. Of course, a Lich could make a random grain of sand in the desert its Phylactery such that it can never be found, but the Phylactery will not hold the soul for long, and lose it eventually, bringing mortality back into the question for the Lich. This might be the point.

Lich Ambitions are similarly straight forward. When forever is your time-frame, only the grandest of goals will ever do.

Lich Madnesses are the quirks that wrack the Lich as the weight of uncountable years sets in. Even the most secure of Phylacteries can't be water-proof (or soul-proof I guess) and as such, tiny bits of the Lich leak out over the centuries. These are how that might manifest.

The list of Lich Lairs is honestly the weakest part of all this I think. They are loose and flapping like flags in a gale. They are just the seeds of ideas where I'd love to give near-full-grown saplings. But we're already at a dangerous density of words, so seeds will have to do I think. Maybe for some of you that's a good thing.

Every good Bad Guy needs a Weakness and while this list could easily be one of the most expansive here, I've kept this one a little briefer than maybe I should, because I think most people can think of at least 1 or 2 really, really good and poetic and gameable and whatever weaknesses. This one is really just a springboard for ideas. But there you go, I can't give you everything! Freeloaders!

And finally, the various Lich Powers listed in this post are kept as short descriptive titles only, any stats you may want to give them, even what they actually do at all is totally up to you. They don't have to totally replace spellcasting for Liches, but they could. I'd say have 2d4 powers per Lich, with a modifier on those dice based on the power-rating of your lich, and whether you're giving them any special powers if they are a different type of Lich to the standard "True" Lich.

Types of Lich

1 - True Lich
2 - False Lich
3 - Scrag Lich
4 - Wraith Lich
5 - Totem Lich
6 - Cinders Lich
7 - Sanction Lich
8 - Mitotic Lich
9 - Lichiarch
10 - Lantern Lich
11 - Umbralich
12 - Grey-Child
13 - Scavenger Lich
14 - Hollow Lich
15 - Scapulan Lich
16 - Ghoul Lich
17 - Henge Lich
18 - Blizzard Lich
19 - Sacred Lich
20 - Pact Lich

True Lich
These are the truly dangerous ones; the ones who have mastered life and found death wanting. These are the classic undead immortals. They wield magic like a swordsmaster a blade, they warp reality like gods do; they are used to their word being law. Their power is terrible, their ambitions mighty, their patience legendary. But you know much of this already.

True Lich Powers
No unique powers, roll on the list of Lich powers additional times.

False Lich
False Liches are those who successfully wrought themselves a new undead existence, but who didn't quite reach eternal life. They are lesser than True Liches, but still formidable. They may exist for some few centuries, and wield strange and terrible magics; but one day, they will run down, and die. Most go insane as their minds are worn away by the march of years. Their Phylacteries are slightly flawed, their powers subtly unstable, always grinding down little by little the energies that sustain them. Every few decades or so they are wracked by the imperfections that mar their immortality, sometimes disabling them for a few years, never less than a few months. No matter how hard they try, their efforts aren't quite enough, they can't repair the damage done. Many a driven to the edge by anger and frustration; sometimes they can be more dangerous than true Liches, as their rage boils over and they take it out on the mortals around them. If nothing else, they often have more drive and motivation to accomplish things than their more perfect brethren. This does not make things any better for anyone of course.

False Lich Powers
No unique powers, roll on the list of Lich powers additional times.

Scrag Liches
Sometimes, the method is discovered by one not capable of handling it. They somehow stumble through it, chicken blood for vital fluids of dragons, virgin earth for virgin flesh, copper for gold. To their dismay, it goes totally, horrifyingly wrong.
They lurk now in graveyards, in dank sewers, and other such rank nooks. They crouch like children, gait like apes, teeth gnashing and foaming from the mouth. In one hand they might clutch their imperfect phylactery, broken nails scratching the surface which leaks foul smoke. They are as utterly inhuman as it is possible to be whilst still clad in the form of man.
They are not truly immortal, their life slowly slips away as before, just more slowly; the tides of life stymied a little by the phylactery. But their mind has not survived the process. Scrag Liches are horrifying wretches, life has abandoned them, man has abandoned them, and they wish they could do the same.
That is not to say they are as pathetic as they seem. They are still Liches; they are as tough to kill as a Lich, and they can regenerate their bodies if destroyed as long as their phylactery survives, though this often costs them much of the life they bought with their transformation. Some small modicum of magic also clings to their frail and withered forms, just not much.

Scrag Lich Powers
1 - Madness Scratches
2 - Ungodly Howl
3 - Filthy Grip
4 - Cage of Ribs
5 - Babbling and Groaning
6 - Vomit Darkness
7 - Wild Transformation
8 - Slink Unseen
9 - Grasp Heart
10 - Supernal Strength

Wraith Lich
Some Liches let go of more than just their lives, some let go of all existence. These are Wraith Liches, more like ghosts, or intangible spirits than any other kind of undead. Their mind lives on, sustained by the phylactery they crafted, but any material connection to the world is gone, not even a corpse remains.
Why they would choose this kind of existence perplexes many, but some choose it for one reason or another, or sometimes even because it is the only option they have. Over time, the Wraith Lich might be able to manipulate the real world with magic, or possess someone and steal their body, even if only for a time. Wraith Liches also find it much easier to manipulate the minds of living things, intangible fingers reaching into the mind and twisting the strands of thought found within.
They are also, by their very nature, the most subtle of Liches. Many villages host to a Wraith Lich may never realise the source of their corruptions. Only a tingle on the back of the neck, a surety that there is something unwholesome watching, but never being able to find it.

