Cursed Items

[Butchern]

This thread cropped up on OGMW about cursed items for D&D. I wracked my brain for some of the more interesting cursed items we've used in game. Now I have an idea for a "cursed item game," where the protagonists have to fight a "monster of the week," but their only hope of success is using a vast array of cursed items, all of which are deadly useful but have horrible and traumatic curses.

 

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- A gun that never misses and kills instantly, but the shooter experiences the pain and trauma of dying along with the victim.

- A cursed hammer (an ordinary claw hammer) that sets the person or thing hit with it on fire and instantly destroys corporal supernatural creatures. Once taken up, the hammer cannot easily be set down, and whenever the wielder of the hammer closes her eyes she sees and feels the fires of hell, making sleep and rest of any kind impossible. The hammer can only be relinquished and sent back to hell with the shedding of mortal blood.

- A hoodoo "blessed" sewing needle that when used to pierce the cornea allows the pierced to temporarily see spirits and other invisible creatures.

- A cast iron bathtub that is a gateway to the astral plane. The user needs to be drowned (and then, hopefully, revived later) in the tub to activate the magic.

- A magical elixir that makes the imbiber temporarily invulnerable via rapid regeneration. The regenerating tissue, however, will grow right over any foreign objects (like bullets) still inside the body, and the user looses all sensation in their body (pain, taste, smell, touch, sexual sensation, etc.). This side effect lasts for weeks after the elixir wears off and the more the elixir is taken, the more likely the side effect is to be permanent.

 

So, hit me with your best cursed items!

Edited August 4, 2022 by Butchern (see edit history)

[Butchern]

The ideas are coming in hot over in the Discord:

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Blue Firebird 🦖🦕 💙 🔥
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Today at 10:43 AM
A mirror that can show anyone, anywhere, and displays their thoughts like notes written in lipstick on the mirror. Each time you use it, though, you also see the place and manner in which you die. You see your own dead reflection.

The reflection is different each time.

Actana 🎭
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Today at 10:49 AM
A belt that gives you immunity to all the ways the previous wearers have died to. However, it also makes you more susceptible to the ways that haven't occurred yet.
And it's pretty particular about the methods.

Basil_Bottletop 🌿🍼⬆
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Today at 10:49 AM
A skeletal key that opens any lock, but slowly turns the user into an undead.
a journal that steals your memories, leaving you with dementia.

Butchern 😇🍑
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Today at 10:53 AM
It would make for some great body horror to slowly turn undead. We had a cursed book that took days off your life for every page you read. Which is objectively scary, but no one ever really felt the gut punch of "I just lost 18 months of life." It was hard to materialize in the story.

Butchern 😇🍑
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Today at 10:53 AM
What kick-ass benefit would it bestow in return?

OrphRedHair
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Today at 10:53 AM
More room in the noggin for spell slots

Butchern 😇🍑
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Today at 10:54 AM
It could give you the memories of the person you write about in the journal.
Great for an investigative game.
Replace your memories with theirs.

Basil_Bottletop 🌿🍼⬆
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Today at 10:54 AM
Or an accurate depiction of the scene from all angles

OrphRedHair
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Today at 11:02 AM
A cursed sword that always exists in the same location, across time. The sword is sentient, and can see its past as if the present; however, because it exists in it's exact location as the past as well as the present, it can be seen, and alter events in the future.

So it can gather information about the past, but you have to do it in such a way as to somehow hide a cursed sword to not be noticed.

Ironblaze ⚒
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Today at 11:21 AM
A weapon that destroys the soul of anything it kills, including extraplanar types. However, the gods themselves seek to destroy it and whoever holds it.
no I didn't borrow that idea from a recent movie

Basil_Bottletop 🌿🍼⬆
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Today at 11:32 AM
a pendant that tethers the wearer to this world permanently, offering up some kind of strange immortality, but when it's removed all their untended ailments appear instantly.
(or sends them back from whence they came)

Blue Firebird 🦖🦕 💙 🔥
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Today at 11:34 AM
If we're talking weapons, a weapon that cuts through any defenses and can harm even incorporeal foes, but every time you use it, you do so knowing that the same kind of harm is going to befall someone around you in the future.

 

[Scarecrow71]

I like what Blue Firebird said:

 

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Blue Firebird 🦖🦕 💙 🔥
—
Today at 10:43 AM
A mirror that can show anyone, anywhere, and displays their thoughts like notes written in lipstick on the mirror. Each time you use it, though, you also see the place and manner in which you die. You see your own dead reflection.

The reflection is different each time.

 

I'd like to change this up a little bit, as I'm not keen on someone knowing when and how they die (especially in games where it's either avoided outright OR the GM gets heavy-handed to make sure it happens).  How about the next time the subject sees their own reflection they see who was spying on them, as well as where the spyer was and when it happened?

[Mindcrime]

How about the Wand of Wonder?

[Butchern]

That is the right idea, yes.

 

I'm not interested in anything Dungeon and Dragons, but others might be.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Butchern (see edit history)

[Caystodd]

Here is one I used in my Cthulhu Dark game. It is a spell but it could easily be converted to a cursed item. I'm going to spoiler it just because it is a little unsavory.

The First Ordinance of the Dweller

The First Ordinance is a spell that must be cast in the midst of five distinct points of sympathetic magic (see above) related to the intended victim. Once the spell is cast, so long as the caster sits in the midst of the points of sympathy, any harm committed upon the caster is inflicted upon the victim instead, regardless of distance. The caster, in turn, feels the would-be harm as overwhelming pleasure. The greater the pain inflicted upon the victim, the greater the pleasure for the caster. The Book of Ordinances in the prologue to the First Ordinance warns of the rapid and highly debilitating nature of the addiction caused by the use of this spell. Marginal notes, however, detail many creative methods of restraining subjects and explain in step-by-step fashion self-harm techniques that can maximize suffering without rapid loss of life. The marginal notes are in a clumsy, blocky print and contain many misspellings and incomplete sentences.

 

[LaChupa]

El Silbato de la Chaneque

 

When you stand at the edge of a natural area and blow the silbato (a simple hand-carved wooden whistle), you summon a chaneque (a vicious little elemental spirits) to do your biding for a single task. The request must be made in Spanish. After the task is completed, the chaneque will return to demand a specific reward. Their demands are as predictable as they are awful.