# Devious Phylactery Hiding places.



## Eldragon (May 31, 2007)

So I have a basic adventure idea bouncing around my head, but I could use some help from the abstract thinkers on these boards with ways a Lich might hide his phylactery. I need utterly devious solutions designed to kill off any type of intruder. 

The Players are very resourceful and know the game system very well, so I need ideas that cannot easily be defeated by a handful of 9th level spells.

The Synopsis:

A Lich, bored with his long immortal life and repentant for his evil ways wants to end his own evil existence. The Lich hires the PCs to find and destroy his phylactery, their reward? All of his worldly treasures. The Caveat: For some reason the Lich is unable to help or perform this task. i.e. He Magically altered his own memory as to the exact location. The Lich does know the general location (plane, city, perhaps dungeon).

Hopefully I can combine your ideas into a master solution that will torment the PCs for days on end.


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## blargney the second (May 31, 2007)

On his goblin cohort!


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## Eldragon (May 31, 2007)

blargney the second said:
			
		

> On his goblin cohort!




I don't think this particular Lich has enough levels in Shadow Dancer for the "Hide in Plain Sight" ability.

ZING!


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## XCorvis (May 31, 2007)

Someone (I forget who) had a good story about his lich hiding his phylactery inside the hilt of a magic sword from the lich's hoard. The PCs used it a bit, then sold it, and then the lich turned up later to scare the crap out of them.

The second thing I thought of was "what if the phylactery is a city?"


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## crazy_monkey1956 (May 31, 2007)

In the hoard of a great wyrm dragon, particularly a metallic.

As one of the PCs most valued possessions, especially if it is something they use a lot, but haven't gotten the full backstory on yet (so just where did this amulet of health +8 come from anway?)

Whatever it is, the lich, before we wiped his memory, tasked a minion with taking it somewhere he couldn't reach.  So the minion used plane travelling to take it into the Realm of Dreams and placed into the dreams of (insert insane creepy thing here).  Since the lich doesn't sleep as an undead, he can't get there.

Just some ideas.


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## Henry (May 31, 2007)

The Phylactery has been placed in a Box of Nondetection and placed in the middle of a 1' x 1' hollow space in the middle of a stone wall with the use of a phase door spell. Said stone wall is at the bottom of an ocean trench under enormous pressure, and guarded by a Colossal Deep Sea Crustacean who is wearing an amulet which produces an antimagic field.

THEN there's the pirate fleet guarding the base at the small extinct volcano next to the trench...


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## crazy_monkey1956 (May 31, 2007)

As the heart of a specially designed construct that is designed to perfectly emulate a living being.  If the PCs don't have very detailed backstories...then the living construct IS one of the PCs.  If not one of the PCs, then one of their most trusted advisors or friends.


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## crazy_monkey1956 (May 31, 2007)

The phylactery is a sealed box that was given to a paladin while the lich was in disguise.  The disguised lich asked the paladin to vow to guard the box for all eternity.  The paladin went on to become a saint of his faith and his burial site (with the box lying with him in his sacrophagus) became the sight of the holy cathedral of the campaign world's dominant LG religion.


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## kelson (May 31, 2007)

perhaps it could be placed inside of something that the lich could not bear to see destroyed?  Find something that he would be willing to keep on living to protect, something that he would fight and kill to protect.  then make the PC's fight him anyway!  perhaps it is somehow linked to the life of his last living decendent and he just cant bring himself to destroy his own genetic line?


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## Anti-Sean (May 31, 2007)

Butch Coolidge (Ftr 6/Reaping Mauler 3): "You know what my father went through to get me that phylactery?... I don't wanna get into it right now... but he went through a lot."


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## Pyrex (May 31, 2007)

crazypixie said:
			
		

> ...So the minion used plane travelling to take it into the Realm of Dreams and placed into the dreams of (insert insane creepy thing here).  Since the lich doesn't sleep as an undead, he can't get there...






			
				kelson said:
			
		

> perhaps it could be placed inside of something that the lich could not bear to see destroyed?  Find something that he would be willing to keep on living to protect, something that he would fight and kill to protect.  then make the PC's fight him anyway!  perhaps it is somehow linked to the life of his last living decendent and he just cant bring himself to destroy his own genetic line?




Mmm, chocolate + peanut butter...

Store the phylactery within the dreams of his (however-many)great-granddaughter.  The presence of the phylactery buried deep within her psyche both gives her terrible nightmares and has made her a frighteningly powerful Telepath (Wilder is probably a better class choice though).  Though a sympathetic character the PC's will wish to aid on the Prime, retriving the phylactery will require facing her dark and twisted Id in a dreamscape.  Her Id will not surrender the source of it's power easily...


