What's the safest place for a lich's phylactery?

[King of Nowhere]

I'm speaking in general terms, not in "specific protective spells" terms.

The standard assumption is to leave the phylactery in a dungeon well away from your normal base of operation. However, making a dungeon is expensive. You need a base of operation, and you need the philactery's vault, and so you need to split your resources, and you end up with two weak dungeons. Furthermore, if an adventuring party managed to defeat you in your own base of operation, then our backup dungeon won't stop them from taking the phylactery. Maybe if you piled up all your resources in a single stronger dungeon you could have repelled them? Maybe splitting your resources in several weaker dungeons is what caused your downfall in the first place?

In general, the safest place is near you, because you are powerful and surrounded with powerful protections. But then, if you are defeated, your phylactery is automatically forfait. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a phylactery in the first place.

A third alternative could be dubbed safety in obscurity. No massive dungeon to attract adventurers. Just a quiet box buried underground in a deserted location with the best anti-detection spells you can get. You don't rely on any special defence, you simply put the phylactery in the middle of nowhere and hope it will go undetected. This, however, presents all kind of risks in a D&D world. MAybe your enemies have access to some divination (possibly homebrewed or researched for the specific purpose) that can find your phylactery in its hiding place. In that case they only need a teleport spell to get it and cost you a lot of gold and xp. Maybe one of the dozens of burrowing creatures will eat it without even noticing. Maybe a tribe of whatever subrace is dwelling there (because I've never seen a truly deserted place in D&D) will find it by accident. Hiding your phylactery, no matter how well, always rely on not being unlucky. Kinda like russian roulette.

There is also the fourth alternative, we could call it the xykon route: give the phylactery to a trusted henchman. It certainly has advantages. Someone smart and powerful can protect your phylactery much better than any static defence, at least for the short time it takes for you to respawn. On the down side, you need a trusted henchman in the first place, and 90% of liches can already stop there. For those who do have a trusted henchman, it's still somebody less powerful than you are, and if you want to make good use of him you have to occasionally send him (and your phylactery) in danger. Not to mention it's generally easier to find a person than to find an object, so attaching your precious item to somebody may actually make it easier to locate.

What do you think? How would you protect a phylactery?

[noob]

I think I would place the phylactery in a mordenkainen manor with extend spell and some cl shenanigans for making it last longer than the time of respawning + 2 days(and I refresh it every day.)
Due to the clause it protects from stuff outside it is quite good.
If you can trust at 100% someone who can cast mordenkainen manor and create food you do not need cl shenanigans: just give your phylactery to that person and make it create mordenkainen manors within mordenkainen manors for being permanently into one
If you do not like mordenkainen manor shenanigans you can still get something quite safe through creating a demiplane where there is not enough free space for something to teleport in without appearing inside of a super deadly trap which is designed to kill anything that is not you and which can reduce the amount of free space once you appear in the trap so that there is nowhere with enough space for anything to teleport.

[khadgar567]

well if you wanna be d*ck about it why not turning your phylactery in to holy relic and gift to religous center of the setting. since its relic of most powerful church of the setting paladins gonna keep it safe and sound until world ends

[noob]

well if you wanna be d*ck about it why not turning your phylactery in to holy relic and gift to religous center of the setting. since its relic of most powerful church of the setting paladins gonna keep it safe and sound until world ends

I wonder how do you avoid problems with the fact you would start regenerating close to an holy relict inside a religious center where you would just get re-killed quickly(since you need some days for regenerating and you are not necessarily allowed to move and cast spells normally while regenerating)
However it is true it would make you safe because the church would probably consider that having to do crippled regenerating lich management every few days is worth for keeping the relict(even through they would probably learn relatively quickly that the relict is a phylactery)

[Malroth]

This looks like a thread for Red Fel or Emperor Tippy

[noob]

This looks like a thread for Red Fel or Emperor Tippy

According to the rules as written the mordenkainen manor shenanigans are 100% safe for the lich making it entirely impossible to kill.
If you do not believe that then you can still make a minion use the rod of security and reuse it while in the safe zone every week(while carrying your phylactery).
Do not forget to use necrotic tumor domination.(if you are planning to go full shenanigan)

[Celestia]

Step 1: Time travel as far backwards as you can go, hopefully at least 1000 years or so.

Step 2: Find a kingdom that is having troubles producing an heir.

Step 3: Disguise yourself as a normal, living person and approach the king and queen. Tell them that you will use your magic to help them have a child, and in return, you will be allowed to serve them as the court wizard.

Step 4: Use Polymorph Any Object to turn your phylactery into a fertilized egg and artificially inseminate the queen. Use whatever other magic is necessary to make sure the egg grows into a healthy baby, preferably a boy.

Step 5: Become the court wizard as promised and serve the kingdom faithfully. No secret evil schemes here. Take an active interest in tutoring the prince, and raise him to be a just, kind, and noble individual. However, also lead him towards a more promiscuous leaning.

Step 6: As the prince grows older and eventually takes over the kingdom, he'll rule it fairly and turn it into a great bastion of Good. He'll also sire a string of illegitimate offspring within the kingdom.

Step 7: Stick around until the end of your "natural" life, tutoring the new king's children and grandchildren in the same fashion.

Step 8: Return to the present. If everything went according to plan, that kingdom should still be around as one of the greatest forces for Good in the land and will still be ruled by the same family which still has a tendency to spread the love around.

Conclusion: Your phylactery is now a strand of DNA that exists within the bodies of (hopefully) millions of people, including the royal family of the greatest kingdom in the world. To destroy you, the heroes would have to commit mass genocide and tear down an entire nation.

[Pleh]

What level is the lich?

I had a lich NPC hide a phylactery on the moon, because he could teleport and didn't need to breathe.

Bottom of the ocean works for the same reasons. Vast, endless stretches of empty wasteland with no light, crushing water pressure, and freezing cold damage.

Plane of negative energy should work just fine as long as you can plane shift after you recover.

But the best answer is to layer your defenses. Build (with zombies) a cheap, nondescript dungeon on the moon and leave a competent, undead henchman to guard it. If they scry it, they still have to get there. If they get there, they still have to survive the environment. If they do, they still have to beat the dungeon. Then they must beat your henchman.

If all else fails, leave a silent alarm on the dungeon that will alert you if anyone makes it that far so you can teleport in and secure the phylactery before they get to it, leaving them empty handed when they finish their ordeal.

[Knaight]

Conclusion: Your phylactery is now a strand of DNA that exists within the bodies of (hopefully) millions of people, including the royal family of the greatest kingdom in the world. To destroy you, the heroes would have to commit mass genocide and tear down an entire nation.

Either that or it's long gone, having been disassembled completely when the egg either implanted or failed to do so. Making a phylactery, grinding it to dust, then scattering the dust doesn't work - there's no reason a fancier biological equivalent should.

[ayvango]

According to the rules as written the mordenkainen manor shenanigans are 100% safe for the lich making it entirely impossible to kill.
If you do not believe that then you can still make a minion use the rod of security and reuse it while in the safe zone every week(while carrying your phylactery).
I always thought extradimensional spaces are not absolutely safe: you could always dispel them, or teleport inside using the Wish spell.

[noob]

I always thought extradimensional spaces are not absolutely safe: you could always dispel them, or teleport inside using the Wish spell.


Since the place can be entered only through its special portal, outside conditions do not affect the mansion, nor do conditions inside it pass to the plane beyond.

Also the wish traveler clause works only for planes and whenever an extra-dimensional space is a plane or not is not easy to guess.

Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

It is a normal transportation except it works regardless of local conditions and whenever the fact you can not enter the manor or not could be a local condition or a condition due to the spell so even if the manor is a plane it would not necessarily be enter-able through that clause of wish.

So it depends a lot on weird interactions of rules and if you think too much hard about what is a condition then someone will iron heart surge away the gravity from the material plane.(oh gravity is a local condition just like whenever you can teleport in and out of the place and it is "affecting me" because I can not avoid falling due to gravity)

[ayvango]

Do you try to nullify greater dispel magic as "outside conditions"?

[noob]

Do you try to nullify greater dispel magic as "outside conditions"?
How do you get to an extra dimensional space that stopped existing for casting dispel magic?
If you can it is likely that dispel magic could work.
Oh and what do you do in non existent extra dimensional spaces flinging a dispel magic while since there is no concept of space you can hardly spot the door?(and how do you get line of effect when you are in a non existant extra dimensional space?)
Are you a vestige?
I mean there is a reason why I am doing mordenkainen manors inception and not just placing one.(since the first manor ends after some time the extra dimensional space stops being here and there is no way to exit)

The only sad thing is that the lich might never be able to get out of the manor inception.(but it will be safe and what was asked for was safety)

[Acanous]

in a Dragon's horde.

