The $900,000 stretch goal for Underworld Ascendant’s ongoing crowdfunding campaign just got a lot more interesting:

…we’re adding Liches to the $900K stretch goal. Sexy enough for ya?

Liches are one of the most feared adversaries one can encounter in the Underworld. Old, powerful and full of hate, liches were once powerful wizards who, in a desperate bid for immortality, have sacrificed their souls to gain forbidden knowledge and eternal life as an undead necromancer. Forever damned, liches sit on their thrones of bone awaiting the time when their powers are strong enough for them to rise up and dominate the living.

And one character from the history of the Abyss, in particular, will be making a re-appearance as a lich:

In addition, not only will we add liches to the game as a creature type, but we will also add one particular lich to Underworld Ascendant with its own unique personality and motivations. Thought killed long ago by a great hero, the evil wizard Tyball survived his fate to become a being of even greater power.

After a lifetime immersed in the primal forces of the universe, the skeletal remains of the sorcerer Tyball have held firm to the material plane, refusing to descend into nothingness. Where it steps, weeds wither and the bones of the fallen rise, full of malevolent intent. Does it recall the many acts of treachery and depravity in its past? Or is it simply a violent, hate-filled echo of its former consciousness? Whatever the case, the lich remains. A villain before, now… an abomination.

The Necropolis of the Ancients, an area of the Underworld that will unlock when we hit $950K in fundraising, would make a good stomping (haunting?) ground for Tyball, don’t you think? First let’s invite Tyball into our playground, then let’s give him a home!

To be perfectly honest, I hope that, if the $900,000 stretch goal is unlocked, Tyball will become at least the object of a very involved side plot, if not materially relevant to the main story of Underworld Ascendant.