Beyond the obvious challenges of becoming one, I mean.

Having never played one and having fought against them very little, I know almost nothing about them other than that they have a reputation of being extremely hard to kill and that they have special powers that remain largely unknown to me. I've battled a mummy a few times but they're also a mystery to me, to be honest.

What is it that they can do, exactly? I've heard that they use phylacteries-- how do they get them and what are their affects?

Any special abilities or resistance that one should be aware of? And are there known vulnerabilities to fighting a Lich beyond trying to catch them before they raise their army?

I'm all for people getting special and powerful rewards. It keeps the game interesting. I just like to have some general sense of what they can do and what one should try to do, even if I'll still get my butt kicked at least I won't feel as clueless doing it.

Historically liches were a different monster than they are today. I won't ever fear a lich like I did Zorszaul or Istendil, because they just aren't the same. However, a lich, in the hands of a skilled player, should basically never die, and generally be able to at least defeat, if not kill, anyone he faces. Mummies are included in this, I think there are very few differences between mummies and liches probably other than phylacs.

Having played the first mummy, I can tell you from first hand experience the biggest thing you have going for you is the fear other players have of you. They most likely haven't had a mummy or lich, or know their full capabilities. They will approach you with fear and caution, and often avoid a fight when if they would just engage you, they would really put the hurt to you. Once you get past all that, you realize they are basically just hero level necromancers with a dump of extra hit points, added vulns, added immunities, and a few extra perks that make them unique compared to spectres.

I would be so scared if anyone managed to ever make a lich or mummy anti-paladin, it's not even funny. That would be terrifying. Mummy AP is like a dream of mine.

Both are assumed to be hero.

Liches get ritual of abominations, Mummies get Dissolution, Umbra, and that flesh spell. They get I think about the same stats and hp bonuses from looking at Ahtieli logs and Tavlin logs, so I would have to say that barring ritual of abominations, a mummy is stronger than a lich. They get some built in spells that are pretty cool, but even without ritual, it is probably only a slight slight advantage, and useless against the actual lich.

Ahtieli and Frismund I think posted a log where they went at it, Ahtieli won. It was a disruption battle, and it was a pretty close one. Frismund held his own, Ahtieli could have made it a sweep if he wanted though.

Didn't an imm say recently (Twist I think?) that liches lose a con a death, and mummies lose a con every 2?

Mummies are supremely badass, but they have a power cap. Twist was pretty clear about that with Tavlin, and I sorta was a punching bag with my mummy (lots of bugs, first mummy).

Liches in theory have no power cap, like anti-paladins. Of course, if you aren't a badass, it doesn't matter which you are. Not everyone can pull off an undead like Daev or Twist could. There's been lots of terrible liches. Some that didn't even make hero. My mummy was strong, but in someone elses hands he would have been a monster. I'm just not that great at chasing and getting kills.

edited to add: Keep in mind that my mummy was in like 2004 or something, so there have likely been MANY changes and updates to them and maybe undead in general. Im going on almost 10 year old info here.

Has some good information I dug up before. Worth a look for both IC stuff and at least hints at mechanics.

Liches are immune to some obvious things: Like infernal power, plague, poison, bleeding. They are vulnerable to holy attacks of course.

They gather phylacteris from corpses, by doing a dark ritual. When they do this dark ritual, an echoe is made that is heard in all of the area.

The phylacteris give different abilities, depending whom they've killed, race, class, alignment(?), number of kills(?) etc. Phylacteris made of corpses they didn't land the final blow on themselves crumble rather quickly, the ones they did on corpses they did land the final blow on, never crumble.

I THINK phylacteris comes with charges and ain't endless. But that's just a guess.

I've seen phylacteris gives things like: detect cammo, invoker shields, warrior skills etc etc. They can get all sorts of nasty odd things.

+ they have HUGE HPs compared to everyone else.

Ooh, they never sleep, eat, drink. Ooh, and they age SUPER slow.

I'm leaving a bunch of stuff out here that you should find out yourself. (I think.)

But I think this is quite a lot of information. I'm not 100% sure of it's accuracy, as it's all just based from being an ally and enemy of Athieli and Satebos a few years ago.

Hope this helps.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

I'm all for keeping some of it a mystery until you earn it through personal experience or IC interactions, but it's just nice to have a general sense what one is potentially up against.

Also nice to think about whether it would be worth pursuing for myself. Thanks.