If the dragon is the lich's friend, that makes for an adventure chain with another big bad slotted in without needing more background or another reason that the heroes need to go after it.
If the dragon is unaware of the lich, or some kind of frenemy, that adds a layer of politicking and an interesting layer of subquests to gain the dragon's favour.

You can substitute the Dragon for an Illithid or a demon with whom the lich made some kind of deal, or really any other kind of bad that you want to play with. The point with this is not to have the thing be untraceable, but that it requires a whole 'nother adventure to go get it- and now they're on a time limit 'til the lich recoups and makes an attempt on the party.

It adds more dimension to the game.

[jdizzlean]

I always thought extradimensional spaces are not absolutely safe: you could always dispel them, or teleport inside using the Wish spell.

why not just put it inside a portable hole. once the hole is folded up, the items inside essentially cease to exist on this plane, therefor you wouldn't be able to scry it's location.

or go a step further:


put the phylactery inside a bag of holding, place the bag inside the portable hole, which opens a rift to the astral plane is torn in that location, both items are sucked in and forever lost. therefor safe forever.

game. set. match.

[noob]

If the lich is a cleric of a god a natural thing (if in your setting gods are stat less beings who can automagically bypass all the defenses) is making your phylactery an autel dedicated to your god inside of the realm of your god(I mean you are a super high level cleric of your god so that means that your god is probably interested in keeping you or else it would stop giving you spells) since anyway your god could kill you at any moment(if you had the initial assumption) then it is probably one of the safest places for your phylactery.

[Mordaedil]

Dispelling a bag merely closes the container for the duration, it is still safe inside of it.


put the phylactery inside a bag of holding, place the bag inside the portable hole, which opens a rift to the astral plane is torn in that location, both items are sucked in and forever lost. therefor safe forever.

game. set. match.
This is actually good way to get a random mindflayer or githyanki to get a hold of your phylactary. Bad idea.

Better yet is to put it inside the walls of your stronghold, but also put a lot of magically preserved chickens in the walls. Bam. Wall-chicken. Your players are gonna think it's a joke and won't be able to find the phylactary.

Alternatively, give the phylactary to a skeleton with the instruction to drop it in five minutes and then you maze him. When he comes back after 10 minutes, he won't have the necklace. If that doesn't work, secure it against fire, put it in a lava lake on the fire elemental plane, or put it somewhere on the negative energy plane, or use Imprisonment spell on a skeleton with the same idea. Surely you can get yourself out of an Imprisonment spell, right?

[Acanous]

Dispelling a bag merely closes the container for the duration, it is still safe inside of it.


This is actually good way to get a random mindflayer or githyanki to get a hold of your phylactary. Bad idea.

Better yet is to put it inside the walls of your stronghold, but also put a lot of magically preserved chickens in the walls. Bam. Wall-chicken. Your players are gonna think it's a joke and won't be able to find the phylactary.

Alternatively, give the phylactary to a skeleton with the instruction to drop it in five minutes and then you maze him. When he comes back after 10 minutes, he won't have the necklace. If that doesn't work, secure it against fire, put it in a lava lake on the fire elemental plane, or put it somewhere on the negative energy plane, or use Imprisonment spell on a skeleton with the same idea. Surely you can get yourself out of an Imprisonment spell, right?

remember that you regenerate from your phylactery. You want there to be room for you to come back without just dying over and over again.
You also don't regenerate with your spellbook or other items, so you want there to be backups or at least some kind of safety in place.

[ayvango]

put the phylactery inside a bag of holding, place the bag inside the portable hole, which opens a rift to the astral plane is torn in that location, both items are sucked in and forever lost. therefor safe forever.

game. set. match.
But astral plane has its natural inhabitants. They could accidently find the phylactery. Every place is crowded in the d&d setting: xorn lives into the earth, salamander populate magma, air is home for arrowhawks. Water is full of sentient life. Complement it with elementals existing for any particular scenery.

In other settings it would be clever strategy: place the phylactery into random space where humans never roam. But d&d is full of life: you could find nuisance everywhere.

I'm not sure about outer space. It is enormously big. So you could greater teleport to the Titan and use extended persisted divine step to give the phylactery commencing speed.

Beware of bag of holding. It seems clever idea to hide item from the planes using it, but it uses astral plane, so astral plane traveller could find its interdimensional space.

It is better to create zombie, give phylactery in his hands and dress him with permanent magic item of mind blank. And then teleport to the Titan and repeat earlier recipe.

[ayvango]

remember that you regenerate from your phylactery. You want there to be room for you to come back without just dying over and over again.
You also don't regenerate with your spellbook or other items, so you want there to be backups or at least some kind of safety in place.
Trade familiar for eidetic casting. Or just master spell greater teleport.

[Mordaedil]

remember that you regenerate from your phylactery. You want there to be room for you to come back without just dying over and over again.
You also don't regenerate with your spellbook or other items, so you want there to be backups or at least some kind of safety in place.

Oh right, that kinda rules out the lava. Negative energy plane is kind of a good spot still though, with the regeneration for undead relevant there.

[ayvango]

Oh right, that kinda rules out the lava. Negative energy plane is kind of a good spot still though, with the regeneration for undead relevant there.
Lava is still ok. Undead does not breath and it could overcome fire damage with the Mantle of the Fiery Spirit spell.

[Keltest]

Lava is still ok. Undead does not breath and it could overcome fire damage with the Mantle of the Fiery Spirit spell.

Which the lich would first need to be able to cast on itself.

[Arael666]

How do you get to an extra dimensional space that stopped existing for casting dispel magic?
If you can it is likely that dispel magic could work.
Oh and what do you do in non existent extra dimensional spaces flinging a dispel magic while since there is no concept of space you can hardly spot the door?(and how do you get line of effect when you are in a non existant extra dimensional space?)
Are you a vestige?
I mean there is a reason why I am doing mordenkainen manors inception and not just placing one.(since the first manor ends after some time the extra dimensional space stops being here and there is no way to exit)

The only sad thing is that the lich might never be able to get out of the manor inception.(but it will be safe and what was asked for was safety)

The space stopping to exist is arguable, but the entrance still exists in the material plane, it just went invisible:


Only those you designate may enter the mansion, and the portal is shut and made invisible behind you when you enter.

Therefore, you can target the portal with a dispel.

[ayvango]

Which the lich would first need to be able to cast on itself.
Doesn't subtype preserved after lich restoration?

[Mr Adventurer]

Creatures can't find things on the Astral that are lost forever. Whether those creatures live on the Astral or not is irrelevant.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

I've got a lich in my enemy group who's phylactery is actually inside the enemy group's leader. The leader is an eternal and can never actually die. And plus I highly doubt that the party would even think to look there.

[Bronk]

You often hear about people making a person into a phylactery.

You could make your phylactery into someone from an immortal race, then travel with them in the Infinite Staircase until they find their 'happily ever after' door, then send them through, never to be seen again, but presumably alive and well indefinitely. Upon death as a lich, you'd reform wherever the phylactery person is, with the only caveat being that you wouldn't be able to see the person for some reason. Then, just wish yourself back to one of your safe houses.

[King of Nowhere]

I wasn't talking about any specific case - though some of you may have seen my thread about a villain lich and made the connection, it's actually unrelated - but more in general. I am interested in the concepts behind, because in D&D everything can be found and every obstacle can be overcome.


What level is the lich?

I had a lich NPC hide a phylactery on the moon, because he could teleport and didn't need to breathe.


Setting specific. Not every setting allows using space. even if you do, then somebody else could find it with some kind of divination and teleport in the same place. not really different from hiding it in a random desert.
In MY setting, the moon is the safest place because you can't teleport there. You can go there with a fly spell but it takes several years (I made the calculation). To return, you only need a few months, because once you reach the point where the earth and moon's gravity balance (which is close to the moon, since the earth is much bigger) you can just free fall the rest of the way. the main problem with this is that you need to spend several years in the first place, so your plans need not be urgent.
But that's only MY setting. I was talking in more general terms.




Bottom of the ocean works for the same reasons. Vast, endless stretches of empty wasteland with no light, crushing water pressure, and freezing cold damage.


Yes, empty. Except for merfolk, water trolls, water hobgoblins, water everything else. No, it does not work.