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## Nifft (May 31, 2007)

Phylactery is actually a +5 Rustproof Holy Avenger. "You want to sunder Prince Handsome's *what*?!"

 -- N


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## Sejs (May 31, 2007)

Possibly include that destroying it also does something very, very unpleasant.

Like, say, the phylactery is the capstone holding back some flood of evil or the like.  Something the lich himself engineered to happen as sort of a last 'up yours' in case the worst should ever happen.


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## Caliban (May 31, 2007)

His phylactery is actually a 50,000 gp gem that has been used as the focal point for a "Trap the Soul" spell on the Tarrasque (or other legendary creature that has been missing for the last several decades or centuries).    No one knows this, not even the lich anymore. 

The phylactery was then transported to a particularly inhospitable region of the Far Realms. The PC's cannot retrieve it personally, as their sanity and physical form would be irrevocably warped by the energies of that insane realm.    

However, there is a method of recalling the phylactery back to our realm.  You must find and speak the true name of the lich, something he himself cannot recall.   There are good aligned organizations that work to prevent this, as speaking his name to recover the phylactery will open a rift to the Far Realms, and it may not close on it's own. 

The true reason the lich wants his phylactery destroyed is that he is afraid of dying and reforming in the far realms.  Also, he can feel the blasphemous nature of that place slowly warping the magics that protect his phylactery, and through his link to the phylactery it is affecting him.  He can feel his memories and sanity is slowly slipping away.   If the phylactery is not recovered or destroyed soon, he may become a living conduit to the realm of insanity, spewing forth madness tainted magic and creatures.   This is a fate worse that the final death, even for a lich. 

Once his phylactery is retrieved and destroyed, the creatured imprisoned within it is released, and it has been warped by the far realm energies.  Now the true fight is on.


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## Eldragon (May 31, 2007)

Pyrex said:
			
		

> Mmm, chocolate + peanut butter...
> 
> Store the phylactery within the dreams of his (however-many)great-granddaughter.  The presence of the phylactery buried deep within her psyche both gives her terrible nightmares and has made her a frighteningly powerful Telepath (Wilder is probably a better class choice though).  Though a sympathetic character the PC's will wish to aid on the Prime, retriving the phylactery will require facing her dark and twisted Id in a dreamscape.  Her Id will not surrender the source of it's power easily...




Mwha ha ha, I like that one. Thanks for all of the ideas, please keep them coming!

One idea I had for the the actual location of the phylactery was a Wondrous Item that would Cast Fabricate 3/day to create an exact copy of the phylactery, which gets spit out into a large room. After a couple hundred years the room has become filled with the things. Destroying any of the "Fakes" would cause a random spell to be cast.


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## Ottergame (May 31, 2007)

Up his bum!

Cause, seriously, how many adventuers reach up into the ass of a dead lich?


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## kelson (May 31, 2007)

> Possibly include that destroying it also does something very, very unpleasant.
> 
> Like, say, the phylactery is the capstone holding back some flood of evil or the like. Something the lich himself engineered to happen as sort of a last 'up yours' in case the worst should ever happen.




since he doesnt know either that it will unleash this great evil, then that could open up the next adventure!  smash!  the phylactery is destroyed! yay!  guys?  what is that odd rumbleing noise?  #$%!!!!


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## Michael_R_Proteau (May 31, 2007)

The phylactery is a seal on a gate to the Abyss. Break the seal by destroying the phylactery, and you open the gate, allowing the hordes of the Abyss to invade the material plane en masse. 

-M


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## Slife (May 31, 2007)

Take a bag of holding.  Fill it with something very nasty, along with a bunch of magical items tasked to planeshift and teleport away.  Then put it in an antimagic field.  Now the bag doesn't open into the extradimensional space, just into the normal inside.  Put in the phylactery.  Put the bag in any of the other holding places suggested.

This has the advantage of messing with divinations.  It's in the bag, but not in the way the PCs will expect.


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## blargney the second (May 31, 2007)

What gate?


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## blargney the second (May 31, 2007)

The phylactery is a Tome of Gainful Exercise +5.


