Soul cage

Soul cage

(Magic item)

Rare

Arcane

Void

Caster Level (1E)

Minimum 11th

Item Level (2E)

Item 12

Type

Wondrous item

Slot (1E)

None

Usage (2E)

Held in 1 hand

Affiliation

Liches

Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 188f. (1E)
Monster Core, pg(s). 218 (2E)

In Book of the Dead prior to the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project, phylacteries had the

Necromancy

and

Negative

traits. Soul cages for the lich player-character archetype can also intentionally differ mechanically at the GM's discretion. Magical schools were removed in the Remaster, Negative was renamed to Void, and Doorway to the Red Star renamed the items to soul cages to reduce real-world harm.

Ⅰ

Ⅱ

A soul cage is a magical box that contains within various texts written on parchment created by a powerful arcane or divine spellcaster in order to house their soul in preparation to become a lich. The prospective lich must invest considerable time researching and building their soul cage, as it will house their soul and bequeath it functional immortality.

Description

Soul cages often take the shape of sealed metal boxes that house strips of parchment upon which magical phrases are inscribed, but are also commonly gems, although any object can serve.

Construction

Soul cages are incredibly expensive to produce, costing upwards of 120,000 gold pieces. If a lich is destroyed, but their soul cage is not, the lich will simply reform in one to ten days near their soul cage, most likely with an intense desire to kill the person or people that caused its temporary demise. The lich, therefore, makes certain to hide the soul cage very carefully, as her immortality depends upon it.

Other soul cages

In place of a soul cage, psychic liches create a physical object, called a memoir, which projects their personal accomplishments into the Astral Plane and tethers this astral echo through the planes. Psychic liches can only be destroyed by using their memoir as a focus to erase their astral legend.

Failed liches

A vessel can also contain the soul of a creature that failed in their bid to become a lich.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.