Wraith Lich Powers
1 - Possess Mind
2 - Possess Body
3 - Control Swarm
4 - Draining Mists
5 - Manipulate Weather
6 - Ghostly Hands
7 - Manifestation
8 - Ravage Spirit
9 - Decaying Presence
10 - Intrusive Thoughts

Totem Lich
Amongst the tribes of the great meadows and plain who recognise the might of the earth, some among them carve totems as tiny charms that conduct the power of the thing that they resemble as part of a bargain with the world.
Some subvert it, and carve an image of their own heart, and their mind (somehow), and their own soul, surmounting the world itself at the base. They bind the earth to their will, and live eternal, as long as the totem stands. They are regarded as some as being somehow lesser Liches than others, but the truth is beyond that, their powers are in relation to the carvings they have made. The more artistry and skill in the Totem, the more solid their hold on their mind, on life, on the things they carved.
Many Totem Liches carve other things into their Totems too, to gain their powers as well. Some Totems end up grand indeed, twisted towers of abhorrent bargains with dark spirits of the wastes.
They are of course, an affront to all living things, more so than regular Liches.

Totem Lich Powers
1 - Bestial Aspect
2 - Elemental Aspect
3 - Dominate Beast
4 - Dominate Land
5 - Twist Beast
6 - Twist Land
7 - Sunder Life
8 - Absorb Vitality
9 - Blight Land
10 - Ravage Land

Cinders Lich
Sometimes, a fire elemental will find its flames dwindling, its light fading. In desperation, it seeks a new source for its life, and might choose the souls of mortals. It is a Cinder's Lich, a cold black flame in the shape of a man, radiating blue luminescence, draining the heat of the world into itself. Heaven's save you if you fall into its clutches.
Some theorise the existence of a kind of Ice-Medusa that freezes mortals with its gaze; they merely have encountered the works of a Cinders Lich. Sometimes the ruined and ragged corpse of a man is found in the woods, and the Wendigo is blamed for it. Or a blizzard flows down from the mountain in the height of summer, and hags are cursed. The Cinders Lich remains hidden.
Their Phylacteries are different as well, due to their elemental natures. They are contained within the Cinders Lich itself, a shrivelled black and silver coal, right at its heart. Pluck it out, and crush it, and the Cinders Lich will be no more. Of course it is never as simple as all that.
Of all elementals, only Flame have been confirmed to do this, perhaps due to their transitory existences. Other such elemental Liches have been theorised: Drought Liches, Dusts Liches, Miasmic Liches.

Cinders Lich Powers
1 - Master of Ice
2 - Black-Flame
3 - Necrotise Element
4 - Flash-freeze
5 - Blood-frost
6 - Blizzard Crown
7 - Hoarfrost Breath
8 - Douse Flame
9 - Corrupt Elemental
10 - Snow-Blind

Sanction Lich
For some, even a long and drawn out death is not enough, their suffering must be made eternal.
Sanction Liches are even more pathetic and puny than Scrag Liches. Their existence has been tailor-made with bespoke skill and suffering to be as miserable and unbearable as possible. Their minds broke long before they were even transformed, and now their Phylactery creaks and moans beneath the weight of the Liches suffering.
It is of course, reserved for only the most heinous of crimes. Suffering of this magnitude has been known to start wars for being inflicted even on the most truly deserving. Of course, wars have also been started due to the possibly that the Sanction Lich may escape its bondage.
If it did, it would be a terrible whirlwind of death, a pall of destruction that could devastate continents. In its wrath, the almighty powers within it would blot out the sun and cause the earth to bleed and rivers to rise up out of the earth in horror and coil and contort like snakes across the ground hissing and screaming.
The Sanction Lich has to be inundated with magic to be born, and that magic waits like worms just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment to be unleashed.

Sanction Lich Powers
Apocalyptic in the extreme. It would be the end of days. It only needs one. Pray it does not have more.
1 - Rain of Blood
2 - Ichorous Earth
3 - Blistering Sky
4 - Eclipse
5 - Weeping Sea
6 - Insect Epidemic
7 - Plague of Undeath
8 - Betrayal of Metal
9 - Wither the World
10 - Catastrophic Conflagration

Mitotic Lich
Some Liches, while they have mastered most of the process of Undeath, spoiled one crucial step; the Phylactery. They function as Liches normally do, only the operative word here is they.
When a Mitotic Lich is vanquished bodily (and many only discover their natures when this happens for the first time), then when their form recongeals from their Phylactery, where once there was one, there are now two. This is only mostly confusing the first time it happens.
It will get out of control if the phylactery is well hidden enough. It usually is.
Most of the time the Liches mind controls all of the bodies, but it is unused to it for long long aeons, and the multiple bodies move awkwardly and staggeringly. Eventually some form of control can be established, but this is again thrown off balance when a new pair of Liches tumbles out of the Phylactery. It gets quicker each time, that's nothing to say about the threat posed by the horde of Liches that appear over the centuries...

Mitotic Lich Powers
No unique powers, roll additional times on the main table.

Lichiarch
Sometimes, a Lich will despise life and what their old life represented, that they will choose something even more vile than usual, to become their family's Lichiarch. When a Lichiarch is slain, it does not form a new body. Rather, the Liches spirit possesses another member of the Lich's family. Who ever is closest related to the Lich that still lives, becomes the next host of the undying mind of the Lich.
Another quirk of Lichiarchs is that they have none of the long life of other Liches. Each host of the Lich has their usual allotment of years, this is of only some small inconvenience to the Lich, usually. They end up spending much of their time putting in effort to unite the family such that no potential hosts end up as pariahs from their fellows in case they become the next host and render the Lich socially impotent. As much of the family will also be trained in the sorcerous ways, when the Lich possesses someone, they gain no extra magics outside of those inherent to their Lich existence.

Lichiarch Powers
No unique powers, roll on the list of Lich powers additional times.