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 31, 2007)

Beneath the tower where the lich resides is a tomb filled with nasty traps and creatures.  Eventually the party finds a small hole in the floor with a metal ladder leading down 550 feet.  There is a small room at the bottom.  On the floor of the room a metal triangle has been inset.  The metal triangle can cast Dimension Door 3 times per day (range based upon the lich's casting ability).  If someone stands on the triangle and wills themselves to move 550 feet in the direction of one apex of the triangle _and_ 550 feet down (total of 777 feet away), they arrive in a small room with a metal box that radiates magic, sitting upon a small pedestal, and an identical metal triangle inset in to floor to Dimension Door back out.  If they guess an incorrect direction, they will suffer the effects of Dimension Dooring into a solid body.  Depending upon how close they are to getting the direction correct they will be shunted either right back where they started, into the other room with the box, or into one of several small spaces within the rock that are empty and have no exit.  

Oh, and the phylactery?  The box is not it.  The phylactery is actually the 77th rung down from the top of the metal ladder the party had to climb down.  If they actually climb up or down the ladder, rather than use magic to go up and down, there is a chance someone might notice that one rung sounds a bit different when stepped on.


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## Slife (May 31, 2007)

Oh, just to mention, according to Libris Mortis, you can't make a Lich's Phylactery into another kind of magical item.  Thus, no holy swords +5 or necklaces of strangulation.


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## Nifft (May 31, 2007)

Slife said:
			
		

> Oh, just to mention, according to Libris Mortis, you can't make a Lich's Phylactery into another kind of magical item.  Thus, no holy swords +5 or necklaces of strangulation.




Bah. Even if anyone in my group owned that supplement, we wouldn't be required to use that rule.

But out of curiosity, what does the Book of Bad Latin say about golem phylacteries?

 -- N


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## Kahuna Burger (May 31, 2007)

crazypixie said:
			
		

> Whatever it is, the lich, before we wiped his memory, tasked a minion with taking it somewhere he couldn't reach.  So the minion used plane travelling to take it into the Realm of Dreams and placed into the dreams of (insert insane creepy thing here).  Since the lich doesn't sleep as an undead, he can't get there.



the the lich killed and soul destroyed him when he got back....


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## Anti-Sean (May 31, 2007)

Nifft said:
			
		

> But out of curiosity, what does the Book of Bad Latin say about *golem phylacteries*?




So I had a somewhat dyslexic moment as I read that, and now I can't stop thinking about a Phylactery Golem. That's a whoooole lot of really overconfident liches right there!


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## Rystil Arden (May 31, 2007)

Anti-Sean said:
			
		

> So I had a somewhat dyslexic moment as I read that, and now I can't stop thinking about a Phylactery Golem. That's a whoooole lot of really overconfident liches right there!



 Isn't there something like that--a Grisgol or something?

Here's a really evil one--that Good-aligned artifact that the group wants to find, that is sacred to a major religion, and that cures diseases, heals the injured, etc (think the Holy Grail)?  Yeah, that's also the lich's phylactery.


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## Darklone (May 31, 2007)

I had a vampire girl once who had a lichs phylactery in her head. Funny thing about undead with Fast healing: cut them open, put thing in, well, it's hidden.


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## Zaukrie (May 31, 2007)

Inside one of the PCs. That is what I would do, if I were devious, which I'm not.


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## Eldragon (May 31, 2007)

Slife said:
			
		

> Oh, just to mention, according to Libris Mortis, you can't make a Lich's Phylactery into another kind of magical item.  Thus, no holy swords +5 or necklaces of strangulation.




That is actually how I always interpreted the Phylactery as well. Nothing stopping it from being a piece of an item I guess. e.g. A Gem in the hilt of the sword, but not the sword itself.

I am more concerned with creative ways of protecting the phylactery than hiding it. While tasking a paladin to protect it is really creative, I think this particular Lich would not feel comfortable re-materializing inside a paladin's Armor closet.

Multiple layers of security will be the key. My own character's frequently wear "Sunglasses of Detect Magic". In other words, I can't rely on hiding it "in the open" because someone might just detect it on accident. Just about every surface will be checked for Magic and Traps.

I really like Thornir Alekeg's idea with the Triangle and Dimension Door. Good adventure fodder for high level characters to puzzle over.


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## Thaumaturge (May 31, 2007)

On the far side of the moon. 

There is an LG mod that does this, so if you have any LGers, they might guess it.   

Thaumaturge.


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## crazy_monkey1956 (May 31, 2007)

To deter detections and the like...

The lich once had a beholder as an ally.  When the beholder lost an eye from one of its eyestalks, the lich put in a false eye, his phylactery.  Though the beholder now no longer has function in that eye, it is now hideously advanced, possibly with class levels, and has become rather attached to his false eye.


