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General Tabletop Discussion
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How cursed are cursed items?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 6938984"><p>This is a good point as more often then not historical "cursed" items were designed to have a specific effect for a specific person. It may have been a boon, it may have been a punishment. Then of course as mortals tend to do, that person died and the item moved to new hands. Those new hands then used the item, which affected them as it was designed to do, and then <em>that</em> person is usually the one that determined if the effect was a blessing or a curse, as they ran around like mad to all the houses of worship attempting to get the curse undone.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps the Belt of Gender Switch was designed for a daughter of a noble house, the family had only daughters and if they had no son, they would lose everything to whomever their eldest daughter married. So perhaps one of the daughters willingly became as man, in part to avoid the mandatory marrying-off of herself, in part to get all of her family's wealth, and in part to preserve the family name. </p><p></p><p>Then the belt was passed down in the family, and several generations later the family had only sons. All but the eldest would get nothing but they made the best of it and went off to war, in the meantime, the eldest son was tricked by a witch he had robbed into wearing the family heirloom belt, thus transforming him into a woman, a short while later, it was found that the remaining sons had all died, gone missing or become monks and forsworn the family fortune. The belt, once a blessing on the family, was now a curse. And THAT is the one that wrote the story of the belt that lives to this day, never mentioning the belt had once been secretly used to successfully secure the family name.</p><p></p><p>As you say, the DM should figure out what the "intended use" of the supposedly cursed item was before including it at the table. That's not to say there aren't some items that might only exist to be punishments and thus be universally seen as "curses" but those too can have their uses if the party is clever.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 6938984"] This is a good point as more often then not historical "cursed" items were designed to have a specific effect for a specific person. It may have been a boon, it may have been a punishment. Then of course as mortals tend to do, that person died and the item moved to new hands. Those new hands then used the item, which affected them as it was designed to do, and then [I]that[/I] person is usually the one that determined if the effect was a blessing or a curse, as they ran around like mad to all the houses of worship attempting to get the curse undone. Perhaps the Belt of Gender Switch was designed for a daughter of a noble house, the family had only daughters and if they had no son, they would lose everything to whomever their eldest daughter married. So perhaps one of the daughters willingly became as man, in part to avoid the mandatory marrying-off of herself, in part to get all of her family's wealth, and in part to preserve the family name. Then the belt was passed down in the family, and several generations later the family had only sons. All but the eldest would get nothing but they made the best of it and went off to war, in the meantime, the eldest son was tricked by a witch he had robbed into wearing the family heirloom belt, thus transforming him into a woman, a short while later, it was found that the remaining sons had all died, gone missing or become monks and forsworn the family fortune. The belt, once a blessing on the family, was now a curse. And THAT is the one that wrote the story of the belt that lives to this day, never mentioning the belt had once been secretly used to successfully secure the family name. As you say, the DM should figure out what the "intended use" of the supposedly cursed item was before including it at the table. That's not to say there aren't some items that might only exist to be punishments and thus be universally seen as "curses" but those too can have their uses if the party is clever. [/QUOTE]
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