#30 Cursed Treasures by John Bennett is a role playing game supplement published by Rite Publishing for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 23-page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $3.96 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Open Game License and one page is an ad.
The supplement starts with a bit of in-character fluff that is then followed by some instructions on curses and how to use the book. The treasures in question should not be handed out willy-nilly, as they are essentially adventure hooks that require more than a little work to fix.
The concept of cursed items, when it comes to D&D and derived games such as Pathfinder, conjures up a specific idea; weapons with penalties rather than bonuses and items that do not do what they are intended to. However, those items are cursed magic items, and that’s not what these are. These are normal items with curses that are not so easy to shift, curses that come from the item’s history.
Each item follows a standard layout. Their price, as they are items that often have legends attached, how the curse is triggered, the effects of the curse, the history of the item, which characters may know and rules on discovering are given in the next section, and how to remove the curse. These curses are not easy to lift. A method of countering a bestow curse spell will usually, but not always, negate the curse for a limited amount of time. Actually breaking the curse requires a more specific set of conditions be met. These conditions have more in common with permanently destroying haunts that with lifting curses. This is why the cursed items are more suited to being adventure seeds; negating the curse can be very difficult to do and the character affected by it will have some problems whilst this is being done. As stated, care needs to be taken when handing these out.
The items include the bust of a probably murdered critic that criticises performances, giving them penalties, silver coins that make people very gullible, a pearl that wants to return home, a sceptre that summons devils, a tapestry made from a red dragon hide that burns its owners to death, an onyx that causes the owner to be infested by a parasitic race (this is connected to the pearl) and many more. Following the cursed items are a template for the parasitic race, with a sample ogre that has been contaminated, description, lore and an ecology encounter.
#30 Cursed Treasures in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with every treasure linked and the new template as well. Navigation is excellent for a short supplement. The text maintains a two-column format and more than a few errors were noticed. There are a number of illustrations, all from public domain. Presentation is okay.
The cursed items included in the supplement are all interesting, with interesting backgrounds to accompany them, but some work will need doing to add them to a campaign. As has been stated, they can’t simply be dropped in. The difficulties in removing the different curses mean that the course of removal will need working into a campaign quite carefully, and appropriate items should be chosen. Simply dropping these into a treasure hoard could easily cripple a PC with detrimental effects that could be nearly impossible to remove.
This is a nice collection of items that are a little bit different. They can be used to build entire adventures around, and that is probably how they should be used, as a party attempts to help one of their members. #30 Cursed Treasures, despite having some editorial problems, is definitely recommended and it can be found by clicking here.
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