you know he's gonna keep mentioning his wife in a way that makes it completely unclear what kind of ghoul, ghost, or goblin she is.
"Well Mrs. Skullumbo, she takes an interest in those sort of runes, on account of her curse. Me personally, I don't know a ward from a geas."
A bunch of my favorite ancilliary characters.
... I'm wondering, now, about a fantasy series about a Demilich. Someone who isn't "always chaotic evil," but who is ultimately just a levitating skull full of magic, who's trying their best not to draw too much attention to themselves.
Just this guy, floating around with a skeletor voice, with a mannequin body dangling underneath him that he's operating by mage hand, while a cloak does its best to hide the whole setup.
My standard rule in my home game is that there's nothing evil about subverting death, and you can do it in all sorts of non-evil ways - though the cruel ones are quicker.
Rather, the thing that tends to make liches evil is a lack of perspective, brought on by a disconnection from all mortal needs.
When you outlive everything you could possibly care about, and have nothing physically in common with the mortals you used to be among, it's easy to lose connections and a sense of proportionality.
Good liches tend to build trapdoors into their resurrections, to allow folks to defeat them, or for /
4E had a great bit about the Archlich Epic Destiny, that the cheap, easy, and dirty route to lichdom requires evil acts that inevitably twist the mind. The Archlich needs to be mighty enough to become a lich on their own terms but they can do it without corruption or loss of humanity.
"Terribly sorry to drop in on your dreamscape like this, but I was putting together my report and there was just something I couldn't quite make sense of. I was hoping you might help me figure it out, sir, if you'll forgive my oneiromantic projection."