Lantern Lich
It walks the world beneath the world, cowled and cowed. Hunched and hooded, it bears a staff with a hanging lantern at its top, it sheds no light, at least none that you can see. They wander the tunnels and caverns bearing a light that provides no sight to the living, and only the dead, they are shepherds of the living dead in the lands where no sun shines. Life flinches and cringes away from the invisible light, and thus the dead pass unmolested. No one knows what it takes to become a Lantern Lich, who becomes Lantern Liches, or why Lanterns Liches come to be. They are mysterious and enigmatic, they reveal nothing, and rarely engage anyone in anything, even those dead that follow them. They merely walk, and maintain the un-light that is there eternal life.
As far as anyone knows.

Lantern Lich Powers
1 - Blinding Light
2 - Draining Shadows
3 - Twisting Paths
4 - Fade
5 - Flare
6 - Ashen Storm
7 - Call Brethren
8 - Echoing Scream
9 - Sink Into Stone
10 - Pass Without Thought

Umbral Lich
Much like Wraith Liches, Umbral Liches have forsaken a physical existence, but have instead become a living pool of darkness, liquid and swirling. They are surprisingly active for Liches, often times taking active roles in advancing their schemes. Thankfully Umbral Liches' ambitions are somewhat less severe than other Liches it seems. Their plots are often on a very personal level, and the few examples of Umbral Lich writing show that they very much enjoy the intimate details that their unseen form allows them privy to. They enjoy being spies, assassins, voyeurs, stalkers. They learn their prey, inside and out, and slowly drive them mad.
Quite why they do this rather than pursue more grand designs is something of a mystery. It is speculated that as they become incarnate darkness, their minds are warped by it. Either way, it is a comfort to those who aren't the chosen prey of an Umbral Lich.

Umbral Lich Powers
1 - Animate Shadow
2 - Icy Touch
3 - Dislocate
4 - Primal Fear
5 - Something's Out There
6 - Dark Hands
7 - Shadow Strike
8 - Duplicate Darkness
9 - Looming Presence
10 - Muffle

Grey-Child
Once in a thousand million births, a child will be born without its soul embedded in its body as is proper. Instead, its immortal spirit resides split in two, half in its mother, half in its father. A Grey-Child.
They are alone in all of Lichdom in that (as far as is known) the child has no choice as to whether they become a Lich. They have an immense capacity for magic that waxes as the child ages, with an exponential increase once they hit puberty. They are noticeably anti-social, even at a young age and treat other children and pets with sly contempt. Even their parents are given a cold shoulder, though the bond with the parents is one of the few that the Grey-Child will attempt to maintain at all. They do have vested interests in them, after all.
They are also unique in that they have two Phylacteries, technically. The drawback is that Grey-Children are the most vulnerable of all Liches, their Parents only function as Phylacteries until death. They will outlive their parents, but once they are dead, the Lich can die too.
For many Grey-Children, most will never know the truth of their condition. It even escapes them in some cases, though most will realise the truth once puberty begins and their true sorcerous potential emerges. They can interact with society, live long and prosperous lives, and only very rarely ever meet their ends at the enchanted blades of adventuring bands. They can often be found as doctors and healers, or alchemists, tending to their parents with doting, if cold, care.
Its in their best interests after all.

Grey Child Powers
No unique powers, roll on the list of Lich powers additional times.

Scavenger Lich
When a Lich goes too long without feeding itself on the vital energies of the living, they shrivel and prune. Leave it too long past that stage, and their phylactery will crack beneath the pressure of maintaining the Liches' life. When it finally reaches breaking point, and it shatters, the Lich usually dies. Sometimes though, it survives as a Scavenger Lich. The trauma is oftentimes enough to shatter the Lich's vulnerable psyche, and the mad and animalistic beast often resembles a Scrag-Lich. The difference is that the Scavenger Lich is driven with wild abandon to recover their now lost Phylactery. They have presence of mind enough for that.
And they are cunning too. Eventually it will dawn on the Scavenger Lich that the old Phylactery is gone forever, and so they will seek out a suitable replacement. The next stage comes much later, as the Scavenger Lich lacks the capacity to forge a new Phylactery, so they seek to trick some unsuspecting third party into creating one for them. Most will have been destroyed at some point by this time, but the few that make it will have stitched together some vague idea of humanity again, and while still mostly insane, they can converse well enough, and the most successful will even be able to attract a meagre cult of desperate individuals to try and get themselves resurrected. There have even been stories that it worked one time. Mostly they end in violence long before that point.

Scavenger Lich Powers
None, they barely have the strength to live, let alone manifest any other magics.

Hollow Lich
Monks oftentimes seek something greater than themselves, transcendence of this imperfect world. Occasionally they even find it. Some few of those who do, find the knowledge of the infinite that they have finally found to be less than satisfying, occasionally downright nihilistic. So burdened by the wright of cosmic truth, cast away their souls into the uttermost void between reality and itself, forever bereft of the need to care. They are... technically Liches, in that their soul is gone, and life eternal is theirs by virtue of their surpassing the laws of nature in their quest for perfection. They are in all regards perfect except that they lack a soul at all, and with it the desire to do anything at all.
They have no ambition, they exist only as machines, driven only to continue to exist as all things must.
They are terrifying to face, they know themselves perfectly, and their limits and techniques are honed to a razors edge. They probably know a fair amount about you, even at only a glance. And worse, you can't even kill them. They have surpassed that. Even pain is a distant memory to a Hollow Lich. They know the Underlying Patterns of reality, being run through with a sword is like a splinter to a Blue Whale. Insignificant.
The best part about Hollow Liches is that it is incredibly difficult to earn their enmity. Unless you really pose a threat to their continued existence, they often enough will merely leave you alone. You can even talk to them without fear of being crushed into paste. Some even attend monasteries, content merely to meditate when not conversed with.
When you know all there is to know, what else is there really to do?

