I've been waiting for a reason to code up some abilities for
not-quite Liches for some time and mainly haven't because
each quest (at least out of the ones I've heard about) has
either failed or succeeded fully. Oh well. I'll wait another
few years before coding up the powers of a freakish half-created
undead player...

Given your hours, I'm guessing you power-ranked to 47 and did
most of your killing there. That's what will get you with
distention. If they had been spread out over the levels you
probably wouldn't have seen it. (That's just speculation on
my part.)