The Best Place to Hide Phycaltery

[Ranis]

I'm making a lich for my game, and I need a really, really, really good place to hide her phycaltery so that the PCs don't focus on trying to find it and instead focus on, y'know, saving the world. So, I'm not going to BS anything and say that they can't find it, or that it isn't there, because that's silly and I'm not that kind of DM.

Ideas I've had so far;
-The homebrew world that is my setting is a cylinder with seven suns floating through it. Hide it inside one of the suns. A long, long stretch, I know, but this lich has powerful allies from other dimensions. It can happen.

-One of the PCs picks it up inadvertently and they have no idea they have it. It would be appropriately magically masked, of course, and would be the headpeice for say a staff of some kind, or a jewel in a Helm of Brilliance. Because, y'know, magic items are never more than they seem, right?

-One of the other villains has it, and he doesn't know. The lich would trust him to keep it safe, because she knows that he is more powerful than she, and also haughty and arrogant.


Anyone else have some better ideas? I'd like something foolproof and concrete, anyone who could help with this will get a cookie! :D

[Bears With Lasers]

At the bottom of the sea.

[PnP Fan]

On another plane of existence (elemental non-damaging would be best, so air, water or earth) Preferably somwhere that the Lich can't even find it.

Unless of course the story is supposed to shift towards killing the Lich later on. Then I'd put it on another continent, not impossible to get to, but very inconvenient.

[Ranis]

See, that can't happen, 'cause there are no other planes of existence on this world. At least, not that anyone knows of. It's extremely complicated.

And, the story shouldn't shift to killing her later on, and if it does, then I'll move it to a more PC-applicable area.

[Eshu]

Make it a mundane item the characters would not normally care much about. I'd say a journal or the like, kept by the lich during their life, but that's something that some more scholarly types might pick up (or the just-plain-weird ones). Really, any sort of keepsake like that would work I think -- a painting of her in childhood with friends, a stuffed & mounted pet (would probably work great for making the PCs think she's nuckin' futs, keeping Fluffy around in a magically preserved state for several hundred years, talking to and petting the animal like it's still alive).

For added hilarity, you could always put a nicely enchanted item like a necklace of fireballs on the lich's person to be found and mistaken for the phylactery. Nothing says "try again" quite like triggering multiple 5-8d6 fireballs at point-blank range. :)

[Talya]

In the spider golem guarding your matron-mother's temple!

[Maryring]

If you've got timetravel, then in the future. If not... a coin in a pocket on one of her clothing items. I doubt that your PC's would shuffle through her wardrobe too much.

[martyboy74]

Enchant it so it produces a continuous Force Box effect. Then, teleport it to the bottom of the game world's equivalent of the Marianas Trench. With weights attached.

[LCR]

Can you use people as a phylactery?
If so, kidnap a child and make it yours. No hero will ever slay a child.

[JellyPooga]

Give it to a skeleton minion. Also give it a spade. Tell it to dig. Forever.

With any luck, it should be several miles down and counting by the time the heroes come looking for you. When they do, fill the hole with Boneyard (creature from Libris Mortis) and Black Sand (from Sandstorm).

(oh, make sure you're not on a plane of existance that has a core composition like our Earth (i.e. magma under the crust), otherwise you're screwed)

[Ranis]

Can you use people as a phylactery?
If so, kidnap a child and make it yours. No hero will ever slay a child.

Now, THAT is clever.

JellyPooga- However sinisterly fun that is, It wouldn't work with my world. Ambient chaotic energy circles this giant cylinder, and the phycaltery would be ripped apart by the time it gets to the outside of the world.

[JellyPooga]

JellyPooga- However sinisterly fun that is, It wouldn't work with my world. Ambient chaotic energy circles this giant cylinder, and the phycaltery would be ripped apart by the time it gets to the outside of the world.

shucks

[martyboy74]

Now, THAT is clever.

JellyPooga- However sinisterly fun that is, It wouldn't work with my world. Ambient chaotic energy circles this giant cylinder, and the phycaltery would be ripped apart by the time it gets to the outside of the world.

Can anything protect you from this currents? Force effects? Protection from elements? Temporal Stasis?

[Maxymiuk]

Put it in a safe deposit box in a bank.

I mean, the PC's will expect it to be in some exotic, unreachable, guarded location. No one will think to check the local bank.

[Ranis]

Can anything protect you from this currents? Force effects? Protection from elements? Temporal Stasis?

The campaign setting is a forgotten, unfinished version of the Material plane, long forgotten by everyone.

So, the energies circling the plane are those of the raw force of Creation itself. So, no. Unfortunately.

