| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I was statting up a villain - a witch who crossed over into lichdom, and pondering the inevitable three questions: what was her phylactery, where did she keep it, and how was it defended?
- A gold-chased mithral torc inlaid with rubies, covered with intertwining black gylphs.
- In the lead-lined false bottom of a keg of flour.
- Warded with a gylph of warding holding a suggestion that the finder immediately return this cheap costume jewelry to Madame Archenko for a reward
Since Madame Archenko has not been a lich long, has only moderate monetary resources, and her house is relatively secure, it seemed like the right combination for her. Certainly, she wants a more secure hiding place, and one better guarded - but she's enough of an obsessive control freak that she needs to be able to assure herself that her soul remains safe, and that she can be certain her phylactery is untouched.
Other liches, of course, come up with other solutions to this pressing problem of guarding phylacteries, and I was wondering what other solutions GMs have come up with for liches. And I thought if I were wondering, surely others might, as well.
Any thoughts?
MI
the key with protecting a lich is to get the local government on thier side. another way is to stack up social tabos against the pcs. the more reasons for retribution you stack, the better. it's not the lich that's problem in this case. it's the bounty hunters that come after the PCs that will be. especially with seemingly instant information travel.
children have special laws to protect them, nobles have government protection, sucking up to the government provides protection. and wearing your phylactery as a lower body undergarment provides potential drawbacks for the PCs due to necrophilia and it's associated taboos. i was considering combining these with a gothloli female fetchling lich bard whose phylactery is also her favorite pair of bloomers. and she would spend a great deal of wealth in finding ways to inform the local government to hire elite bounty hunters/body guards to protect or avenge her. she doesn't 'fight', she dances to buff those who fight for her.
Since I've seen the episode of Smallville where Martha Kent finds the key to the ancient Kyrptonian native American power cave and hides it at the bottom of the kitchen flour canister, I think this lich is going to be robbed relatively quickly, due to thieves knowing where farmwives stash valuables.
The Suggestion is also somewhat unreasonable, as it's going contrary to the thief's high ranks in Appraise and the obvious fact that this was hidden and is therefore valuable. At very least have a glamour over it to make it look like actual tawdry trash.
Also, as a psychology trick, but it would be better for her to hide the disguised phylactery with a bunch of other items stored inside a Bag of Holding which is then folded up and similarly lead-lined to proof against scrying. That way, when the suggestion goes off, the thought is that while this is indeed a bag of the old lady's valuables, the necklace is something that's of purely sentimental value and was stashed with the rest for safekeeping, making the reward the only reasonable way to turn a profit on it.
What I've been thinking about doing (or rather having a lich do...) is open up a small child, and use their skull as the phylactery...so in order to destroy it, you need to destroy the child. That's assuming someone even figures it out in the first place.
Since I've seen the episode of Smallville where Martha Kent finds the key to the ancient Kyrptonian native American power cave and hides it at the bottom of the kitchen flour canister, I think this lich is going to be robbed relatively quickly, due to thieves knowing where farmwives stash valuables.
The Suggestion is also somewhat unreasonable, as it's going contrary to the thief's high ranks in Appraise and the obvious fact that this was hidden and is therefore valuable. At very least have a glamour over it to make it look like actual tawdry trash.
Also, as a psychology trick, but it would be better for her to hide the disguised phylactery with a bunch of other items stored inside a Bag of Holding which is then folded up and similarly lead-lined to proof against scrying. That way, when the suggestion goes off, the thought is that while this is indeed a bag of the old lady's valuables, the necklace is something that's of purely sentimental value and was stashed with the rest for safekeeping, making the reward the only reasonable way to turn a profit on it.
Hola Kevin -
We disagree, clearly, on the power of suggestion. The point of the spell is to make the unbelievable and unreasonable reasonable in an oblique fashion. Although I agree that particular suggestion would get no positive DC adjustment for its content, it is not so ridiculous that it would incur negatives, either. I would invite you to ponder the effects of a third level spell, calling your attention to its cohorts such as fly and lightning bolt.