Hollow Lich Powers
1 - Horrifying Revelation
2 - Solidify Flesh
3 - The Flowing Earth
4 - Still Thine Heart
5 - Rising Sun Strike
6 - Celerity
7 - Disrupt Ki
8 - Transcendent Visions
9 - Sunder Soul
10 - Divine Contemplation

Scapulan Lich
The Surgeon-Necromancers of Scapula, the Fat-black island, are mighty in their craft, beyond what most suspect. If you could somehow ever scrape up the inconceivable fortune they would require for such an operation, they might be persuaded to surgically remove your soul from you.
Such souls are kept in Phylacteries under the care of the Surgeon-Necromancers as a courtesy to their customers, and few would even think about breaking into the Chapel-Theatres of the Surgeon-Necromancers, for risk of being caught and used for "research".
Those who can afford to actual become a Lich in this way will often have the funds to also have their mortal forms extensively modified, sometimes just as a "social indicator of status," more often than not they add deadly weapons and flesh-extensions to their forms. Why be an impotent Lich if you can  afford to harness more deadly powers than anyone else in a hundred miles?
While becoming a Lich in this manner won't grant the Lich any particularly skill with magic if it doesn't already have it, it will amplify what is already there. The process leaves the body better able to channel magical energies, and at extra expense, these aspects of the transformation can be further enhanced. A few such Scapulan-Liches will even hire retainer-wizards to cast spells and enchantments upon them, able as they are to absorb even greater amounts of magic than mere mortals.
In any case, the Scapulan-Lich is not to be taken any less seriously than any other kind of Lich.

Scapulan Lich Powers
1 - Lightning Gland
2 - Flame Pores
3 - Acid Spew
4 - Poison Nails
5 - Hidden Tendrils
6 - Distension Maw
7 - Telescopic Limbs
8 - Retractable Limb-Blades
9 - Throat Spike
10 - Mutation Gaze

Ghoul Lich
Ghoul-Wasps are not to be trifled with, and indeed Necromancers who master their control are widely respected and feared within the Necromancers' circles. [Editors Note: Ghoul-Wasps breed inside people, and turn them into Ghouls, flesh-hungry hosts of unhatched wasps] Sometimes one of these such Ghoul-Necromancers stumbles across a particularly vile and uncomfortable secret of Ghoul-Wasps, they can be used as a Phylactery, as long as they nest within the form of the Lich they preserve.
This does not stop many that discover this, already themselves somewhat inured to the horrors of the Wasps, and thus they become Liches with skin crawling from the masses of Wasps that slink their way through the necrotic meat and bunch up in the soft tissues of the belly and neck. Swarms of them pour from the Lich's gaping maw and the ragged holes torn in the Lich's sides, obeying the commands of their master.
Such a Lich is only vulnerable once their swarm is destroyed, and every single insect must die, else the Wasp will escape, inhabit a new person, breed, and the consciousness of the Lich will regenerate slowly with the addition of each new Wasp, a horrifying possession for the victim of the wasps by a gestalt lunatic.

Ghoul Lich Powers
1 - Command Insect
2 - Call Ghouls
3 - Infestation
4 - Gall-Cyst
5 - Chitin Storm
6 - Invertebrate Transformation
7 - Swarm Shape
8 - Bugs from Dust
9 - Plated Skin
10 - Create Hive

Henge Lich
In elder days, the barrier between the living and the dead was not nearly as well understood, or respected. Indeed, much of their sympathetic magics nowadays would be treated by most as gross necromancy. One of the more commonly recognised symbols of the ancient sorceries (even if the observer doesn't recognise its magical potential) is the ring of standing stones, and the intricate series of banks and ditches that run runes about them.
These are of course, magical conduits; and they maintain the Lich-Guardians of the Henges as part of their function.
They are really only Liches in the technical sense, they posses none of their old memories or life, they merely remember their tasks and carry them out with ruthless, unfeeling efficiency. They are more forces of nature than individuals at this point, and they only become more so with the passage of centuries. The very oldest have lost their physical forms almost entirely, and make their flesh from the chipped and scratched stone of the henge itself, packed with earth and spiralled in vines, their cries the deep roar of stone echoing down the aeons.
Some come marching to meet you will other archaic skeletons, called to service by the Henge-Lich, clad in bronze and rotted skins, clutching wooden weapons no longer fit for service, or flint knives and blades long since blunted and decayed. They throw themselves at you with relentless abandon. Their lack of proper weapons means nothing, their hands will serve well enough until they literally grind themselves to nothing against you.
All the while, the Henge-Lich watches, urging the very stones and bones of its domain to destroy you.

Henge Lich Powers
1 - Animate Stone
2 - Implore Nature
3 - Ley-Line Convergence
4 - Ancestor's Vengeance
5 - Spirits of Old
6 - Call Lightning
7 - Wrath of the Stars
8 - Celestial Alignment
9 - Earth Arise
10 - Growth/Decay

Loam Lich
Druids are not as incorruptible as they might say they are. Even the earth can be poisoned.
On the very blackest of days, a Druid that feels the call of Naturalisation but who abhors the idea will concoct a plan; they will take the very soul of the earth for themselves. They will amalgamate the earth with themselves, no the other way around. This of course, never quite works out as they imagine it will, not that this is enough to ever deter such individuals from trying it.
The resultant abomination is called a Loam-Lich. Their soul resides in the earth of their grove, but the grove has lost its connection to the World. They are one, but cut off from the greater whole. They despise what they are, what they could have been; and so feed off of what is around them. They drain the earth and feast on rotten beasts and trees, they waste the wilderness to allow them to survive, and they do it with a hateful glee.
The Loam-Lich still has their powers over nature, though now it is a result of their domination of nature, rather than their symbiosis with it. They still command the animal residents of the grove, but they are no longer alive. They aren't quite undead either, but they slowly slip towards it as the long decades drag on. The trees and plants survive too, but they are dry and twisted by their new lives too. They feed on the night and darkness rather than the sun, which now they merely endure. A Loam-Lich's grove is now an oasis of dull brown amongst the dead and dying wilds around it. Most Loam-Liches that live much more than a century will often reduce the surrounding lands to desert.
Growth still continues within the grove, but in a twisted reflection of what it was before. Brambles and thorns, dry twigs and bushes, emaciated and ferocious animals, unnaturally strong and vital for how thin they look.
And of course, the Loam-Lich itself (or more properly, the physical manifestation of the Lich's old body) remains, a grey-brown ghost that haunts the thickets and trunks. Its skin is dried and rotten leaves, its flesh is desiccated earth, and its teeth and eyes are chunks of rough flint. It comes and goes as it pleases, the earth is it as much as it is the earth, and so attacking the form of the Lich is about as useless as trying to kill the sea with a sword.
No-one quite knows how to kill a Loam-Lich. Destruction of the Grove seems to do the trick, but inevitably the earth beneath it regenerates with time, and the Loam-Lich returns. It might be centuries later, but the earth measures its life in aeons, not centuries. It seems that unless they very earth of the grove itself is destroyed (and no-one knows what that might even look like, let alone what efforts it would take), the Loam-Lich is as immortal as the world itself.