[Larrin]

Have your phylactery made in an immovable rod, stuck in the middle of the air a mile above the ocean/desert/forest. Then make it invisible. It would be pretty impossilble to find or notice, even with a dedicate search.

[Ranis]

Have your phylactery made in an immovable rod, stuck in the middle of the air a mile above the ocean/desert/forest. Then make it invisible. It would be pretty impossilble to find or notice, even with a dedicate search.

Hah! A funny thought went through my mind:

PC's are flying (thanks to the wizard) to their next destination. They see a bird smack into something then plummet to the ground.

PC's: "Hmm."

[Maxymiuk]

Hah! A funny thought went through my mind:

PC's are flying (thanks to the wizard) to their next destination. They see a dragon smack into something then plummet to the ground.

PC's: "Hmm."

Fixed it for you.

[Ranis]

Heh, thanks. 'Cept, dragons don't exist in my world. :)

[Illiterate Scribe]

Go into an antimagic field with a bag of holding. Put the phylactery into the bag. Walk out of the field. The phylactery will only be reachable while in the field, and while in it, won't detect as a magic item. You still can regenerate, however, as the phylactery is in the pocket plane generated by the bag, and so is removed from the field.

[Hario]

actually there is nothing evil if you put it in a human and the heros stun or sleep the captive and have the cleric go inside the human and perform surgery with heal checks every round, of course if you ment WAS the human than well :/ there are spells that switch bodies for people and a LG character might switch bodies and then have his friends slay him

[Ranis]

Go into an antimagic field with a bag of holding. Put the phylactery into the bag. Walk out of the field. The phylactery will only be reachable while in the field, and while in it, won't detect as a magic item. You still can regenerate, however, as the phylactery is in the pocket plane generated by the bag, and so is removed from the field.

WOW.

I think this is the best example of telling the laws of physics and matter to sit down and shut up I've ever seen.

[Cyborg Pirate]

How about hiding it in the body of the lich himself? Unless the players vaporise the lich somehow, I'd think that they'd ignore the corpse after killing him, leaving the phycaltery essentially in the last place they'd look.

[PinkysBrain]

If the phylactery was in the extra dimensional space created by the bag of holding then you could simply reach in and get it outside of the AMF. It's simply in the bag, being covered up by the bags opening which is an entrance into an extradimensional space, just cutting the bag open would allow you to retrieve the phylactery even without the AMF.

[Fredderf]

I gotta love the bank idea. No PC would just check at the bank. Ever. Plus there are no awkward situations like the lich reforming a mile above the ground and falling to the ground. Thats gotta hurt.
The easiest solutions are the best. The bank is great, you could just make it a gem, but in the PC's possession I think it might not get to regenerate before it is killed and the gem is destroyed.
Other villans usually work pretty well, especially untouchable villians, i.e. the noble that owns half the city. The inside of a hollow tree in the middle of a forest will be near impossible to find as well for PCs.

[Earthstar_Fungus]

You could hide it as a modern art painting and put it in a gallery. Say the lich is an art connoisseur or something.

[Cyborg Pirate]

You could hide it in as a modern art painting and put it in a gallery.

And have it summarily burnt to a crisp by the first adventurer with a sense of taste? No way

[Rahdjan]

Combine two great ideas. Inside an immovable rod at the bottom of the ocean.

[Imrix.]

Now me, I go in for a slightly less exotic method. You put the Phylactery in a Golem, which you then place in a random spot in a desert somewhere, or other equally bleak, large area of space, then you cast Imprison on the golem. The golem is now several leagues under the surface of the planet, requiring a high-level spell to be cast nearby the spot exactly above it. Needle in a haystack.

Failing that, put it in your safe deposit box and THEN Imprison it, so even if, on the off-chance, the PC's search it, they won't find it. Just remember to fill said box with some other valuables to cover the scent.

[Ranis]

How about hiding it in the body of the lich himself? Unless the players vaporise the lich somehow, I'd think that they'd ignore the corpse after killing him, leaving the phycaltery essentially in the last place they'd look.

This won't work, for a couple of reasons:

1: My players strip everything they kill clean for anything that might be magical or a potential thrown weapon. My fighter has a ream of "acquired" longswords he uses as his ranged weapon. Even if the lich hid it on her person, they would tear her apart trying to find ANYTHING she was hiding.

Even if she hid it you-know-where.

2. My world is undead heavy. Liches are more common than in most other settings, common enough that people who are relatively high-ranked in cities and your average adventuring party know what phycalteries are. So, they would know to look for them.