I believe I mentioned low monetary resources: she just blew most of her money investing in a phylactery. She doesn't have a crypt, just a manor. She's not a farmwife, she's an apparently wealthy denizen of a middling-size town. A witch does not have access to those sorts of glamours - not even magic aura is on her spell list. Nor does she have (or have the ability to create) a bag of holding. At this point in her post-mortal career, her phylactery has to be disguised only by her own magic (she wouldn't trust anyone else) and mundanely (as she lacks the resources to be more elaborate).
MI
the key with protecting a lich is to get the local government on thier side. another way is to stack up social tabos against the pcs. the more reasons for retribution you stack, the better. it's not the lich that's problem in this case. it's the bounty hunters that come after the PCs that will be. especially with seemingly instant information travel...
That's genuinely interesting; I hadn't considered social engineering as an aspect of protecting a phylactery.
Nor had I considered a chastity device as a potential phylactery object - not a bad idea, and more than reasonable for anyone as obsessive and control-oriented as a lich.
I don't think fabric is an appropriate material for a lich's phylactery, however. I wouldn't generally permit a PC to construct a phylactery out of fabric, and I hold PC and NPCs to the same standards. My rule of thumb is that the object must be durable, and able to hold durable writing. Books, if bound with something sufficiently durable, are about as far as I would depart from that guideline. That's me, however, and clearly your game is different.
Thanks for the insight!
MI
What I've been thinking about doing (or rather having a lich do...) is open up a small child, and use their skull as the phylactery...so in order to destroy it, you need to destroy the child. That's assuming someone even figures it out in the first place.
A living child's skull is still growing, making it (to my mind) unsuitable. A dead child's skull (putting aside the considerable ick! factor) would be suitable, although awfully fragile.
Now, a still-living adult's skull, that's possible. It has a number of drawbacks, however.
- It would take a tremendous amount of magic to extract the skull, prepare it as a phylactery, and return it to the adult without killing them - but it could be done.
- Doing it without traumatizing the individual beyond recovery - trickier, much trickier, but still within the bounds of possibility. Since part of the reason for using a living adult would be to make it hard or unlikely to find, having it being in the skull of a raving lunatic would seem like a potential flaw.
- Living adults die, and from the standpoint of a lich, awfully quickly, at which point the lich has a skull for a phylactery that needs hiding and protecting. I'd think a lich would want a longer-term solution, especially if the lich is prepared to devote so much time, effort, and magic to crafting a hiding place to begin with.
Hiding a phylactery in or on a living creature certainly has mythic resonance, however.
MI
Malachite the witch has a really great spell mask dweomer which you should look at.
What I've been thinking about doing (or rather having a lich do...) is open up a small child, and use their skull as the phylactery...so in order to destroy it, you need to destroy the child. That's assuming someone even figures it out in the first place.
My personal lich tactic is just this, but I use a baby gold dragon rather than a humanoid.
Perhaps instead of using the skull itself you craft an item designed to be intrinsiclly tied to the person it's implanted in.
For example an animated clamp that burrows into and binds with the targets brainstem (or something equally important). Any method of removing it (magic or surgery) automatically kills the target.
As the target dies it can be transfered to the next target or just a better one. I can see a very clever witch lich ingraining herself into the royal house so she can implant her phalcry into the heir to the throne every generation.
Perhaps instead of using the skull itself you craft an item designed to be intrinsiclly tied to the person it's implanted in.
For example an animated clamp that burrows into and binds with the targets brainstem (or something equally important). Any method of removing it (magic or surgery) automatically kills the target.
As the target dies it can be transfered to the next target or just a better one. I can see a very clever witch lich ingraining herself into the royal house so she can implant her phalcry into the heir to the throne every generation.
Also it would need to be undetectable by magic. I imagine crown princes have access to high level casters every so often.
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.
I can actually see a witch coven pulling this off.
Put it inside a living rabbit, put that rabbit inside an egg, have that egg still to be laid by a living goose, keep that goose in a locked chest buried in the root ball of a living tree. Also, change your name to Koschei...
Pardon, ever since the APG added Baba Yaga's flying object of choice, I've wanted to run a russian folklore themed adventure.
My real favorite for phylactery protection is to embed it in an intelligent weapon. If you can get it a high enough ego score it'll take over the hapless hero's mind for you, make them kill their teammates, or maybe convince them to become a lich! Then if that doesn't work, it'll just try to return to you 'the one ring' style. "Oops! I dropped the sword of unspeakable evil... Where'd it go?"