Loam Lich Powers
Note: These are not so much manifestations of magic like other Lich powers, these are merely the Loam-Lich's command of the grove-corpse itself. They are more like you flexing an arm than casting a spell.
1 - Hateful Plants
2 - Animal Monsters
3 - Desiccate and Wrack
4 - Viney Grasp
5 - Stone, Awaken
6 - Awaken Primality
7 - Wooden Prison
8 - Wind of Thorns
9 - Dust-Storm
10 - Insect Abomination

Sacred Lich
As much of an oxymoron it sounds, some gods pride themselves on their superior practicality, and occasionally reward their followers with Divine Lichdom.
The Sacred Lich was probably once a Paladin, or high-ranking Cleric of a particularly pragmatic church. They are most often driven by dogma rather than morals, though this need not necessarily be true. Sometimes it can a great desire to continue their works on earth that prompts their transformation. Either way, once the Sacred-Lich emerges, their soul has gone to heaven, but their body continues their grand commission, wreathed in glory and power.
To a one, they are imperious and cold and distant. They continue to act as they did in life, but their motivation is now mechanical rather than morally derived. They do so because that is what they do, why they exist, not because it is what they want to do. This callousness to their works is not particularly liked, but it is tolerated. Sacred-Liches are exceptionally good at what they do.
They might be captains of invincible warrior-priests, sent to hunt down the most grand evils imaginable, or they might be spell-casters without compare, better able to channel the miracles of their gods than mortals; their dead flesh more resistant to being seared by the holy power that surges through them.
Their divine status is not enough to keep them from making enemies of course. There are those that abhor the undead in whatever form they come in, doubly so when it is done in the name of a god. And of course, some people think that whatever good the Sacred Lich might do, the way they do it is kind of dickish. They always do what is right, whatever the cost.
If a Sacred-Lich dies, it is up to their god if they are regenerated back on earth. Sometimes it just isn't worth the bother. Sometimes, the corpse of a Sacred-Lich will be made into Relics on par with those made from Saint-bones, much to the annoyance of the Lich if it returns to the world while its body is divided up.

Sacred Lich Powers
1 - Divine Pronouncement
2 - Shackles of Faith
3 - Zealous Immunity
4 - Wrath of God
5 - Abjure the Heathen
6 - Undying Servant of God
7 - Blinding Light
8 - Cleansing Flames
9 - Binding Proclamation
10 - Perfect Judgement

Hostage Lich

Let's just face it, no one would ever want to be a Hostage Lich, and if you do, you don't understand what a Hostage Lich is.
The Ethereal Fluke is a very slightly unreal parasite, which swims invisibly through the air before latching onto a victim's soul, and become real inside their body. This process is incredibly painful, and many don't survive, which is a big reason for the Ethereal Fluke's rarity. Unfortunately, it seems that wizards and other such spell-casters are particularly well suited to surviving an Ethereal Fluke's attack, and living on as a Hostage Lich.
Removing the Parasite is instant (and eternal) death as the soul is shredded in the Parasite's death-throes, it cannot survive reality without the soul it clings desperately to. Leaving the Parasite alone leads to a slow and tortuously long decline as the soul is gnawed to nothing; thus those poor souls have little option but the fuel the Parasite with the souls of others, rather than allow themselves to die slowly, and by inches.
While for some, this does not seem so bad, the full extent of the Liches' suffering only comes later. The skin begins to soften like jelly, flesh turns translucent, muscles atrophy to stringy chords. The Lich's body changes around it, until it becomes completely incapable of anything at all except to slop mournfully where it sits. The process has been described as some of the worst pain possible, it stings right into the heart of the soul. The only way to appease the Fluke (who causes the transformation) is ever increasing quantities of souls; eventually to the point that no amount is ever enough, to the doom of both Lich and Fluke.
These are all parts of the Ethereal Fluke's survival strategy. Swallow the soul of a Sorcerer or other Magic-User, then devour them slowly, destroy their flesh if they do not find further souls to feed it, hold them hostage in the most fundamental way possible. Even total bodily death is not the end of a Hostage Lich, they are reborn again by the Fluke, which regenerates the body much in the same way as a Phylactery. This is not a particularly pleasant experience for either of them. They are just slightly not Liches, but certainly are for all intents and purposes.
There are only two ways to destroy one. Firstly, you could kill the fluke; tear it out of the flesh and grind it into paste. Try not to thin of the poor sod you just obliterated. In all likelihood, they would probably thank you.
The second is to simply leave one, or hopefully, starve them of souls. They will waste away eventually, driven to the edge by the Fluke's ever-growing avarice. 

