Cursed Items
Perhaps the most dangerous and insidious of all cursed items are those magic items whose intended functions are completely replaced by a curse. Yet even these items can have their uses, particularly as traps or weapons. The following are provided as specific examples of cursed items. Instead of prerequisites for construction, a typical cursed item is associated with one or more ordinary magic items whose botched creation might result in the cursed item. Cursed items can be sold as if they were the item they appear to be, provided the curse is not known to the buyer.
Aura: moderate divination and necromancyCLl: 11th
Price:
Weight: 1 lb.
When glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, the beatific expression of this child's rag doll twists into a malignant grin. The doll feeds off of violent emotion and anger. Each time anger flares or battle rages within 20 feet of the doll, there is a 5% chance the malevolent spirit within the doll awakens, manifesting as an advanced poltergeist. When this happens, the doll becomes incorporeal and floats into the air, the poltergeist's malevolent spirit invisibly surrounding it. The poltergeist's site bond ability is tied to the space it spawned in, and it immediately attacks those around it. When the poltergeist is slain, the doll turns corporeal again and falls to the ground, its spirit quelled for the time being. The spirit within the doll can be questioned using the call spirit* spell.
Owning a haunted doll leads to troubled dreams for the possessor, full of seemingly prophetic warnings of doom. Each night, there is a 10% chance that the owner needs to attempt a DC 20 Will save. On a failure, the owner gains no rest for the night and can't recover spells, pools, or other daily abilities.
Intended Magic Item
anatomy doll, hexing doll, ganji doll*
Aura: strong necromancyCLl: 13th
Price:
Weight: 2 lbs.
This dried and withered hand ends in a jagged stump. When it is touched against the arm stump of a humanoid who has lost a hand, the maniac hand bonds instantly and returns to a lifelike appearance. It shrinks or grows to match the size of its new owner, and transforms itself to match the hand lost, becoming either a right or left hand. After merging, an uneven scar and unhealthy hue identify it as alien to its new owner.
Attacks made with a maniac hand receive a +2 competence bonus on attack and damage rolls. In addition, when making a full attack, the wielder can accept a –2 penalty to AC in order to make one extra attack with the hand using the wielder's full base attack bonus. This benefit is not cumulative with similar effects, such as a haste spell. For the purposes of these bonuses, any weapon held in the maniac hand or in both hands qualifies, and the hand itself can deal damage as a slam attack appropriate to the wielder's size (1d4 for a Medium creature).
A maniac hand has an insidious will that slowly usurps control from the owner. It has Intelligence 8, Wisdom 12, and Charisma 10. Incapable of communication and bereft of rational thought, a maniac hand knows only an insatiable urge to destroy. When first attached, a maniac hand has an Ego score of 5. At least once each day, when presented with an opportunity to murder a friend or innocent without being witnessed, the maniac hand attempts to assert control using the rules for items against characters. If it succeeds, the hand takes control of its owner until it can commit the murder or 5 minutes pass, whichever comes first. The owner remembers nothing of the crime save a blinding rage, and the hand's Ego score returns to 5. If the hand fails to assert control, the owner feels a momentary surge of anger, but can't identify the source. Each day that passes without the hand's murderous impulse killing a creature of Intelligence 3 or higher, its Ego score increases by 1. If its Ego score increases above 20, the hand no longer cares for caution, and attempts murder regardless of the chance of getting caught.
A maniac hand that's denied the death of friends or innocents for more than 30 days turns against its owner. If in a position to sabotage the owner, such as by letting go of a rope, it attempts to assert control. It can assert control while the owner sleeps, strangling its host or seizing a weapon to deliver a coup de grace. The hand attempts such an act at most once per day. An owner willing to slaughter innocents can keep the hand satisfied by finding an innocent victim and voluntarily relinquishing control to the hand.
If the owner tries to rid herself of the maniac hand by destroying or amputating it, the hand resists to the best of its ability. It makes attacks and one-handed grapple attempts with its owner's own Strength and Dexterity scores, augmented by the hand's bonuses. The hand has an AC equal to its owner's touch AC, except with a +4 size bonus that stacks with its owner's size modifier. Its owner loses her Dexterity bonus against the hand's attacks, but the hand retains its Dexterity bonus against its owner. The hand's hp is equal to 1/4 that of its owner.
Successfully casting remove curse on a maniac hand prevents it from resisting amputation for 1 hour.
Intended Magic Item
hand of glory, hand of the mage, hand of stone
Aura: strong necromancyCLl: 15th
Price:
Weight: 45 lbs.
This normal mirror is roughly 4 feet long and 3 feet wide. It is similar to a mirror of opposition or mirror of life trapping, but it lacks a command word. A mirror of soul snaring has 15 extradimensional compartments within it. Any creature coming within 30 feet of the device and looking at its own reflection must succeed at a DC 23 Will save or have its soul sucked into one of the compartments. A creature not aware of the cursed nature of the device always sees its own reflection. The probability of a creature seeing its reflection and thus needing to attempt the saving throw drops to 50% if the creature is aware that the mirror is cursed and seeks to avoid looking at it (treat as a gaze attack).
When a creature's soul is trapped, its body remains outside of the mirror. The body becomes possessed by a malignant spirit who behaves in a way entirely opposed to how the trapped creature would. Treat this spirit as the creature, with a reversed alignment (and potentially other factors reversed, such as being an antipaladin instead of a paladin). In the case of neutral characters, the spirit can be either chaotic evil or lawful good as decided by the GM. The death of the creature's original body does not free its soul from the mirror, though if it is ever set free, it immediately passes on to the afterlife as it no longer has a body to inhabit.
If the mirror's capacity is exceeded, one victim's soul (determined randomly) is set free and immediately reconnects with its duplicate body if available. If the mirror is destroyed (hardness 1, 5 hit points), all victims currently trapped in it are freed. Unless the mirror is destroyed, not even a miracle or wish can restore the trapped creature's spirit to its body.
Intended Magic Item
mirror of life trapping, mirror of opposition
Aura: strong universalCLl: 20th
Price:
Weight: 1/2 lb.
This mummified monkey's hand bears the power to grant three wishes, but at a terrible cost. The paw can grant any request within the power of a wish spell, but the paw's curse twists the results to bring about despair. For example, a wish to prevent an erupting volcano from burying a town might drain the magma vault beneath the volcano, resulting in the town being swallowed up in a sinkhole when the vault collapses into a caldera. Careful wording to avoid negative effects simply results in the attempt failing without expending a wish. When the monkey's paw grants a wish, it writhes in the holder's grasp.
Once the third wish of a monkey's paw is used, it loses its power for those who used the wishes and their acquaintances, but regains its power once passed on to a stranger.
Intended Item
none; this is a unique cursed item