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.I can actually see a witch coven pulling this off.
Which is why I went with 5 liches.
Somewhere in that is a tongue twister waiting to come out.
Adult skulls grow (in a manner) until age 70 something...Obviously not as much as a childs, but things are still "fluid".
As for killing them...there's a couple different ways to raise the dead in this particular game...
The point of human lifespan is a good one...so I believe an elf child is in order.
I do like the idea of a something placed in the person instead...though I have a hard time coming up with a way for it to be nonremovable without using the "I'm the DM" excuse. Which at the end of the day is perfectly fine, I would just rather be able to say "after checking it out, you realize the spell XXX was cast on the item...so no matter what you do to remove it the hosts soul is instantly and irrevocably devoured." Though I guess, in truth the idea isn't to make a completely invulnerable lich...it's to make an interesting villian for the party to interact with.
I do like the idea of a something placed in the person instead...though I have a hard time coming up with a way for it to be nonremovable without using the "I'm the DM" excuse. Which at the end of the day is perfectly fine, I would just rather be able to say "after checking it out, you realize the spell XXX was cast on the item...so no matter what you do to remove it the hosts soul is instantly and irrevocably devoured." Though I guess, in truth the idea isn't to make a completely invulnerable lich...it's to make an interesting villian for the party to interact with.
A lich is doing a lot of high level magical research anyway, so my solution is: modified Soul Bind, such that removing the gem from the body of the host instantly removes the soul, which is then destroyed in the gem.
if the reselience of the fabric is a problem. may i suggest the idea for the tightly woven silk of an abyssal drider? spidersilk is stronger than steel and much less restrictive as well as much more mallable. drow spider silk would be better quality spidersilk. then we move up several tiers to the abyssal drider.
Malachite the witch has a really great spell mask dweomer which you should look at.
Yes! So that's what happened to Magic Aura! And it's a Witch spell, too. Excellent. Thank you! I keep getting blindsided by my old AD&D roots :-)
MI
if the reselience of the fabric is a problem. may i suggest the idea for the tightly woven silk of an abyssal drider? spidersilk is stronger than steel and much less restrictive as well as much more mallable. drow spider silk would be better quality spidersilk. then we move up several tiers to the abyssal drider.
It's not resilience, it's durability: is this substance one that would reasonably last for hundreds and thousands of years? Organic thread just doesn't scream 'durable' to me, even silk thread from Abyssal Driders or anything else. Thread woven of metal (gold, silver, steel)? With the writing woven into it? Maybe, but ... it just doesn't feel like the kind of object that should be a lich's phylactery.
MI
What I've been thinking about doing (or rather having a lich do...) is open up a small child, and use their skull as the phylactery. ...My personal lich tactic is just this, but I use a baby gold dragon rather than a humanoid.
I suppose it depends on when the lich transforms from mortal to undead, but this just seems silly.
MI
if the reselience of the fabric is a problem. may i suggest the idea for the tightly woven silk of an abyssal drider? spidersilk is stronger than steel and much less restrictive as well as much more mallable. drow spider silk would be better quality spidersilk. then we move up several tiers to the abyssal drider.It's not resilience, it's durability: is this substance one that would reasonably last for hundreds and thousands of years? Organic thread just doesn't scream 'durable' to me, even silk thread from Abyssal Driders or anything else. Thread woven of metal (gold, silver, steel)? With the writing woven into it? Maybe, but ... it just doesn't feel like the kind of object that should be a lich's phylactery.
MI
fine, how about a thread like fabric woven from mithril fibers? considering how controlling a lich is supposed to be. a chastity garment seemed the perfect fit. what better way to assert feelings of dominance than to say that you are off limits? what better way to say that you are off limits than to make your phylactery a chastity garment?
but besides, no one really knows what abyssal drider silk can do. it can just as easily be a plot material more rare and exotic than even mithril or adamantine. it could even require special alchemical treatment.
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.
Let's consider a simplified scenario ... the phylactery of A is B, the phylactery of B is C, and the phylactery of C is A.
Therefore, the destruction of Lich A results in the destruction of lich C's phylactery.
