Well, I vaguely remember a storie about two sword smith's trying to create the best sword. At the end, both swords were put in a river, one had leaves attracted to it and sliced them in half. The other repelled the leaves. The second was considered the superior sword since it averted violence instead of attracting it. I want to say the smiths were something like Murasama and Masamune, but I'm really unsure.
I had my players find a bunch of artifacts in a warehouse once...unless it had potential to kill people, they didn't care, and if they did care it wasn't about the other implications. I'll demonstrate in a moment but first, "sticky notes" refers to notes left by illuminati members on the items.
Me: You find something covered by a cloth, it's marked by a sticky note that says "original arms of the Venus De Milo."
Player: I uncover it.
Me: (very slowly and dramatically) Its...a pair...of...white...marble.......TENTACLES!!!!
Players: (looking bored) Okay, who opens the next box?
Later on
Me: It's a chemical Formula, marked with a note that says "Add to Callenger fuel"
Player: (after discussing what the Challenger was with other players) Cool, I'll use it to blow up this stupid warehouse.
But anyway. I had some good suggestions made to me by a fellow named Kermez on the WotC homebrew boards quite a while back. Many of them were mentioned already. There's always the spear of Cuchulain (or whatever the speeling is) the Trident of Shiva, the sandals of Muhammed, Gugnir, Odin's spear, and Colonel Sander's secret recipe.
I'll be back later to put in my opinion on the good or badness of The Holy Lance, and to hopefully add more to the list.
