Curses!

[goken04]

What are some of the most flavorful and fun curses you've seen in a game or even in literature or games? I'm looking for ideas for an upcoming game I'm running. It doesn't have to be something that fits into Bestow Curse at all!

I think one of my personal favorites was the curse put on the Changeling Bard in Crystal Cantrips, SilverClawShift's second campaign journal. She was physically unable to make any noise at all. Poetic and cool.

[arguskos]

The best ones tend to be something that matter to the character. For example, I saw a character once that was a paragon of goodness, forced into a deal with a devil (not coerced, but had to make one due to a lack of options). The devil performed his part of the deal to the letter, didn't cause any trouble at all. The only thing he asked in return? That the paragon of good be branded with a mark of Hell for 1 year.

That was an interesting RP experience.

[Yukitsu]

I've given a druid a fetish for wearing metal armour.

I cursed a man such that he couldn't feel, taste, smell, see or hear anything (seperate curses).

I cursed a man such that every time he tried to say "curse" or any related word, he'd instead say "disease".

I cursed a man such that when he died, the first person to find him would be the person who most cared about him.

I cursed another man such that he would be killed by the person that most cared about him. (As well as enough curses to make him into a monster that needed to be killed anyway.)

I cursed a man such that whenever he lied, his skin would itch, badly.

I cursed a person into having weak amnesia, then cursed them again, such that they got distracted whenever they tried to remember something.

I cursed a man such that the pain he felt at that exact moment would never dim, after I had cast wrack on him.

[Project_Mayhem]

I cursed a man such that when he died, the first person to find him would be the person who most cared about him.

Given that it's so easy to be raised in D&D, surely this is a blessing?

[Yukitsu]

Given that it's so easy to be raised in D&D, surely this is a blessing?

By the time he did die, he didn't want anything to do with life any more, was my guess.

[Chrizzt]

We have a female half-orc barbarian (barbaress?) in our group, who likes to do stuff that no other sane person would do (or to be more precise, whose player wants to provoke the DM). Once, while this barbarian was in her house, an infant was teleported before her fireplace with a message that we should care about that child.... Well, she kneaded the child in bones until the infant was dead.. My character discovered that, however, managed to raise the child from the dead (more precise: used an artifact that somehow can unstably control time and made a rewind for the child).

As a punishment, I cursed the barbarian to be unable to harm anyone until they have harmed her first (with the small exception that the barbarian can still attack on my command).

Given the aggressive nature of this character, this may become even funnier. A gnome, who has been called Mr Stinky by this barbarian, has already figured out about the curse and has had a "stinky" revenge : )

[Ichneumon]

Forcing someone to always lie, causes some confusion.

[Project_Mayhem]

Forcing someone to always lie, causes some confusion.

But is nowhere near as bad as forcing someone to always speak the truth

[lsfreak]

But is nowhere near as bad as forcing someone to always speak the truth

Eh... that depends. Throw a curse that forces lies on, say, the diplomat between two cold-war nations and watch everything explode.

[quicker_comment]

Eh... that depends. Throw a curse that forces lies on, say, the diplomat between two cold-war nations and watch everything explode.

Casting a curse on diplomats involved in a cold war to force them to lie to each other seems very much like casting a curse on fish to make them swim.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, I once made a really cool character with a cursed ribbon on his arm that caused constitution damage, and then the DM threw a brick at my window... This seems to happen to a lot of people... giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93633

A PC priest in my group once cursed a (fellow PC) holy warrior that whenever he would use a shield in combat, it would break. It took him a few shields to catch on to that one.

One of the funnest that I've heard about from somebody else's campaign is that wherever the character would travel, there it would rain. Since the campaign took them underground for long times, it took them quite a while to figure out that whenever they surfaced, it would rain.