There seems to be an implicit assumption that the regeneration of Lich A would also mean the regeneration of Lich C's phylactery, but I don't agree with that assumption. The destruction of A - regardless of whether A regenerates or not - simply means that C's phylactery is gone, and C will never be able to regenerate.
MI
Well, part of my objection with the Suggestion was that it was actually two suggestions:
1. Believe that a valuable item is actually cheap costume jewelry.
2. Believe that returning it for a reward is the best course of action.
Now, if you're already using Mask Dweomer to make it look nonmagical, that takes care of the magic part, but it still leaves the problem that it is indeed valuable jewelry.
Having a valuable necklace that looks like tawdry trash is old magic. It's part of the description of the Necklace of Fireballs since 1st ed. and part of the glamer of the Hat of Disguise is that it can look like any item of apparel. Plus there's this:
Glamered
Aura Moderate illusion; CL 10th;
DescriptionUpon command, a suit of glamered armor changes shape and appearance to assume the form of a normal set of clothing. The armor retains all its properties (including weight) when it is so disguised. Only a true seeing spell or similar magic reveals the true nature of the armor when disguised.
Construction RequirementsCraft Magic Arms and Armor, disguise self; Price +2,700 gp.
If you wanted a valuable torc that on command could assume the appearance of a cheap string of bead, it should cost no more than that. In fact, look at the hat for a moment:
Hat of Disguise
Aura faint illusion; CL 1st
Slot head; Price 1,800 gp; Weight —
DESCRIPTIONThis apparently normal hat allows its wearer to alter her appearance as with a disguise self spell. As part of the disguise, the hat can be changed to appear as a comb, ribbon, headband, cap, coif, hood, helmet, and so on.
CONSTRUCTIONRequirements Craft Wondrous Item, disguise self; Cost 900 gp
That's to make a phylactery that's actually a Hat of Disguise and can disguise the wearer. If you just want a fancy necklace that has an alternate costume jewelry appearance, it should cost far less.
As for Disguise Self not being on the witch spell list.... No, it isn't, but it's on the Hex list. And even if that's not acceptable for item crafting, Pathfinder doesn't require the actual spell to make an item. By the time this witch is becoming a lich, she should be able to fake a 1st level spell for Craft Wondrous Item.
Given a Witch's close bond with it's familiar wouldn't that be a likely choice for it's phylactery?
Beyond that, I always liked the idea (from a Drow lich in the Forgotten Realms) of a golem being used. In the case of the FR lich an iron golem shaped like a drider was used, but any construct, such as a necrophidius or soulbound doll would make a perfect phylactery.
The limitation of suggestion isWell, part of my objection with the Suggestion was that it was actually two suggestions:
1. Believe that a valuable item is actually cheap costume jewelry.
2. Believe that returning it for a reward is the best course of action.
You influence the actions of the target creature by suggesting a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two). The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable.
I respectfully suggest that the Witch's suggestion fully complies with that limitation. I would further point out that one explicitly described as permissible suggestion from Way Way Back was that an acid pool was a lovely pond and that a dip would be refreshing (IIRC, it was the Gygaxian commentary on suggestion in the old Dungeon Master's Guide.
Anyway, if we're going to discuss the limitations and boundaries of suggestion we should probably start a new thread under rules and move the discussion there. The power of the spell is only tangential to the discussion here.
Thanks,
MI
I love, love, LOVE hiding phylacteries. I've come up with a bunch of tricks for them, some flavorful, some just mean. The trickiest one I've ever had was an Alhoon (mind flayer lich) who took his phylactery to the center of a featureless desert and cast an Imprisonment spell on it. Scrying attempts were futile, because the party received alternately an endless dessert of a bunch of rock. It took them three castings of Contact Other Plane (at something like 17th caster level), then a month of combing the desert to discover the spot they needed to cast Freedom at. Maybe a little too tedious in retrospect, but a durn good way to hide a phylactery.
My best phylactery ever, though, involved using a variant of the Disciple of Ashardalon prestige class from the Dragonomicon, in which a dragon learns to replace their own heart with a demon to attain immortality. This lich had taught a Styx Dragon how to use the evil of his phylactery to sustain it, so the party had to travel to Pandemonium (from the Greyhawk cosmology), find this dragon, then fight it in the middle of the river Styx. By the way, combat in a plane with objective directional gravity is awesome.
