How would you create and then protect YOUR lich phylactery?

[Celestia]

Anti-divination magic, from mind blank to nondetection to all the other standard protections designed to keep a phylactery hard to find. And he'll probably use similar on himself.

And how would a newly regenerated lich have access to any of that? All active spells he had on him expired when he was destroyed. All his magic items are back with his old body. And unless he glued a backup spellbook onto the coin phylactery (which would be a bit conspicuous), he can't cast spells. I guess a sorcerer lich could swing it (assuming liches regenerate with spell slots replenished, which is unlikely) but a sorcerer probably wouldn't be wasting a limited spell known on divination protection when items are available.

Not the point. I wasn't questioning the party's ability to travel to the location, but to hear about the slaughter in a timely fashion that leads them to investigate that location.

They would be actively looking. When they destroy the lich and can't find the phylactery right away, they'll be expecting the lich to pop up again. They'll be specifically trying to find where and when the lich regenerates, not only to try preventing the lich from doing more evil but also because where the lich pops up would give a very significant clue as to where the phylactery is located.

Assuming they DO hear about it, how do they know it was "the lich" and not some other horrible monster or curse or evil person? Again, you're presuming that the party has a priori knowledge that it was the lich that did it.

Sure. They know they should be looking. Why is this slaughter more telling than the missing merchant caravan or the mysterious plague that broke out three countries over?

Are they the only adventuring party in the world and is there only one plot hook for them at a time?

Standard, run of the mill investigation. Or more divination. You're acting like figuring things out is somehow impossible. The merchant caravan went missing on a road known for heavy bandit activity, and whoever did it made sure to grab all the valuable trade goods? Probably not the lich. A plague that has been ravaging the country for weeks? Well, that's before the lich was destroyed, so probably not the lich. A village was spontaneously murdered by a single skeletal figure? Possibly the lich.

No, the lich isn't the only villain in the world, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to distinguish between the lich and everything else that exists.

[Segev]

And how would a newly regenerated lich have access to any of that? All active spells he had on him expired when he was destroyed. All his magic items are back with his old body. And unless he glued a backup spellbook onto the coin phylactery (which would be a bit conspicuous), he can't cast spells. I guess a sorcerer lich could swing it (assuming liches regenerate with spell slots replenished, which is unlikely) but a sorcerer probably wouldn't be wasting a limited spell known on divination protection when items are available.

Oh. If a lich is that helpless when he spawns, the whole scenario is moot: he can't slaughter anything before being destroyed again by the angry peasants.

They would be actively looking. When they destroy the lich and can't find the phylactery right away, they'll be expecting the lich to pop up again. They'll be specifically trying to find where and when the lich regenerates, not only to try preventing the lich from doing more evil but also because where the lich pops up would give a very significant clue as to where the phylactery is located.


Standard, run of the mill investigation. Or more divination. You're acting like figuring things out is somehow impossible. The merchant caravan went missing on a road known for heavy bandit activity, and whoever did it made sure to grab all the valuable trade goods? Probably not the lich. A plague that has been ravaging the country for weeks? Well, that's before the lich was destroyed, so probably not the lich. A village was spontaneously murdered by a single skeletal figure? Possibly the lich.

No, the lich isn't the only villain in the world, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to distinguish between the lich and everything else that exists.

I brought up the missing caravan because the coin could as easily be carried in the merchants' lockbox, and the vanished caravan be the lich's doing. Why NOT take the valuables when he heads off?

The problem isn't that the lich is entirely untraceable (though I think he'd have taken effort to make himself as untraceable as possible when regenerating), but that the specific event of the lich's reappearance is not easily identified as "a lich's doing."

[mashlagoo1982]

This idea isn't fully fleshed out, so there are probably many holes.
For instance, I don't know what the physical limitations are for selecting items to be a phylactery.

While I didn't have a specific item in mind, I do have a few requirements for potential items to qualify.

1) The item must be of great value to as many creatures as possible.
2) The value of the item would need to transcend nations/religions/other organized groups.
3) The item would be something others would rather not destroy.
4) Better if the value would be something intrinsic to life as it is known.
5) The item must be guarded by a party besides myself.
6) The party guarding it must not have the entire item guarded all the time. Maybe they guard access to this item, but don't directly observe the item all the time.
7) Even if it wasn't my phylactery, the item must be something I would want to protect.
8) Access to this item would need to very strictly limited but not impossible.

One item I can think of that may fit the bill would be the single source of magic in some worlds.
This is only a semi-serious idea because it seems kinda unrealistic to me.

Depending on the setting, sometimes these are fountain like objects where access is guarded but do not have guards stationed around all the time. Maybe I could even insert myself into the power structure using fake identities to control the methods being used for protection.

As a caster, my interest in this item would make sense.
Everyone, including myself, would want it protected.

I would also have a false phylactery created for would-be heroes to destroy.
If I am killed and my false phylactery is destroy, I still respawn at this sacred source of mana.
Hopefully nobody is present, but if someone is I would just lie about my identity/purpose and make my escape.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Oh. If a lich is that helpless when he spawns, the whole scenario is moot: he can't slaughter anything before being destroyed again by the angry peasants.

