About lich names
Guttural strings like "Stogoraq", "Szukvinor", and "Kar'ghirud" stack hard k and g sounds with the occasional apostrophe, reading like words a living throat was never meant to hold. Drop one onto a soul vessel prop, a dungeon's final door, or the spine of a forbidden grimoire your players keep ignoring. Apostrophe results feel older, good for liches who predate the kingdom they haunt.
How lich names are built
Lich names come in two shapes: a fused single word like Bostog or Khalac, and a longer form split by an apostrophe into two guttural halves, like Gaz'gar and Thac'mughun. A 127-deep cluster bank and hard codas (c, g, k, z) build cold, sepulchral words.
Bostog
b (opener) + o (vowel) + st (cluster) + o (vowel, same bank) + g (coda) + a (vowel, same bank) + q (coda)
the recurring o-vowel gives a chant-like rhythm
Gaz'gar
gaz (front half) + ' (the joining mark) + gar (back half) + u (vowel, same bank) + g (coda)
Maataran
m + aa + t + a + r + a + n + doubled aa reads as ancient and drawn-out
Naming notes
The mid-word apostrophe gives the longer lich names a bitten-off, incantatory rhythm, the kind of name carved on a phylactery. Doubled vowels (Maataran, Koul'qughiac) read as ancient and drawn-out. End on a hard stop (c, g, k) for a name that sounds final. Use for undead archmages, phylactery true-names, and necromantic boss villains; keep the longer apostrophized form for the most ancient liches.
Questions about lich names
- Why do lich names feel chant-like?
- A vowel echoes between clusters in the fused forms (B-o-st-o-g), and the apostrophized forms snap into two chanted halves (Thac'mughun). Both give an incantatory rhythm suited to a name bound to a phylactery.
- How do I signal an ancient lich versus a recent one?
- Use the longer apostrophized forms and doubled vowels (Maataran, Koul'qughiac) for an age-old undead; the short fused form (Bostog, Khalac) reads as a more recently risen lich.
- What ending sounds most undead?
- Hard stops, especially -c, -g and -k. They close the name coldly, the way a death-mage's true name should sound when read aloud from a grimoire.