John Jacob Astor IV is widely regarded as the first true lich of the post meteor Earth, a man who refused not merely death, but irrelevance. Born into staggering wealth and influence, Astor entered the Age of Collapse with resources unmatched by any private citizen of his time. As institutions fractured and governments faltered in the wake of the Meteor event, he did not retreat from the chaos. He studied it. Where others saw economic ruin and social decay, Astor recognized opportunity. He quietly assembled occult scholars, disgraced theologians, and emerging shard-mages beneath the veneer of philanthropy, funding expeditions and private salons dedicated to unlocking the deeper metaphysics of soul and permanence.

In the closing years of that turbulent era, Astor vanished from public life. Official records cite tragedy and loss, yet fragmented correspondences recovered decades later suggest something deliberate. Witness accounts from abandoned estates in New York and Rhode Island speak of ritual chambers lined with refined Shardisite, of symbols etched in silver and bone, and of a final ceremony conducted under a sky split with unnatural auroras. Whatever occurred within those walls did not result in simple undeath. Astor did not rise as a ravenous corpse or wandering specter. He endured as something colder and more calculating, a consciousness anchored beyond flesh.

In the centuries since, Astor has surfaced only in rumor and in the margins of arcane inquiry. Descriptions of his present form are consistent: a tall, gaunt figure draped in immaculate but antiquated tailoring, skin drawn thin against an almost skeletal frame, eyes pale and reflective like polished quartz. His voice is described as precise and measured, devoid of warmth yet never raised. He does not command armies of the dead nor haunt graveyards. Instead, he exerts influence through institutions, patronage, and promises of wealth and power to those who pull on the strings of nations.

Unlike many manifestations born purely of fear or myth, Astor represents intention refined into eternity. His ascension was neither accident nor curse but design. In him, the ambition of the industrial age fused with shard-altered metaphysics to produce something unprecedented: immortality purchased through calculation. Though physically diminished, he is regarded by modern occult circles as one of the most magically formidable beings in existence, a relic of the Age of Collapse who successfully transformed wealth into permanence.