Liches

google "baelnorn"

I once had a character who's younger brother was a lich, and a pretty powerful one at that. He himself was a necro-fisto-mancer sky pirate named Elrick Edwards. His brother Bal'Phonse became a lich at a suspiciously young age in their backstory and got attacked by a group of heroes because of the implications just before the game started. They trapped his soul inside of a dongle and Elrick avenged/retrieved him later as a character arc.

Much later the party (the insane dwarf monk specifically) accidentally woke up some ancient horrific terrifying evil thing that would have meant an end to the skies and the world as we know it. Luckily, i roll very terribly when it counts and ended up basically eaten by the mass of weird forming around our dwarf. I was carrying the dongle (a black pearl) and Bal'Phonse got to cast a spell, and since he access to 9th level spells... i cast Giant form 2. Reason dwarf summoned the doomy god of doom? she dropped below 0 after a specific event. Know what giant form 2 gives you? regeneration 5. 2 turns of meteors later (i lost the will save) and the world is save, save a small town that is now a series of craters.

In the end Elrich and Bal'phonse merged their consciousness with the being and made a new god out of the three souls and god magic stuff (the dwarf got to come along too). Bal'phonse did most of the work.

It was a good way to die, not my favorite story, but a good one.

>>51895507
Yes there can, a lot of settings have examples.

>>51895600
Oh right, i got sidetracked telling the story. that happens.

Lich was declared good and never really did much evil to begin with, so the example sits.

Elrick was a dickbag though, and wanted to become a lich for the evulz

>>51895507
think about someone who is unambiguously good, like mr rogers or bob ross

now imagine a lich who acts just like them, and would never do anything that they wouldnt do

done

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>>51895507
it entirely depends on how your liches are made. if you just need enough magical juice, and the most convient way of getting it is to sacrifice 1k souls on a new moon that takes place on a winter solstice, than you are slightly fucked. if your lich can just subsitute 1k souls for draining but not killing the magical power from 100k+ people, and can work aroud the dates, than your golden

but really, it depends on the setting

>>51895507
depends on the setting

If you look at it the right way, all Liches can be considered good. I mean, morality is relative right?

>>51895507
Baelnorns

>>51895507
At the very least I think there can be a neutral lich, someone that does it out of a genuine desire to further their knowledge and research rather than just lust for power.

>>51895507

I strongly prefer liches who appear evil because of how hugely detached they've become from the world and because of originating from a much earlier, very different age, rather than because of any explicit malicious intent.

>What do you mean I can't decimate villages to keep the peasants away from my domain? What's next, giving vote to the women? Your world is doomed, I'm telling you.

There's no reason why such a lich can't theoretically be a force of good. It's like Baba Yaga, really. Can be good or evil depending on what you need from him and how you approach him.

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>>51896430
Reminds me of the Sojourner in the Erevis Cale trilogy. Insanely powerful, ancient beyond belief and everything happening is because he just wants to walk outside during day once again - by pulling a moon down to provide him with shade.

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>>51895507
Depends on how you define liches and goodness.
D&D has multiple kinds. There are Archliches, who ascend to lichdom via a different process entirely than normal liches. They avoid the sacrifice of others entirely, but it requires untold levels of power to achieve. There are Baelnorns, elves blessed with a state near-identical to lichdom by divine powers. It's supremely unlikely, but a normal evil lich may also change their alignment to neutral or good over great time, though it's possible they may commit suicide out of remorse if so. Lastly, a neutral-aligned character of incredible willpower may retain their neutrality even after committing the heinous Ceremony of Endless Night, simply because they steadfastly hold that the good they will work afterwards will outweigh the colossal evil they have wrought. Great Good + Great Evil = a resounding Neutral.
Furthermore, people can also be forced into lichdom, knowingly or even unknowingly. All the Ceremony of Endless Night does is create a lich potion, which can then be drank by someone of any alignment. Whoever performed the ceremony is probably still evil as all fuck, though, and getting them to give up the lich potion would not be easy.

>>51896527
There is also the Sandstorm waste walker class which results in being a mummy-like waste lich which requires you to be ungood, but not evil.

>>51896453

Is that a Touhou?