But as I've been starting to get interested in DnD...
Are you able to start a campaign AS a lich? Or do you need to play until you can turn yourself into one?
I had this cool idea for my character, if that is possible. Theres a necromancer, who is a lich. The party members don't know that though, as he's hiding either using masks, or something, or plain shapeshifting/illusion spell or something. The character, Nathaniel Hawthorne (this is what my phone responded after writing Nathaniel, lol) has this huge mistery about himself. So the party members may find hid Phelactor sonehow or they meet someone from his past. A huge factor playing in ny idea is the Album from ASP: Zaubererbruder der Krabat-Liederzyklus. This story is composed in different songs, making an album. The story is like, a guy teaching 12 people about dark magic. The guy teaching is the master. The master is an evil man and each year, one of the twelve gets replaced, basically I think? So each year one has to go by digging his grave. That goes until a stranger comes and kills the master. What has this to do with my story? The character, Nathaniel was a part of this thing. He was saved with 11 others by this stranger. One of the twelfe is Krabat. They were all transformed into animals that like, represent their soil or something. Atleast after a while, because all of them started out as ravens... So maybe they meet Krabat, who is still a raven-hybrid ig, that knows Nathaniel under a different name, his real name, Soles.
So theres like this huge discussion about him hiding his past and being ashamed of turning into a lich. Nathaniel is basically also being hunted under his real name, leading him to a new name and identity. Yeah, black magic is forbidden.