This Index Is Cursed

Abandon all hope, ye who reads this index, for all the things within are cursed! Or curses...or just really bad things to have happen to you. But still! Beware...despair...and do other things that rhyme with "air"! Booooo...

The idea of a curse comes to us from some of the earliest writing, and possibly from before that. In popular imagination, a curse is a powerful form of Functional Magic, cast by a god or a person with extensive knowledge of the arcane and willingness to make a deal with a devil, placed upon an object, place, person, or group, and used to punish the caster's enemies with misfortune ranging from epic tragedy to biblical plagues to a series of minor annoyances. The term has also been used simply to describe a series of misfortunes that may be unrelated, or to highlight a downside of risk to an otherwise advantageous endeavor. While in the 'traditional' sense, curses have been largely relegated to Speculative Fiction, they also show up in works on the realistic end of the Sliding Scale of Realistic Versus Fantastic, religious texts, and, allegedly in Real Life.


 * Artifact of Attraction - Everybody wants to get their hands on it, which is bad news for those who own it.
 * Artifact of Death - Using this item will ultimately lead to your death.
 * Artifact of Doom - This item is powerful and evil, and usually wants your soul.
 * Blessed With Suck - A "blessing" that in practice feels more like a curse.
 * So Beautiful It's a Curse - Mary Sues complain all the time about being beautiful, but for some people, being beautiful can make your life miserable.
 * Cartwright Curse - If you're the love interest of a character with this curse, you're not going to last long.
 * Curse - An evil spell or other malediction, usually visited upon someone out of punishment or cruelty. The core of this index.
 * Curse Escape Clause - A lot of curses provide an "out" of sorts. This is that "out."
 * Curse Is Foiled Again - A broken curse brings good fortune upon those who did not deserve the curse.
 * Cursed With Awesome - A "curse" that in practice turns out to be very, very useful indeed.
 * Doom Magnet - If you're a friend, lover or even acquaintance of this character, your days are numbered.
 * Evil Weapon - This weapon has a mind of its own, and wants to use you to work its evil will.
 * False Innocence Trick - Falling for this can lead to curses.
 * Flying Dutchman/Wandering Jew - This character is cursed to walk or sail the earth forever.
 * Gone Horribly Wrong - Messing with the laws of nature and/or physics For Science! can have horrible consequences.
 * Gone Horribly Right - Sometimes an experiment can succeed too well, having just as horrible consequences as going wrong.
 * Gypsy Curse - You shouldn't have pissed off that old gypsy lady, because now she's laid a disproportionate curse on you and yours.
 * Hereditary Curse - Not only are you cursed, but so are all of your descendants.
 * Hulking Out - One of the most common forms of transformation, and usually runs up a huge clothes shopping bill.
 * Indian Burial Ground - Some places are better left alone. If you try to mess with it...well, nice knowing you.
 * Involuntary Shapeshifting - Transformation brought about by a curse, and which you have utterly no control over.
 * The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday - Your one-stop shop for all your supernatural needs. Just don't expect a returns policy.
 * Magnetic Medium: I See Dead People...now they won't leave me alone.
 * One Curse Limit - Once you are under a curse, you cannot be affected by another one.
 * Plague of Good Fortune - Everything is going right for a change...just when you don't want it to!
 * Priceless Ming Vase - It's rare, it's valuable, and it's worth a fortune. It's not going to survive.
 * Doomed New Clothes - That new outfit you just spent a fortune on? Won't last five minutes.
 * Watch the Paint Job - The rarer, more expensive and more precious a vehicle is, the less likely it is to survive the story intact.
 * The Precious Precious Car - Especially if it happens to be owned by someone you really, really don't want to piss off.
 * The Punishment - Punishing someone by turning them into a supernatural creature of darkness. Yeah, that's gonna go really well...
 * Pyrrhic Victory - You've won, but at a ruinous cost.
 * Sealed Evil in A Can - Often used to try to keep the result of The Punishment from destroying everything...until it's eventually released centuries later.
 * Stupid Scientist - A supposedly intelligent person shows terminal Genre Blindness by Tempting Fate concerning something bad that is about to happen.
 * Tempting Fate - You should never say some things, even in jest, because that is just asking for things to go straight to hell.
 * What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - The dreaded words that, when spoken, will doom damned near any undertaking to failure or worse.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever? - When everyone you've known and love have died while you continue to live on, one thing is certain: immortality sucks.
 * World-Wrecking Wave - A supernatural disaster that leads to everything going straight to hell.
 * Wound That Will Not Heal - A supernaturally inflicted wound that will not heal by normal means.