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amorphousfurrysnakething · 1 year

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Lichdom

So, a couple of days ago I picked up Lichdom on Drivethru because it was on sale and looked vaguely interesting. It’s a solo/2-player dark fantasy RPG about being an evil sorcerer pursuing immortality and uses 2d6 and a deck of cards.

Anyway, I had writing spoons but couldn’t ADHD focus on any of my other projects, so I tried it out and the results are below.

Warnings for dark magic, villain protagonist and narrator, soul damage and destruction, diabolism, violence, betrayal, romantic manipulation, undead, starvation, slavery and heavy implications of sexual slavery. Probably other triggering content, it is the nature of this game engine that whatever happens, a lot of people suffer in creative ways.

The Journal of Turronos Spring of 777: I have managed to, finally, find a measure of stability. Kuthia is not the greatest of the city states, but it is mighty enough to keep itself secure, and is less likely to become the target of an alliance that feels themselves oppressed. It took some effort to find comfortable accomodation within the city, but not major work, 'nobles' are always looking to improve their stature, and few have the scruples their title may imply. As a result, my current host was easily swayed with a few petty tricks and the unpleasant death of one of their enemies. I shall doubtless have to occasionally proffer further services to maintain this relationship, but for now, it suits me.

Since I found the journal of Ashud, the goal of that ancient wizard-king has tempted me. True immortality. Of course, Ashud himself never achieved it, and his city is now ruin, but as his secrets allowed me to learn the principles of spellcraft, I hope that the remaining clues might allow me to exceed my long-dead teacher. From my current home, I have the freedom to work on this great project, and it is perhaps auspicious that this endeavour begin in earnest on the seven-hundred and seventy-seventh year since the Godfall, as seven is the number of the victorious Gods of Chaos, and so shall I achieve victory over death itself.

Winter of 778: Perhaps I was presumptious of the gods' favour, as the past year has proven calamitous for Kuthia, and with it my plans. The city's king died suddenly (not at my hand, the man had done nothing to displease me), and the whelp proved less wise than the sire, and sought to use the armies of the city to enrich himself. Suffice it to say, the young fool's corpse is a better general than his living self, and soon the city found itself under siege from his enraged foes. While normally the squabblings of mere mortals would not bother me, I was forced to spend much of the year keeping the idiot I have chosen to host me from following his king into ruin. I was even forced to wield certain rites that I suspected may have adverse affects on my mind, and though I appear unaffected, it bothers me to think that I am of the same stock as this crawling vermin. Well, not for much longer. The siege has lifted now, the king delivered to his foes by the so-called lords of the city after they discovered their food supplies worm-ridden and useless (a minor trick, but one well-used, personal starvation is a rather different beast to that of the peasantry), and a smarter head wears the crown. Malkin, he is called. I hope his reign is longer, if only because an interregnum is disruptive. He at least has the wit to pick his battles carefully, and enough wise brutality to put down those who might complain that they were passed over for this promotion.

Summer of 779: While my arcane research remains stymied, at least I have found a useful tool. The Circle has its knights, and I know they hunt me, even if my occultation has hidden my person, the results of my inevitable victory doubtless weigh heavily on the minds of their Seers. Well, one got lucky enough to get close, though he had not the wit to avoid the poisoned runes inscribed in the Tome of the Manticore (how I came by that text is a depressingly mundane one, a foolish assassin thought to learn new arts of death from the book, and I was able to follow the occult trail to his lair, and corpse). The freshly-dead warrior came at a convenient time for one of my experiments, and while it did not have the hoped-for outcome, the warrior's spirit and body are reunited, and bound to my will. His hatred is amusing in its impotence, I shall enjoy his service.

He tells me his name is Cole. Well, it will suffice.

Summer of 780 Another year of dead ends, but at least one proved useful. It appears some in the city are jealous of my host, and attempted to curse him. I decided to deal with them, more to plunder their secrets in hope they had something useful. Well, despite generally lacking much beyond the most basic curselore and a lot of useless lies, they did have one true ritual that they'd apparently stolen. The human-skin scroll captures the souls of those whose lifeblood is spilled upon it, and by reciting the incantation will call forth a great demon, who will bargain its services in exchange for the scroll and its contents. The cult appeared to be attempting to gather the needed fuel, the scroll is near-fully charged. Cole can easily get me some beggars off the streets to fill the remainder, however much he'll complain. Honestly, though, fuelling my ascension is a far greater fate than they could otherwise expect. They should be grateful. Maybe they will be, between torments.

