Artifact hunt campaign

[dededo11]

I have an idea for a campaign. It revolves around the party hunting for the pieces of an artifact capable of weakening a super powerful lich bbeg enough that he could be destroyed, and the lich's phylactery in order to make said destruction permanent. The only problem is, I have no idea how to let the players know where the artifact pieces and the phylactery are. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Sparky McDibben]

Any ideas on your player characters? Race, class, and a quick background? I prefer to weave plots through the PCs.

[J-H]

Exposition Fairy (archmage, spirit of dead archmage, Hound Archon who wants the Lich dead, unusually creative Marut who is tired of the Lich defeating him, ancient mummy lord or dragon who is a rival of the Lich)
Prophecy
Sage (researched this for the last 45 years after the Lich killed his family, ghost of ancestors past, collected notes from a failed prior attempt to kill the lich)
Betrayer (former servant who wants to be the master, former servant who felt disrespected, former servant who fell in love)

[Mongobear]

The PCs start out on an adventure totally unrelated to the Lich, and stumble across a MacGuffin piece, which starts drawing them towards another, and another. Eventually, the Lich catches wind of the MacGuffin resurfacing and tries to steal/destroy it but the party beat him and he retreats. They finish the MacGuffin and track him down, but what they didn't know what that the MacGuffin doesn't just poof him away, all it does is make him killable. They still have to defeat a Lich in a fight in his stronghold.