Master Lich

This lich's flesh has not rotted but dried, stretched like old leather over skull and bones. Deep in its black sockets dance two fierce white sparks. It owes its state to incantations, potions and promises sworn to dark powers beyond the planes, and it remains a master lich only until those powers collect.

A master lich fights in person only when it has no choice or its target is helpless. Otherwise it animates skeletons and zombies to battle for it, and it can raise anything slain by its hand or through it. It controls these minions completely and sees and hears through their decayed eyes and ears. It is not limited to people: long-dead remains rise as skeletons, humans and humanoids as zombies, and other large creatures as monster zombies.

It keeps every ability it had in life and paralyzes by touch; a failed save vs. paralyzation leaves the victim rigid for 4-24 rounds. Enchantment/charm and necromantic magic do nothing to it, including spells for controlling undead, nor do polymorph, poison, cold, insanity or electricity.

On the other hand, it causes no fear on sight and normal weapons can hit it. It regenerates 1 hit point per round even if its body is hacked apart and scattered. It can be turned as a special undead, except on its home ground.

The only known master lich, called the Grinning One, dwells in the warrens of the Great Starship, guarded by its undead and a pack of undead rats, each with AC 9, 1 hit point and movement 6 but otherwise ordinary, that scout for prey and enemies. Space is vast, though, and others may exist or yet arise.

Unlike solitary lichlings, a master lich wants to sit atop an undead society of its own making. It commands its skeletons and zombies absolutely and bends other lesser undead to its will by force of personality or threats; any undead below it may serve, except liches, archliches and demiliches, while vampires and other thinking undead are uneasy allies at best. Because it is dodging a dark bargain, it gathers numbers around it for protection from anyone who might deliver its final death.

Thanks to its regeneration, it endures until one of two things happens: a dark power arrives to claim its spirit as payment, or it is caught and hauled to a power's home plane. It fears those powers above all else. Now and then it becomes obsessed with controlling one person, place or event, a fixation that eventually crowds out all its other needs.