My players are pretty wealthy and don't have much to spend their hard earned gold on. So, I was thinking of having what amounts to a gambling sort of magic item shop. I would have a list of items that are valuable looking at face value, and a secret list of what the items actually turn out to be, such as a +1 weapon. Lots of it would be conventional items, but a few of them would be magic, either with a beneficial buff or a curse. The shop would be protected from the Identify magic spell and would have an eccentric shopkeeper, and he would be right on the border of Leland Gaunt from Needful things.
I want to railroad them into one cursed item that hooks them into getting rid of it, and want to see if anyone has any interesting ideas. My group tends towards heavy armor, so I was thinking of putting a set of cursed plate armor in the shop and and use that as a hook to get rid of the curse. Any thoughts or ideas here?
I created a cursed item that was found on a variant of Undying Soldier that I called the Undying Shield and Undying Plate. They were created in the heat of the moment as the player characters were looting, so there are some errors with the items but it was basically a case of wear this armour and for each hour you do, you'll suffer a level of exhaustion.
So, I just recently found the joy which is ChatGPT and I won't lie, I'm just abusing the daylights out of it. I have a discussion going now that it just feeds items for a magic curiousities shop called "The Voodoo and Taboo". It seems to like to give things a horrible price attached to them and nothing it says is ready for prime time but it's relatively fast and it's conversational enough that I can quickly get an idea or two in front of myself.
"The Bloodthorn Armor" is a set of armor made from the bones of a demonic creature, rumored to grant its wearer increased strength and endurance. Those who wear the armor are said to be able to absorb the life force of their enemies, replenishing their own health. However, the armor's powers come with a price: as the wearer absorbs more life force, they begin to feel a constant hunger that can only be satisfied by taking more lives. Over time, the wearer risks becoming consumed by their own bloodlust and losing themselves to the armor's power.
I might turn it into something like a breast plate of bones and then tweek the downside a bit but there you go for AI generation...
There's a tourist trap shop in Seattle with this name, which is what I was expecting you to talk about. Anyway, among all the keychains and T-shirts, there is an actual mummified person in the shop. Just throwing that out there.
But why railroad them into buying the cursed item, why not just put it in a treasure hoard? For me, at least, I wouldn't be at all resentful about finding a cursed item in a hoard, but I would if I paid for it. It would be pretty upsetting to buy something and find out it was cursed, as a player more than as a character. Partly, I'd be annoyed at my DM for tricking me like that. I mean, you're taking steps to not even give them a chance to figure out the trick. I'd be pretty frustrated at a DM doing that. At least let them try and figure out if its cursed, first. If they don't try, or try and fail, that's on them, but if you don't even allow it, it's pretty forced. And as a player, if I found out I couldn't identify or detect magic in the store, that would be a huge red flag, and I would not buy anything in there.
Also, I'll note that by RAW, identify doesn't show curses, anyway. "Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it." So, banning identify in the shop would actually tip players off, when it doesn't need to.
Throw it in a treasure hoard, however, and all bets are off. Probably they'll just put it on and go.
My DM had a magic item auction/estate sale in an eccentric mage's house. Each room of the house had something neat and thematic - the garden had rubber boots that cast Grease, the parlor had gloves that cast illusion spells (parlor tricks...get it?), and so on. We blew so much money on these items and had fun bidding against each other.
My players are pretty wealthy and don't have much to spend their hard earned gold on. So, I was thinking of having what amounts to a gambling sort of magic item shop. I would have a list of items that are valuable looking at face value, and a secret list of what the items actually turn out to be, such as a +1 weapon. Lots of it would be conventional items, but a few of them would be magic, either with a beneficial buff or a curse. The shop would be protected from the Identify magic spell and would have an eccentric shopkeeper, and he would be right on the border of Leland Gaunt from Needful things.
I want to railroad them into one cursed item that hooks them into getting rid of it, and want to see if anyone has any interesting ideas. My group tends towards heavy armor, so I was thinking of putting a set of cursed plate armor in the shop and and use that as a hook to get rid of the curse. Any thoughts or ideas here?
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I created a cursed item that was found on a variant of Undying Soldier that I called the Undying Shield and Undying Plate. They were created in the heat of the moment as the player characters were looting, so there are some errors with the items but it was basically a case of wear this armour and for each hour you do, you'll suffer a level of exhaustion.
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So, I just recently found the joy which is ChatGPT and I won't lie, I'm just abusing the daylights out of it. I have a discussion going now that it just feeds items for a magic curiousities shop called "The Voodoo and Taboo". It seems to like to give things a horrible price attached to them and nothing it says is ready for prime time but it's relatively fast and it's conversational enough that I can quickly get an idea or two in front of myself.
I might turn it into something like a breast plate of bones and then tweek the downside a bit but there you go for AI generation...
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There's a tourist trap shop in Seattle with this name, which is what I was expecting you to talk about. Anyway, among all the keychains and T-shirts, there is an actual mummified person in the shop. Just throwing that out there.
But why railroad them into buying the cursed item, why not just put it in a treasure hoard? For me, at least, I wouldn't be at all resentful about finding a cursed item in a hoard, but I would if I paid for it. It would be pretty upsetting to buy something and find out it was cursed, as a player more than as a character. Partly, I'd be annoyed at my DM for tricking me like that. I mean, you're taking steps to not even give them a chance to figure out the trick. I'd be pretty frustrated at a DM doing that. At least let them try and figure out if its cursed, first. If they don't try, or try and fail, that's on them, but if you don't even allow it, it's pretty forced. And as a player, if I found out I couldn't identify or detect magic in the store, that would be a huge red flag, and I would not buy anything in there.
Also, I'll note that by RAW, identify doesn't show curses, anyway. "Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it." So, banning identify in the shop would actually tip players off, when it doesn't need to.
Throw it in a treasure hoard, however, and all bets are off. Probably they'll just put it on and go.
My DM had a magic item auction/estate sale in an eccentric mage's house. Each room of the house had something neat and thematic - the garden had rubber boots that cast Grease, the parlor had gloves that cast illusion spells (parlor tricks...get it?), and so on. We blew so much money on these items and had fun bidding against each other.
Run an auction and have cursed item sold as this you beaut piece of kit that they can't do without.