Queen Vlaakith CLVII, commonly known simply as the Lich-Queen, is the supreme ruler of the Githyanki race and a major antagonist in Dungeons & Dragons, especially the Planescape setting. Already a lich and a mighty wizard, she aspires to true godhood.
Vlaakith makes an appearance as one of the overarching antagonists of the 2023 video game Baldur's Gate 3 (alongside the Dead Three, the Dark Urge, and Shar), serving as the main antagonist of Lae'zel's storyline.
In Baldur's Gate 3, she is voiced by Bethan Dixon Bate.
Appearance[]
As a lich, Vlaakith is an animate, sapient corpse. Her body is desiccated and shriveled, with her skin clinging to the bones. Her eyeballs have rotted away, leaving only motes of red light that glow in the empty sockets. While most text sources describe her as blackened in appearance, character art of Vlaakith shows her with the pale yellow skin typical of githyanki.
Vlaakith is usually shown wearing a revealing black dress beneath a dark purple cloak covered in eyeballs. She wears her crown of corruption on her head and carries the ruby-jeweled, dragon-shaped scepter of Ephelomon at all times.
Personality[]
Vlaakith is defined by her paranoia and her insatiable lust for power. She cannot tolerate disobedience or any challenge to her rule, reacting violently to any hint of either. She guards her power so jealously that she kills any githyanki whose personal power even approaches her own might, regardless of how loyal they might be. Vlaakith also demands absolute obedience and loyalty from every member of the githyanki species. For her part, Vlaakith does not reciprocate her people's loyalty in any way, viewing them all as expendable pawns.
Vlaakith is also a monstrous sadist who surrounds herself with death and suffering. She has personally tortured and killed thousands of victims in her palace of Susurrus, often using their bodies as decoration afterward. Vlaakith likes to ensure that the suffering of her victims never ends - she uses magic to preserve some captives in eternal agony, and she has also enchanted Susurrus to trap the souls of every creature that dies there. The souls of all the thousands Vlaakith has murdered in Susurrus remain within its walls, creating an indistinct chorus of whispers begging for release. These whispers lend Susurrus its name, and listening to the anguished whispers is one of Vlaakith's favorite pastimes.
Biography[]
Vlaakith CLVII is the one-hundred and fifty-seventh queen of the githyanki. She and all previous queens have borne the name Vlaakith after Vlaakith I, who forged the pact between the githyanki and Tiamat. While all previous githyanki queens have passed the title onto their daughters, Vlaakith CLVII instead chose to rule forever. Rather than having a daughter, she became a lich, granting herself eternal (un)life. She has no living family, no designated successor, and no intention of ever leaving the throne.
Vlaakith has reigned as the githyanki's absolute ruler for around one thousand years. During this time, she has built a cult of personality around herself, and the githyanki all but worship her even though they would never describe it that way. She has also instituted a policy of culling any githyanki whose power begins to rival her own. These githyanki are brought before her to have their souls ripped out and devoured. Most come willingly, but those who do not are dragged to her in chains. This culling prevents any githyanki from becoming a rival to Vlaakith, and also keeps their civilization dependent on her immense magical abilities, as for instance, Vlaakith is the only githyanki able to cast the gate spell which they use to raid the Material Plane.
Vlaakith's main goal is to ascend beyond lichdom and become a true deity. She views her undeath as a step on the road to godhood, and she has spent virtually her entire reign working toward her apotheosis. In the adventure "The Lich-Queen's Beloved," Vlaakith intends to do this by casting thousands of wish spells to extract the remaining divinity of the divine corpse that her capital of Tu'narath is built upon. In fact, her consumption of her people's souls is primarily meant to power her massive use of wish spells, which normally cannot be used nearly so frequently. Other adventures and campaigns show her pursuing this goal by other means, such as trying to hijack the power of Gith or of the gith people's long-dead original deity. Should Vlaakith succeed in becoming a god, she becomes a deity of evil and destruction, leading her people on a campaign of multiversal conquest.
In most editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Vlaakith is an active threat for the player characters to face. However, the fourth edition campaign "Scales of War" takes place after her hypothetical death in "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" and focuses on her former ally Tiamat's actions afterward.
Powers & Abilities[]
Vlaakith in Baldur's Gate 3.
Vlaakith is the strongest of her kind by a wide margin, a position she enforces by preemptively killing any challengers. In game terms, she is a twenty-fifth-level wizard and a lich, and she destroys any githyanki of greater than 16th level. As an epic-level wizard, she can use virtually any arcane spell she can prepare, cast each of these spells many times per day, and augment the power of her spells.
Like all githyanki, Vlaakith has some psionic powers. While these pale next to her wizard powers, she is still capable of telekinesis and teleportation, including across planar boundaries.
Vlaakith has additional powers as a lich. Her withered body is surprisingly tough, and it courses with negative energy, harming those who touch her. She can also permanently paralyze victims with a touch. Most importantly, she has a phylactery, which restores her body in a matter of days if she is slain. Permanently killing Vlaakith requires the destruction of both her body and her phylactery.
Finally, Vlaakith carries two magical artifacts, the crown of corruption and the scepter of Ephelomon, with her at all times. The crown can drain the life out of living creatures and reanimate them as undead under Vlaakith's control, while the scepter grants Vlaakith control over red dragons and the ability to summon one on a weekly basis.
 Villains
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Recruitable Party Members Gods Demons Devils The Iron Throne The Shinning Crusade Bhaalists & Bhaalspawns Dark Alliance Cult of the Absolute Githyanki The Sharrans Shadow Druids Vampires Others | ||