Curses, Curses, Curses!

[rbingham2000]

After reading through a thread describing a scenario where people were cursed to sing until they wasted away and died, this got me thinking about some other nasty curses that could be used in games and general fantasy.

The curses I'm talking about range from fairy-tale stuff like taking away someone's voice and turning someone ugly as sin to the darker stuff like vampirism and the many varieties of family curses.

What was the nastiest such curse that your character or group had to put up with, who laid the curse upon the character or group, and how did the character or group go about getting it removed?

 

[Psion]

Inspired by "The Ring", my group's PCs got cursed when they entered a tomb dedicated to a god of darkness. Creatures became part of their being that would become sort of super-shadows at night and kill locals, and become stronger in the process. If the players avoided locals, the shadows would slowly kill them.

The cure involved the sacrifice of a goddess. This plague could easily have overtaken the world. A goddess of light intervened and struck at the responsible god of darkness via his divine essence in the PCs. The god of darkness retaliated directly to protect himself. However, direct conflict between deities is forbidden by a divine compact; those who violate it are no longer protected by the compact, however. A cabal of evil gods descended on this ancient god of darkness, tore him apart, and stole his power. (This was my way to introduce requiem for a god into my campaign.)

 

[alsih2o]

a pool of water that cursed drinkers to continue drinking until remove curse i splaced on them. nastier if your casters drink first. major dc to casting with mouthful of water

 

[Gothmog]

The best curse I ever used was one that didn't have any real game mechanics behind it- I'm still not sure exactly what happened. The paladin PC in my game had wrongfully harassed a group of gypsies after a brutal theft and murder, thinking they were responsible. They denied the accusation, and the matriarch cursed the paladin with shortsightedness and foul luck until the real killer was found. In game, she was 0-level (this was in 2E) and had no powers of any kind, but the player was convinced she had done something nasty to him. And oddly enough, for the next 2 adventures, until they finally caught the real culprit and he paladin apologized to the gypsies, he couldn't roll above a 12 on a d20, and his weapon damage rolls were either 1, 2, 3, or 4 for his greatsword. Very bizarre. As soon as he apologized though, his dice luck returned.

Another case involved a cursed statuette that made the possessor EXTREMELY jealous and protective of it. The PCs got their hands on this item in the 2nd adventure in the campaign. Oddly enough, they gave it to the rogue for safekeeping, and completely without my instruction or guidance, he started to act really possessive of it. He didn't want other PCs to handle the object, and when the barbarian took it from him, he tackled the barbarian and wrestled it from him! They knocked the rogue unconscious after that, and placed the item in a good-aligned temple, not telling the rogue where it was- and the rogue player said he had no idea why he acted that way.


"You shall never notice danger until it is upon you" (Anyone with hostile intentions toward the cursed person has Invisibility towards that PC until the first attack. If they moved out of sight of the PC and returned later, they were invisible again). Yes, this was a really nasty one that nearly killed the PC 4 times before he figured out what was going on.

 

[DaveStebbins]

I had one NPC curse a character to always trip on the top step of a staircase. It wasn't much of a problem when he was going up, but...

Another time I had the evil statue with gems eyes in the middle of the large pool of water place a curse on the person prying out the gems to be deathly afraid of water. That led to some immediate fun role-playing as the PC was fiercely proud, but was stranded on the statue with his party waiting for him to ask for help. It also elvolved the character who became alcoholic and always smelled somewhat antiseptic as he insisted on bathing with distilled alcohol.

 

[mmadsen]

The curses I'm talking about range from fairy-tale stuff like taking away someone's voice and turning someone ugly as sin to the darker stuff like vampirism and the many varieties of family curses.

By the way, for anyone interested in curses -- of the poetic justice variety, not just the -6 to one ability kind -- I recommend Ravenloft.

 

[Altalazar]

As I mentioned elsewhere, in Ravenloft, a PC wizard ignored a "no fishing" sign in a rather dark, yet quiet village - and soon after he found himself growing scales, gills, and a great need to keep his skin moist. Eventually, he had to research spells to keep his skin moist and his gills working ("air breathing") in order for him to operate on land. And that was one of the milder curses the group encountered. Btw, he never managed to overcome it - and to this day is still "aquaman" (as they started to call him...)