In any case, the important thing to keep in mind when hiding a phylactery is that even though a lich is usually pretty paranoid about it, they're also pretty smart, and arrogant. Despite most books referencing the lich keeping its phylactery near at hand, this is just plain stupid on the lich's part. Unless your lich is characterized by extreme paranoia, most will likely hide their phylacteries, far, far away from where they usually lair, so that if they are slain, they'll have plenty of time to re-form by the time someone tracks down the source of their existence. Of course, magical defenses are a given, and most lich's are probably arrogant enough to believe that whatever defense they've left in place will be more than ample - they won't loose too much sleep (figuratively) over having their phylactery out of arm's reach.
Don't go overboard with a hiding place, either, because that just calls attention to it. A well-hidden phylactery should certainly involve an adventure dedicated to simply tracking it down, but not more than that. After all, the party has probably spent the last few months preparing for their gruesome confrontation with a lich - you don't need to drag that story on for another four sessions by putting an army around the phylactery. As I said, that's just overkill. Usually, a clever trick or two and one cool encounter will make for a more memorable phylactery.
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.
So... Destroy any one of them and they're all screwed??
Having a valuable necklace that looks like tawdry trash is old magic. It's part of the description of the Necklace of Fireballs since 1st ed. and part of the glamer of the Hat of Disguise is that it can look like any item of apparel. Plus there's this:
That's to make a phylactery that's actually a Hat of Disguise and can disguise the wearer. If you just want a fancy necklace that has an alternate costume jewelry appearance, it should cost far less.As for Disguise Self not being on the witch spell list.... No, it isn't, but it's on the Hex list. And even...
Both are quite reasonable, and within her monetary budget. I missed Disguise Self on the Hex list. I'd let it count for crafting purposes.
MI
I love, love, LOVE hiding phylacteries. I've come up with a bunch of tricks for them, some flavorful, some just mean. The trickiest one I've ever had was an Alhoon (mind flayer lich) who took his phylactery to the center of a featureless desert and cast an Imprisonment spell on it. Scrying attempts were futile, because the party received alternately an endless dessert of a bunch of rock. It took them three castings of Contact Other Plane (at something like 17th caster level), then a month of combing the desert to discover the spot they needed to cast Freedom at. Maybe a little too tedious in retrospect, but a durn good way to hide a phylactery.
Secure Mage sanctums / phylactery storage is a hobby of mine too. Do you have a list that you would share?
Also, when a phalactry is imprisoned and the lichs body is destroyed where does the litch reform? In the imprisonment? Under the desert?
Witch lich is which?
Have a lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is another lich whose phylactery is the first lich.So... Destroy any one of them and they're all screwed??
Destroying a lich's phylactery prevents the lich from regenerating. It does not destroy the (now furiously homicidal) lich.
MI
I love, love, LOVE hiding phylacteries. I've come up with a bunch of tricks for them, some flavorful, some just mean. The trickiest one I've ever had was an Alhoon (mind flayer lich) who took his phylactery to the center of a featureless desert and cast an Imprisonment spell on it ... a durn good way to hide a phylactery.
Imprisonment works on creatures, not objects. Of course, a lich could give it to a minion, and then imprison the minion.
But ...
Logically, the phylactery is then inside the temporal stasis effect of the imprisonment. So the lich cannot / will not regenerate until the minion is freed from the imprisonment. Not a good way to hide a phylactery, as it seems to defeat the purpose.
Unless your lich is characterized by extreme paranoia, most will likely hide their phylacteries, far, far away from where they usually lair ...
A lich is someone generally so afraid of death that she willingly and knowingly turns herself into an undead monstrosity rather than die. And at this point, her immortality (and existence of her soul!) consists of the safety of her phylactery. To me, that pretty much screams .
I certainly agree that a hiding place should have anonymity as one of its principle virtues.
MI
Personally, I'm all for Liches creating their own new spells for defense.
