Dracolich
A dracolich is a dragon that has deliberately bound its soul to a phylactery, thereby liberating itself from death. The creature's spirit may inhabit any deceased reptile body, generally their original form, and maintain all of the old body's skills and abilities. That means a dracolich retains its supernatural dread aura, spells, and breath weapon, as well as the undead's terrifying might.
Gamanever intended for dracoliches to manifest upon Valine, both recognizing the unbalancing effect of introducing undeath upon her plans for her fledgling creation, and wanting to maintain an element of herself completely unfamiliar to the mortals of Valine. However upon Khydar the Unnatural's creation, her hand was forced and, with undeath unleashed upon Valine, Gama's direct influence over the cursed state was, for a time, a necessity. Now, with the genie out of the bottle, the dragons of Valine can adopt this state of being, though few wish to do so with so many centuries of life still ahead of them. Only two dragons are known to have voluntarily become dracoliches, a black and a blue, both mortally wounded and on the point of death, though stories persist of a silver dragon in the far north of Valine who was tricked into relinquishing their soul into a phylactery and retreated to the arctic regions of Valine to hide and avoid being controlled by the being that captured their soul.
A dracolich has the unusual ability to take up residence in the body of any reptile corpse after death, however they are most powerful when they do so in the body of a dragon. The dracolich does not "die" when slain in its physical form. Instead, its spirit departs and hides in the phylactery, ready to animate and enter another suitable body. A dracolich, like other varieties of lich, is only completely destroyed when its phylactery is shattered.
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