Creatures can't find things on the Astral that are lost forever. Whether those creatures live on the Astral or not is irrelevant.
So if you regenerate there, will you ever be able to come back, or are you also lost forever? not quite clear.

[Mr Adventurer]

That's correct, it's not clear. However, you wouldn't have arrived on the Astral as a result of a bag-hole mishap, so presumably would not necessarily be lost forever. Presumably this would mean you would regenerate, but not be able to find your phylactery.

Edit to add: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Pleh]

Setting specific. Not every setting allows using space. even if you do, then somebody else could find it with some kind of divination and teleport in the same place. not really different from hiding it in a random desert.
In MY setting, the moon is the safest place because you can't teleport there. You can go there with a fly spell but it takes several years (I made the calculation). To return, you only need a few months, because once you reach the point where the earth and moon's gravity balance (which is close to the moon, since the earth is much bigger) you can just free fall the rest of the way. the main problem with this is that you need to spend several years in the first place, so your plans need not be urgent.
But that's only MY setting. I was talking in more general terms.

Fair enough, but I do feel like there's an argument to be made about Teleporting to the Moon being LESS broken than Teleporting to any arbitrary point in deep space. The moon may technically be space, but it's the closest we get to still being in the same campaign setting.

Actually the Campaign where I used that idea DID involve a Mount Olympus style Super Mountain that rose so high that it locked the planet and moon into phase so that the Moon always orbited above "Godshome." Gravity got a little wonky near the peak, where gravitational pull from the earth was becoming close to comparable to the pull from the moon.

That said, the Lich Emperor still teleported. Mountain climbing is for chumps. And who wants to explain to the gods living on the mountain top that you're just passing through their back yard because you want to go to the moon to hide your phylactery?



Yes, empty. Except for merfolk, water trolls, water hobgoblins, water everything else. No, it does not work.

THAT is also setting specific. D&D in general tends to treat all large bodies of water the same, but if you reach a little ways into Stormwrack and some of the other Aquatic based resources, you find pretty quickly that there are Ocean Depths that even Aquatic creatures are only Resistant to, not simply immune. Because at those depths, Pressure damage and Cold type damage from the water itself are a thing. At that point, you basically need to be not only Aquatic, but also have some DR and ER (Cold) as well. Merfolk living at those depths would be few, like humans living in harsh deserts (because that's pretty much what deep ocean floors really are, and I'm not just drawing from reality in spite of RAW because Stormwrack tends to agree with me).

This also falls into the classic 3.5 fallacy that because every location CAN roll Random Wandering Monster that therefore every nook and cranny is literally occupied. The point of a Desert is that it mostly ISN'T occupied. It is occupied, but less densely. You WILL have wandering monsters, but if the setting cares even in the least bit about staying believable, deserts will have fewer of them than Bio-diverse ecologies like Rainforests. Yes, a stretch of the Sahara will be claimed by a pride of lions and there's a chance you'll come upon them if wandering in their territory. But that doesn't mean they'll be in that section of their territory AT ALL TIMES.

This is part of WHY ginormous aquatic abominations lurk in oceans deep. The ocean surface is warm and full of life like merfolk and other strange, but relatively normal scenary. Aquatic Orcs will live near the surface, not the ocean floor (except near shorelines, where the Ocean Floor isn't very deep at all).

The important thing for the Lich is to put the phylactery where it is out of reach of creatures who are concerned about it and near, but out of the way, of creatures that are pointedly unconcerned with it. The Dragon idea is a good one. You don't even have to ask the Dragon. Just make your Phylactery into a treasure of Legendary value and the dragon will want to keep it in their horde out of sheer greed, without concern to the fact that it may also be your phylactery.

Sure, aquatic orcs might find it. As long as they don't actually damage it, who cares?

Heck, maybe trick a Great White Shark into eating the phylactery. They eat just about anything they find and can have all kinds of trash stuck in their digestive tracks for a really long time. Plus your phylactery will be hard to track. Even if they scry it, it will be constantly moving in an endless expanse of water.

EDIT: avoiding double post

put the phylactery inside a bag of holding, place the bag inside the portable hole, which opens a rift to the astral plane is torn in that location, both items are sucked in and forever lost. therefor safe forever.

game. set. match.

Clever, but once the heroes kill you and you regenerate at your phylactery, now YOU are lost forever.

[Calthropstu]

If it were me, I would find a giant, selfish, powerful dragon and give it to him as a gift. Phylactories are generally something expensive, so it would be placed in the dragon's hoard.

The Dragon would protect it with his life. If I was ever defeated, when I respawned, I would simply offer a service to the dragon for respawning in its lair.
Elegant in its simplicity. And it would have a contingency to teleport itself to me should anyone other than the dragon ever pick it up.

[noob]

The space stopping to exist is arguable, but the entrance still exists in the material plane, it just went invisible:



Therefore, you can target the portal with a dispel.

Except that you did not understand what I said:
the lich cast mordenkainen manor from the material plane.
then it go in the manor
then it cast mordenkainen manor from within the manor 6 hours later.
then it enter the new manor.
then he waits for the first manor to end.
he is in the second manor which only have a gate inside a space which no longer exists(because the first manor duration is over) there is no doors left in the material plane.(since the only door which was in the material plane was the one to a manor whose duration ended)
Which makes it very hard to target the second manor portal.
That is what I said by manor inception.
Please try to write the previous posts when you see a term you do not understand.
(if the lich is carrying the philactery now it is definitively safe and trapped and must cast mordenkainen manor and enter the new manor once in a while or it gets thrown nowhere which cause transformation into a vestige which nobody wants because then you are no longer a creature nor able to do stuff)
If the lich does not wants to end trapped forever in manors immediately it can give its phylactery to a minion who knows mordenkainen manor and tell the minion to carry the pylactery at all times and go deeper into manors indefinitely.(but the lich would end up trapped once it die and respawn but at least it is better than hell)

[ayvango]

but the lich would end up trapped once it die and respawn but at least it is better than hell)
Lich always could wish out of the trap

[Keltest]

Doesn't subtype preserved after lich restoration?

I'm not sure that the rules have an opinion on something who lost their physical form and then generated a new one, and permanent affects on the former.

[ayvango]

Mantle is not a permanent effect but instantaneous one.

[Talion]

Well, if my memory of mythology holds up, the correct answer is NOT:

Inside of an egg.
Itself inside of a live duck.
Itself inside of a live rabbit.
Itself inside of a chest.
Which is buried under a tree.
Which is on a deserted speck of an uncharted island in the middle of the ocean.
Which, coincidentally, is also a good dozen or so nations away from where you operate.

[Malimar]

You often hear about people making a person into a phylactery.

You could make your phylactery into someone from an immortal race, then travel with them in the Infinite Staircase until they find their 'happily ever after' door, then send them through, never to be seen again, but presumably alive and well indefinitely. Upon death as a lich, you'd reform wherever the phylactery person is, with the only caveat being that you wouldn't be able to see the person for some reason. Then, just wish yourself back to one of your safe houses.
Doesn't work by RAW -- phylactery's gotta be an object, not a creature -- but it's still a fun thing to think about.

The history of my setting has a pair of lichs who so loved each other that they somehow managed to make each other into their phylacteries. They're both powerful spellcasters, and even if you manage to kill one, the other teleports away to safety. (Nobody ever did wind up defeating them -- they got bored of the world and took a spelljammer to travel the multiverse.)

[King of Nowhere]

THAT is also setting specific. D&D in general tends to treat all large bodies of water the same, but if you reach a little ways into Stormwrack and some of the other Aquatic based resources, you find pretty quickly that there are Ocean Depths that even Aquatic creatures are only Resistant to, not simply immune.


Fair enough. So that would count as "hide it in some huge, featureless place", with the caveat that it must be, setting-wise, an empty place.


If it were me, I would find a giant, selfish, powerful dragon and give it to him as a gift. Phylactories are generally something expensive, so it would be placed in the dragon's hoard.

The Dragon would protect it with his life. If I was ever defeated, when I respawned, I would simply offer a service to the dragon for respawning in its lair.
Elegant in its simplicity. And it would have a contingency to teleport itself to me should anyone other than the dragon ever pick it up.




The history of my setting has a pair of lichs who so loved each other that they somehow managed to make each other into their phylacteries. They're both powerful spellcasters, and even if you manage to kill one, the other teleports away to safety. (Nobody ever did wind up defeating them -- they got bored of the world and took a spelljammer to travel the multiverse.)

