Most cultures have a tradition of curse-bestowal, so here are the tools to enable effective cursing to take place in your campaign world. Being fantasy, curses are bestowed by magical means and affect their targets in the same way as other spells can do.

The book begins with an overview of what real cursing is all about. It's a lot more than merely wishing ill on someone who has annoyed you. This moves on to a discussion of some real-world cursing traditions, from ancient Egypt (Tutenkhamun's tomb, anyone?), ancient Greece, the Judeo-Christian tradition and - possibly one of the best-known today - Voodoo (Voudoun). And of course witches are widely believed to have the 'evil eye.'

Next comes a definition of what makes a spell a curse. Ultimately, any spell with 'curse' in its name qualifies, as does one which does permanent harm or has an ongoing detrimental effect on its target, as do those which use 'words of power' to deliver harm... and, of course, if remove curse negates the effect of a given spell, that spell must be a curse itself. There's a list of Player's Handbook spells that qualify, and the concept that cursing can become an area in which you can specialise by use of the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats. A range of options to make bestow curse and mark of justice a bit more interesting are also included.

Next comes an assortment of new curse-related spells. Most will enable the caster to have a bit of fun with someone who's annoyed them, but there's also spells giving the ability to protect oneself from being cursed, and that to detect a curse on a person or item.

There is also a range of feats which may be taken, again curse-related in some manner, including the ability to bestow a dying curse on whoever caused your demise and a series that mimic the classic Voudoun ability to create zombies out of the dead remains of your enemies.

Finally, there is a collection of prestige classes for those who wish to specialise in the use of curses. These are probably best left to NPCs for the most part, but are quite interesting nonetheless.

Overall, this is a little gem to aid any DM in putting some attitude into his Bad Guys' curses and is well worth taking a look at.

Return to Curses! page.

Reviewed: 26 December 2005