Lich Jesus

I usually find this sort of thing done to death, but I happened across an article that I think did the concept justice (despite a lot of silliness in the article).

There's a persistent joke going around that Jesus Christ is a lich because he was a potent spellcaster who returned from the dead under his own power within 1d10 days of his death.  I always find this a little annoying as it ignores the fact that Christ's deity revives him from the dead (clearly the DM playing favorites), or depending on your interpretation, that Jesus was a divine avatar and so never actually rose from the dead (if Jehovah or whomever loses one avatar, he just...sends another avatar).

At any rate, this blog post from Compromise and Conceit breathes a little life into the Jesus-as-lich concept by framing the various religious conflicts of the first millennium in the context of this fact.  The Jewish clerical establishment may or may not think Jesus is a rabble-rouser, but more importantly, they understand that he is slowly-but-surely gathering the components to build a phylactery and must be stopped.  (The Roman government is apparently unaware of the threat, although the Jewish clerics manage to get them to act.  Sadly, it's too late.)

(This also neatly utilizes the underused clerical lich concept, and totally paves the way for Jack Shear's lich popes.)

He goes on to explain a Vatican conspiracy hiding the Christ-phylactery (or the Christ demilich, by now), among other things (including early tensions between Jewish magic-users and a barbarian Muhammad).

Ultimately, this seems like it would be excellent background for some manner of early modern, Lamentations of the Flame Princess-style campaigning.  (Or you could even set your game earlier chronologically, if you want to dust off your copy of Testament that you clearly totally have in your collection.)

Go ahead and check out that Jesus-as-clerical-lich article and then craft some gonzo occult conspiracy D&D campaign.