We actually know a little about both of these things.

Becoming a vampire isnt really a choice. Anyone can be turned. From the holy knight to the shadowy assassin to the quite monk to the faithful druid. It has no impact on your affinity in any way. If you die as a vampire, you die for ever because you have no soul to spirit walk with.

As for lich. To even become a lich you would have to dark your souls affinity and become extremely evil. We dont know the exact mechanics of it, but there is a dark ritual that can be done to become a lich. This would rip your soul from your body and place it in an item for safe keeping. As long as the item is intact, you will not take the permanent sleep. But, if that item is destroyed then you are destroyed and you will permanently die. There is some debate on whether the soul inside the item is destroyed, or if it is sent to the Akashic Records. I havent seen confirmation from devs on what happens to the lich soul.

Infamy and in the case of vampires a dark soul limits the story in my view.

While I agree Liches should come from very dark souls, I am not sure they should necessarily be infamous. That suggests people know of them, know their true nature. I really like the idea that people hide who they really are, that they might well be considered a nobody and not connect at all with all the evil they have done. Or perhaps they are famous and have a great reputation because they put on such a great public front. I also do not think it should be automatic it should take a lot of work to separate your soul from your body.

With regards Vampires I think that should happen the old fashioned way. Spread through biting. I love the idea that good souls can be turned into Vampires. It makes for much more interesting stories.

Caspian did mention that you would be able to bite and turn another player.. two different options with the turning being on a cooldown.. If this has changed.. I'm not away. As far as Deffcon1's mention of the permadeath.. it is partly true.. When you turn someone you absorb their soul.. keeping it with you until you die. If you do die, that releases the souls and makes it so that people you have turned can still use their soul after death. Pretty sure unless you spawn into a npc that you turned, you would be a normal person again.

@Kab: "Pretty sure unless you spawn into a npc that you turned, you would be a normal person again."

What do you mean by this?

When you use a spark of life with your soul and are given the choice to be born into the world again.. You would use your child code to specify your child. What if you didn't have a child? Or your child was killed before you were able to use your soul in his body.. You would need to spawn into something.. A NPC would be a logical choice. Or you could start as another ward.

Yes

Correct. If I was a vampire and I turned you by draining your soul. Then you are killed while a vampire, and I am still alive, your soul would not be in the Akashic Records. You would have to use a different soul in your next life.

Which creates an interesting dynamic. Say you have a particularly valuable soul that you don't want to lose. It has a powerful talent, or you have focused all your training such that getting to Legendary in a skill is a cake walk with it. Then that soul is turned into a vampire. You don't want to be a vampire, you want to be a blacksmith who creates incredible swords for incredible heroes. But if you want to keep using that soul, you have two options.

Option A) Take things as they come, try to be as good a vampire as you can be, only killing those who deserve it, never turning anyone else. Hope nobody finds you out, pretend that you avoid day time because you are allergic to sunlight, and pray to the gods for salvation.

Option B) Kill the vampire who sired you, and then jump into a lake.

It might not always be the best of ideas to turn everyone you can into your progeny. Some of them might turn their vampiric attentions back on you, if only to get their soul back.

That's why I have plans if I were to be one.. Turning a player is said to give you much more power than just feeding, so if you are wanting to grow strong.. turning whenever you can is the best thing you can do. However, like you said.. this will cause the vamps you turn to come for you. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.. Do you turn your friends? Always wondering when they will try to kill you.. Or do you refuse their requests.. I see some friendships going to shit over this.. I LOVE IT!

Liches are supposed to be among the most powerful magi around, with a dark bent. Unless it took them several life times to get there, it would seem weird to me that a Lich could be perma-killed and then come back with the same soul in a young guy. He would have a crazy-high skill ramp in magic. Then you could have some weird situations

(Some young man casually spinning fireballs high up in the air above him)

(Young kid walks up): Gee mister, you're pretty good at that

"Yeah i used to be a Lich in a past life. Now BURN!"

Once someone becomes a lich their soul is out of their body. Therefore, the soul stops progressing. So, if they didnt have a talent before becoming a lich they wouldnt have one if they were permakilled and had to reincarnate. Talents are attached to the soul. This does mean that if a person had a talent before becoming a lich, they would be able to access it after permadeath and reincarnation.

Also, the general attitude of the population of Elyrians would be to run in fear and gather a horde and hunt down the guy spinning fireballs.

In virtually every fictional world that contains them, the spell to become a Lich is the end-all be-all necromancy spell; the culmination of endless magical and occult studies. You're telling me some super evil Joe Shmoe can find some ritual in the world, with no prior training (or in this case Talent) and somehow turn into a Lich?

To my knowledge that's not said in any journal or talked about in any Q&A.

Also, you missed the part of my exaggerated example where the guy incinerates the kid and there's no witnesses?

Oh wait thats right, the bigger part of my post you missed was that someone with that much magical power invested in their soul PRIOR to becoming a Lich, risks absolutely NOTHING if they become a Lich and get their suped-up magical soul back. Unless their soul is destroyed with the phylactery, there is literally no reason the player of a soul with an extremely high magic ramp would not just become a Lich again....

Becoming an undying Lich means extreme power, and extreme power should come with extreme risks, risks like losing a magical soul permanently.

Yes, I am telling you that its possible for someone with no talent to become a lich. This is the last information I got from the devs. Becoming a lich does not require the person to have a talent. This is info I got in IRC with Caspian.

There are still reasons not to become a lich besides the possibility of losing the soul. First, it requires making your souls affinity extremely dark and evil. This is something some people wont do. Second, NPCs will make life very difficult for a lich and there are groups that will actively hunt down anyone that becomes a lich. Third, there are things required to maintain being a lich. This adds an additional task a character has to do just to stay alive and a lot of people wont want to do those things.

Yes, min-maxers will all be trying to turn into a lich. But, they will try to become a lich regardless of the consequences.

I do not know if the soul of a lich is destroyed or returned to the Akashic Records upon there demise. This isnt information Ive seen released. It could have been released in IRC and I didnt catch it.