I shall have to consider how best to use this find, it is not something I can repeat.

Winter of 780

The long winter is dangerous for mortals, and for as long as I still am unwillingly amongst that number, I am also vulnerable. A reminder came my way when another of my host's guests succumbed to the chill after being stranded here by the ice. A merchant of Noch, I was able to take into custody his papers, and while most of them are useless trivia of business, the iridescent steel manufactured there has many uses, mundane and occult, and the records of who was purchasing that rare metal may prove useful in future. In that, at least, the buffoon has proven useful for more than endless, useless conversation.

Spring of 781 Working through the merchant's accounts has been truly exhausting, not from taxing my intellect, but from sheer boredom. Still, I have uncovered a few leads, cults with enough lore and power to procure both iridescent steel tools and the discretion to do so secretly. A few matters came to my attention that I could not deal with, opportunities that were already thin and are now lost, likely forever. The most galling is a dream thief who bought a pick for the Doors of Sleep, and the assassin who bought a knife that named his doom, but I have not the time to interfere, and must see to the greater matters his ledgers imply.

Summer of 781 Success! I have claimed a true secret of life and death, thanks to the clues of that dead merchant. Perhaps I should call up his spirit to thank it, before silencing its prattle forever. He sold a mystic mirror to an apprentice of the Circle, one who had yet to take take their vows of sequestration, and given where I found him, maybe never would, following a path similar to mine, though with significantly less success. Such a mirror is well known to be needed to access the Necropolis of Tya, the dead city left eternally cursed by its last witch-queen, as to open its doors requires you to read the inscriptions visible only in such mirrors. Well, the mage left his path open, and I followed with curses on my lips for him. Such curses were unneeded, for he had foolishly opened a jar found in an acolyte's house, and the worms inside devoured him, body and soul. I left the squirming robe behind and instead took his books. Most of it is trivia, and needlessly bound by moral 'superiority', but he did offer a single insight, a way that the Principle of Balance can be applied: by banishing other souls from the world, indeed, far beyond the mere places of death and into the Void of Nowhere, the can counterweight another soul, keeping it from leaving the world. It appears his intent was to record the possibility without instruction, and he destroyed the book that he copied from, but lacked enough insight into the occult principles to fully delete them from his notes. The proposed rituals are maddeningly incomplete, but this is a real, tangible step! Particularly as I have in my possession a large number of souls that are ready to be offered. Maybe it would even be merciful.

What else remains of this redacted animacy does have some use, even now, as lesser applications of the Principle to soul-sacrifice. I can now far more freely use magics that would otherwise be too costly to spend on trivial matters, as a human offers more than flesh and life as fuel, but its soul as well.

Summer of 782 While, after my expedition of the previous summer, I had intended to move swiftly to another task, a stroke of luck (and a little knowledge) has brought me into the confidence and company of a gorgeous creature, a feline woman brought from distant lands. One of the king's favoured slaves (another noble purchased her an iridescent ring, and I was able to blackmail him into introductions), she is beautiful, at least until the inevitable ravages her, she has parleyed her exotic grace to make her captivity more comfortable. She is quick-witted, and I find her company more pleasing than most mortals, and it bothers me to think of her soft fur in the hands of the uncouth beast in the throne room, she deserves one who can match her. Nonetheless, her position and skill are useful, for while I am a master of manipulation, seduction eludes me, and will likely do so forever, as my arts are not conducive to charm. Still, I can appreciate it in others, for as long as it lasts. When I am immortal, I shall have to remember her as she is now, before she withers. Cole disapproves, though whether because he sees her as inhuman (while not false, all mortals are equally low to me), or because he wants her for himself, I do not know, nor much care.

Her name is Sekica. Her true name, which she has confided in me. In the court she is called by other, less fitting, titles, that I shall not dignify by their inclusion. Such things are for the weakminded who refuse to see beyond their own walls.

