how does one become a lich and what are some rules and quests?
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And cash!
Few creatures are more feared than the lich. The pinnacle of necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster's life-force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death, and as long as his phylactery remains intact he can continue on in his research and work without fear of the passage of time.
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster's soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster's transformation are left to the GM's discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades.
The Lich's PhylacteryAn integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can rejuvenate after it is killed (see Creating a Lich, below).
Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.
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.
Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.
Ruyan.
You'd probably have to plan it out with the DM. Becoming a lich has many factors included into it, such as what kind of motivation your character has for the actual procedure (as in why would he want to become one), what possible patron might be giving aid with said transformation (a lich of Orcus is going to be very different from a lich of Charon for example), what kind of source are used to power the ritual (souls or an item attuned to the negative energy plane to name two examples) and other more minor factors.
It used to be specified that the process involved creating a special poison, which would kill the character who then had to roll to see if the prepared phylactery trapped their soul or not.
But not so in Pathfinder.
What is the source of this information, VRHM?
I think, since it is nowhere nailed down (to my knowledge) how it works exactly in PF game terms, using a flavorful description and some rules elements from another system should work fine--but as Icyshadow has pointed out already and what is also to be found in my quote:
The exact methods for each spellcaster's transformation are left to the GM's discretion.
Ruyan.
And ultimately, as a GM (at least for me) you'd never become a lich. Excpeting at the end epilogue of a campaign where characters were about to be retired. The benefits of becoming a lich are far too good to actually let a player have, unless you're going to be giving every player templates and bonuses.
The thing is, the way it is set up its really hard for a PC to become one. The amount of money needed means to do it right away would require killing off all your party members as part of your evil litch ritual and seling their belongings to make enough money.
But in all seriousness the blurb under litch implies its a major campaign deal costing alot of time effort and money and high skill checks.
If you want in-game justification for having a PC learn the process to lichdom, in the Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide, under Whispering Way, on page 53, it says that the Whispering Way will teach the character (who spends 5 CPA and has at least 30 TPA) how to create a lich's phylactery with the Wondrous Item feat.
Given that the feat already effectively automatically comes with the ability to craft such things, the implication, at least, seems to be that they learn how to become a lich. Otherwise the benefit is effectively worthless. (Of course, some GMs would say that if you're part of the Whispering Way, you get what you deserve.)
EDIT:
If a GM doesn't like that, right above that is an entry that explains that the character can spend 5 (or more) CPA to undergo a ritual to, "become a specific type of corporeal intelligent undead, such as a ghoul, mummy, skeletal champion, or zombie lord." While this doesn't automatically apply to liches, it's a rather strange thing to allow a player to sacrifice their class levels for a lower-hit dice creature, but heaven forbid they get a relatively minor (+2) template (similar to a drow noble).
Heck, it seems like most players would prefer the Advanced template, if templates were for the getting (a +4 to all ability scores, and a +2 to natural AC), which is a +1 modifier.
The lich template is nifty and all, but it really hampers your healing options, and, while you may be immortal, you're very defeat-able. The aura is useful against rubes less than half your minimum level*, and the paralyzing touch is pretty nasty, but is a melee thing which most casters would avoid. The Advanced template gives you a bigger boost in your primary casting stat than lichdom, and while lichdom gives a better natural AC, it's a +3 - and you could more than afford that difference in your equipment compared to the expense of the template. The damage dealt on attack is purely "meh". The skill bonuses are pretty sweet.
The big things you get from lichdom that aren't easily reproducible are functional immortality (though it's cheaper to by raise dead spells and restorations; also if your phylactery is destroyed, good luck finding those seventh level spells), undead immunities (which are nice, but also make you immune to several beneficial effects, and no longer include sneak attack or criticals), and the paralyzing-and-negative energy touch (which is great, though I like to touch people without paralyzing them).
I mean, you know, I'm not terribly fond of the idea of PCs becoming liches, but if they do... okay. It doesn't seem too hard to counter or challenge them, to me.
* Don't get me wrong. Shaken can be pretty severe over a battle. But the immunity conferred after a single exposure generally means it's the equivalent of having one additional fear spell in battle, which usually isn't the make-or-break thing. Also, you're likely going to be facing lots of cleric or - even worse - paladins, being a lich. So, you know, good luck with that. :)
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I remember seeing that poison VRMH mentioned, I don't know the source but I believe this is what he was talking about
- Spells to make Phylactery: Magic Jar, Enchant Item, Trap the Soul, Nulathoe's Nineman (spell to preserve corpse)
- Entire ritual ruined if you die at any point (even if raised later)
- Special Potion with 9 ingredients:
1. Arsenic (2 drops of the purest distillate)
2. Belladonna (1 drop of the purest distillate)
3. Blood (1 quart blood from dead human infant killed by wyvern venom)
4. Blood (1 quart from a dead demihuman slain by a phase spider)
5. Blood (1 quart from a vampire or a being infected with vampirism)
6. Heart (the intact heart of a humanoid killed by poisoning; a mixture of arsenic and belladonna must be used)
7. Reproductive glands (from seven giant moths dead for less than 10 days, ground together)
8. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a phase spider less than 30 days previous)
9. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a wyvern less than 60 days previous)
I remember seeing that poison VRMH mentioned, I don't know the source but I believe this is what he was talking about
- Spells to make Phylactery: Magic Jar, Enchant Item, Trap the Soul, Nulathoe's Nineman (spell to preserve corpse)
- Entire ritual ruined if you die at any point (even if raised later)
- Special Potion with 9 ingredients:
1. Arsenic (2 drops of the purest distillate)
2. Belladonna (1 drop of the purest distillate)
3. Blood (1 quart blood from dead human infant killed by wyvern venom)
4. Blood (1 quart from a dead demihuman slain by a phase spider)
5. Blood (1 quart from a vampire or a being infected with vampirism)
6. Heart (the intact heart of a humanoid killed by poisoning; a mixture of arsenic and belladonna must be used)
7. Reproductive glands (from seven giant moths dead for less than 10 days, ground together)
8. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a phase spider less than 30 days previous)
9. Venom (1 pint or more, drawn from a wyvern less than 60 days previous)
That's some serious stuff.
And takes a lotttttt of work to prepare.
I guess that's true.
And convincing your party-members to assist you in the journey, while, optionally, trying to keep it from them would be an adventure all to itself.
Those ingredients are from an article "Blueprint for a Lich" from DRAGON #26.
I do notice about it that there is no question that a Lich must be evil, even if you were good to start I think taking a quart of blood from an infant takes you into the "deep end of the alignment pool"
Plus the whole "slain by wyvern venom" thing. So, unless you follow a wyvern around for several years, you directly caused the death of a infant, for personal gain.