Personal Curse
I feel for ya, Thief! It can’t be any fun walking into an adventure with expectations of fair and balanced content, only to find yourself beset by ill-conceived homebrew. That’s the kind of bush-league GMing you’d expect from a total noob!
Is it time for another tale from the table? Does a Hydra Butt treatment require miniature torches?
So no shit there I was, GMing your run-of-the-mill wererat transformation sequence. This exercise in lycanthropy was a special request by a first-time player, and so I aimed to give him the rodential extravaganza he’d hoped for.
“You barely register as the others burst into your room, drawn by the sound of your screaming. Your flesh boils. The incisors of your upper jaw ache, then they thrust down like knife points against your tongue. You taste blood, but that pain is nothing compared to the grinding, crunching sensation of your spine as it grows and contracts by turns.”
Yadda yadda, transformationFlavorText.exe. It was a suitably gritty bit of body horror. But as much as I enjoy a creepy transformation sequence, it was the mechanics that I was really proud of.
You see, I’d done my research. I’d read a whole blog article! And as such I knew that handing out free lycanthropy in 5e would be ever so slightly unbalanced. That’s why I decided to make Stage 1 of the curse even shittier than the suggested “you get some stat adjustments.”
The scene played out like so. “Something huge and heavy is smothering you. There are predators all around, lumbering and deadly. The prey-animal’s fear takes hold. Run run run! And the rest of you guys? You see a fat gray rat struggle out of the sweat-soaked bedlinens. Your friend is gone. Only this tiny beast remains, its beady eyes black and darting.”
TLDR: My plan was to give the guy Wild Shape [rat only] for the first few levels. The initial “resist the rat instincts” of that first shapeshift would be a fun introduction to the ability. If all went according to play, the innkeeper’s cat would attack and poof poor rat-bro back to normal. That’s not exactly how it went though.
“The rat has the initiative!”
“So I have to run away? Cool. I skitter across the floor to the safety of the wardrobe. Maybe I can hide under there?”
“You motor your little legs. You find yourself passing over the elf’s foot…”
“Eek,” said the elf, which was more or less obligatory.
“…And as you squeeze your plump little rat body halfway under the wardrobe, you suddenly realize the horrible truth. You’ve just triggered an attack of opportunity!”
The resident rogue, who had aced the initiative and readied an attack, executed flawlessly. “I still have my shoe held up like a hammer, right? Well not knowing what else to do, I smack the rat’s ass to keep it from running away.”
The shoe dropped. Rat booty was summarily spanked. And because rats have only one hit point, the form fell away to reveal an unhappy wizard, now wedged beneath the wardrobe. (The aforementioned cat turned out to be unnecessary.)
Now up to this point, all these shenanigans had gone pretty much according to plan. But as the giggling died down, someone piped up: “So like, how does this work? He transforms into a rat whenever you smack his ass with a shoe?”
The rogue again: “I smack his ass with a shoe!”
It is moments like these when you’ve got to make a choice as a DM. You can either present your players with the mechanics you’ve researched, written down, and intended as part of a reasonable progression. Or you can give your nascent wererat a highly specific chancla-related mental block. I’ll let the permanent shoe marks on our wizard’s ass speak for themselves.
How about the rest of you guys? Have you ever improvised a curse / magical effect on the spur of the moment? What was it? How did it work? And was it immediately abused by all and sundry? Tell us your tale of esoteric effects and unique homebrew down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Thrice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Hey, you actually did it! And so soon after you thought it up. ^_^
My medusa butt and I salute you!
Look on the bright side, Thief. Now you can cosplay as a multi-tail Kitsune.
Thief as Ahri? I’m not sure the internet could handle it.
[ The other handbook will remember this comic ]
Yeah it will.
Thief just tripled her Sleight of Hand check potential, assuming her tails are prehensile.
Can’t use your tails to pick pockets, which is a shame.
You just need the right suplement. WFRP 2nd edition book Tome of Corruption has mutation of prehensile tail. Allows you to carry the torch with shield and sword or have the shield protect ypu when you swing the twohanded weapon. Drawside, you are a mutant and all non-Norscan will want to kill you immidiately.
I was talking Pathfinder, due to the Tiefling.
Well I mean, if you took the trait/feat I’d allow it.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/grasping-tail-tiefling
What’s the harm in a little reflavoring?
