If you have the power to become a lich, I don’t see how anyone can tell you what your phylactery is going to be–the only limit is if some other lich uses it for themselves first.
Speaking of which, yeah, the SDMB is apparently going to create quite a battalion of liches and vampires.
Where are you lot going to get the skeleton, mummy, and zombie minions you need?
An Anne Rice mummy.
Hyper-Cognition (ie gain total mastery of a language in 24-hours)? - Check
Inhumanly Strong? - Check
Inhumanly Fast? - Check
Immortal (unaging)? - Check
Indestructible (at least nearly)? - Check
Regeneration (for when the limits of the previous two are exceeded)? - Check (requires sunlight though)
Perfect Physique? - Check
Super Pheromones to attract the opposite sex? - Check
No Kryptonite or Garlic or other special vulnerability? - Check
Smarter, faster, stronger, highly resistant to harm, and irresistible to women… yeah sign me up for that one.
Zombies are the lazy slackers of the Undead set, so that would be a pretty good fit for me.
My family probably wouldn’t even notice til’ I bit my nephew or something. (Great kid, but slow.)
I’ve never really seen why a lich would need minions, let alone undead minions (who tend to be inadequate flunkies, and messy besides). An immortal who can look like anything he wants, can’t be killed without destroying a particular magical widget, and wields a vast and changeable array of useful powers has so many options other than undead legions. Whether he’s after wealth, temporal power, or both, the right form and right approach will result in people giving it to him, and thanking him for the privilege.
As far as I can tell, the only reason liches don’t rule every fantasy world they exist in is that they always use charisma as their dump stat.
I dunno.
Seems like a lich has plans. Evil beings have things to do. Schemes to plot. Power to seize. Dark fortresses to erect. What lich wants to do all the drudge work itself? And Og knows you can’t trust humans: they might be heroes trying to infiltrate your stronghold, or worse yet, be as evil as you and plotting to take your place.
Zombies, skeletons, mummies, ghouls: face it, you’re gonna need 'em.
I always pictured them as generally being too much “magic geeks” to conquer well. Much too prone to getting caught up experimenting and researching, and losing track of or just plain forgetting about any Master Plans they intended to try (“What? It’s the twelfth century already?!”). Or just not interested.
Well, see the thing is, we’re not gonna let that happen. No staying dead for you.
My suggestion is become a skeleton or zombie so you don’t have to think about your unlife and how much you don’t want your soul around anymore.
Yes, in the Knorf-verse, the mind and soul are separate things.
And yet, liches who rely on them invariably get their clocks cleaned by some bunch of heroes so brain-dead they ought to count as zombies.
Nope, one of a lich’s biggest assets, right up there with phenomenal magical power, is time. A fifty-year plan could be a short-term thing for a lich. He might not like the drudge work, but doing it doesn’t really cost him anything, and he can multitask drudging and plotting, since drudging–by definition–doesn’t require much thought.
And which stronghold are you talking about? The apartment in L.A.? The mansion in Carmel? The Embassy in ? The White House?
Well, if they don’t want to conquer stuff, that’s their business. All the more reason not to bother with armies of undead minions, since you don’t need an assault force. They would just get under foot, and the smell would draw attention from the Board of Health. If the lich really needs an extra pair of hands around, and doesn’t want to just hire a living flunky, he could make a golem or two–steadier than a zombie, and generally less flammable (just watch out for the flesh golems).
Unless they’re 3rd edition sorcerers, of course.
Pfff. None of the above. I want to be a Frankenstein (yeah, I know, that was the name of the creator, not the creature yaddayadda shut up). Not a Karloff flathead Frankenstein, an original Mary Shelley - cool and articulate Frankenstein.
A lich is the most powerful option obviously, without the constant hunger that vamps, zombies, and ghouls have to deal with.
OTOH, it would be amusing to be a “clacking skeleton” if only for the Army of Darkness references.
I was one of the ten people who actually played White Wolf’s “Wraith: the Oblivion” RPG from the World of Darkness line. So shout-outs to my fellow wraithly selves.
On Easter I was teasing my dad, the elderly minister, that he had to pick one type of undead for Jesus to be: Zombie or Vampire. While he holds on for dear life to the concept that Jesus wasn’t undead, but alive, my sister reminded me that He could also have been a ghost, which, she also reminded me, is the only “real” undead. Since she reminded me of that, I have to say I’d be a ghost. In addition to being the only real option it would also be awesome to go through walls and stuff and haunt people.
In RPG (or MMORPG, I guess) terms, it’s obvious that he was alive. Otherwise, everyone who ever got a resurrection/raise dead spell would be a zombie.
I voted Zombie - the easy way out. By the time of my demise I’ll want to give my mind a rest.
And wouldn’t that be a fun and evil twist to throw at a PC group?
Aren’t you already a lawyer?*
I’m just saying… 
*Honestly, I can’t remember if you are one of the board lawyers.
From Being Human:
I’d prefer the non-existent “dead is dead” option but if I have to pick an undead I’d go with ghost.
But…this is not what Anita Blake taught me about the vampire penis. 
I’d be a vampire, or a lich. (Or maybe a vampire lich! You don’t age, but also have awesome evil magic powers!)
I’d worry too much about losing myself/my personality as the years pass as any sort of ghost, specter or wraith. And I’ve no interest in actually in eating the chunky meat of a human body so zombie/ghoul are dead out.
I’d take a white court vamp in the Dresden style. I can pass as human and don’t have that messy daylight restriction. Not to mention feeding through sex.
Lich was my second thought but ingeneral while I’m sure they can pass for human they don’t tend to in the stories. I’ve seen what beinging an outcast for 4 years did to kids in high school I can’t immaging what 400 years would be like. So passing as human is the most important thing.