Hostage Lich Powers
1 - Liquefy Flesh
2 - Ethereal Tendrils
3 - Souls Suction
4 - Drain Essence
5 - Weep Blood
6 - Infest with Worms
7 - Helminth Servant
8 - Deform Flesh
9 - Wracking Hunger
10 - Flense Innards

Specific/Special Liches Subtable

1 - The Chain
2 - The Tyrant
3 - The Tangled-Web
4 - The Shiv-Liches
5 - The Page Liches
6 - The Lich-Smiths
7 - The Lich-Wardens
8 - The Philosopher's Lich
9 - The Lich-Saint
10 - The Blizzard Lich

The Chain
The Liches of the Chain are mysterious, and apparently even more unkillable than regular Liches. A group of 8 who as far as anyone can tell all became Liches as one, have been residing in their conclave for well over 800 years, maybe even exponentially more time. Many have attempted to destroy them, some have even partially succeeded; but one always manages to escape, and then slowly the rest return as well.
The secret, as some scholars have guessed, is that the Chain have gamed the system. They arranged themselves as a circle of 8, and when the time came to dig the knife into their flesh to transcend this frail realm of life, they made their Phylactery the Lich next in line to them.
The result is this, the only way to destroy the Chain, is for each of them to be destroyed as one. If even one survives, it will resurrect the next in line, who will regenerate the next, and so on.
Of course, the logistics in destroying 8 Liches simultaneously is tremendous and herculean, and so they continue to reign from their towers and libraries.
Luckily for us, they seem to be somewhat benign. None have seen them act in anger in living memory; they seem content to remain within their lair for the most part.
But that doesn't mean they aren't up to something. All Liches are, inevitably.

The Tyrant
The Tyrant is a uniquely cruel and wicked individual with a uniquely cruel and wicked method for ensuring his survival; he turns others into Liches, and makes himself their Phylacteries. Much like the Chain, this means that his Servitor-Liches cannot die unless he is destroyed, but in doing so, their own destruction would be guaranteed. The Tyrant has made it so.
And so the Servitor-Liches are the Tyrant's greatest servants, though they wish they were not. They must defend themselves lest they see themselves and the others destroyed for their master's sake. There can be no rebellion against the Tyrant without mutual death, and since the Tyrant has been subtly playing a few of the Servitors against the others, there will be no mutual rebellion; if some rose up, others would try to stop them. If those others attempted to rebel, the first group would be at their necks in an instant.
The Tyrant itself however is just a Lich like any other, just one with a particularly sadistic bent with regards to its servants. Its Phylactery is the one of its Servitors that it loves most of all, but the identity of which one it is, has long since been lost.

The Tangled-Web
This Lich never originally intended to become a Lich, they originally wanted to be a Warlock. However, any prospective Warlock needs an eye for opportunity to be successful, and this Warlock saw one, and took it.
In life, they made pacts with otherworldly beings, demons, devils, angels, old gods, fey lords, one and all that they could. They were a master of hiding their own manner from prying eyes, none of their Patrons even knew what was going on until it was too late. Finally, a small bit of the soul was given to each Patron in turn, for safe-keeping of course, a semi-Lich servant that they can collect whenever they wish. Finally, after many bargains, the whole soul was gone, and the Tangle-Lich was born.
It is a careful balance the Tangle-Lich keeps, they have their immortality; none of their patrons can move against them to claim them for fear of reprisal of the other Patrons (which they have only now realised have had a claim on the Lich's soul as well), and no Patron holds enough of the Lich's soul to cause any particular harm to the Web-Lich. As long as it can maintain the balance, they are unkillable.

The Shiv-Liches
Known amongst the common folk as The Knives, the Shiv-Liches are a band of Orcish assassins, or at least they were. Now they are Liches, and their souls are bound within the Knives from which they take their titles.
The job goes like this, a king or noble or official or anyone really is gifted a knife. Nothing particularly horrid, but also nothing particularly glamorous. The gift is accepted, with wrinkled nose, and stored somewhere out of sight. Acceptance without acceptance. The Shiv-Lich, confirming the acceptance of the knife, casts their body into a flame, utterly destroying it. A new body forms with the knife, deep inside the defences, out of sight of the guards. Nothing is suspected until the butchered body is found. Even if they find the Lich, the knife is long-gone back to the others in case of this very eventuality, and besides, no-one was looking for that hack-rag anyway.
The Knives are tremendously effective, and though they are known in many parts, few if any know their particular method.
They are of course, masters of hiding in plain sight.

The Page-Liches
The Ivory Library is an institution that has survived the ages, wars, pestilence, flame, none have touched its hallowed walls, and the Page Liches are in large part responsible for that.
The Page-Liches, whilst stern and ill-suffering of fools, are not hostile in any manner. They have bound themselves body and soul to the Library, to serves its needs and requirements, and as a magical repository the density of which has not been seen anywhere else ever in the history of the world, the needs and requirements are many.
Only an immortal being has the patience to learn and navigate the ever-changing and shifting referencing systems. Only an immortal being of great magical capacity can deal with the occasional arcane avalanches that can spill from the upper levels. Only they who are dead can navigate the black abysses of the basements.
The library is vast and deadly, and so Liches are what it needs to maintain itself.
Who they were is no longer known. There are none who remember them as anything other than the ancient undying near-dead. Even the older Fey-Lords are reticent to speak on the subject, and will only offer conjecture, even though they may well know the answers.

The Lich-Smiths
Some work for art. And some will do it forever, as these have and will. In the ruined and gutted corpse of some ancient and now-nameless city, the Lich-Smiths toil over their furnaces, hoarding silver and bone.
They were once the premier artists of their day, as they will gruffly spit at you. Their time is precious, and so they removed themselves from the mortal world so that they might focus on and utterly perfect their arts. They are smiths, but also jewellers, bone-carvers, painters, etchers, enchanters, there are many many artistic disciplines and between them they have mastered them all.
These days, they find themselves growing bored, when they mastered all the skills they could, when they had made the most sublime and inscrutable works they could, they simply ran out of things to do. It is the final curse of Lichdom, at least as they will put it.
So they find that the last few things they enjoy taking on are commissions. Few hold the vast fortunes the Smiths require for their services. Most are kings, emperors, and of course, adventurers. They come to the Lich-Smiths requesting weapons, arms, and armour; equipment and implements; conduits and mechanisms. The Lich-Smiths demand silver and bone, and if the price is paid then the work begins.
The Lich-Smiths don't really need the vast fortunes they receive; its mostly to make sure that their customers really mean what they ask, and are of sufficient stature and import to ask for what they do, but also the Lich-Smiths use Silver and Bone in their works; they are their favoured mediums for their crafts and magics and enchantments. No matter what is requested, it is always delivered as bone inlaid with silver, and it is always sublime and beautiful, and indestructible (as far as any have dared test). The Lich-Smiths have only few customers, but none ever leave dissatisfied.