WOG is that RAW and RAI you can’t. It would need to be a house-rule.
Just use some very liberal and creative home brewing then. The fact that suplement is for another system is no reason to not use the ideas in another game… Warhammer just makes the process easy as it probably already has it due to the setting having zero original ideas to begin with 😀
Does Medusa Butt Syndrome involve snakes, or petrification of those who dare gaze upon it?
For Wizard’s (and probably Fighter’s) sake, I hope it’s the former.
Summoner is also getting sent to the stone-zone if nearby.
I can just picture a medusa themed pro wrestler sending her victims to THE STONE ZONE!!!!1!!!11
I assumed it just means that her butt has a number of tails more akin to a medua’s hair than a hydra’s necks.
Rare genetic disorder is a pretty crude way of saying ‘Your infernal/abyssal ancestors have some weird surprises for you’.
Consequently, I await to see Bad Cat develop multiple Kitty Tails of Charming.
lol @ expecting internal consistency from this comic.
Embarassing? More like potential-3-extra-attacks.
The edge she’ll need to win a life-or-death catfight with Witch.
She’d need nine tails to have any effect on a catfight.
She’d have to get Pug to teach her.
https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/feats/racial-feats/tail-terror-combat-kobold
The more tails you have, the more likely you are to encounter a Rabid Con-Goer or Grabby Cosplay Fan in a convention random encounter.
Thief is familiar with this problem:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/con-con
The real question is: was that a one-shot joke, and she’s just a cure disease or remove curse away from being healed… or will the three-tailed wonder be now a feature?
Depends on how much extra work it is for Laurel to draw those bonus tails every time from this point onwards. 😀
Should this be the monthly poll for our Quest Givers over on Patreon?
To spice up a trip through the wilderness I threw in a creepy old lady who was very obviously a Hag. One of the players immediately declared they wanted to pick her pocket. Now I am a firm believer that PCs exist in the world and should know things that players might not, so I let him roll a relephant Intelligence check to know what hags are, and a Wisdom check to have the option to back out of his decision. He succeeded and I asked if he wanted to proceed. He declined.
Had he followed through I would have done something really mean as a curse: Food tastes like ash in his mouth and provides no nourishment, but his coins smell delicious. He would have to eat a certain amount of his wealth in place of food every day as punishment for his greed.
That’s a fun curse. Though perhaps not as funny as the spell Aristocrat/Kalistocrat’s Nightmare:
https://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Kalistocrat%27s%20Nightmare
Very nice! I imagine that pocket change is starvation rations, while a platinum is a four-course meal.
Do they get any special ability to chew/digest the coins, or is it as uncomfortable as it sounds?
I’ve thought up a bunch of curses (Pathfinder 1E can have lots of fun with it).
Make a Barbarian perceive everyone as his most hated enemy. Except for the voice.
I cursed myself so I couldn’t feel emotions (and thus couldn’t be scared of a lich) and that took the DM off guard. (No moral bonuses…or penalties!)
Curses can be lots of fun to those who think outside the box.
That emotion-based one is clever… And also possibly unbalanced.
I know I’ve seen it in the Android’s “constructed” trait…
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/more-races/advanced-races-11-20-rp/android-16-rp/
…But the ability to turn it off again with a “remove curse” means that you rarely run into the downsides.
I dunno. I’d probably allow it at my table, but I’m not sure if I’d print it in a supplement (if that makes sense as a metric). Still, it’s clever thinking all the way around!
A tail is a terrible thing to loose. On a game we made the race we were playing all got tail and used it for balance but also direction and expression on dark caves were they lived. Losing their tail wasn’t a good thing and an outright shame in the case of the warriors 🙂
Hey, I know a warrior race like that!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtqIsznXMAIwgrJ?format=jpg&name=small
Except Saiyans didn’t managed to conquer the world and didn’t ate souls 😀
The Ralma, ours, did 🙂
Then their empire fell and then their emperor proclaimed the reclamation and new conquer of the world 🙂
Hmm, I’ve made partially cursed magic items before (literally at player request), but I’m not sure I’ve done a literally in the moment curse. As for magical effects, nothing that really went beyond special effects.
