Cursed Items
Some magic items affect the character using them in a negative way, either by design or by accident. The girdle of femininity/masculinity is an example of a magic item designed to have an undesired effect on the character using it. Cursed weapons and armor often have numerical penalties instead of bonuses, making them less effective than a non-magical item of the same type.
Read more about this topic: Magic Item (Dungeons & Dragons)
Famous quotes containing the words cursed and/or items:
“That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete indifference to a famous library. Venerable and calm, with all its treasures safe locked within its breast, it sleeps complacently and will, so far as I am concerned, so sleep forever. Never will I wake these echoes, never will I ask for that hospitality again ...”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)