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Horror Rules / Horror Characters / Curses

Cursed Land

Source Horror Adventures pg. 143
Cursed land is a region marked by divine judgment, scarred by a great tragedy, or wounded by intentional malice. Common causes of such a regional curse include undead hauntings in the area, a grave transgression by the inhabitants that offends a powerful spirit or god, and large-scale killing or destruction that demands justice. They can also be artificially created with spells, such as curse of night, curse of fell seasons, and the curse terrain spells. A regional curse has an area in addition to the features all curses have. All regional curses have a DC for the purpose of removing the curse, but many of their effects allow no saving throw. When casting remove curse to remove a regional curse, the caster treats the land as an object and typically needs to be at the center of the emanation or at some other location closely tied to the curse.

Sometimes, a creature’s punishment curse and a land’s curse are the same. A cursed lord is a creature trapped by a cursed realm. The cursed lord gains power over the realm, but is incapable of leaving unless the curse is somehow broken, which usually involves killing or redeeming the cursed lord. Characters can accomplish this only by enacting very specific circumstances, similar to the restrictions placed upon the destruction of artifacts. For example, a cursed realm might trap a villainous cursed lord who profited by selling false maps to escaped slaves and refugees, who then drowned while attempting to cross a river at a nonexistent ford; the realm would be impossible to free from the stain of his heinous crime until he is slain and his body is placed in the river by a former slave.