Extrapolating on the earlier idea for an 'implantable' phylactery, I'd think adding a type of self-sufficient A.I. for finding new hosts would be a cruel and effective method of perpetuating immortality;
The host of a phylactery is killed upon removal, but when the host dies (regardless of the cause of death), a phantasm of sorts (greater shadow? Dread wraith? Something to mimic a fragment of the Lich itself) rises with the physical phylactery in hand, attacking the nearest suitable host in an attempt to render him/her unconscious. The shade would then posess the unconscious victim and implant the phylactery within, wiping the new subject's memory of the entire posession process before becoming dormant once again.
The shade in question would be intelligent enough to flee from encounters it could not overcome on its own, preferring subtlety and unnoticed hosts to strong yet visible heroes, though if it knew that there was a good chance at success, it may try to knock out the entire party before posessing one, then wiping the entire party's memory of that incident.
Phylactery would remain guarded by nondetection magic, but the creator lich would be able to sense its proximity, should the host for some reason approach.
Considering the level of complexity with this defense, there is a catch; Should the host die in the presence of the lich, his now-freed soul may attempt to return to the original body, possibly resulting in the destruction of the lich, a return to mortality, or the like. The lich can attempt to subdue its own soul, via any means that could normally contain an incorporeal creature, in order to begin the process over again.
The host of a phylactery is killed upon removal, but when the host dies (regardless of the cause of death), a phantasm of sorts (greater shadow? Dread wraith? Something to mimic a fragment of the Lich itself) rises with the physical phylactery in hand, attacking the nearest suitable host in an attempt to render him/her unconscious. The shade would then posess the unconscious victim and implant the phylactery within, wiping the new subject's memory of the entire posession process before becoming dormant once again.
Suitably creepy, although having the shade animate and batter the next victim into submission is not to my personal taste. I might take this general idea and turn it into a bloodline curse kind of thing ... the lineally descended family is the 'phylactery'.
Good thought!
MI
Anonymity is one of the best protections. The best idea is generally some classic fashion accessory in a timeless and popular style, the sort of thing that's been made for ages and conceivably will continue into the future. A plain gold ring, an unset jewel in a classic cut, a common folk charm or amulet made in the same style for centuries. These all make nice phylacteries.
Imagine if your phylactery is a single pearl. Wizards use these to remember spells with, clerics use them for wisdom, everyone can wear them as earrings, buttons, or as parts of a larger piece of jewelry. Get yourself a rope of pearls matched in size and quality to the one your soul is in, hide it in the strand, and go out flapper style.
Heck, make the whole strand into a magic item. If someone proudly destroys the magic item and pearls go bouncing everywhere, the general assumption will be that the adventurers picked the wrong item for the phylactery, not that the phylactery was strung with other pearls on an enchanted string.
Anonymity is one of the best protections. The best idea is generally some classic fashion accessory in a timeless and popular style, the sort of thing that's been made for ages and conceivably will continue into the future. A plain gold ring, an unset jewel in a classic cut, a common folk charm or amulet made in the same style for centuries. These all make nice phylacteries.
Imagine if your phylactery is a single pearl. Wizards use these to remember spells with, clerics use them for wisdom, everyone can wear them as earrings, buttons, or as parts of a larger piece of jewelry. Get yourself a rope of pearls matched in size and quality to the one your soul is in, hide it in the strand, and go out flapper style.
Heck, make the whole strand into a magic item. If someone proudly destroys the magic item and pearls go bouncing everywhere, the general assumption will be that the adventurers picked the wrong item for the phylactery, not that the phylactery was strung with other pearls on an enchanted string.
Yes, that works. I was starting with the assumption that the phylactery had to be something lasting (durable) and had to have writing - something akin to the traditional metal box with paper inside. That implies a certain size (over and beyond a mere pearl), and a considerable amount of writing or etching, but if one relaxes the requirements, any of these make excellent hiding places.
Although a flapper lich is a terrifying thought.
MI
Why not take a grain of sand and make it into a PHYLACTERIES and then toss it into the sea after casting protective spells on it?
In that case teleport it out of the atmosphere, mabye on a moon.Why not take a grain of sand and make it into a PHYLACTERIES and then toss it into the sea after casting protective spells on it?Subduction zones.