Winter of 782 The king is dead, long live the king. While I must lie to my host that his fall is not at my hand, for it cost him some invested influence, here I can record the truth, that Yyrkoon, a lord that suffered after the young warmonger's defeats, having gathered about him allies who similarly fell from power, came to me with an offer, that I might sow treachery amongst the people of the court in exchange for the ignoring of certain indiscretions, and the unquestioned disappearance into my labs of certain disposable Malkin loyalists. Normally, I would not have bothered with such a trifling fee, Malkin has come to irk me, and so I accepted. Dark whispers into the minds of those followers who could be swayed, and a wasting plague amongst the remainder of the threats left little resistance to Yyrkoon's soldiers. Indeed, I'm told that he was somewhat displeased, feeling that butchering a sick man in his bed was too much like a murder to be satisfying revenge. I do not particularly care, he asked for a victory, which I delivered.

Sekica remains in the court, though no longer the king's mistress. I must conceal my involvement from her too, as her position was briefly precarious. Apparently, one soldier even directly threatened her person! She remains as clever as ever, and I doubt it will be long before she has regained her power, hopefully through less distasteful means this time.

Autumn of 783 Yyrkoon has proven a useful pawn, at least in terms of the extraction of favours. He was sufficiently able to eliminate any likely threat to his current authority without my help, but in doing so has rather depleted the city's fighting men. So when nearby Phivia attempted to extort Kuthian landholders (doubtless emboldened by the depletion), he was unable to marshal the forces needed to properly protect the farmers. As I still need to eat, the matter was of some small concern to me, but I was not expecting Yyrkoon's solution to be to beg me for help! I was able to force him into certain favours that should make Sekica's life more comfortable, and after Cole was able to catch for me a scion of Phivia's royal dynasty, I was able to smelt down his soul and that of Malkin's heir (one of the inconvenient loyalists passed into my care), forging them into a curse-tablet that could affect the city. It's in a corner of my lab now, shivering in pain, and while intact it ensures Phivia will never prosper. I hear it is already wracked by famine, its farms turned to ash, and the iron mines that brought it wealth have suffered such a rash of collapses that no-one will enter them now. With wealth and food lacking, Phivia's king has no means to threaten Kuthian interests any more. Already some refugees have sought shelter from Kuthia, and Yyrkoon has the wit to accept those with useful skills, at least. Sekica tells me he intends to shelter all who might approach, apparently he feels some guilt for their situation. If he wishes to waste his wealth on useless people, he is welcome to do so, so long as it does not implicate my own research. If he proves too profligate, he will have to be replaced. That would be inconvenient.

Winter of 784 An undisturbed year! And with it, another secret! One of the most interesting of the merchant's leads was the sale of a serpent-idol to a cult in the city. Not so much for the cult itself, as it had little power, but for the implications, the precision of the demands implied they had access to a true text of Erkiss, the dreaming Serpent of Chaos, who creates and devours in equal measure. He was wounded in the Godfall, and is recuperating. The cult proved to have not merely a text, but to have found buried in the city one of the magekings of the city from the time of Ashud and his ilk. The entrance to his tomb was lost in ruin and earth, but much of the structure proved intact. Meliss, they were called, and well documented for their devotion to the snakegod, and so their tomb was filled with inscriptions of their gathered secrets. The cult themselves were unwilling to offer me access to their holy sites, and so there was a brief struggle. Their high priest was not weak, but I interrupted them during a ritual, and he was unable to escape the jaws of his god when the circles were broken. I had thought my arcane shields enough to protect me from the backlash, and never have I been so grateful to be wrong about my strength. I was cast in dream-form into the mind of Erkiss, along with the shrieking spirits of the cult that had survived Cole's blade. As they squirmed and fell into the mass of their god's hunger, I climbed upon their digesting souls and found another treasure swallowed by the snake. It appears nothing more than a bright pearl, unusually large but otherwise commonplace, but I know it for what it truly is, even looking at it I can scarcely believe it. It is the Treasure of the First, a wish conceded to the first sorcerer by the gods of order, unused, for it is a mighty and irreplacable treasure. And now it is mine, this might force that can reshape the world. Alone, it would be too dangerous to use, and even combined with the animantic arts I gleaned from that foolish apprentice I worry that the sheer might would destroy me.

But now, at least, I have a potential ritual of immortality. I shall not use it yet, for I can seek more lore, and to fail the ritual would undo me. But if crisis looms or time runs short, I have a chance.

Either way, I have exhausted what that merchant provided me. I rewarded myself by calling up his ghost, and him by burning the soul into blissful oblivion.