I'd shell those under "minion" (ally, in this case). It is probably the best option since it costs you little resources (the ally would still need to protect himself) and killing both of you in a short time frame is considerably more difficult than killing only one of you. Good thing for everyone else most liches don't have anyone whom they can trust enough.

Seems the most voted options so far are (not sure in which order) hiding it in some empty place, using some spell sheanigan that would explicitly oout it out of reach, or finding a powerful ally to guard it. All are setting-specific.

[Hellpyre]

I'm always partial to an underground vault with no connecting tunnels and a weirdstone installed in it.

[Deophaun]

A third alternative could be dubbed safety in obscurity. No massive dungeon to attract adventurers. Just a quiet box buried underground in a deserted location with the best anti-detection spells you can get lost on the ethereal plane that even a wish cannot retrieve (secret chest).
There is a lot more that can be done beyond that, but that's 95% of the work.

[Bucky]

As far as minions go, I'm partial to golems. Their spell immunity also protects their possessions from a variety of nasty stuff.

[Falontani]

Make your phylactery a warforged component. Have a cohort Warforged Juggernaut Dungeon Crasher use the component. Dungeon Crasher warforged is free to do as it needs to.

Alternatively make the planet your phylactery. I don't believe it states anywhere that you can't enchant the world, however if that is a problem because its not masterwork then you could create your own world by mining from the infinite planes.

[Quarian Rex]

the lich cast mordenkainen manor from the material plane.
then it go in the manor
then it cast mordenkainen manor from within the manor 6 hours later.
then it enter the new manor.
then he waits for the first manor to end.
he is in the second manor which only have a gate inside a space which no longer exists(because the first manor duration is over) there is no doors left in the material plane.(since the only door which was in the material plane was the one to a manor whose duration ended)


It is the bolded part that I think you erred on. At no point does the spell imply that items/creatures/effects are maintained inside an expired (non-existent) extra-dimensional space, or destroyed or anything else. They are simply ejected to the point of casting (or the nearest available space) similar to what happens with an expired Rope Trick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick/). Expiration of the Material Plane adjacent Mansion would just see the magical door (invisible or otherwise) replaced by the one inside (and anything else that was left there). You can use manor inception all you want but you will always have a connection to the point of origin.

[Jack_Simth]

There is a lot more that can be done beyond that, but that's 95% of the work.
There are a few fundamental problems with any of the "Lost forever" scenarios:
1) "Lost forever" is still "somewhere", and:
a) Every terrain is inhabited by something in D&D
b) Almost anything can have class levels.
c) A phylactery can be ID'd by a skill check (DC 25, Kn(Arcana), per Libris Mortis page 151)
- Between them, you've got a problem: Something will eventually find and ID the thing. Not saying it'll happen quickly, but... evil or neutral critters might want to control you (they've got some pretty serious leverage), while good critters will want to destroy you. You're bucking for eternity.
2) "Lost forever" is a problem if you end up right next to it at some point. It's unclear what that means for you personally, so your mileage will vary - a lot - from DM to DM.

It is the bolded part that I think you erred on. At no point does the spell imply that items/creatures/effects are maintained inside an expired (non-existent) extra-dimensional space, or destroyed or anything else. They are simply ejected to the point of casting (or the nearest available space) similar to what happens with an expired Rope Trick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick/). Expiration of the Material Plane adjacent Mansion would just see the magical door (invisible or otherwise) replaced by the one inside (and anything else that was left there). You can use manor inception all you want but you will always have a connection to the point of origin.

Actually, MMM doesn't specify. Most will go with the Rope Trick as "closest match" but it could be that everything left inside is simply destroyed - which would include any spells still active inside....

Edit:
Personally, I'm fond of house-ruling that any undead of any stripe needs a source of negative energy to survive (Ghosts feed off the energy of the event that spawned them, zombies are fed by the cleric that raised them, that's why shadows hang around in graveyards, and so on). For a lich, that's it's Phylactery - which means the lich needs to keep it accessible.

[Malimar]

Alternatively make the planet your phylactery. I don't believe it states anywhere that you can't enchant the world, however if that is a problem because its not masterwork then you could create your own world by mining from the infinite planes.
There is RAW in Libris Mortis that a phylactery is a Tiny object with such-and-such properties, I forget the details and am disinclined to look them up. I ignore this RAW when it makes for a fun story, but it's not nothing.

Although your suggestion raises an additional possibility: assuming a vaguely Copernican celestial system, send your phylactery into orbit around the Sun, or, better, into deep space. Space is so incomprehensibly huge that the odds of some Great Old One or something stumbling across your phylactery are negligible.

...But then, that's not all that different from the "lose it in the Astral Plane" suggestion.

[Quarian Rex]

Actually, MMM doesn't specify. Most will go with the Rope Trick as "closest match" but it could be that everything left inside is simply destroyed - which would include any spells still active inside....


I think that destruction can be ruled out since that would have to be something that is stat-ed up, otherwise it would be the most effective way of dealing with evil artifacts and whatnot. That, and it would have a huge warning label as part of the spell after the first wizard slept in too late.

With further digging I also found this...


Extradimensional Spaces
A number of spells and magic items utilize extradimensional spaces, such as rope trick, a bag of holding, a handy haversack, and a portable hole. These spells and magic items create a tiny pocket space that does not exist in any dimension. Such items do not function, however, inside another extradimensional space. If placed inside such a space, they cease to function until removed from the extradimensional space. For example, if a bag of holding is brought into a rope trick, the contents of the bag of holding become inaccessible until the bag of holding is taken outside the rope trick. The only exception to this is when a bag of holding and a portable hole interact, forming a rift to the Astral Plane, as noted in their descriptions.

Looks like spatial inception and such is off the table.

[Deophaun]

There are a few fundamental problems with any of the "Lost forever" scenarios:
1) "Lost forever" is still "somewhere", and:
a) Every terrain is inhabited by something in D&D
b) Almost anything can have class levels.
c) A phylactery can be ID'd by a skill check (DC 25, Kn(Arcana), per Libris Mortis page 151)
- Between them, you've got a problem: Something will eventually find and ID the thing. Not saying it'll happen quickly, but... evil or neutral critters might want to control you (they've got some pretty serious leverage), while good critters will want to destroy you. You're bucking for eternity.
I said it's 95%. 4% involves an animated box with a contingencied greater plane shift and a skull watch. 1% is in making the box itself un-openable/accessible to anyone who isn't really, really, really, really determined and possesses the right skill set.

2) "Lost forever" is a problem
Good thing it's not actually lost forever, then.

[Psyren]

Step 4: Use Polymorph Any Object to turn your phylactery-

Can't PAO a magic item

[Remuko]

I think that destruction can be ruled out since that would have to be something that is stat-ed up, otherwise it would be the most effective way of dealing with evil artifacts and whatnot. That, and it would have a huge warning label as part of the spell after the first wizard slept in too late.

With further digging I also found this...

Looks like spatial inception and such is off the table.

This isnt a pathfinder thread so that pathfinder info might not apply.

[ngilop]

well if you wanna be d*ck about it why not turning your phylactery in to holy relic and gift to religous center of the setting. since its relic of most powerful church of the setting paladins gonna keep it safe and sound until world ends

This is exactly what I did back in second edition.
I was an elemental mage and became an elemental lich ( I forget where its from exactly, ravenloft maybe?)
The campaign was a good/evil one and I was on the evil side. Our main goal was the re-stablishment of the empire's power and the good side's main goal was the re-introduction of the gods into the world.


It all hinged on a golden pyramid being brought back and since helping religion would very much so put the evils in the populace good graces team evil was sent to help. I made the pyramid my phylactery by tricking both the evil and good side that I was making some kind of super ward ( I did, but it did not take as long as the whole process of me being a lich would) one self imposed funeral pyre later and POW I the lich that nobody would ever dare try to kill because literally every religion would try to stop an individual from it.


My guy was more about the acquisition of knowledge than power or being evil at the end, so it kinda worked out for everybody.

[Hellpyre]

T
Although your suggestion raises an additional possibility: assuming a vaguely Copernican celestial system, send your phylactery into orbit around the Sun, or, better, into deep space. Space is so incomprehensibly huge that the odds of some Great Old One or something stumbling across your phylactery are negligible.


I feel like maintaining an orbit with so little mass is going to make it a lot easier to find. There are only so many Trojan points, after all.

As far as setting it adrift in space, you get the same 'lost forever' problem, as well as running out of range of most teleportation options (all this on a long timeline, of course. Liches plan ahead).