More specifically, when regenerating, the lich regenerates next to the phylactery. An arcane caster will want material components / foci / musical instruments handy to his regeneration site, just as a divine caster will need a(n un)holy symbol, components, and foci. Regenerating next to a grain of dust floating who-knows-where (or worse, inside the event horizon of a black hole) is contraindicated.
MI
Yes, that works. I was starting with the assumption that the phylactery had to be something lasting (durable) and had to have writing - something akin to the traditional metal box with paper inside. That implies a certain size (over and beyond a mere pearl), and a considerable amount of writing or etching, but if one relaxes the requirements, any of these make excellent hiding places.
Although a flapper lich is a terrifying thought.
MI
Koschei the Deathless hid his death in the tip of a pin which he hid inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a rabbit and so forth in a chain of creatures turduckened until it was finally in a dragoness.
Then there's the Prydain Chronicles the wizard whose name I'm forgetting who hid his soul in one joint of his finger he'd cut off. That was pretty tiny too.
John Bellairs The Figure in the Shadows? The evil wizard puts his soul in
Then look at the One Ring. It's a plain unremarkable gold band. Fancy engraving all over it? Yes, but it's only visible after Gandalf tosses it in the fireplace and superheats it. I'm assuming that the lich who hides his soul in a pearl will have similar arcane glyphs squiggled all over it, but they'll only be visible when there's the right circumstances, such as the pearl being immersed in water and illuminated by the light of the full moon.
Then you can look at Liavek. All sorts of places that wizards in that setting hide their magic, some more successful than others. The cleverest? The art critic who always walked around with his favorite walking stick. At some point someone grabs the stick and breaks it, thinking that it's the mage's power object, but he's been mislead--the walking stick is an ordinary stick. The power object is the head of the walking stick.
Then you can look at Liavek. All sorts of places that wizards in that setting hide their magic, some more successful than others. The cleverest? The art critic who always walked around with his favorite walking stick. At some point someone grabs the stick and breaks it, thinking that it's the mage's power object, but he's been mislead--the walking stick is an ordinary stick. The power object is the head of the walking stick.
I like this idea, but I'd do it a little differently. Have the walking stick and have it radiate magic (assuming he was a known magic user) and possibly be a "when it breaks everyone within _____ radius is teleported to another plane with no save" items. The natural assumption from any who knew he was a lich is that the cane is the phalactry.
However the actual Phalactry is in a specially designed circular room with several magic and mundane safeguards specifically designed for this purpose.
In 3.5 I made this "room" for my non-lich high level mage as an ultimate contingency vault/sanctuary. It was a lead lined triangular box with a crap ton of magic protection/anti-find/anti-scry and tiny boxes set in every wall/floor. It also had a minor movement capability and very minor sentience. Basically earthglide 5 feet so it could move away if someone tried to dig for it.
I could cast greater and minor glyph of wardings as arcane spells due to a prestige class. Every box that wasnt used for storage was set with one nasty glyph or another. Including ones that prevented teleportation and others with various poison gas/exploding traps. The trapped boxes were magically connected so that if one opened they all opened. Also had a minor construct servant that he kept in the room with specific instructions regarding opening the trapped boxes if someone other than him teleported in.
The Anti Teleport "trap" was one that he could turn on and off. He always turned it On after he would teleport in.
There were other things in place that dealt with breathable air and other "minor details." All were well within the grasp of a level 15 mage, but I won't go into them.
He had other more mundane hide-a-ways, but this was his "OMG I have to go somewhere safe" contingency space. He was very paranoid.
Also reminds me of my World of Darkness Tremere (blood mage for the uninitiated). He used to carry a hard bound journal that had every ward/protection on it that he could manage. Oh, and it floated if released (minor spirit tham as a ritual). He would write in it every so often, but never let anyone see what was in it.
One day he got in a fight. His assailant was more worried about this book than me as I looked unassuming due to physical weakness. Because of his distraction I was able to beat the crap out of him with mental powers. When the assailant was on the ground and next to death I smiled and showed him what was in the book. Nothing. Then I drained his blood and cut his head off.
It was useful as a minor weapon due to the wards, but mostly it was a distraction. I had that stupid book for a year with everyone concerned about what I was in it. They all thought it was my "book of spells," which Tremere don't often use.
