Cursed/Intelligent Items and Weapons

What have been your most memorable cursed, intelligent, and/or magic items?
For example, In my current campaign we have a Witch hunter themed Inquisitor who has an intelligent cursed longsword that has an extreme hatred towards arcane casters but imposes negative levels and silence to any arcane caster that wields it.
How about you guys, Veeky Forums? Anything flavorful, interesting, or just plain dumb?

We once had an intelligent Helmet of Blindsense, who would tell you where to go, often into walls or other objets. We later found out it was originally a poorly-sighted wizard who accidentally misread his spell and sealed his soul into the helmet. It was a blast to use...

The wizard's name was Fred, and he talked like the character of the same name from Courage, the Cowardly Dog. I was the character who wore fullplate and wore Fred on my head. It looked like a Full-Faced Gladiator's Helm with no eye holes.

>Veeky Forums uses anything that's not already spoon fed to them in the books

I'm a big fan of putting sapient, malevolent demons in swords. Aware of their surroundings, and actively shit-talking whoever is wielding their prison.

Had a sentient sword that was pretty much just a piece of shit, any time a character would roll to bluff or when they weren't bluffing, the sword would try to convince the NPC that the PC was actually plotting against them, giving them massive negative modifiers. But the sword gave some pretty good stats which did give my players some qualms before melting it down

I've got two from Eberron game.

One was a byeshk (heavy purple metal) flail used to kill a Daelkyr (oddly human-like aberration from the plane of madness, pretty powerful for the setting) during their war with hobgoblins. Some of the Daelkyr's essense stuck with the weapon, having random effects like rage, confusion, fear, etc. on crits. It targetet the enemy hit on 20 and the wielder on 1

Another was a greatsword with a shard of Rak Tulkhesh's (demonic overlord, extremely powerful fiend and embodiment of rage, hatred and war, bound to magic crystals countless years ago) prison. The sword's blade was covered with runes of binding. With each swing, the demonic essence inside is empowered, one of the binding runes change shape to a demonic rune for war, hatred, rage, pain, etc., and the weapon grows more powerful. If all runes change, the demon inside can possess the wielder or manifest in a physical form (it was only a small part of the demon's essence, but it was still comparable to balor). For every minute where the weapon is NOT used in battle, one of the demonic runes change back to binding rune, and the weapon gets weaker.

Those both seem pretty nice. That second definitely feels like it'd be cool in my current campaign.
>Mixed alignments

What type of character used that second one? I could see some players getting a bit butthurt over something like that

>you will never have sword boyfriend in your game
feels voiceless man

We found this crown that contained the soul of the advisor to a kingdom who'd been sealed inside it hundreds of years ago, to continue providing his assistance to his country.
We ended up returning him later, he was a pretty neat dude, and when needed, could help give diplomancy an extra kick by speaking through his wearer.

If I remember correctly, didn't she still hum sometimes during the game?

Yes. Her muteness was magicscience, not like IRL muteness.

The game has a dedicated humming button. She hums to the soundtrack.

I like the opposite reaction:

> Oh thank god you found me! I'll do whatever you want, just don't leave me in that dungeon for another thousand years! I WAS SO BORED!

>"Of course I'm sure about this, he clearly has a massive haemothorax and cannot breathe."
>"Yes I'm aware of that but we can mitigate an open pneumothorax far more easily than a haemothorax."
>"I told you this before, it's a... Nevermind. Just do what I tell you and make a small incision of roughly 2-3 centimetres into the fifth intercostal space along the mid-auxilla line, keep it fairly anterior."
>"STOPSTOPSTOP!"
>"I SAID AUXILLA! NOT CLAVICULAR!"
>"This clearly isn't a tension pneumothorax! What is wrong with you? I can't believe I've been passed from the hands of the most capable and skilled doctors the world has ever seen into your clumsy fleshy mitts."

>Ring of Three Wishes
>One charge left...
>A number of skeletons where around it contorted as if they dead reaching for the ring on someone's severed hand.

"Thi'k I can wish fer a bigga penis?"

The flail is used by group's paladin.

The sword was more of a macguffin, not a practical reward, they correctly realized it's too dangerous to use and decided to keep it safe from the servants of the demon, who wanted to get the weapon and either use it themselves (because it was pretty awesome weapon and they were crazy enough to ignore possible consequences) or destroy it to free the demonic essence imprisoned within, so it could rejoin with its other shattered parts and ressurect the Overlord back at full power... which would be game over for almost everyone else (in 3.5, statted Overlords had something like 40 character levels on top of 20+HD outsider chasis, about comparable to gods (which don't have physical form and may not even be real in Eberron). They are hands down the most powerful beings in the setting).