[ManicOppressive]

Xykon in the OotS does a pretty decent job with his (or at least assumes he does), all things considered.

A dracolich in my setting made his phylactery from an ancient relic used to kill dragons. It doesn't work on him since he's dead, but it makes it a) very difficult to destroy and b) immediately dangerous to most of his most powerful enemies.

Another lich in the setting deliberately let his phylactery fall into one of the more powerful dragon's hoard. Now if you want to fight that lich, you first have to kill an equally powerful and entirely unrelated dragon.

I also have a merfolk lich who buried his in a non-descript spot on the bottom of the ocean floor.

All of them have covered their phylacteries in anti-divination magic, of course.

[King of Nowhere]

Another lich in the setting deliberately let his phylactery fall into one of the more powerful dragon's hoard. Now if you want to fight that lich, you first have to kill an equally powerful and entirely unrelated dragon.


I don't know, if the dragon does not know about the phylactery you could just tell him, then bribe him with a treasure of equivalent value. If the dragon is your ally is one thing, but I don't think an unrelated dragon will want to attract the unduly attention of having heroes coming periodically to try and destroy the phylactery in his loot. Better to trade it away.

[Mordaedil]

That's correct, it's not clear. However, you wouldn't have arrived on the Astral as a result of a bag-hole mishap, so presumably would not necessarily be lost forever. Presumably this would mean you would regenerate, but not be able to find your phylactery.

Edit to add: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You'd regenerate next to your phylactary, but be lost with it. You'd still have an option to leave the astral plane by normal methods though. I think the main implication is that you can't use Locate Object or similar spell to find your lost items.

But really, when you shove your phylactary in between dimensions to be squeezed out somewhere on the astral plane, what you're really doing is leaving it to your DM's distinction on what happens to it.

And if the DM can make it interesting, why wouldn't he?

[Pugwampy]

NO safer place to hide it than the plane of negative energy .

[noob]

Souls.(are items due to some manuals describing them as such)
Make each soul of adventurer become one of your phylacteries.(lich stacking while staying human is a totally legit thing: lord voldemort does that thanks to human heritage and made 7 phylacteries)
Then there is no risk of being killed by an adventurer.(few adventurers thinks "oh I am going to destroy the souls of all the adventurers to kill a lich")

[noob]

Make multiple phylacteries, and place each one in different flowing time demiplanes where every local Planck time is equivalent to 10101056 years on the Material Plane. Should someone visit one of these planes to try destroying a phylactery, they'll return to a new Material Plane that appears to be right where they last left it, but they're really in the far future. This gives you more than enough time to make spares whenever you have 4800 XP to spare, given any lich worth their salt can already conjure more than enough wealth through a handful of tricks.

And yes, each demiplane is bristling with tons of countermeasures and defenses. Just in case. :xykon:

And if you die you will respawn in the far future and there will be way less people planning to kill you because everybody will have forgotten about you.
You might however dislike seeing the material plane after it have been destroyed by elder evil and invaded by elder ancients.
You might also dislike azatoth once he woke up.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

If all else fails, leave a silent alarm on the dungeon that will alert you if anyone makes it that far so you can teleport in and secure the phylactery before they get to it, leaving them empty handed when they finish their ordeal.

I came here to basically post this. For most cases a long enough entrance way, some way of detecting visitors and a backdoor for yourself go a long way.

Much simpler than a chest on the bottom of the subterranean seas of a dwarf planet or moon in some other dimension you never visit just to throw people off your trail.

For extra security of a similar kind, put it in a special bag of holding specifically designed to not let people find the hing they're looking for. Fill the rest of the bag with fakes.

I mean sure, for most intents and purposes the bag itself now just functions as your phylactery, but there's at least around a 50% chance they'll think it's a distraction.

[noob]

In that case, demiplanes where every local year is equivalent to Planck time on the Material Plane.

Do you pick the philactery near which you respawn?

[noob]

The rules are unclear on this, as I think you need Aumvor's fragmented phylactery (Champions of Ruin, p37) to actually have multiples, and even that doesn't elaborate on this.

you can also become a lich multiple times with human heritage.(like lord voldemort or else they would not speak that much of his muggle(human) heritage and he would not be the first to have made 7 phylacteries)
Dry lich also gets multiple phylacteries.
There is ways to lose the undead type and once you do you can make the lich ritual again.(example: use some of the spells who change your type)
You could also get immortality without phylactery: mind control a high level person with the deathless domain and make him turn you into a sacred watcher and not control you.
Then do all the evil stuff you want knowing that there is no way at all to kill you.(once you are level 15 or higher)

[Pleh]

For extra security of a similar kind, put it in a special nag of holding specifically designed to not let people find the hing they're looking for. Fill the rest of the bag with fakes.

I mean sure, for most intents and purposes the bag itself now just functions as your phylactery, but there's at least around a 50% chance they'll think it's a distraction.

Not bad, but savvy adventurers won't leave it to chance and will find a way to quickly destroy the entire bag's content. Cast a spell to fill the bag with acid, for example.

[Calthropstu]

Another way is to turn the phylactory into an artifact. Make it extremely difficult to destroy, similar to the one ring, and have it EASY to scry. If enemies find it, you can easily track them down.

This poses its own risks of course. You can easily prevent weaker threats from getting the better of you, but if a greater threat capable of beating you manages to get a hold of it you could be in serious trouble.

Of course, if money becomes no object, it opens up a new alternative. A lich with numerous almost completed phylactories... if his phylactory is ever stolen, he could simply finish a new one.

[King of Nowhere]

Not bad, but savvy adventurers won't leave it to chance and will find a way to quickly destroy the entire bag's content. Cast a spell to fill the bag with acid, for example.

Nah. Adventurers will grab the bag and all the content because it is loot. And once you start regenerating, they will notice.

[CharonsHelper]

Deep in the earth in a adamantine box. No dungeon - just a half mile down.

[Hellpyre]

Deep in the earth in a adamantine box. No dungeon - just a half mile down.

That was more or less my suggestion. Mile down, no entrance, line it with lead to prevent scrying, and put in a weirdstone to prevent incoming teleportation without stopping you from teleporting out.

[Keltest]

you can also become a lich multiple times with human heritage.(like lord voldemort or else they would not speak that much of his muggle(human) heritage and he would not be the first to have made 7 phylacteries)
Dry lich also gets multiple phylacteries.
There is ways to lose the undead type and once you do you can make the lich ritual again.(example: use some of the spells who change your type)
You could also get immortality without phylactery: mind control a high level person with the deathless domain and make him turn you into a sacred watcher and not control you.
Then do all the evil stuff you want knowing that there is no way at all to kill you.(once you are level 15 or higher)

That doesn't work for anyone who didn't start as a human or part-human though. Also, they probably couldn't undergo the ritual again because they no longer have any life force to store in a phylactery, and that's a required step for becoming a lich and acquiring the template.

[noob]

The no longer enough life force for making another phylactery would only be a new rule in order to stop someone with human heritage from becoming a lich multiple times but according to the rules as written human heritage is a feat which makes you have the humanoid type and it says nowhere you lose this feat when something should change your type and if you keep that feat normally you should regain immediately the humanoid type(since you have a feat that state that you are of the humanoid type).
Whenever you allow that or not is up to you but I think that spending tons of gold and xp for becoming a lich multiple times is not a good tactic for player characters.(especially since you are not going to stack many times the template since once you have the template twice you have way too much la for ever gaining xp again)
So lich stacking through human heritage for having multiple phylacteries is more a npc thing than a player thing.

[Mr Adventurer]

You'd regenerate next to your phylactary, but be lost with it. You'd still have an option to leave the astral plane by normal methods though. I think the main implication is that you can't use Locate Object or similar spell to find your lost items.

But really, when you shove your phylactary in between dimensions to be squeezed out somewhere on the astral plane, what you're really doing is leaving it to your DM's distinction on what happens to it.

And if the DM can make it interesting, why wouldn't he?

Well, the rules say it is lost forever, so if your DM does something different, that is house rule territory, which we don't normally bother to discuss.

[Red Fel]

So lich stacking through human heritage for having multiple phylacteries is more a npc thing than a player thing.

Point of order! A Dry Lich creates five horcruxes phylacteries, so he doesn't even need to use cheese to produce extras. So that solves that problem.