To be fair, a lich is at least an 11th level character.
It has a negative energy, paralyzing touch attack, a fear aura and DR 15/magic and bludgeoning, so it's unlikely to be threatened by the average peasant mob.
It also gets a decent +8 racial bonus on hide and move silently, so simply sneaking away might be an option if you don't reappear in plain sight.

But yes, generally a lich wants to reappear in a safe location, one which grants him at least a days respite to prepare new spells. With access to a backup spellbook if he's a wizard.

[Fouredged Sword]

Technically, I don't think you count as "destroyed" until your body and your phylactery is destroyed, if you're a lich. Therefore, you're not a valid target for resurrection nor true resurrection while your phylactery remains intact.

Clone is a stickier matter. It doesn't specify that being undead prevents you from coming back. Interestingly, it ALSO specifies that your original body becomes "inert flesh, and cannot thereafter be raised from the dead." While taken as a whole, this would probably refer only to the limit on not bringing the now-inert flesh back to life as "you," one might also argue that as "inert flesh" it is no longer a valid target for anything that brings the dead to unlife, either. If you wanted to make very spurious claims, you could even suggest that it might turn an extant skeleton, zombie, lich, wight, or other undead into "inert flesh," instantly ending the undead existence as the person wakes up, alive, in the cloned body.

Now, since a lich would still technically have a phylactery, it's possible that even killing the clone just turns him back INTO a lich, so....

Sorry for the long delay before response, but the idea of having a true resurrection to be triggered by a "trusted" party is specifically FOR when your phylactery is broken and you die. The idea is that if you have done an unspeakably evil act to make yourself harder to kill permanently you may as well go whole hog and sacrifice a bunch of people's souls to devils to get a fairly powerful one waiting for your soul to end up on the petitioner line to cast true resurrection to return you to the moral plane as a moral. You then redo the unspeakably evil act needed to be a lich again and go sacrificing enough souls to reup your deal to stay not dead.

Clone would be a possible thing to set up right after you become a lich to do the same thing just no devils directly involved. It would be a good idea anyway so you don't invoke your devil deal.

The name of the game is "don't stay dead".

[Jazath]

Your preparing for lichdom and need to make your phylactery. What do you use, how do you protect it and how do you hide it?
The level at which you make it is whatever level YOU would be when you make it. Class is your choice as well. Just please don't get all crazy on me. I probably don't have half the books you'll want to use.
It doesn't have to be the common box.
How much do you have to spend on the whole deal is up to you to reasonably determine how much money you would have at your level.


"The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40."

I would put powerful spells like a time stop on the offender, magical barriers, permanent walls of force, a separate demiplane only accessible by one point, and contingent spells that activate if anything goes into the room with intentions to destroy, obtain, or violate your phylactery.

You could also seal it in a powerful golem guarded by sentient weapons, Implicate magical contingent spells to spirit away the phylactery in case your its protections are penetrated, and task powerful creatures to guard it

But you also do not wanna make it to obvious, make the offenders think that all these protections were used to guard a huge hoard of gold and magical items by simply filling a room with stuff (Or permanent illusions) while placing the phylactery in a secret room sealed in a rather normal looking adamantine golem that's line up in with other adamantine golems. Put a powerful item in the center of the room like a artifact to make others think that was the reason for the secret room.

[goodpeople25]

I'm thinking that a great defense for nearly any object is a powerful and active spell caster who's invested in keeping said object safe.

So while setting up lasting protection for my phylactery will most likely be a sensible course of action I'd treat maintaining my ability to affect the world and adapt to it as part of the defence of said phylactery.

[Olo Demonsbane]

I personally would use the Crystalline Prison of Pandorym as my phylactery. That's about the last thing in the world anyone sane wants to destroy, and anyone attacking it starts spawning CR 25 monters to deal with them. If they do succeed in destroying it, Pandorym is unleashed, which is an entity capable and planning on ripping the gods from reality.

Honestly, all you were doing was improving the crystal's hardness. They should give you a medal!

[noob]

I personally would use the Crystalline Prison of Pandorym as my phylactery. That's about the last thing in the world anyone sane wants to destroy, and anyone attacking it starts spawning CR 25 monters to deal with them. If they do succeed in destroying it, Pandorym is unleashed, which is an entity capable and planning on ripping the gods from reality.

Honestly, all you were doing was improving the crystal's hardness. They should give you a medal!

Then some day later you feel yourself becoming more and more pandorym then some time later there is no you and only pandorym.
It is very risky.

[Segev]

Spoiler: Major spoilers for the 2e boxed set Return to the Tomb of Horrors

Show

Acererak in this boxed set has a long-term scheme to essentially make the Negative Energy Plane his phylactery. In the process, he intends to become the will behind the animating force of every undead in the multiverse, thus being able to see through all of their eyes, hear through all of their ears, and take them over whenever he feels like it.