Everything else I’ve had at least some time to think about before throwing it out into the world. Which doesn’t really mean it’s necessarily going to work any better, more like I have less of an excuse if it doesn’t. =P
Well now you’ve got me curious. What were these “partially cursed” magic items?
I think I might have listed some of these before, so I’ll just throw out a few examples. But there’s several others of the same provenance (a magically traveling pawn shop), though not all of them are cursed. Some are merely odd.
[Amber Bracelet of the Slippery Fish]
-A thick amber bangle with a tiny fish inside. If you look at it for a bit you notice the fish moves through the bangle very slowly.
-While underwater you have advantage on grappling checks and checks to escape bindings and entanglements. This includes saving throws against spells like Entangle, Ensnaring Strike, Evard’s Black Tentacles, and other similar spells and effects.
-While wearing the bangle you are convinced you can speak with fish. Only after trying to do so do you realize you cannot. Ten minutes later you resume believing you can speak with fish.
[Bone Eater’s Bracelet]
-A thick bone bangle with jade beads (the pieces of the bangle are attached by the jade so it clacks a bit).
-The wearer’s teeth are always strong and healthy and any adult teeth they lose grow back within 24 hours.
-The wearer gains a bite attack that deals 1d4+Str mod damage. If the wearer already has or gains a bite attack, instead that attack deals +1 damage.
-At the start of each day this item gains 1d4 charges. It can hold 8 charges. It starts with 0 charges.
-6 Charges: The wearer may reroll any d20 they just rolled with disadvantage.
-The wearer gains the Flaw: My favorite food is the bone marrow of undead creatures.
[Cloak of the Luckless Crow]
-A cloak made of crow feathers
– +1 to Stealth and Sleight of Hand checks
– 1 Charge: As a bonus action, cast Bane (DC 15). The spell lasts for its full duration without need of concentration. When you do so, you also cast Bane on yourself.
-The cloak can hold three charges, it starts with one charge. A charge is gained when the wearer rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll, saving throw, initiative check, or skill check.
-Anyone who has worn the cloak in the last 24 hours has disadvantage on luck based checks, such as most types of games of chance.
-When involved in warfare, the wearer may summon 8 swarms of crows (swarm of ravens stats) once per day.
[Venom’s Piercing Gleam]
-A brass figurine of a snake wrapped around and through a larger snake skull
-A minor artifact, a holy item of Zehir.
-Venom’s Piercing Gleam has the following effects on everything within 500 feet:
-Undead and Fiends in the area lose immunity and resistance to poison damage and lose immunity to the poisoned condition.
-Any creature in the area that kills a snake or any creature that kills a snake in the area becomes poisoned for the next 24 hours, even if they are normally immune to the poisoned condition.
-Creatures in the area that do some other kind of action that would anger Zehir may suffer other various kinds of consequences. Killing Yuan-ti is specifically not on the list of actions that would provoke a response.
-Snake-like creatures, celestials, fiends, divine magic users, and priests of Zehir can sense the artifact’s power while within its area.
-Snake-like creatures that touch Venom’s Piercing Gleam have their poison effects’ DCs increase by 1 and deal an additional 1d6 poison damage for 1 year. If they lack an attack that deals poison damage, one natural attack they have or a new unarmed bite attack they gain has a DC 10 save for 1d6 poison damage.
-Snake-like creatures are drawn to this artifact.
Would miniature torches work on a Tiefling’s hydra tail?
Fire resistance probably ruins that plan.
You’ve only got to deal 1 points of damage. Just enough to get through.
not a curse, but a cursed item (gnomish-made).
my 2ed “ever-stinking boots of mud” made the wearer leave glowing muddy boot-marks that smelled of rutting meat wherever they went.
the prints would stay for 24 hours and could not be dispelled without lifting the curse from the boots first. (which would also allow the wearer to remove said boots). point was wandering monsters tend to be one of two groups. those who looked for food without much intellect, and those who followed foot prints of invaders.
this let both track the owner for days.
Not to mentioned most shops and such wouldn’t let them in once they see the mess they leave behind…
I ran my first campaign with virtually no actual play under my belt. Never as fast and loose as some games I’ve heard of (I read the books), but I was infatuated with randomness and zaniness. Player didn’t fade to black so congrats on your magical venereal disease sparkle dick. In hindsight I should have pulled him aside and set some ground rules for the table.