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## Ravilah (May 31, 2007)

If this were my campaign, I know where I'd put it.  On Carceri, in the Bastion of Last Hope, stands a featureless warehouse with no windows or doors.  The eyes of passersby tend to just slide right past it.  This is the House of Oblivion, the place where lost and forgotten things go. The inside of the House is much larger than the outside, and might actually exist on a separate demiplane.  The place is filled with piles of lost and forgotten trash, treasure, artifacts, and memories.  The ghosts of those whose memorial stones have faded away dwell here, as well as the shadows of forgotten events.  The aura of residual magic has spawned many Huge and Gargantuan raggamuffins.
 The real trick is, though, that nothing can get in unless it is lost or forgotten.  No gate will open there, no crystal ball will scry inside.  Players will have to figure out how to get hopelessly lost, and hope that everyone they know stops thinking about them.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (May 31, 2007)

Ronin Arts has a PDF of unconventional phylacteries. Probably worth checking out.


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## wingsandsword (Jun 1, 2007)

Maybe long ago the Lich made a _Wish_ that his Phylactery was indestructable, one of those wishes that gets fulfilled but in a format that makes it a disaster for the caster. . . 

Maybe thanks to that Wish the Phylactery is now an Artifact, and hence indestructable, and it's only means of destruction is for the Lich to be truly forgiven by the God of Wrath (or appropriate wrathful and unforgiving evil deity appropriate to the campaign), and the Lich suffers from the Wrath of said deity on a regular basis, hence part of why he's seeking destruction?


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## I'm A Banana (Jun 1, 2007)

His familiar.

Not on his familiar, in his familiar, or near his familiar.

His familiar *is* his phylactery.


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## CanadienneBacon (Jun 1, 2007)

crazypixie said:
			
		

> The phylactery is a sealed box that was given to a paladin while the lich was in disguise.  The disguised lich asked the paladin to vow to guard the box for all eternity.  The paladin went on to become a saint of his faith and his burial site (with the box lying with him in his sacrophagus) became the sight of the holy cathedral of the campaign world's dominant LG religion.




Consider this filched!      Thank you!


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## questing gm (Jun 1, 2007)

The classically lazyily devious presents...

The Tarrasque, ripped from FFX


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## hong (Jun 1, 2007)

Ottergame said:
			
		

> Up his bum!
> 
> Cause, seriously, how many adventuers reach up into the ass of a dead lich?



 (Insert Christopher Walken/Pulp Fiction quote)


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## Anti-Sean (Jun 1, 2007)

hong said:
			
		

> (Insert Christopher Walken/Pulp Fiction quote)




Post #10 in this thread! :gnash: (the latter, at least, but not the former)


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## hong (Jun 1, 2007)

Anti-Sean said:
			
		

> Post #10 in this thread! :gnash: (the latter, at least, but not the former)



 I said Christopher Walken quote, not Bruce Willis quote.


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## Geoff Watson (Jun 1, 2007)

It can't be too impossible, as the lich needs to be able to get out of where the phylactery is when he dies and reforms.

Geoff.


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## jmucchiello (Jun 1, 2007)

Eldragon said:
			
		

> A Lich, bored with his long immortal life and repentant for his evil ways wants to end his own evil existence. The Lich hires the PCs to find and destroy his phylactery, their reward? All of his worldly treasures. The Caveat: For some reason the Lich is unable to help or perform this task. i.e. He Magically altered his own memory as to the exact location. The Lich does know the general location (plane, city, perhaps dungeon).



I don't get it. The first thing the PCs will suggest is that the lich "die". That will take him directly to his phylactery. One's _something's fishy_ meter would be reading off the charts. IOW, why does the lich really need their help?


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## kelson (Jun 1, 2007)

maybe the lich is a pansy.  dieing hurts like a mother@#$%.  He doesnt wanna...


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## Eldragon (Jun 1, 2007)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> I don't get it. The first thing the PCs will suggest is that the lich "die". That will take him directly to his phylactery. One's _something's fishy_ meter would be reading off the charts. IOW, why does the lich really need their help?




Mostly it an excuse to have a plot OTHER than "go kill this Lich by finding his phylactery". That, and making the players second guess themselves and their "employer" is always fun. 

If the player's as, the Lich will respond: 

"Since I don't know exactly where it is, I am not sure I can get out from wherever I hid it. And being trapped for an eternity would certainly be a downer."