Next, I managed to dig up this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?82133-Best-methods-of-Phylactery-Protection), which offered a pretty good choice for phylactery protection - invisibly locked at the top of the sky. Nowhere does it say you respawn at your phylactery (I think); you simply respawn as long as your phylactery isn't destroyed. So storing it someplace inhospitable is only a problem if you can't personally check into its status.

Lastly, as an alternative, consider storing it with one of these spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?537715-Witch-s-Cottage-up-to-Archwizard-s-Castle-(spells-to-become-a-stronghold-builder)). Yeah, they're homebrew, but they're glorious. Or, heck, if homebrew's on the table, take levels in this class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546312-quot-Lift-your-eyes-to-my-seat-at-the-pinnacle-of-paradise-quot-Mythos), basically just embody your own citadel/dungeon/temple of protection, and place your phylactery at the heart of it.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Nah. Adventurers will grab the bag and all the content because it is loot. And once you start regenerating, they will notice.

But only if they're looking for something that is absolutely not a regenerating lich, otherwise you won't be found.

Okay, I guess people do search bags of holding for stuff other than regenerating lichs.

I guess I'll stick with the backdoor plan as my main line of lazy defense.

[ericgrau]

The best way to hide something is to make sure no one is looking for it in the first place. Pump a mundane disguise modifier up the wazoo and disguise yourself as a non-lich. When you come back say to the party "What? You do it all the time." It may take 4-5 deaths before they finally realize you're a lich and even go hunting for your phylactery.

As for the phylactery itself, instead of making a super anti-divination, hide it ok but let it be "found". Let's say it's in your main base hidden right behind the boss room where you can guard it. Actually the party finds a magic item with a Nystul's magic aura or some such making it appear to be your phylactery; actual one is similarly concealed to be a mundane item. Party never researched a super divination because they never needed to. Party smashes the fake, job done and they move on to the next adventure. Leave the country, avoid the party, and start the scam anew elsewhere along with a new evil plot.

[noob]

The best way to hide something is to make sure no one is looking for it in the first place. Pump a mundane disguise modifier up the wazoo and disguise yourself as a non-lich. When you come back say to the party "What? You do it all the time." It may take 4-5 deaths before they finally realize you're a lich and even go hunting for your phylactery.

As for the phylactery itself, instead of making a super anti-divination, hide it ok but let it be "found". Let's say it's in your main base hidden right behind the boss room where you can guard it. Actually the party finds a magic item with a Nystul's magic aura or some such making it appear to be your phylactery; actual one is similarly concealed to be a mundane item. Party never researched a super divination because they never needed to. Party smashes the fake, job done and they move on to the next adventure. Leave the country, avoid the party, and start the scam anew elsewhere along with a new evil plot.

Also another thing is that you could tell a story about being a sacred watcher or some other creature that comes back to life naturally.
Or just show the party a loyal cleric minion which is able to cast true Resurrection and tell them that this cleric faith makes him believe he must wait a few days before casting true Resurrection.

[ericgrau]

Nah then they kill the minion. Best to keep them guessing and/or searching for a minion that doesn't exist. I'd say nothing the first fight, because it's suspicious why you'd say anything. When they see you again then you might say "I got raised. (only if they ask) How? Oh, someone I know raised me. Of course I'm not saying who." Then the party wastes time searching for nobody. If you hear the party speculating on who raised you from the start, then don't even say anything.

Also it's perfectly natural to appear several days later to the party after being raised and you don't need a reason. Most reoccurring villains don't find the party the same day they come back to life.

Providing unnecessary information just makes the party suspect that you're up to something and makes them bust out crazy divinations and/or simpler checking.

[Keltest]

The no longer enough life force for making another phylactery would only be a new rule in order to stop someone with human heritage from becoming a lich multiple times but according to the rules as written human heritage is a feat which makes you have the humanoid type and it says nowhere you lose this feat when something should change your type and if you keep that feat normally you should regain immediately the humanoid type(since you have a feat that state that you are of the humanoid type).
Whenever you allow that or not is up to you but I think that spending tons of gold and xp for becoming a lich multiple times is not a good tactic for player characters.(especially since you are not going to stack many times the template since once you have the template twice you have way too much la for ever gaining xp again)
So lich stacking through human heritage for having multiple phylacteries is more a npc thing than a player thing.

Its not a new rule, its in the lich creation process. They need to be able to construct their phylactery to become a lich, which in turn requires them to transfer their life force into it. I guess you could conceivably do the ritual again, but that would in turn require you to take your life force out of your existing phylactery, rendering it useless. You certainly wouldn't end up with two phylacteries.

[frogglesmash]

Hide it in a box deep underground with all the anti divination spells you can (as others have already suggested) as well as a contingency territory that takes it to you or a predetermined safe location, and triggers when someone other than you touches the phylactery.
Next you want to make sure no one goes looking for your phylactery, so you're going to want to invest a fair amount of effort into disguising yourself as something other than a Lich.

[Jackalias]

In Pathfinder there's an, upgrade I guess it would be called? Called the whirlpool maw, basically a bag of holding located in your jaw, put your phylactery in there and never worry about it again.

[Oracle71]

Multiple levels of defense is definitely the way to go. As suggested previously, first, don't let people know that you are a lich at all. Second, hide your phylactery in some well hidden location which is well protected from divination. Third, put in place a contingency for if/when someone DOES find its location. But I would like to add a fourth defense: craft as many fake copies as you can, and trap every single one of them so that if they are touched by anyone other than the lich, some absolutely nasty fate befalls that person (or their entire party). Something along the lines of ten summoning traps that each bring a balor to that location, or planeshifting everybody in the room to a rickety platform above the river Styx just outside of Orcus's realm of Thanatos in the abyss. It may appear to be prohibitively expensive, but you are a high level spellcaster with literally a lifetime to lay the groundwork with almost limitless options to generate the wealth needed to pull it off.

[Psyren]

In Pathfinder there's an, upgrade I guess it would be called? Called the whirlpool maw, basically a bag of holding located in your jaw, put your phylactery in there and never worry about it again.

Until they hit you with a single dispel and it pops right back out

[Calthropstu]

Multiple levels of defense is definitely the way to go. As suggested previously, first, don't let people know that you are a lich at all. Second, hide your phylactery in some well hidden location which is well protected from divination. Third, put in place a contingency for if/when someone DOES find its location. But I would like to add a fourth defense: craft as many fake copies as you can, and trap every single one of them so that if they are touched by anyone other than the lich, some absolutely nasty fate befalls that person (or their entire party). Something along the lines of ten summoning traps that each bring a balor to that location, or planeshifting everybody in the room to a rickety platform above the river Styx just outside of Orcus's realm of Thanatos in the abyss. It may appear to be prohibitively expensive, but you are a high level spellcaster with literally a lifetime to lay the groundwork with almost limitless options to generate the wealth needed to pull it off.

Just one thing to add. Make it rotate with the fakes. Once a week it teleports to a different spot, swapping with a fake.

And you could also craft a special spell adding a contingency for whenever its hiding place is discovered by any means it swaps with a fake. The only time this changes is when you are spawning... because your spawnner teleporting away mid spawn sounds like a bad thing.

[Jackalias]

Until they hit you with a single dispel and it pops right back out

It says the effect can only be removed by removing the augmented body part.

[Psyren]

It says the effect can only be removed by removing the augmented body part.

You missed this line in the whirlpool maw entry:


If the whirlpool maw’s effect is suppressed or dispelled, the stored item appears instantly.

AMF / dispel = presto, phylactery.

[Jackalias]

You missed this line in the whirlpool maw entry:



AMF / dispel = presto, phylactery.

Oh crud I missed that part, my second suggestion is to distribute hundreds of cursed copies of your phylactery to the general public.

[captain fubar]

painted white in an arbitrary part of the Positive energy plane. no Ive not gone insane, hear me out.

1 despite the fluff undead are immune to the fort save or die the plane imposes but the living get magic cancer or something from the over abundance of healing (there isn't even an exception for good outsiders lol).
2 the positive has fewer printed natives than any other plane and they are described as being extremely rare.
3 its probibly near the last place on would expect to find a lich
4 the plane is infinite but so far as I am aware only 2 distinct locations on the plane have been described in the books.

[Deophaun]

3 its probibly near the last place on would expect to find a lich
4 the plane is infinite but so far as I am aware only 2 distinct locations on the plane have been described in the books.
Doesn't much matter. You have to beat wish, and "teleport me 10 miles from LichyMcLichtenstien's Phylactery" is an arguably valid one.

[Hellpyre]

painted white in an arbitrary part of the Positive energy plane. no Ive not gone insane, hear me out.

