Crowned Liches are a parasitic species belonging to a large colony called The Rot. The Rot consists of many different variations of parasitic species, all sharing a similar hivemind. The Rot is considered one of the biggest threats to the residents of Elyxium. Liches are one of the most intelligent and common species in this colony of parasites.

Crowned Liches are often viewed as the opposite of their Rot brethren, Rot Fiends. Unlike Fiends, Liches are slow-moving and often feed upon corpses or easy to access prey. Their bodies sacrifice speed for strength and stability, making them a feared creature once provoked. Due to how slow-moving Liches are, they possess once critical ability to gain the upper hand if they must hunt living prey. Inside a Liches mouth is a bundle of small tongues, all ending in a microscopic hole that can secrete a paralyzing agent. When hunting, Liches can use this saliva to infect a single bite onto their prey, which after 10-30minutes will fully immobilize its prey, allowing the Lich to track it down and feed.

Crowned Liches is a collective term to label the parasite and host together. The process in which a Lich parasite infects and takes over its host is a horrific and painful experience for the unfortunate victim. The parasite begins life usually no smaller than a grain of rice, which often seeks food to hide in until it is devoured. Once inside a host, the parasite begins to rapidly grow over a course of a year, slowly lengthening along the spinal cord of the victim, controlling its nervous system, and eventually consuming the brain and head to fully take over the host's body. During this process, the host's body usually undergoes physical alternation until it finally appears like the above anatomy. Its very common for the parasite part of the Lich to be clearly different in texture from the body, however, in some cases the worms can be covered in other skins such as fur, scales, and even mucus.

Sight
Liches have no noticeable eyes since they are attuned to living in pitch blackness, however, in some cases, microscopic eyes have been found on the top of a Liches head. Crowned Liches are extremely attuned to the heat around them, and use this information to create a heatmap of the area around them, prey or hot surfaces showing as red, and cool areas are blue. This inhibits the ability of Liches to hunt during hot days, which is why they mainly hunt at night or in cold and dark areas.
 

Crowned Liches are created and born with reborn souls straight from Alure, and this soul is released upon death as per normal.

Crowned Liches always have a head like the parasite pictured, and a tail that mimics the same texture as the head, as it is a full worm peeking through both ends of the host's body.

To abide by base cannon appearance rules they CAN have:
Fur of any style, no fur, scales anywhere.
Plates or no plates on the worm's back.
The worm's face can have soft "whisker" growth or no growth. (Shown on Ref)
Horns, wings, scales, feathers, glowing markings.
Thinner or more stylized body.
Any style of teeth.
Any type of natural tail.
Any lip shape.
Extra heads must be accompanied by another tail, as having more than one worm in the Lich must be defined.

To abide by base cannon appearance rules they can NOT have:
No Tail.
No skin rolled up on the hands/feet.
Drastically different anatomy as pictured above.
Magical afflictions (without added items).

You are of course free to change them however you'd like as a personal character, these are just basic guidelines for Elyxium lore (Licenses).

✔️ Open Species (50% AC. No XP)
✔️Licensed Species (Full Rewards)