Summer of 785 I should not speak of the future, for whether I claim weal or woe, calamity follows. The Circle will not cease their meddling, and actually bothered to send one of their own against me. A clever illusionist, he stole into my lab and stole away precious texts, replacing them with concealed traps. The resulting curses were dreadful, and while I survived, even now the soul-poison lurks behind my eyes, ready to drive me to madness if I try to examine those impossible shapes that crawled from the pages. I cannot force them out, but I can keep them contained. I must be careful now, for those venomous sigils have turned my eyes slitted and yellow, and though I can see in blindness, to look into light risks illuminating the symbols. Sekica tells me they are a pretty match to her own, I have not the heart to tell her they are those of a lizard, not a cat.

Spring of 786 The recent crises of various kinds have driven the masses into a fearful frenzy, and as I could use mystical support for certain of my rituals, including the immortality rite, I have marshalled certain of them into my service as a cult. They believe me a messianic figure, who will save them from the coming calamity, of which the recent problems are mere foreshocks. A lie, but one they are desperate enough to believe, and believe with enough force that they will offer themselves as fuel for my schemes. Arranging their belief was surprisingly easy, I am forever doomed to underestimate the gullibility of mortals. As a sorcerer, I am already considered half-divine, blessed with power and cursed with strife by the gods. A little extra illusion and they are unshakably devoted. I did have to arrange a few more tangible rewards and threats; Cole broke the neck of a noblewoman whose charity was feeding some of the hungrier through the winter, and Sekica was able to arrange the diversion of a lord's kitchens that we might offer a feast of our own. All in all, a successful few months.

Summer of 787 My accumulation of power continues apace, if with a little disruption. While I have not managed to retrieve the texts stolen from me by that Circle illusionist, their flight did lead me to another of that meddling order, one who hadn't the power to resist me, especially when my loyal cultist turned out in force. His village is ash now, and the soul-catching scroll a little fatter. His texts have some value, but the real treasure was a gemstone in the ruin, now embedded in place of one of my teeth, and within a demon. As its liberator from the Circle's prison, it owes me a favour, and knows that while the Circle exists, they can always keep it trapped. So it will aid me in my quest, in hope my ascended power will allow me to end our common enemy. I should not trust it, but it gains nothing from betraying me.

I think I may now have the final form of my ritual, and I shall commit it to these pages as such: I shall call up the souls from the dread scroll I found. Committed as they are to demonic hunger, I must channel them through the demon now residing in my flesh and bone. I shall have Cole speak the words that unbind my inherited wish, and while the force of it will doubtless unmake him, his undying flesh will survive long enough to use it, gathering the souls that fill me and spending them, casting some into the deepest void of Nowhere, feeding some to the hungry creatures that thirst for anima, and shattering yet more into dust and fragments. Sekica shall anchor my soul. Only now do I realise I have succumbed to the foolishness of love, but it still has a use, for I can use it to bind my heart, and with that anchor to stabilise against the fall and sacrifice of the counterweight anima, ensure my soul will never descend or succumb, even unto the end of time. There are various sundry matters that must be attended to as part of the rite, but my cult shall handle them, though unknowing of how this spell inevitably ends, with their own souls dragged into the maelstrom from which I shall ascend alone.

It is decided, I shall perform the rite in the depths of winter, just as it turns towards spring, beneath the new moon.

Winter of 788

I have succeeded. I am immortal and undying. The rite proved more destructive than I had expected, perhaps a flaw in my cultist's binding sigils, but it does not matter. Kuthia will likely never recover, more than three-quarters of its population succumbing to the side-effects of the rite. I suspect what souls were not dragged in like those of my cult will haunt the ruins forever. Yyrkoon still lives, but his commands are heard only by the dead, and they do not heed him.

Sekica played her part perfectly, though I am now unaffected by her love. She still loved me, and thought we might be together in some way, with those who enslaved her dead. A mistake, for as an immortal I would inevitably watch her fade, and she deserves better than that. Fortunately, one of the city's premier furriers survived with his skill, though not much else, and before I gave his maimed soul mercy he made of her a cloak, one I have already ensured will not decay as living flesh must. Thus, her beauty will last forever, as I will.

My studies have only just begun.

#Lichdom #lich #my writing #liches #dark fantasy #writing #journal #journalling #This lich ended up with weird luck #got three separate Crises #but only one actual Challenge #(though perhaps that's for the best #they only just succeeded that one)#I like the system #might try it again at some point or try and wrangle a friend for the 2-player mode #villain #villain protagonist

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