Sadly, the game was put to hiatus thanks to RL reasons a session or two before the characters got their hands on the largest shard of Rak Tulkhesh's prison, in a clusterfuck situation involving rioting city, overzealous theocracy, cultists and demons serving the Overlord, LE dragon willing to do anything to keep the prison shard out of the wrong handsl, stolen necromantic plague and covert ops team from a rival nation who's willing to nuke the city of about 25k people to stop the plague and cover up the fact their nation has developed it and had it stolen from them.

Compass Needle and Enchanted Raiper
>Wielder always knows which way is North
>Once per day you're able to use Wall of Force that lasts for two minutes
>Can shrink down to smaller then a finger, is still able to be used as a compass needle
>Gives Mobility, +2 on Reflex and Will saves
>When you crit or confirm a crit, roll again. On another confirmation, deal x3 damage as your blade tears through the body to point north.

Wolf Spider Fang
>Adamantine Punching Dagger
>Grants Spider Climb, Evasion, +2 on Reflex saves
>+10 Movement Speed
>Able to use Finger of Death 1 per day
>Poison on critical hit, Save DC 14 (1d4 Con)

Tried to post it earlier but my phone ate it.

Long, long ago, I was at a boyscout summer camp, like a total fag. While wandering around, I wound up wandering into a bunch of the counselors- 15-20, I think, probably in the 15-18 range- playing D&D in the evening. Stuck at camp, middle of nowhere, nothing better to do, they let me watch, it was kinda cool. Of course, once I noticed I started showing up every night. This was years and years ago, I barely remember it, but one thing I do recall was that one of them had a magic magic/intelligent/sapient sword. It spoke in its wielder's voice, it started mouthing off in front of a king- and of course, all the court assume that it's the wielder being mad disrespectful to the king.

Basically got the party into trouble. I have (had?) the impression this was a recurring issue. I think they bemoaned the inability to gag swords. I found the idea funny and liked the concept of intelligent weapons/items anyway.


Years later, I'm running a 5e game, and I'm thinking of doing something along those lines to my party. I figure it has the merits of being interesting, valuable (magical weapon!), useful (a mouthpiece for me, if no NPCs are handy), funny, and a significant but non-mechanical 'curse' to the item (I obviously intend to mislead them at some point, get them in trouble, or otherwise inconvenience them).

tl;dr: bloodthirsty, low-wis magic sword to serve as NPC and schmuck bait.

Except I lack a proper backstory for such an artifact; I'd want it to be significant after all.

I have a recent artifact from my last campaign.

>Defiance:
>Defiance is a an artifact warhammer with the following properties:
>Weapon (warhammer), legendary (requires attunement by a creature of Lawful Good alignment)
>You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. It has the thrown property with a normal range of 30 feet and a long range of 90 feet.
>A creature attuned to this weapon has resistance to fire and psychic damage.
>When you hit with an attack using this weapon, it deals an extra 1d8 radiant damage or, if the target is a fiend, 2d8 radiant damage. If the attack was a ranged attack, immediately after the attack, the weapon flies back to your hand.
>The bonus damage dealt by a paladin's Divine Smite can also be applied to this weapon's ranged attacks.
>Defiance can only be destroyed if its wielder is defeated in single combat by a fiend or champion of a fiend.

>Defiance was a warhammer wielded by a dwarven paladin known as Caedman, who sought to root out and destroy fiendish influence in the land. Over time, his dedication to justice allowed the weapon to become imbued with a portion of his god's divine power.
>Caedman's life came to an end after a devilsh champion of a dark god had injured him and killed another paladin fighting besides him. Believing the battle to be won and Caedman a worthy opponent, the devil made to leave and spare his adversary, but was suddenly distracted. As the opportunity presented itself, Caedman used the last of his strength to hurl the warhammer through the devil, causing him to erupt and disintegrate in an explosion of radiant light.
>Those fighting besides the devil were enraged and slew Caedman with a barrage of arrows, before burning his body and crushing the bones to dust. Attempting to destroy the warhammer proved futile, however, and they been forced to keep it hidden so that it can never be used against them again.

...

In my 2nd last Black Crusade game, a player got turned INTO a Sword.
Pseudo-Daemonhood got him more than he bargainined for, running around a world of Daemonsmiths bragging of the blesssings the Dark Gods had bestowed upon him, and how he was now functionally immortal.