In modern fantasy fiction, a lich (IPAEng: ˈlɪtʃ) (sometimes spelled liche, cognate to German Leiche "corpse") is a type of undead creature, often formerly a powerful magician or king, who has used evil rituals to bind his intellect to his animated corpse and thereby achieve a perverse form of immortality. Liches are depicted as being clearly cadaverous (as opposed to the generally more appealing forms of vampires), their bodies desiccated or even completely skeletal. Liches are often depicted as holding power over hordes of lesser undead creatures, using them as their soldiers and servants, and thus are a threat both individually and as leaders of belligerent forces.

Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith's "Empire of the Necromancers", had used lich as a general term for any corpse, animated or inanimate, before the term's specific use in fantasy role-playing games. The more recent use of the term lich for a specific type of undead creature originates from the 1977 Monster Manual for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by Gary Gygax.

In literature

The lich developed from monsters found in earlier classic sword and sorcery fiction, which is filled with powerful sorcerers who use their magic to triumph over death. Many of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories feature powerful wizards whose magic enables them to return from the dead. Several stories by Robert E. Howard, such as the novella Skull-Face and the short story Scarlet Tears, feature undying sorcerers who retain a semblance of life through mystical means, their bodies reduced to shriveled husks with which they manage to maintain inhuman mobility and active thought—Thulsa Doom, for example. Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, has stated that he based the description of a lich included in the game on the short story The Sword of the Sorcerer by Gardner Fox. The term "lich", used as an archaic word for corpse (or body), is commonly used in these stories. Other imagery surrounding demiliches, in particular that of a jeweled skull, is drawn from the early Fritz Leiber story "Thieves' House".Fact: date=October 2008

In religion and mythology

In Roman Catholicism and the Church of England, the word "lychgate" refers to a covered area at the entrance to the cemetery where the casket awaits the clergy before proceeding into the cemetery for proper burial, "lych" being a word meaning body or corpse derived from Old English.

The underlying idea of eluding death by means of arcane study and black magic can be traced to Middle Eastern folklore,Or: date=October 2008 and the method of achieving immortality by placing one's soul in a phylactery, usually hidden in some vast fortress, is suggestive of the burial practices of Egypt.Or: date=October 2008