Curses

From punishing afflictions to poetic justice, curses are synonymous with dark fantasy. Curses are powerful spells reserved by dark casters for those they feel have truly wronged them. Curses channel dark emotions and vengeance, and grow in power when cast with spiteful intent. Woe befalls the fool who takes hag pacts lightly.

Curses are dark magic fueled by malice and other hostile emotions. While they are not restricted to characters by alignment, casting a curse is an evil deed. The following classes add all curses to their spell lists:
• Bard
• Cleric
• Druid
• Sorcerer
• Warlock
• Wizard

Components
Casting a curse requires spell components that bear a specific connection to the target of the curse. When casting a curse, the spellcaster must have all required components in their possession, regardless of any spellcasting focus or components pouch they possess.
Shadowsteel
Shadowsteel is a dark combination of metallurgy and insidious sorcery. Due to its ability to hold dark magic, Shadowsteel is a required component for dark mages looking to cast curses. As each curse requires a component made of Shadowsteel, the availability of the resource can be tailored to your campaign, depending on how available your GM wishes curses to be.

Curse Strength Table
Curses are spells of dark emotions and twisted fate, gaining power depending on the circumstances of their use. A curse cast with the dying breath of a betrayed lover will bear considerably more power than a run-of-themill curse. When determining the spell DC of a curse, use the spellcaster’s DC and consult the table below for
modifiers:
Knowledge of
the Target
Save Modifier
Secondhand -10
Firsthand -5
Familiar 0
Target’s
Transgression
Save Modifier (only the highest applies)
Broke a deal +2
Sworn enemy +7
Egregious betrayal +10
Desecrated your home +8
Spiteful envy +5
These are examples of modifiers for curses, based on the relationship between the caster and the target. A GM can modify or expand these to suit the needs of their game.

Triggering Event
Curses often have no immediate effect upon casting. Curses lie dormant within a target until they complete a task or action that satisfies their triggering event. For example, a target cursed with the curse of ravenous hunger will suffer no effects until they consume their next meal.
Upon completing the Triggering Event, the target will automatically start the effects of the curse at stage 1.

Stage Progression
While curses are dangerous magic, they take time to reach full power. Curses develop in 3 stages. As a curse progresses through the stages, it becomes more harmful to the afflicted. Whenever a cursed creature fails an escalation check, they advance to the next stage of the curse. The effects of a new stage are in addition to those of previous stages.
If an effect contradicts another, use the effect from the greater stage.

Escalation
Escalation represents the curse gaining power as time goes on. At dawn once a day, a cursed creature must make an escalation check to see if their curse escalates. To pass, a creature needs to roll an unmodified d20, and obtain a score greater than the number of checks they have made on this stage. On a failed save, the cursed creature applies the effects of the next stage of the curse, in addition to any previous stages.
For example, a creature who has just been cursed makes an escalation check the following dawn. They must roll greater than a 1. The next day the DC will increase to 2, and so on. If, on the 5th dawn, they roll a 5 or less, the curse escalates to the second stage. They apply any new effects and reset the DC to 1.

Culmination
All curses have a culmination. This is the final intent of the curse, and often involves transforming the victim into a twisted creature, barely resembling who they once were. Culminations are truly evil effects and are almost always permanent. When a creature fails an escalation check at stage 3 of a curse, they apply the effects of the curse’s culmination. They continue to apply the effects of the previous stages, but cease making escalation checks. Once a curse’s culmination has been reached, it can only be cured with the use of a wish spell.

Curing
Once they have begun, curses are notoriously difficult to cure. Many adventurers have fallen to a curse before they were able to gather the components to cure it. As a result, it is not unheard of for travelling mystics to carry multiple curing ingredients with them, to sell for exorbitant prices. To cure a curse, a cursed creature must be
targeted with the remove curse spell. In addition, a number of cure components are required equal to the number of stages their curse has escalated to. For example, a curse that has escalated to stage 3 requires 3 cure components as well as a remove curse spell.
The following items outline a number of cure components that can be found within the world. A GM can include additional components based on their setting, campaign story or game mechanic they wish to include.

Hag’s promise. A potion brewed by hags, purposely named confusingly.
A strand of hair from the lost but not found. From a pillow or other possession of a lost person.
A twice-murdered raven. A raven that has been killed, resurrected, then killed again.
The highest pinecone of a forest. Found with a lot of climbing.
A clock which runs backwards. Casting slow and haste on a timepiece will cause it to tick backwards.
A black pearl, harvested but a week ago. Found with a lot of swimming.
A book that has never been read. From a publisher or printing press.
A rose that grows in darkness but not sunlight. A rare flower known as a Black Rose.
A life willingly given. Someone willing to sacrifice themself to cure the cursed.
Wish. A wish granted by a spell or entity