1 despite the fluff undead are immune to the fort save or die the plane imposes but the living get magic cancer or something from the over abundance of healing (there isn't even an exception for good outsiders lol).
2 the positive has fewer printed natives than any other plane and they are described as being extremely rare.
3 its probibly near the last place on would expect to find a lich
4 the plane is infinite but so far as I am aware only 2 distinct locations on the plane have been described in the books.

I'm almost certain the healing counts as a positive energy effect, and would be...unkind to our lich during the attempt to recreate their body. I am AFB, though, so it may well be that RAW positive-dominant healing isn't a positive energy effect.

[captain fubar]

Doesn't much matter. You have to beat wish, and "teleport me 10 miles from LichyMcLichtenstien's Phylactery" is an arguably valid one.

that is the beauty even if you are within a few meters of the thing the low "resolution" for lack of a better term that results from a featureless void means you still wouldn't see the thing unless you happen to stub your toe on it.

[captain fubar]

it gives out temp hp and if you have to many then you start rolling fort save or die every turn.
edit/ I will concede that undead thriving on the positive is more a raw dysfunction than anything likely to be allowed in actual play./edit

[Deophaun]

that is the beauty even if you are within a few meters of the thing the low "resolution" for lack of a better term that results from a featureless void means you still wouldn't see the thing unless you happen to stub your toe on it.
The problem is you don't need to see the thing. You know where it is. You can make multiple wishes and use dragoneye runes to triangulate the precise location from a long, long way away. Heck, as you're using an infinite plane, let's be super duper ridiculous cautious and go ten lightyears away for our radius. There's no way the lich figures out his phylactery is even being found out until it's too late. The virtue of an infinite featureless void is that what you're looking for can be anywhere. Once you drop that down to something that can surveyed within a lazy afternoon, it might as well be buried in a coffee can under the rose bush in the backyard.

[Bucky]

If you want to foil that sort of approach, you should arrange for a moving phylactery.

[Hugh Mann]

Well how about a the phylactery is placed in a magically protected box (standard resisting all damage and protection from divination) that has an automatically reseting trap that activates when the box has line of sight of anything. Every round that the box "sees" anything (potentially unlimited line of sight in well lit areas, or 120 ft in dark areas) it teleports in a random direction. This way, even if someone can somehow get near it, the box would be gone almost instantly.

[frogglesmash]

Well how about a the phylactery is placed in a magically protected box (standard resisting all damage and protection from divination) that has an automatically reseting trap that activates when the box has line of sight of anything. Every round that the box "sees" anything (potentially unlimited line of sight in well lit areas, or 120 ft in dark areas) it teleports in a random direction. This way, even if someone can somehow get near it, the box would be gone almost instantly.

Take it one step further and have it teleport once every few minutes only stopping if you die.

[Psyren]

Well how about a the phylactery is placed in a magically protected box (standard resisting all damage and protection from divination) that has an automatically reseting trap that activates when the box has line of sight of anything. Every round that the box "sees" anything (potentially unlimited line of sight in well lit areas, or 120 ft in dark areas) it teleports in a random direction. This way, even if someone can somehow get near it, the box would be gone almost instantly.

If you approach the box while undetectable in some way (e.g. invisible or ethereal) you won't trigger its escape. You can also use some kind of effect that stops it from teleporting, like AMF or dimensional anchor.

[atemu1234]

My suggestion is to create a demiplane to which only you have access to, and put a gigantic dungeon filled with high-level monsters (or, you know, find a way to trap an army of atropals or something there). Seal it away in an adamantine, lead-lined box, with a weirdstone and ward the collective area with enough abjuration to make Ed Greenwood blush.

[Mordaedil]

If you could put it somewhere that deals a lot of lightning, cold and negative energy damage all at once, at least you'll be alright as you are immune to those things.

[Telok]

I've always favored making it into a Bag of Holding (make sure you'll regenerate inside it) or your fancy, heavily customized and warded, 3 foor by 4 foot, 90 pound spellbook with copies of all your spells in it.

These have the benefits of being valuable loot and tending to remain undisturbed for reasonable periods of time.

[Hugh Mann]

If you approach the box while undetectable in some way (e.g. invisible or ethereal) you won't trigger its escape. You can also use some kind of effect that stops it from teleporting, like AMF or dimensional anchor.

The visual trigger doesn't have to be a creature. The intent was to trigger when it sees anything, Including the environment or distant stars. And you can put true seeing on it.
The idea is that it there is almost always something in visual range so it will teleport every round. Heck, if you are really want a o be safe, you can have multiple teleportation traps teleporting it multiple times a round.

If the box teleports 100 times a round it should be unlikely that any group can get there and cast AMF or Dimensional Anchor before it leaves

[Garktz]

Thoughts on creating It on a silver Coín, then go to a Big city and just spend said coin? It would be almost all the time on the move surrounded by people, and nobody would suspect about it... Being on the move and surrounded by a lot of unsuspecting people, It should be really hard to pin point with acuraccy....

[Calthropstu]

Thoughts on creating It on a silver Coín, then go to a Big city and just spend said coin? It would be almost all the time on the move surrounded by people, and nobody would suspect about it... Being on the move and surrounded by a lot of unsuspecting people, It should be really hard to pin point with acuraccy....

That would work great.... until you needed to respawn.

[Jack_Simth]

That would work great.... until you needed to respawn.
Or until some random individual needed some (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm) powered (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blessWater.htm) silver (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/curseWater.htm). Or until someone makes the DC 25 check to recognize it. Or until it ends up in some rich bloke's vault and falls out of circulation. Or until someone wants to forge a Tiny Silver Spoon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesMagnificentMansion.htm) (or anything else out of silver). Any "Even I don't know where it is" scenario is just begging the DM to mess with you.

[Mordaedil]

Knowing the DM's I've had, you'd always spawn in some random outhouse-toilet as somebody dropped their coins from the pocket into the toilet.

So I think that might be the most humiliating choice so far, if nothing else.

I think in some utterdark corner of the negative energy plane is the best idea so far. Perhaps you can even get some frostmage necropolitan to guard it for you too.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

How about a Vecna Blooded Court?

It will be your best follower so it will not want you to die and he is very hard to find.

[King of Nowhere]

Multiple levels of defense is definitely the way to go. As suggested previously, first, don't let people know that you are a lich at all. Second, hide your phylactery in some well hidden location which is well protected from divination. Third, put in place a contingency for if/when someone DOES find its location. But I would like to add a fourth defense: craft as many fake copies as you can, and trap every single one of them so that if they are touched by anyone other than the lich, some absolutely nasty fate befalls that person (or their entire party). Something along the lines of ten summoning traps that each bring a balor to that location, or planeshifting everybody in the room to a rickety platform above the river Styx just outside of Orcus's realm of Thanatos in the abyss. It may appear to be prohibitively expensive, but you are a high level spellcaster with literally a lifetime to lay the groundwork with almost limitless options to generate the wealth needed to pull it off.

problem with elaborate defences id that they tend to be very expensive. you tend to have limited resources geenerally, and if you have money they could be better spent on some magic item that will make you more powerful and less likely to be killed in the first place.

[Keltest]

problem with elaborate defences id that they tend to be very expensive. you tend to have limited resources geenerally, and if you have money they could be better spent on some magic item that will make you more powerful and less likely to be killed in the first place.

I mean, if the assumption is that youre never going to die, that makes any and all investment into phylactery protection pointless, and you may as well just keep it on your person.

Spending resources on making yourself impossible to kill is rather missing one of the biggest points of becoming a lich.

[Hellpyre]

problem with elaborate defences id that they tend to be very expensive. you tend to have limited resources geenerally, and if you have money they could be better spent on some magic item that will make you more powerful and less likely to be killed in the first place.

It's worth noting that compound interest is a Lich's best friend.

[Psyren]

Why not just (a) make friends with another lich, (b) both of you optimize to the 9s, and (c) carry each other's phylactery? No static defense is going to trump an optimized caster.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Why not just (a) make friends with another lich, (b) both of you optimize to the 9s, and (c) carry each other's phylactery? No static defense is going to trump an optimized caster.

I don't think this is good because if I lose my body my friend lose his phylactery.

[Bronk]

Doesn't work by RAW -- phylactery's gotta be an object, not a creature -- but it's still a fun thing to think about.

