We don't really know, and we probably won't get to know anytime soon since SBS prefer to say "liches and vampires don't really exist".

I'm curious why exactly you find spawning near the phylactery unrealistic though? The lich is essentially a physical projection, it would make sense for the lich to respawn near the source of the projection.

Posted By ShadowTani at 10:45 AM - Fri Dec 21 2018

We don't really know, and we probably won't get to know anytime soon since SBS prefer to say "liches and vampires don't really exist".

I'm curious why exactly you find spawning near the phylactery unrealistic though? The lich is essentially a physical projection, it would make sense for the lich to respawn near the source of the projection.

I'd agree with Tani, respawning near the phylactery would seem the most probable to me.

There's also some very important mechanisms behind having the lich return to the phylactery on death too.

First of all if an immortal being would spawn near their point of death it would be extremely unbalanced, a lich could go on an unending rampage, only facing temporary delays along the way. If they spawned back at their phylactery then death would at least be a bit more inconvenient for them.

Secondly, since a lich can't permanently die without destroying the phylactery there should be a way of tracking its location. By having the lich spawn at the phylactery one can pin point the location based on reports from people who witness the lich after each death. Like: "okay, he keeps coming from this region, so that is where we need to search".

Posted By ShadowTani at 1:02 PM - Fri Dec 21 2018

There's also some very important mechanisms behind having the lich return to the phylactery on death too.

First of all if an immortal being would spawn near their point of death it would be extremely unbalanced, a lich could go on an unending rampage, only facing temporary delays along the way. If they spawned back at their phylactery then death would at least be a bit more inconvenient for them.

Secondly, since a lich can't permanently die without destroying the phylactery there should be a way of tracking its location. By having the lich spawn at the phylactery one can pin point the location based on reports from people who witness the lich after each death. Like: "okay, he keeps coming from this region, so that is where we need to search".

I meant just appearing there, what would make sense is perhaps taking over a nearby unoccupied vessel. say preferring corpses but optionally taking over npcs. Sorry for the confusion.