Finding Phylacteries

[Norfleet]

This is why no adventurer worth his salt will sell an item without casting detect magic on it first.

It was magical. He knew it was magical. He used that to fetch a hefty price for it, since as far as he could tell, it wasn't useful. So he sold it to some elves, who will pay a fair sum of cash for useless magical trinkets.

That one is kind of a neat idea. Fatal disemboweling isn't all that heinous, in a world that has true resurrection. Even if the PC is too squeamish to slice himself open, he probably has plenty of chaotic friends (or enemies) who'd be more than willing to gut him if it meant permanently destroying the lich.

This was before the invention of True Resurrection, in the good/bad old days of 2E, and also played under the "All Dead/Mostly Dead" rules. Being fatally disembowelled in such a manner constitutes being "All Dead".

The downside is, it'd be damn hard to avoid making the character suspicious. "Good work guys, the lich is defeated for now. But wait... what's this weird skeletal thing materializing in my transverse colon?"

Actually, it's not stated anywhere in any version of the lich that I can find that the lich rematerializes in any specific location. Presumably, he appears near his phylactery, although it is not stated that he actually sprouts from the phylactery. If that were the case, it'd make storing it much more difficult.

 

[Pax]

This is why no adventurer worth his salt will sell an item without casting detect magic on it first.

And no Lich worth the name will fail to cast Nondetection and Nystul's Magic Aura on his Phylctery. Permanently.