Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 moliminous Dec 05, 2014 17:05:06	So, i'm not a player. In fact I've never even seen this game in person before. But  I am looking for some info on liches because it's highly intriguing to me. I have been researching and looking up various information about it and i feel I have the jist of how to make a lich be it good or bad. But it often states that the phylactery is a box or jewel. I was wondering, would it be possible to make the phylactery the sun? As well isn't there some rule that the spells a lich could use would have to be inscribed on the phylactery? any info helps!
#2 Kentus Dec 05, 2014 18:34:58	A phylactery is an object in which a lich puts its soul into it (so it can be an undying corpse), so it can't be the sun. At least unless you have some means to actually bind your soul there, but every time you are destroyed and brought back next to your phylactery, you die again. Would be a terrible idea in entering a cirlce of ever-dying, until you run out of soul, become a demilich and dies every time nonetheless. *note a new fairy tale for my campaigns*   The phylactery is a object made of magic itself, but doesn't need to have all spells inscribed there. You can and maybe some wizard is dumb enough to use their spellbook as phylactery (a very frail container for your soul). Normally it's just a box which a pergament inside, written with the magical undying spell of unholiness. No other spells.   Hope that answers your questions.
#3 Kalani Dec 05, 2014 21:01:28	I often consider the "one ring" as a good example of a phylactery, esp. given the lore which states that Sauron bound his soul to the ring. As such, I frequently enchant phylacteries to be useful magic items, and sometimes embue them with a minor curse (cannot unattune the item voluntarily, and desires the item). The desire aspect of the curse is not broken if the phylactery is attuned to another character (but can be broken by a remove curse spell, or similar).
#4 Jordan175 Dec 06, 2014 2:23:13	A phylactery does have to be a physical object- the preparation involves carving symbols on the object and casting spells on it. The item stores the necromancer's soul and lets them remote-pilot their own corpse as a Lich. If a Lich's body is destroyed, they will re-form right next to the phylactery. In addition to practical concerns (such as: getting to the sun in the first place, surviving the heat, writing on plasma, verbalizing spells in the vacuum of space, and resurrecting on the surface of the sun without any of the preparations that might have made the previous items even remotely possible) there is the fact that the sun god Pelor actively hates and destroys undead. He would not take kindly to the foolish necromancer who dared approach his divine radiance.     To sum up: The phylactery must be a physical, tangible item that can be touched by a mortal in order to turn themselves into a lich in the first place. However, this leaves a number of possibilities open: They could make a paving stone a phylactery and leave it in a pile of similar stones at the bottom of the ocean, or even on the surface of the moon if they had a reliable way to get back. I also once heard of a proposal that two litches could hollow out their thigh bones and use each others bones as a phylactery to ensure that it would always be guarded.
#5 Mephi1234 Dec 06, 2014 3:46:29	Not sure in previous editions, but in 5e at least, a lich needs to feed his philactory souls regularly (via the use of the level 9 spell Imprisonment), or he turns into a skull.
#6 cowleymen Dec 06, 2014 4:11:35	Mephi1234 wrote:
#7 bonethug0108 Dec 06, 2014 12:57:39	Liches are powerful enough to have lackeys capture commoners for the purpose of feeding their souls to it's phylactery. That could actually be a great adventure hook.   As far as how liches look, I like the idea of them slowly rotting away until they are just bones. When they first turn they look normal, but their body is dead and decays at the rate of any other normal dead body(maybe a little faster since they are moving around).
#8 Daydreamer80 Dec 06, 2014 14:09:00	If your looking for loose metaphoricatical examples of phycaletry,  then think of the one ring from lord of the rings.  Or the HOrcrux from Harry potter.   A funny online webcomic called 'order of the stick' plays out in 3.5e D&D and uses a lich as the big bad evil guy.     For story purposes it can be whatever you want, by raw, i doubt the lich can use the sun.   The big issue here is that too destroy the lich u have to destroy the soul in physcaletry.   making it the sun puts it a little out of the pc reach.
(Reply to #3) Lord_Phobetor	Kalani wrote:
#10 Mephi1234 Dec 08, 2014 5:05:23	Lord_Phobetor wrote:
#11 Noctaem Dec 08, 2014 6:02:37	Mephi1234 wrote:
#12 Mephi1234 Dec 08, 2014 7:32:12	Noctaem wrote:
#13 Noctaem Dec 08, 2014 7:46:01	Mephi1234 wrote:
#14 BRJN Dec 10, 2014 10:15:51	Please open my sig for another view on "I want to become a lich !".
#15 Sorxores Dec 10, 2014 12:36:51	Daydreamer80 wrote:
#16 Echamil Dec 10, 2014 16:50:40	Sorxores wrote:
#17 bawylie Dec 10, 2014 22:30:39	Horcrux is probably the best modern example of a phylactery.    Typically, the lich has a very strong emotional bond with the object that becomes a phylactery, so that tends to exclude things like the sun, or random objects nobody would bother looking for like an iron nail.    Koschei, the deathless, maybe literatures first lich, hid his soul in a sewing needle that he fed to a duck, that he sewed into a rabbit, and into a dog, and put in a box, and buried. Something like that. And he couldn't die unless you broke the needle.    Voldemort had multiple horcruxes, each with singular meaning to him, and each were powerful objects in their own right.    Of course being a lich takes a certain level of monomania anyway. And long deathless years, removed from any concern accept the focus of your mania, tends to give them a kind of weird, warped sense of things.    I had one show up in my pirate game. The players caught it in a moment of weakness, bound it in an iron chest, and dropped it to the bottom of the sea, and fled. Eventually it caught up to them, but didn't seek any revenge - it didn't care about the ignominy, inconvenience, or delay - but it did gang-press them into a mission that would further it's own goals.
#18 BryanLeeDavidson Dec 11, 2014 7:29:43	A physcaletry in the sun? I love it! I thought putting it in a golem or living statue would be nice but in the sun? That's just classy
(Reply to #17) 1eejit	bawylie wrote:
#20 BRJN Dec 15, 2014 7:14:24	1eejit wrote: