“Cursed” Magic Items From My Game

Last week: Auditing the Cursed Items of 5E D&D

I took a dive deep into my notes from the 5E games that I ran from 2017 to 2023 and came up with some interesting examples of "cursed" magic items, along with retrospective notes on how they were received. 

Storm Heresy Amulet (Magic, Amulet, Thunder, Lightning, Cursed). While attuned to this item, the wearer gains a +1 bonus to saving throws. They also gain resistance to fire and cold damage, as well as vulnerability to thunder and lightning damage. The item is cursed and cannot easily be removed or de-attuned.

This was one of the few items I found in my notes where the cursed status actually worked somewhat like how 5E's rules suggest, and prevent the wearer from de-attuning. In this instance it was applied to make it harder to swap item in and out, depending on the dangers faced. Note the +1 to saving throws makes the item compelling even if a PC expects that the resistances and vulnerabilities will be a wash.

Octopus Statue (Magic, Creepy). This small statue is clammy to the touch, and your breath smells faintly of seawater as long as you carry it. Once per day, if you roll a natural 8 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may reroll. You must use the new result. Each time you use this ability, tally one Coleoid Point.

Here’s a different drawback. The negative consequences of the item aren’t known until after considerable use. This one provides a nice bonus with a drawback of accumulating “points,” the effect of which is unknown… until the player accumulates too many. The player who found this item used it pretty judiciously, and never collected enough Coleoid Points for anything terrible to happen. If I recall correctly, it was either going to make them a were-octopus, or expose them to Aboleth influences. Possibly both!

Crown of the Dead (Magic, Necrotic, Attunement, Headgear). A creature attuned to the crown can assert control over a skeleton or zombie within 60 feet and issue commands to it as a bonus action. The wearer may control additional skeletons or zombies, but must make a concentration check at the end of each turn with DC = 12 + X, where X is the total number of undead controlled. The attuned creature takes on a semi-incorporeal appearance, is vulnerable to radiant damage, and has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as Wisdom (perception) checks that rely on sight, while in sunlight. If the creature is reduced to 0 hit points while attuned to the crown, it dies immediately, without making death saving throws.

I count this one as a miss. Controlling low-level undead is fun, but that’s a lot of drawbacks. I like the flavor that using it keeps the wearer closer to death, but most 5E players are not willing to play so fast and loose with their characters' fates.

Frogkind Frock (Magic, Cloak, Attunement). The wearer of this cloak can breathe both air and fresh water. They must spend at least one hour per day immersed in water or mud or suffer a level of exhaustion that is not removed until they spend a long rest in water or mud. The wearer cannot de-attune from the cloak as long as they are exhausted.

This one did see a little bit of use, and I like the flavor of conditional de-attunement, but it’s a lotta work for one payoff (breathing water – and freshwater only, at that). If I were to do another pass at this one, I would give it another frog-related power like BIG JUMPS or a stretchy tongue.

Brass Eyeball (Magic, Attunement). While attuned to this item, a character can see anything that the eye can see. The eye has hardness 5 and 20 HP. If destroyed, the attuned person's eye is also destroyed.

I think this one was also met with a resounding “nope!” from the PCs. While it is potentially quite useful, attunement in particular might have been too much of an ask; after the PCs found more unambiguously positive magic items, it was easy to discard stuff like this, and not have to worry about big conditional drawbacks. This would resonate a bit more in a high-lethality old-school game, where the risk of death and dismemberment is so much more up-front, and the risk inherent in a double-edged magic item like this would seem much more reasonable. 

Abyssal Chain Belt (Abyssal, Fire, Attunement). This belt is made of broken halos linked together to form a chain. While attuned to this item, your strength increases by 2, to a maximum of 22. You have resistance to fire damage and 60' telepathy for purposes of speaking to fiends, who can act as if they have cast the Detect Thoughts spell on you while within 30'. Once per day, you may use a bonus action to ignite your hands, dealing an additional 3d6 fire damage on the next successful unarmed strike, grapple, or shove in the ensuing minute.

This one was a hit; one of the more daring players wore it for a good chunk of an extended campaign. Characters will go through a lot of trouble for a standing stat bonus, and giving fiends the ability to mindread the wearer led to some interesting situations. This has some of the same energy as the Demon Armor from the last post, but in a way that creates more interesting choices. 

Ancient Hourglass (Magic, Expendable, Transmutation) When you break this small hourglass and inhale the air from the empty half, you stop the flow of time for as long as you can hold your breath. The effect ends early if one of your actions or any effect you create during this period affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you. A Timekeeper will hunt you down in 12 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes, and 12 seconds to punish you for your crime against chronality.

Cursed items are mostly associated with gear that the player is expected to hold onto for a long time, but the same principles can apply to expendable items as well. Stopping time is powerful (and I like the Dragonball Z idea of holding one’s breath to stop time). The eventual price of using this item is serious (the Timekeeper is a no-joke enemy).