The Lich-Wardens of the God-Pharaoh
They gave up their lives to serve him, figuratively and literally. Their flesh was a willing and euphoric sacrifice for their deity, their frail and pathetic existences trade in for new, glorious, and eternal bodies with which to forever serve their master.
They are near-empty suits of armour now, their frail forms withing swaddled in bandages and scored with sacred charms and amulets. Their weapons and armour are golden and blazing with radiance, and their new artisanal leather-skin that contains their ancient bones is immaculate, and only slightly uncanny. They protect the God-Pharaoh with their un-lives, certain in the knowledge that if struck down, they will return, and earn ever greater rewards in the service of their lord. Their Phylacteries are stored deep within the vaults of the Blazing Palace, never shall the Pharaoh's guardians taste death until he shall demand they do.
Only rarely do they leave the palace; only the most dangerous missions can demand such power, and the risk to the God-Pharaoh's mortal form.

The Philosopher's Lich
As much a work of theoretical construct as the stone itself (at least, it is hoped), the Philosopher's Lich is merely a Lich, except for the fact that they (in theory) have taken the stone itself for their Phylactery.
Quite what this would mean, is the subject of much speculation. No-one truly knows what powers could be leeched from the stone by a Lich; true and perfect immortality is a common guess, no more of this soul-gathering business.
Certainly none have ever achieved this. Not a one. Certainly not this alchemist, he has only been alive a few decades. Certainly his potions and unguents are incredible, and well worth the price, but the accusations that he has lived for many centuries are scandalous in the extreme! He is content with his limitations, he would never pursue the stone, he certainly is not granted life eternal, even beyond mortal blow, nor have his magical capacities doubled in the last decade alone, nor has he a cadre of immortal and addicted death-knights to carry out his biding. His health tonic is a protected and secret recipe, and he will not give it up to the likes of you! He has to make a living somehow you know.

The Lich-Saint
Of all the names in the Blessed Canon of saints, there is one that is reviled, struck from its pages as much as ink can harm the names of those chosen by gods. Aedric was once the Saint of Restful Places, where the dead might find blessed peace, where respite would be sacrosanct, where nightmares would be held at bay. Then he broke the concord, took his own life (and the lives of all in his band of attendant-paladins at the same time) and became a Lich.
He is wreathed in terrible black-flames, grey light flickering across the ground around him, black smoke creeping at his feet. His eyes are dark, and his flesh ashen and dead. A cracked stone halo circles above his head, brittle and broken.
While his divine powers have fled him, screaming and crying for salvation, his void is filled now with despotic Lich-magics, he has not been diminished; dark powers have propped him up to raise him as a dark eidolon for the damned, and then he surpassed even them, shackling them to his own will.
Many have attempted to end his dark reign, and so the ranks of his Death-Knight honour-guard grow. He is an expert at breaking prisoners.
If the world has a villain, it is Aedric, the Lich-Saint.

The Blizzard Lich
On cold white nights on mountain tops, or in the arctic wastes, listen a while for moaning on the wind. If you hear it, run. You may yet outrun it.
The world has forgotten it, no tales of its origins, no suggestions of its end. It merely haunts the wild and wasted white-storms of the world, howling with the wind for the flesh and fluids of the lost and desperate.
If its prey are ever found, they are as drained and dry as it is, frozen and brittle.
One thing is for sure, it is a Lich. The few that have encountered it and survived have confirmed as much. Sometimes they strike it down, it always returns. Sometimes it fights with sorcery, sometimes with its cracked nails and shattered teeth. Always the cold-of-the-soul settles in the nooks and creases of the mind before it strikes.
Its mark is that it can dwell only in storms of snow and ice. Even on the mountain tops it has been confirmed to haunt, when the sky is clear, you are safe (from the Blizzard-Lich at least). Any suggestions as to its Phylactery have never been adequately investigated, its goals have never been satisfyingly inferred. It is merely left alone, and any who seek the lonely peaks it calls its lair have been urged to challenge other obstacles, like farming, or perhaps knitting.

Lich Phylacteries

1 - A Rod or Stave, there's a chance its even the real thing.
2 - A Pendent, bearing a picture of someone the Lich once held dear
3 - A Scroll in a crystal tube, bearing impossible arcane knowledge
4 - A withered old Heart in a Sandal-wood box
5 - The aged and creaking remains of the liches' Childhood Home
6 - A Tome, beautifully bound and crusted in precious stones
7 - A gnarled and twisted Tree, curled like an old man's hand
8 - The liches' own Spellbook, the pages all blank but for a faint smudge of ink
9 - The rune-scribed Bones of one of the liches' family members, glowing a soft blue
10 - The rune-scribed Bones of one of the liches' old pets, creaking under the magical weight
11 - A Portrait of the Lich, which changes and warps with age and is marred by corruption
12 - An enchanted Silver Mirror; it never quite shows the truth, only a crooked imitation
13 - A Black Canvas, framed in gold; clearly there was something beneath once, but what?
14 - A Painted Sea-Shell, twisted and flaking, within you hear the faintest of heart-beats
15 - A Reliquary bearing a gold-plated saint-remnant, any holy symbols blackened and charred
16 - An old Instrument, bending under the weight of years, all but useless now
17 - An ancient Carving of an Animal, some of the knife-scores still visible in the wood grain
18 - A lonely Pearl, still shining bright beneath the grime and scratches
19 - A small Stone, smooth and unassuming; one side of it has been rubbed truly flat
20 - A stern Stone Sarcophagus, filled with black liquid; the souls which invigorate the Lich