The history of my setting has a pair of lichs who so loved each other that they somehow managed to make each other into their phylacteries. They're both powerful spellcasters, and even if you manage to kill one, the other teleports away to safety. (Nobody ever did wind up defeating them -- they got bored of the world and took a spelljammer to travel the multiverse.)

The idea is that it only has to be an object at the time it becomes a phylactery. I think your example plays to that perfectly... undead aren't objects either.

[frogglesmash]

We've been talking a lot about protecting the phylactery, but has anyone considered making it unbreakable? My first idea is to make it out of aurorum, then haunt shift a trustworthy undead into it so it can reform itself, but I'm sure something even better could be devised.

[Flickerdart]

Make your phylactery also a lich, so if it's destroyed, it just reforms.

[Psyren]

I don't think this is good because if I lose my body my friend lose his phylactery.

Not necessarily. You can still do all the tricks of keeping the one in your possession hidden, just close by. Any divinations they attempt for "your phylactery" will lead them pretty far away from you, since yours is not present under this plan.

But the main point is that any form of static defense - locking it in a box, chucking into the sea, entering it into monetary circulation somehow - just means that you won't be warned when they find it before going after you. A living caster possessing it meanwhile can send warning any number of ways, and few parties can handle two optimized liches when they were only expecting one.

[King of Nowhere]

I mean, if the assumption is that youre never going to die, that makes any and all investment into phylactery protection pointless, and you may as well just keep it on your person.

Spending resources on making yourself impossible to kill is rather missing one of the biggest points of becoming a lich.

It must be pointed out that dieing means that your body gets looted of your whole hiigh level equipment. So, it's good to have a way to come back, but death is still something you really want to avoid.

[Hugh Mann]

But the main point is that any form of static defense - locking it in a box, chucking into the sea, entering it into monetary circulation somehow - just means that you won't be warned when they find it before going after you. A living caster possessing it meanwhile can send warning any number of ways, and few parties can handle two optimized liches when they were only expecting one.

An issue is that we don't know if the lich is merely trying to protect its phylactery from an appropriate ECL party. The general conceit behind hiding a phylactery is that the lich gets destroyed by something vastly stronger than them or using a method they didn't think of. A more fluid defense is a good idea, but having an extra lich won't necessarily protect you if a god decides to mess with your day.

In an ideal version of this type of defense the lich would become really close friends or lovers with a powerful god, and just have the god wear the phylactery. Then have the god send warning/move the phylactery if things go south. And even this defense fails if the god is confronted by a stronger/smarter god.

To counteract the potential divine interference, I would suggest having the phylactery be protected by an Elder Evil, as many of them have some sort of immunity to godly magic, and they tend to be very well defended. Presubably Atropus would be willing to team up with a lich.

[Lapak]

They key problem with an active defense and handing it over to someone else is kind of baked-in: either you’re giving it to someone just as vulnerable as you or you’re putting yourself in the hands of someone stronger such that they could crush you on a whim. Given the temperament it takes to become a lich - being so desperate to protect yourself from death that you will commit acts of unspeakable evil, tear out your own soul and exist as an unfeeling skeleton - I don’t see that as being a palatable option for almost any of them.

[Lapak]

(I also see this as the problem with a lot of the ‘lose it in an unfindable way’ methods - while those might indeed be solid protection, I cannot imagine someone who chose to become a lich being okay with their only point of vulnerability being just Out There, somewhere they can’t potentially keep an eye on it.)

[Psyren]

An issue is that we don't know if the lich is merely trying to protect its phylactery from an appropriate ECL party. The general conceit behind hiding a phylactery is that the lich gets destroyed by something vastly stronger than them or using a method they didn't think of. A more fluid defense is a good idea, but having an extra lich won't necessarily protect you if a god decides to mess with your day.

But if a god is coming after you, a box on the astral plane somewhere won't do diddly squat either. There is a level of force beyond which all tactics are meaningless, and that would certainly qualify.


In an ideal version of this type of defense the lich would become really close friends or lovers with a powerful god, and just have the god wear the phylactery. Then have the god send warning/move the phylactery if things go south. And even this defense fails if the god is confronted by a stronger/smarter god.

To counteract the potential divine interference, I would suggest having the phylactery be protected by an Elder Evil, as many of them have some sort of immunity to godly magic, and they tend to be very well defended. Presubably Atropus would be willing to team up with a lich.

If this were possible though, I'd assume every lich would do it. There is likely any number of calamities associated with trying to rely on an Elder Evil this way.

[Calthropstu]

Actually, I just had an actual pretty decent idea.

The phylactory has to be something you create. It can be a ring, a rod... a crown... Nothing says it can't be a magic item.

And if it can be a magic item, then nothing says it can't be an intelligent magic item.

The best way for something to be unable to be found and destroyed is for it to not exist until it is needed.

Time hop. An intelligent magic item that uses time hope and teleport of its own accord. Divination magic can't pinpoint something that doesn't exist, and something that has time hopped doesn't exist until they re-appear.

The only time it would stay still is during respawn. So destroying the phylactory could only take place during respawn.

[Malimar]

The phylactory has to be something you create. It can be a ring, a rod... a crown... Nothing says it can't be a magic item.
Well, um, actually...

A phylactery cannot be part of another magic item, nor may additional magical properties be built into it.
My opinion on this whole page of rules has already been stated (BORING, ignore it if it makes for a more interesting story), but, again, it's not nothing.

Incidentally, the same page says

The phylactery can exist in other forms as well, though it must either contain or bear an arcane inscription. Regardless of the phylactery's form, its game statistics remain the same: size Tiny, hp 40, hardness 20, break DC 40.
So, with regards to the "make the planet your phylactery" suggestion from earlier: by the most technical reading of RAW, you can do it, but it shrinks the planet to Tiny size.

[Psyren]

1) Divination can also tell you when it will exist though, and they can have locks and null psionics fields waiting.
2) While it doesn't exist, you effectively don't have a phylactery. What happens if you die during that time? (This might be more of an issue in PF, which uses slightly different wording for how the phylactery functions.)

[Mr Adventurer]

If you want to foil that sort of approach, you should arrange for a moving phylactery.



In an ideal version of this type of defense the lich would become really close friends or lovers with a powerful god, and just have the god wear the phylactery.

BREAKING: Vecna's phylactery discovered in Fahrlanghn's pocket! Church launches inquiry into nature of relationship, schism on the horizon as 'Fahrcna' mythicists gain traction!

[Hugh Mann]

But if a god is coming after you, a box on the astral plane somewhere won't do diddly squat either. There is a level of force beyond which all tactics are meaningless, and that would certainly qualify.

If this were possible though, I'd assume every lich would do it. There is likely any number of calamities associated with trying to rely on an Elder Evil this way.

As far as I can tell the general point of this thread is to define the safest method of protecting the phylactery, not the safest method that is easy to achieve. At some point the lich will gain enough power that it threatens powerful, possibly planar, civilizations. A significantly powerful, charismatic, and motivated party can simply find a god and ask them where the phylactery is. The god may not even need to engage the lich, just break the lich's anti-divination spells. No lich who would go to any of the extreme lengths that has described on this thread to preserve its life would be appalled to think that its existence only continues because a bunch of gods decided that they couldn't be bothered.

The Elder Evil option isn't a sane option, or even an easy one to accomplish, but it achieves the desired goal of rendering some of the strongest beings in the multiverse unable to find the phylactery. And many of the Elder Evils are already sealed or hidden, so you can just hide the phylactery near it rather than trusting it.

[Psyren]

As far as I can tell the general point of this thread is to define the safest method of protecting the phylactery, not the safest method that is easy to achieve. At some point the lich will gain enough power that it threatens powerful, possibly planar, civilizations. A significantly powerful, charismatic, and motivated party can simply find a god and ask them where the phylactery is. The god may not even need to engage the lich, just break the lich's anti-divination spells. No lich who would go to any of the extreme lengths that has described on this thread to preserve its life would be appalled to think that its existence only continues because a bunch of gods decided that they couldn't be bothered.

The Elder Evil option isn't a sane option, or even an easy one to accomplish, but it achieves the desired goal of rendering some of the strongest beings in the multiverse unable to find the phylactery. And many of the Elder Evils are already sealed or hidden, so you can just hide the phylactery near it rather than trusting it.

Well if practicality isn't a concern, just give your phylactery to Ao for safekeeping. Neither god nor elder evil will get near it then.

[noob]

Well if practicality isn't a concern, just give your phylactery to Ao for safekeeping. Neither god nor elder evil will get near it then.

Just put the phylactery in a very cool amulet of mind control around the neck of the gm.