1. All you can smell is burning.
2. The DM rolls twice as many encounters but half of them aren't real; only you thought something was approaching.
3. Every person has white hair and black eyes for you now.
4. Each creature you kill becomes a voice in chorus that questions your actions.
5. Perhaps they died bound or hung, but you no longer see rope.
6. You only heal if you carry something dead with you.
7. You can see lies.
8. You faint if left alone.
9. Gold smells like rotting flesh.
10. Everything is offkilter; only odd numbers work for you (to hit, it must be an odd number, to do damage it must be an odd number, to win initiative it must be an odd number, etc.).
11. Metal passes through you.
12. Animals are terrified of you.
13. Your clothes and gear seep blood constantly.
14. Every person that looks at you mistakes you for their most recently dead relative.
15. Food is as heavy as lead for you.
16. You can no longer see creatures that have drawn your blood.
17. When you speak, it comes out in an ancient, dead language.
18. No fire you make stays lit.
19. You no longer remember names.
20. Dead things regain life for as long as you touch them.
awesome, would also work as a corruption table.
ReplyDeleteExcellent, great list!
ReplyDeleteI am hosting the RPG Blog Carnival this month and the topic is horror. You should share this post there to let others know what you have here.
Those are some brutal effects there. Some of them are career enders for an adventurer - 8, 14, 16, 19 for ex.
ReplyDeleteRoll a 20 and you've probably got a lifetime job holding on to some royal's corpse, though.
18 makes careless fireball usage a lot safer, unless the effect manifests so fast the spell fizzles.
There has to be something ridiculous you can do with 15. Being bludgeoned to death with drumsticks, meatballs become lethal slingshot ammunition against the victim, etc. I wonder how much your dietary preferences affect it? Do vegans struggle to carry any theoretically edible plant, making a bouquet of flowers a serviceable club against them? And what about preparation, does "potential food" count? Do steak-lovers face certain failure in cow-tipping contests when confronted by impossibly heavy cattle? :)
Thank you all!
ReplyDelete@Dick: Yeah, I was hoping these might lead to some dicey and interesting situations until you get the curse removed somehow.
Number 11 might actually be kind of helpful (unless it really hurts when it happens) but it won't keep your clothing from getting hacked to bits and you'll need to wear gloves when you handle coins or to use some weapons. And you'll need to get naked to stroll through jail cell bars or portcullises and stuff, which is at least sort of inconvenient.
ReplyDelete9 can be interpreted several ways. If only you can smell the rot gold will be repellent to you, but what if any gold you handle reeks to everyone else but you can't smell it? That's going to cause some questions once people notice, and you're going to be really unpopular with stereotypical misers, Dwarves, and dragons.