What are the rules for the lich phylactery?

The rules for a lich phylactery dictate that it must be periodically fed souls to sustain the magic preserving the lich’s body and consciousness, with the failure to do so resulting in the lich fading into a demilich. A lich’s phylactery is a crucial component of its immortality, and its creation, maintenance, and destruction are all governed by specific rules and regulations.

Creation and Maintenance of a Lich Phylactery

Creating a phylactery is a highly expensive and taxing effort, requiring a high degree of spellcasting ability and total materials valued at 100,000 to 120,000 gp. The phylactery must be made of a solid material (and not wood) and be of high-quality craftsmanship.

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

1. What happens to a lich when their phylactery is destroyed?: Since a lich’s soul is mystically tied to its phylactery, destroying its body will not kill it, and its soul will return to the phylactery, and its body will be recreated by the power keeping it immortal.
2. Can a lich lose their phylactery?: If a lich’s phylactery is destroyed, it will not immediately die, but it will know that its phylactery has been destroyed, and if its current body is defeated, the lich will die as its soul has nowhere to go to hide from true death.
3. How often does a phylactery need to be fed?: The frequency is up to the narrative purposes, but a creature imprisoned in the phylactery for 24 hours is consumed and destroyed utterly, whereupon nothing short of divine intervention can restore it to life.

Phylactery Destruction and Security

4. What destroys a phylactery?: A phylactery can only be destroyed by first disrupting the arcane energy of the sepulchers in which they are held, or by using a unique method of destruction, such as throwing it into lava.
5. Where can I hide a phylactery?: The most secure place to hide a phylactery would be in a demiplane surrounded by an adamantite vault, or by using a Bag of Holding and other creative methods to conceal it.
6. Can a phylactery be dispelled?: There is no known way for a phylactery to become a mundane item once it’s created, and Dispel Magic will simply suppress the effects for a short duration, and will not destroy the item.

Liches and Phylacteries

7. Can any class become a lich?: Any powerful full spellcaster can potentially become a lich, with likely the only exception being a Druid.
8. Can a player character become a lich?: If you want your player to become a lich, a magical item can give them all of the relevant powers and abilities, but the path to lichdom is inherently evil.
9. Does Vecna have a phylactery?: Vecna’s soul was placed in a phylactery, a container that housed his very essence, and hidden in Elion, his body roamed Elion searching for his soul until its eventual decomposition.

Phylactery Properties and Interactions

10. How much HP does a phylactery have?: In 3.5e, a phylactery box had 40 hp, Hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.
11. Can liches use the clone spell?: RAW, Yes, since undead and liches specifically are considered to be medium living creatures, they could cast clone.
12. Is a Horcrux a phylactery?: They are very similar, but a phylactery contains the lich’s entire soul and its vitality, while a Horcrux contains a damaged sliver of the soul.

Advanced Questions

13. Can a lich remake its phylactery?: The way to DM a lich is that the lich is only allowed one phylactery at a time, and if it is destroyed, he can create another one, but he is vulnerable to perma-death between loss of the first phylactery and creation of the second.
14. Does identify work on a phylactery?: It will turn up nothing, because phylacteries are artifacts, which Identify doesn’t work on.
15. Can a lich be good?: There have been good and neutral-aligned liches in the Forgotten Realms, though they are far rarer than the evil liches, which themselves are incredibly rare, thanks to the high barrier of entry.