The Iron Lich is an enemy encountered in Heretic, first fought as a boss at the end of The City of the Damned.
The Iron Lich takes the appearance of a boulder-sized floating skull wearing a horned helmet, with red eyes and a sinister grin on its face. How it is able to form a grin is quite a mystery, since grinning by definition is done by contracting the muscles at the corners of the mouth in order to pull back the skin, and the Iron Lich has neither muscles nor skin. Some say that the Iron Lich in fact does not grin, but rather that it carries such an aura of happiness and delight that observers see a grin where there is none.
It is first encountered as a boss when the player faces one to three of them (depending on the difficulty level) at the end of the City of the Damned. They are encountered as normal enemies in subsequent episodes, which have much more powerful weapons for dealing with them, and a large group is fought as a boss at the end of The Ossuary.
Attacks & Strategy
The Iron Lich has a range of attacks based on the different elements of ice, fire and wind. Their attacks seem to be focused on attacking enemies who take cover.
- Fire Blast
Launches six balls of fire stacked vertically, dealing damage on contact.
- Tornado
Launches a tornado that follows the player at moderate speed. A player caught in the tornado is spun around and dealt damage.
- Ice Bolt
Launches a ball of ice that shatters into shards when it makes contact with a solid surface. Both the ball and shards deal damage on contact.
While your arsenal will be better equipped for dealing with them as you progress through the game, the Iron Lich is still arguably one of the toughest enemies and every encounter is going to be a moderately difficult battle.
Notes & Trivia
- In the original version 1.0 of Heretic, Iron Liches were vulnerable to the powered-up Firemace and could be killed with one shot from it, just like a regular enemy. This was fixed in version 1.2.
| Heretic - Enemies | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Gargoyle • Fire Gargoyle • Golem (Ghost) • Nitrogolem (Ghost) • Undead Warrior (Ghost) • Disciple of D'Sparil • Weredragon • Sabreclaw • Ophidian • Chicken | ||
| Boss | Iron Lich • Maulotaur • Chaos Serpent • D'Sparil | ||