So ye seek the lost treasure of Karrag Voraldo, do ye? There’s a tale about Voraldo told in the taverns of Shadow Port that ye should know, then. They say that during the Age of Corsairs he was a trusted lieutenant of the King of Corsairs himself, until greed overcame him. He began lying to the King about the loot he’d won while sailing under the King’s patronage, so he could keep a larger share for himself. When the King discovered this treachery, he laid a curse upon Voraldo: from that moment on, only cursed treasure would find its way to him. If the tales are true, such items are powerful—but they carry a cost. . . .
Cursed Item Rules (from 13 True Ways)
If the magic item’s curse is minor, its default bonus is standard (e.g., +1 at adventurer tier). These cursed weapons and armor are just plain worse than a basic magic item of the same type. A hero might use one if they can’t get their hands on a decent item, or if something terrible happens to their normal weapon and they have to scrounge in the middle of a battle.
If the curse is major, the item has a default bonus as if it were a higher-tier item (e.g., an adventurer-tier sword with a +2 bonus instead of +1). A hero might be interested in using one of these weapons because they see that benefit as being so good.
Wade Says: If I introduced a cursed magic item into my campaign, there’s no way it would simply be worse than a basic item! To me, cursed magic is an opportunity to give players an interesting choice. Is the benefit enticing enough to accept the downside of owning such an item?
Three Cursed Pirate Items
The Cursed Compass: Once per full heal-up, this battered compass points unerringly toward whatever location you wish to travel to—for example, the Dwarf King’s treasure chamber, the Stone Thief’s exit, the lair of the evil wizard you’re supposed to kill. When you use this item, roll 1d20. On a 1-5, sometime in the near future the needle spins wildly with enough speed to make the compass vibrate, and then it comes to a stop. You must go at once in the direction the needle points toward and perform whatever task awaits you there. The task will be obvious due to its strangeness or urgency. It might be dangerous, or completely safe; you might complete it with a single action, or the task might span several game sessions. The task will not be relevant in any way to your current situation: whatever supernatural force controls the compass, these tasks are vitally important to it but not to you. Quirk: Highly suggestible.
Shipmate in a Bottle (wondrous item): A corked glass bottle containing a small piece of lead suspended pendulum-wise from a string. Anyone adjacent to the item hears a guttural voice speaking in a hollow whisper. The voice belongs to “Old Sam”, the ghost of a widely-traveled sailor from a long-ago age. When you attune this item, you gain a bonus +5 background “Shipmate in a bottle” that can be used for skill checks appropriate to a sailor or pirate. Each time you use this background, roll 1d20. On a 1, the bottle shatters and Old Sam emerges as a dybbuk (13th Age Bestiary, p. 63). He will pursue and attack you until either you die or he is destroyed while in his ethereal form. Quirk: You find yourself singing strange sea shanties that cause seasoned sailors to look at you in fear and quickly leave.
Driftwood Cutlass (+2 adventurer, +3 champion, +4 epic): This gnarled wooden blade has a crit range of 18+ when fighting on or within a body of water, and against aquatic monsters in any environment. However, you take a -1 penalty to AC and PD. Quirk: You feel an urge to brag about your exploits, especially in situations where bragging about your exploits would be a bad idea.
Adventure hooks
Topsy Turvy—An icon comes into possession of a cursed magic item from Voraldo’s hoard. It could be an icon the heroes have a relationship with, or one that’s not normally involved in the events of the campaign. When the item is used, a heroic icon temporarily becomes villainous, a villainous icon becomes heroic, and an ambiguous icon swings wildly between both extremes. How much damage they do before they recover their senses depends on the tier and the tone of the campaign. It could be as dire as the Emperor declaring war on the Elf Queen and Dwarf King; or it might be relatively harmless but chaotic, like the Lich King cheerfully showing up in Rabbleward with a legion of zombies and skeletons to help poor families.
Voraldo’s Ghost—The scroll that marks the location of the cursed treasure also says the King of Corsairs gave Voraldo a way to free himself—and his treasure—from the curse. What the King required was so intolerable to Voraldo that he couldn’t bring himself to do it in life. If the heroes can find Voraldo’s bones and summon his ghost, maybe they can persuade him to do it in undeath. Possible complications include:
- Voraldo tells the heroes that to lift the curse he has to apologize to the King. Now the heroes have to find the King’s bones and summon his ghost in Voraldo’s presence. If they succeed, how does that conversation go?
- If the group lacks a necromancer, does the one they enlist to help have an agenda of their own?
- Once he’s freed from the curse, will Voraldo let the heroes keep his newly non-cursed treasure? Or will his greed once again overcome his sense of honor?
- Multiple icons might consider Voraldo’s treasure rightfully theirs. Can the heroes prevent a diplomatic incident, or even war? More importantly, can they figure out how to make the icons happy while keeping the treasure for themselves?
- Once summoned, can Voraldo’s ghost be put down again? Maybe he feel like exploring the world and raising hell on the high seas again!
- Is this whole thing a trick? Is that really Voraldo they’re summoning, or someone much more dangerous?
13th Age combines the best parts of traditional d20-rolling fantasy gaming with new story-focused rules, designed so you can run the kind of game you most want to play with your group. 13th Age gives you all the tools you need to make unique characters who are immediately embedded in the setting in important ways; quickly prepare adventures based on the PCs’ backgrounds and goals; create your own monsters; fight exciting battles; and focus on what’s always been cool and fun about fantasy adventure gaming. Purchase 13th Age in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.