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## XCorvis (Jun 1, 2007)

Eldragon said:
			
		

> Mostly it an excuse to have a plot OTHER than "go kill this Lich by finding his phylactery". That, and making the players second guess themselves and their "employer" is always fun.
> 
> If the player's as, the Lich will respond:
> 
> "Since I don't know exactly where it is, I am not sure I can get out from wherever I hid it. And being trapped for an eternity would certainly be a downer."




I was thinking more along the lines of "I don't want to use any more negative energy than I have to, because I believe it is wrong and will jeopardize my chances at redemption." That could make things extra interesting, depending on what his phylactery is. If the destruction of the phylactery could put folks in danger, the now good lich might have to oppose the PCs actions.


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## GoodKingJayIII (Jun 1, 2007)

XCorvis said:
			
		

> I was thinking more along the lines of "I don't want to use any more negative energy than I have to, because I believe it is wrong and will jeopardize my chances at redemption." That could make things extra interesting, depending on what his phylactery is. If the destruction of the phylactery could put folks in danger, the now good lich might have to oppose the PCs actions.




Or maybe he pulls a "Mr. Lindermann/Heroes" kinda thing.  Destroying the phylactery will take out a city?  Too bad; if the PCs won't do it, he'll find someone else who will.  After all, it's for the greater good.


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## nonamazing (Jun 1, 2007)

The phylactery is in his ribcage.  Over the years, he's had so many _nondetection_ and _false aura_ spells cast on him that it's impossible to distinguish the aura of the phylactery from his own aura.  Casting "Wish" just brings the _lich_ to the characters (Tell the players: "It seems that that the lich and his phylactery are so magically similar that _wish_ just brings the closest one to you.")  Killing the lich just causes him to re-form right where he was; in fact, he tells the characters about this from the start, using this fact as 'proof' that he can't find his own phylactery (perhaps going so far as to kill himself right in front of the characters, and then innocently saying, "I don't know why I didn't reform at my phylactery!")

Combine this with several really good fake phylacteries.  Each time the players destroy one, they return to the lich who says, "Sorry, my phylactery must be in another castle."  The lich is very, very helpful, does everything he can to seem extra nice, giving all sorts of magic items to the party, healing them when they're hurt, and genuinely hopeful that the characters will eventually manage to find him the eternal rest he so desires.  He gives them clues as much as he is able to, directing them to places where the phylactery might be.

Meanwhile, the lich is actually just going about his daily life as normal, while the characters systematically destroy every other lich in the entire campaign world on his behalf.  If he's smart, he's hired every powerful group of adventurers around, giving each the "please kill me" story.  If the players start to distrust the lich, then they have to deal with the other adventurers who _do_ trust him, and who have begun to see the lich as a benevolent friend.


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## Frostmarrow (Jun 1, 2007)

Maybe Orcus has a hunch that the lich will go postal if left damned for long enough. He's just waiting for the lich to lose it and go on a killing spree in the mortal world. Orcus loves this sort of thing. Meanwhile Orcus will just sit on the phylactery waiting fot the show. He'll use scry to watch the lich so the PCs will feel watched all along and they can't seem to beat the scryer.

Or the short version: The lich is just a puppet in someone elses box of toys.


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## Ze (Jun 1, 2007)

Ravilah said:
			
		

> The real trick is, though, that nothing can get in unless it is lost or forgotten.  No gate will open there, no crystal ball will scry inside.  Players will have to figure out how to get hopelessly lost, and hope that everyone they know stops thinking about them.




Ravilah, this is beautiful.


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## Sheogorath Mclaren (Jun 26, 2017)

Thousands of years in the past ,using a magical mask to teleport there, in a tomb with undead that can't be killed using mortal weaponry and attack anyone but you.


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## Eltab (Jun 26, 2017)

From a 3e FR sourcebook:
The lich has cast an epic-level spell so his phylactery is actually in many pieces spread all over everywhere.  (For instance, some dead guy's skeleton, the bones spread all over the world in other BBEGs' lairs on purpose.  The other BBEGs think they have a hook into the lich / his plans because "they have his phylactery" but do not know just how many pieces there are.)
The PCs have to bring all the pieces together and then destroy every one to finally destroy the lich.


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## LordNightwinter (Jun 28, 2017)

Honestly what I did to mess with my party I gave them a magic ring. Upon first identification (They didn't hit the DC to identify all of the effects of the ring) it came up as a Ring of Protection +3. They carried that ring for the longest time wondering how the lich in question knew where they were and kept popping up at the worst times. They never really figured it out. lol


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## discosoc (Jun 28, 2017)

In a bag of holding.  He's just not sure which one.


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