Chapter 7: Just Pay Your Taxes
A "benevolent lich" was the sort of thing that only ever showed up in stories—and usually only in the stories people made up just to balance out how many evil liches there were in the world.
By nature, liches were destined to be rejected by human society. Seven out of ten humans openly discriminated against them. That said, the opposite was true: liches viewed themselves as superior to humans.
No matter how much humanity a lich retained, the undead transformation inevitably seeped into the senses and thoughts. Sooner or later, a lich would lose all trace of human perspective. What remained was something entirely… other.
For immortal liches who wielded overwhelming magical power, humans really did seem like inferior beings.
Of course, most liches were equal-opportunity bigots. They looked down on all living races equally, and even other lesser undead as well. To them, skeletal servants were mere tools barely better than humans.
Only those with true intellect or comparable power could earn a lich's respect.
Devoid of mortal desires, liches tended toward absolute rationality, save for a few powerful emotions left over from their bittersweet memories of life.
And more bitter than sweet, at that.
It was therefore little wonder that most liches were calm and logical ninety percent of the time, but could grow completely unhinged at certain moments.