[expectocat]

my phylactery would be a a deck on many things placed in a room with an custom epic spell with the compel seed making the person draw as many cards as they can and if they resist the spell the deck is transported through a contingency spell to another identical vault with the same enchantments. however people know where my phylactery is and I can't have that so as an additional precaution I hide my phylactery by buying an immensely powerful skill bonus bluff bonus magic item (one costing somewhere on the order of millions of gold pieces) and teleport around telling people That my phylactery does not exist

[Eladrinblade]

The phylactery needs to be physically and magically resistant, in a place that is difficult to reach, and needs some way to keep divinations from finding it.

I remember some material that blocked divinations, so I'd get some of that and put it around the phyl. I'd then coat it in lead and gorgons blood, then adamantine, then lay down a ton of wards on it. Then I'd teleport to the moon and bury it. That's a short and simple solution.

[Feldar]

Your preparing for lichdom and need to make your phylactery. What do you use, how do you protect it and how do you hide it?
The level at which you make it is whatever level YOU would be when you make it. Class is your choice as well. Just please don't get all crazy on me. I probably don't have half the books you'll want to use.
It doesn't have to be the common box.
How much do you have to spend on the whole deal is up to you to reasonably determine how much money you would have at your level.


"The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40."

This might be a bit long-winded, so bear with me.

I would prepare my plan long before I became a lich, disguising it as a random book in my magical library and preparing it with many, many spell defenses. I would probably make it part of my spell book library, weaving encoded bits of the plan into individual spell books so that there would be no one place where the entire plan existed.

I would pursue my career, seeking out magics that could be used to travel through time in addition to those that would protect my phylactery. I would learn the skills required to craft my phylactery personally, so that no one would know of its construction methods and appearance, and I would carefully gather materials for it through the crafting of items for others. For those items I would not be able to gather personally, I would travel a long distance and disguise myself to hire a party of adventurers to acquire the item for me, rewarding them handsomely for their efforts and then disappearing once I had the maguffin they provided. (It should not be too hard to find a party of adventurers gullible enough to not look past the wealth of the reward.)

In a workshop known only to myself, I would personally craft my phylactery as a common item (details later in this posting...), taking the necessary steps to toughen it and make it essentially both commonplace and very tough.

I would enchant the phylactery with some abilities (again, more details later). I would place a contingency on the phylactery that if were ever seriously threatened with destruction that it would teleport itself to a secure place known only to me.

Once I achieve the ability to cast spells in 10th level spell slots, I would execute my plan to become a lich and prepare my phylactery.

I would secrete my phylactery inside another such common object, in such a way that it was not locatable through divination and in such a way that the phylactery itself (sacred object!) could be seen as merely hidden inside another common object as a manner of disguise if it were accidentally discovered.

I would then travel back in time, to a time after the appearance of a new deity. I would adventure as a mundane hero venerating that deity, making conspicuous use of my phylactery under a false name and converting as many people as possible to the faith. I would hire bards to write songs venerating my deity and his ability to radiate power through my HOLY SYMBOL.

I would carry out legendary deeds in my deity's name and then I would disappear while seeking some final, treacherous quest in the name of my deity.

I would secrete my phylactery in a place where it would be hard to find, but not impossible -- a suitable quest for heroes in the service of my deity!

In other disguises, I would wander distant lands as a bard singing songs of my first alter ego, the mighty hero (or whatever) who did mighty deeds in the name of his deity and disappeared on a holy quest.

I would through the coming decades appear as a "vision" to those venerating my deity, offering them insights into how to succeed in their holy missions. I would stop this before I became venerated as a saint, but would carefully appear under different guises in different places at different times to encourage this veneration.

Once I felt the momentum was unstoppable, I would then travel forward in time.

Over the centuries my phylactery has become the symbol of the purest good and benevolence, protected by a major church.

Orders of knighthood have been founded to protect my phylactery. Handsome young men denied pleasure to themselves and beautiful young maidens in the name of protecting my phylactery as a most holy relic of their deity.

Saints have established their reputation through the use of my phylactery or by citing my actions as their inspiration.

Miracles have been performed using my phylactery.

I am now a saint of the goodiest good god known to the world. My phylactery is a relic and minor artifact of that faith (possibly having acquired additional powers through actions of those who venerate the deity through the ages). Anyone attempting to destroy my phylactery risks offending the most powerful church in the world and all that churches' allies.

Should the church elders learn the secret, they risk EVERYTHING if they reveal the truth. At best for the church, any attempt by church elders to destroy my phylactery will create a schism in the church. At worst, telling the truth will destroy the power of the deity through mass loss of faith!

[Feldar]

Oh yeah, did I mention that adventurers trying to destroy me will be lost in a sea of myths as they try to learn the full truth about me, that clergy of the party might even sunder the party affiliation because of those speaking illy of a saint the clergy venerate, and that the clergy might even go as far as to turn their church against their fellow party members?

Failing that, me revealing the truth under the guise of being a spirit of the saint might cause the adventuring party to stop attacking me, or at least to cause a massive crisis of faith (possible spell loss!) for the faithful in the party, taking them out of the fight or even having them join my side!