There was a 3pp book in 3rd edition that featured a Demilich who's phylactery was a tiny crystal he surgically embedded into the heart of a mute orphan. Being essentially just a skull, he then had this orphan carry him around on a cushion, which contained a decoy phylactery. He also pretended to be completely and utterly senile so as to not appear a threat to anyone.
Another interesting one I'd heard of was in a Neverwinter Nights module, set in Forgotten Realms. The lich in question had the brilliant idea to make the Karsus-stone his phylactery. It was massive, everyone knew where it was, and no-one could do anything about it because it was an indestructible god-artifact.
My personal choice of phylactery was a circular platinum amulet that could separate into a number of puzzle pieces. For now, it's sitting in a permanent Secret Chest (thereby somewhere in the nigh-infinite vastness of the Ethereal plane) under the effects of a permanent Mage's Private Sanctum, Invisibility, Shrink Item, and Magic Aura. Once Epic Spells are available, I'll be casting Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactry on it so that each of the individual puzzle pieces comprising the amulet are in fact individual phylacteries. Then I'll hide a half-dozen of them in Secret chests while I try to figure out what to do with the other dozen or so.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Are we looking at this from a lich-as-player-character perspective, or from a GM's perspective?
As a player, I can come up with some hiding places that are pretty much fool-proof.
As a GM, I want a lich's phylactery to be:
- Certainly findable after one or two passes. After the arch-villain returns once or twice, the party should be able to realize that he keeps coming from the serpentfolk city of Ilmurea. Kill him before he leaves there, and trace his phylactery to the filthy morlock warrens beneath the training academy.
- Remote enough to allow the vulnerable lich to reform. That's the big problem I see with "a gold dragon's skull" or "the crown of the King of Varisia." A gold dragon will notice a lich forming next to her, and will kill it over and over. Any kingdom that allows a nascent lich to reassemble itself next to the sovereign has to be a pretty nasty kingdom.
- Hidden in a place where the search will be a fun adventure.
- Representative of some aspect of the lich's personality. The best thing about the flour keg is that it tells you something about the personality of the witch. On the other hand, what does it say about a mage who keeps his phylactery and a chest full of money and useful magic items in a locked chest at the bottom of the sea? What sort of genii-binding mystic bargains with efreet to keep his phylactery secure in the City of Brass?
If the party is going proactively lich-hunting, an outstanding Gather Information check or some magical divinations ought to guide them on their way to attempt to retrieve the phylactery before confronting its owner.
A dragon magazine article discussed Monster team ups. One of them was a lich and the tarasque.
As a mortal the would-be lich helped defeat the tarasque by trapping it in something (akin to trap the soul, but I forget the exact spell). Later the mortal turned himself into a lich and used the tarasque gem as his phalactry. It was VERY public knowledge what was inside the tarasque gem, but not that it was a phalactry.
So even if a group of intreped adventures discovered what the liches phalactry was they would have to make an awful choice.
Remote enough to allow the vulnerable lich to reform. That's the big problem I see with "a gold dragon's skull" or "the crown of the King of Varisia." A gold dragon will notice a lich forming next to her, and will kill it over and over. Any kingdom that allows a nascent lich to reassemble itself next to the sovereign has to be a pretty nasty kingdom.
You're very correct. However, mages/liches are extremely smart. If I were a lich I would make sure the "storage place or places" of the item, no matter how public, all had secret (at least coffin sized) compartments with which to regenerate in.
In the case of the crown have a compartment in the wall or floor near the throne and in the treasury where it's mostly kept. I imagine Kings have an "every day" crown and a highly ornate Ceremonial crown. The latter only being brought out of the highly guarded treasury for extremely formal events. The lich would be smart to make this ceremonial crown his phalactry.
Similar steps should be taked with the other more public phalactries.
The "imprisonment spell phalactry" hiding place discussed earlier would be a major issue for this reason. The lich could only reform once the imprisonment was released (by freedom). Which kind of defeats the purpose.
Frankly if I had 9th level spells as a lich I'd figure out how to create a pocket dimension and store my phalactry their. Assuming only the lich has ever seen/traveled to the pocket dimension and never bothers to name it it'd be nigh impossible to permanently destroy the lich.