Lich Ambitions

1 - Godhood, nothing less
2 - A better form of Immortality than Lichdom
3 - Perfecting their alchemical minions
4 - Developing ever-more advanced technologies
5 - Mastery of Magic
6 - Creation of their perfect Utopia
7 - The downfall of a Civilisation
8 - To learn, literally everything. Everything.
9 - To become the best at their chosen craft/skill
10 - The total destruction of their nemesis
11 - To rejuvenate their frail and decaying form
12 - To undo what they have done and to finally die
13 - To reshape the world into a more pleasing form
14 - To reshape the world into a more efficient form
15 - The resurrection of a loved one
16 - To push the boundaries of thought and knowledge
17 - To alter the fundamental rules of the world
18 - To destroy all life, everywhere
19 - To create true, pure, objective beauty
20 - To create all new forms of life and being

Lich Madnesses

1 - That they are frail and weak, anything could destroy them, even a bird dropping from the sky
2 - Their loved ones remain with them, telling them that what they are doing is right and proper
3 - Their spells are alive in their head like worms, sometimes they have to pick them out to cast them
4 - The passage of time has worn thin around them, they can't trust it, especially not its secret agents!
5 - That writing is poisonous to it, show it a word, it will writhe, show it a book, it will drop comatose
6 - Cats are the guardians of the afterlife, any cat they might encounter might drag its soul away
7 - The Lichs' path is not its own to follow, it must head the signs and portents of the future
8 - The Lich has one it cherishes beyond all others, that it loves with all its withered forsaken heart
9 - All must be remade as the Lich was; they shall, one way or another, become Liches
10 - The Lich can form no memories since becoming a Lich, once it leaves the short-term, it is gone
11 - The Lich has twin personalities, each one rising and waning with the phases of the moon
12 - Nothing is worth it, nothing.

Lich Lairs

1 - A tower of ice and bone, a knife that gouges the clouds
2 - A twisting cone of dying and necrotised plants
3 - A crystal palace of sand, death knell of millions of ancient creatures
4 - A castle twisted from petrified creatures
5 - A cave system stitched throughout the many worlds of the world
6 - A pit into the black and weeping earth
7 - A grand crypt complex, each tomb a eulogy to a race the Lich has destroyed
8 - A stern monolith, slowly sinking into the mire of a slaughtered city
9 - A twisted nest of crooked fingers of black stone
10 - A buoyant island, chained to the earth, tectonically screaming for release
11 - An enormous fortress-palanquin born atop the shoulders of an army of the dead
12 - The immense corpse of a butchered star-beast, veins for tunnels, organs as cathedrals
13 - A town brought to life, limbs of earth, a hide of broken and crumbling buildings
14 - A twisting vortex in the sea, revealing the corpse-landscape of the sea-bed
15 - A crown of jagged stone, liquid flame pouring from the hands of carven titans
16 - A cavern of crystal, drained and brittle and stained grey by the Liches' inexhaustible hunger
17 - An almighty and blighted tree, weeping amber; enemies of the Lich bound within
18 - A howling plain of grey-scale dusts, endlessly tumbling
19 - The tomb behind the tomb, the house behind the house, the city behind the city
20 - Roll twice and Combine

Lich Weaknesses

1 - Alchemical Silver
2 - Blessed Water
3 - Salted Flames
4 - The Lich's own knife, with which it slew itself to become what it is
5 - Magical Light
6 - Worked obsidian, glistening like glass
7 - Cat's fangs
8 - Living Wood
9 - A weapon that has never taken a life
10 - The thorn of a rose
11 - A golden needle
12 - A unworked stone with which a man's life has been taken
13 - A shadow
14 - A weapon wielded by a person who has less than a day to live
15 - A weapon wielded by a person who knows the Lich's true name
16 - A weapon wielded by a person who has never killed any living thing
17 - Sunlight reflected from a tin mirror
18 - A ten-thousand year old spear
19 - Melancholy
20 - Song

Lich Powers

1 - Raise Dead
2 - Drain Life
3 - Icy Touch
4 - Snuff Soul
5 - Necrotise Flesh
6 - Devour Shadow
7 - Mortal Puppet
8 - Sunder Mind
9 - Destroy Metal
10 - Wither Plants
11 - Desiccate Land
12 - Desecrate
13 - Unholy Words
14 - Snuff Flame
15 - Command Earth
16 - Master of Blood
17 - Fundamental Forces
18 - Pall of Darkness
19 - Zone of Silence
20 - Irresistible Commands
21 - Mutate Foe
22 - Unbearable Agony
23 - Vast Presence
24 - Induce Fear
25 - Soldiers from Stone
26 - Flesh to Bone
27 - Bone to Flesh
28 - Malevolent Doppelganger
29 - Instill Corruption
30 - Portal to the Outer Dark
31 - Shadowy Step
32 - Invisible Passage
33 - Seal Throat
34 - Crow Storm
35 - Searing Chains
36 - Ten Thousand Needles
37 - Gut-Shred
38 - Implacable Suggestion
39 - Shroud of Dusts
40 - Spear of Night
41 - Unwind Time
42 - Ironfire
43 - Crushing Depths
44 - Deluge
45 - Grasping Air
46 - Shadow Demons
47 - Entomb
48 - Seal of the Mind
49 - Ageing Gaze
50 - Final Moments
51 - Sunder Earth
52 - Grave-bound Titan
53 - Rend Divinity
54 - Command Vermin
55 - Call Demons
56 - Unseeming
57 - Devour
58 - Baleful Polymorph
59 - Blessings of Blood
60 - Bestow Immortality