Lich (Oblivion)

obli A Lich is a powerful undead enemy found in the northern regions and in dungeons. It is the most powerful undead in the game and can be summoned by a Master-level conjurer. They walk with heavy steps when idle and float around rather slowly when alerted. They usually carry a staff, leveled to the player. They can summon undead such as skeletons and zombies. They have a high resistance to magical attacks, even at lower levels. However, if you have protection from their spells you will be fine, as they are quite weak otherwise.

All liches were actually once powerful mages, who used necromancy to transform themselves into extremely powerful and almost immortal forms - Hence, the liches. An interesting result of this is that liches are the only type of undead that have not actually "died" in a conventional manner.

As a note, summoning a lich requires more magicka than any other summon in the entire game, even holding rank as one of the most magicka-expensive spells there is.

Drops

 * Bonemeal
 * Leveled Staff

Strengths

 * Immune to Frost
 * Immune to Poison
 * Immune to Paralysis
 * Spell Absorption 20%
 * Spell Reflect 20%

Weaknesses

 * Weakness to Fire

Damage types

 * Magical

Soul level
Grand

Dispositions
Full Liches (but not Nether Liches) are members of their own Lich faction instead of the standard Undead faction. The disposition modifiers for the factions ensure that Liches will not fight other undead and, conversely, that other undead will not fight Liches.

The primary difference between the Lich faction and the standard Undead faction is the relationship to Necromancers and Vampires: standard Undead will happily cohabitate with Necromancers and Vampires, but Liches hate them and will immediately attack (and the feeling is mutual: the faction modifiers ensure that members of the Necromancers cult and Vampire faction also hate Liches).

One other implication (possibly an unintentional developer oversight) of the special Lich faction is that full Liches do not like each other. If two full Liches spawn near each other in a dungeon they are very likely to start fighting each other.

Quest

 * Miscarcand
 * Where Spirits Have Lease
 * Lich of Lost Boy Cavern (does not appear in the Journal)
 * Secrets of the Ayleids (if you choose to fight them)
 * Affairs of a Wizard (you face a necromancer who is attempting to become a lich)

Subtypes
Liches have two known variants, listed in order of difficulty:
 * Lich (stronger)
 * Nether Lich (weaker)

Unique

 * King of Miscarcand
 * Erandur-Vangaril – Lich of Lost Boy Cavern
 * Lorgren Benirus –Where Spirits Have Lease.
 * Arielle Jurard – Introduced in the Fighter's Stronghold official plug-in. There are two Arielle Jurards seen in the game, the one being the lich, and the other one being the mage with the same name. They both seem very similar to each other, both being Breton Battlemages, but the lich comes from Lainlyn, located in Hammerfell.

Appearances

 * The Elder Scrolls: Arena
 * The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
 * The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
 * The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion