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Artifact of Doom: Difference between revisions
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*** The only example of that shown in the manga was the Count, who had already made the sacrifice and doomed himself before. Assuming you have never made the deal, you should be fine.
** There's also Guts' Berserker Armor, which removes a human being's natural limits by nulling pain and allows the user to keep fighting by temporarily mending broken bones, stitching together wounds, etc. It's very dangerous for the obvious reasons that your body has limits for a reason and bypassing them is bound to hurt you, but it also has the effect of bringing out the wearer's "inner beast" (in the Skull Knight's case, his familiar skull motif, in Guts' case, "The Beast", his [[Hell Hound]] evil side), turning him into a raging monster incapable of distinguishing friend from foe. After using it just once, Guts got a patch of white hair, became partially colorblind, and lost some of his sense of taste. Constant use of it might have reduced the Skull Knight to his current ghastly state.
* The Book of Darkness from ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', which grants ultimate power to its user upon filling its [[Number of the Beast|666 pages]]. Oh, and it takes over said user once said pages are filled and goes on an [[Omnicidal Maniac|omnicidal rampage]] until it burns itself out [[Artifact of Death|together with said user]], whereupon it [[Back
** And if you're [[Genre Savvy]] enough to not use it, it will just eat your life force instead.
** The Book of Darkness is an interesting case, in that the only reason it's an Artifact of Doom is that it's malfunctioning. As it originally was, it was a harmless book meant to store knowledge of magic from all over the universe.
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== Literature ==
* In the John Silke series of ''Death Dealer'' books ( which are based on the painting by Frank Frazetta) the main character is given a helmet possessed by the god of death, which makes him a nigh-invincible warrior. on the flip side, it will put Gath (the name given to the death dealer) through slowly increasing discomfort, pain, and finally torture. the helmet can only be removed by an innocent young woman and final love interest named Robin Lakehair.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Warhammer
* The first two books in Lloyd Alexander's ''[[Chronicles of Prydain]]'' series had the Black Cauldron, based on a Welsh myth, used by [[Big Bad]] Arawn to create his army of the undead. (The Fates imply that the Cauldron once had other, more benign uses, but Arawn ruined the thing while he was "renting" it.) To destroy it, [[Someone Has to Die]], and it can apparently corrupt former good guys who covet its powers. The [[Disney Animated Canon]] made a very loose adaptation simply titled ''[[The Black Cauldron]]''.
* The Lifestone plays this role in ''[[The Riftwar Cycle]]''.
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* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' has a ''city'' that acts like this. Shadar Logoth will quickly corrupt anyone who stays too long. This isn't much of a problem when you consider that people who enter will quickly get killed by Mashadar, an evil cloud that hangs over the city. {{spoiler|Mat Cauthon}} picks up a dagger on his stay there, and this acts the same way. He quickly succumbs to hating people, and is nearly killed by the taint of the dagger before he is finally separated and healed of the taint. However, Rand eventually finds a way to use the city against the [[Big Bad]] without being corrupted by it, namely by {{spoiler|making its power and the city's cancel each other out, albeit with the side effect of erasing the city and several kilometers of earth beneath it from existence.}}
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' depicts two of a set of [[Numerological Motif|thirteen]] Artifacts Of Doom—the Wizard's Rainbow, a scattered set of color-coordinated [[Crystal Ball|crystal balls]] that inspire a covetous "''my precious...''" instinct. The pink one appears to cause addiction to [[Reality TV]]. But the ''Doomiest'' of them all, Black Thirteen, instead inspires a mixture of terror and murder-suicides, and is implied to act as a sort of [[Weirdness Magnet]] for disaster when Jake and Father Callahan unknowingly decide to stash it {{spoiler|in a subway locker beneath the World Trade Center in June 1999.}}
* In William King's ''[[Warhammer
* May or may not be averted in [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]' ''[[The Magician's Nephew]]'', as the inscription over the enchanted bell only ''claims'' it'll drive you mad if you refrain from striking it. Even if it couldn't really cause insanity, ringing the bell awakened Jadis and introduced evil to [[Narnia]], which is "doom" in a way.
* That [[Tome of Eldritch Lore|tome of ineffable horrors]], the ''Necronomicon'' originating in the works of [[H.P. Lovecraft|HP Lovecraft]], though this is largely the result of being heavily [[Flanderized]]; a major percentage of the Lovecraft's protagonists read the book without becoming more than mildly neurotic. Breakdowns only tend to happen when what they've learned from the book seems to coincide with their recent experiences.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Crop up with depressing regularity in both ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer
** Blackstone fortresses qualify, but [[Up to Eleven|is it a surprise that the artifact in question is a spaceship?]]
** On a slightly less grand scale than the Blackstone Fortresses, there are a number of brand new ones introduced in the ''[[Warhammer
* The Sword of Khaine (also an [[Evil Weapon]]) in ''Warhammer Fantasy'' was wielded by the Elven God of War Khaine. To drive back the first incursion of Chaos, the first Elven king picked up the sword, and after defeating the [[Big Bad]] but not destroying it, it gradually turned him evil causing a sundering between the elf factions (one being led by his illegitimate son) and a civil war that continues to this day. The Dark Elves led by his son are still trying to reclaim the sword where it lies on its altar, which would give them to defeat the High Elves and possibly any further Chaos Incursions - it's possibly the most powerful weapon in Warhammer.
** The Crown of Sorcery (more accurately called the Crown of Nagash) grants whoever puts it on tremendous magical powers, but also allows part of the spirit of Nagash the Supreme Necromancer to speak to them. It influenced the creation of at least one culture devoted to necromancy before it was locked away.
* ''[[
** Oh yeah, and both of the above artifacts ''will'' eventually result in you being absorbed into [[Evil Sorcerer|their original owner]].
** And there's a story about [[The Head of Vecna]], which is supposedly used in the same way, but doesn't actually do what the user expects. It does, however, do ''[[Too Dumb to Live|exactly]]'' what anyone with an ounce of sense expects.
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* The Terror Mask from the ''[[Splatterhouse]]'' series is a sentient, diabolic mask (roughly shaped like a grinning skull) that grants its wearer tremendous power. Its true goal is a [[Batman Gambit]] to ''take over Hell''.
* In the ''[[Chzo Mythos]]'' series of games, there are quite a few Artifacts of Doom, the most obvious being {{spoiler|the cursed idol that innocently sits in a bell jar in the first game until the jar gets broken}}.
* The Rings in ''[[
** The Egg from ''[[SaGa Frontier 2]]''.
* The Silver Armlet from ''[[Beyond Oasis]]''
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*** In [[The Elder Scrolls Novels]], Umbra is too much for even {{spoiler|Clavicus Vile, a ''Daedric Prince'', to handle. It steals a good chunk of his power before he manages to get rid of it.}}
** Speaking of corruption: There are a few more (mostly daedric) artifacts that could probably qualify for this rope. Such as the aptly named Skull of Corruption, which in Skyrim {{spoiler|steals dreams of people and gives them nightmares}} or Mehrunes Razor, though, admittedly, for most of the daedric artifacts it's actually only an 'air' of doom that is often also created by the way they are acquired, such as the Ring of Namira in Skyrim, for which {{spoiler|you have to lure a priest to a cave and eat him together with a coven of cannibals}}.
* The Mani Mani from ''[[
* The web-based MMORPG Mojo Ave had the ultimate example of an Artifact of Doom: "The Skull of Tony Teulan", a usable item which has the effect of turning off the game. Not the game of the user who used it, the ''entire game for everyone''. Since there was no way to reverse the effect, it only got used once.
* The {{spoiler|Fuyuki Holy Grail}} in ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' and ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', after it became [[The Corruption|corrupted]] by {{spoiler|granting a wish to create the source of "All The World's Evil"}}.
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* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' gives us the ominous, Lovecraftian obelisk in the Dunwich Building's Virulent Underchambers. Not the cause of any doom so far, but it did drive [[Apocalyptic Log|Jaime]] pretty insane, and you do hear those "dark whispers of power" mentioned in the article description when around it. ''Point Lookout'' added the Krivbeknih (Necronomicon knock-off) into the mix, which you can destroy by pressing it against the obelisk, which absorbs the book and grows in power.
* The excavated [[Humongus Mecha|ATAC]] Zulwarn in ''[[Vanguard Bandits]]'' has the power to possess its rider's enemies; according to the worst ending, it can also grant immortality. Unfortunately, it also has a tendency to overwhelm its rider's mind and make them into megalomaniacs. {{spoiler|This happens to Puck in the Ruin Path ending.}} It's not clear whether [[Big Bad|Faulkner]] was possessed or was evil enough for Zulwarn's approval.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat: Deception]]'' introduced the Datusha Kris, Ashrah's weapon of choice. Originally said to purify its user with each evil slain, ''MK:Armageddon'' revealed it was a sentient-sword that manipulates (or even ''forces'') its user into becoming a [[Blood Knight]], apparently so it can use itself on slaughtering the Vampire race, of which the kris is its only "natural" enemy.
* The Artifact from ''[[Doom]] 3''. It was created by the forces of Hell to counter the Soul Cube the martians created to fight them, and to act as a key many years later, when humanity has colonized Mars. It gives the wielder the powers of super speed, [[One-Hit Kill|one hit kill]], super strength and invulnerability but it has to be fueled by human souls and as long as it's on the living world, Hell'll always have a way into the world and the only way to make sure that Hell wouldn't conquer Earth is to destroy The Artifact in Hell for good ... which {{spoiler|Betruger}} will not tolerate.
* The Shabby Doll from ''[[Silent Hill 4]]'', which causes unremovable hauntings if you put it in the item chest.
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{{quote|"Even dead gods can dream."}}
** {{spoiler|Any Reaper tech is this to some degree.}}
* The Nox Nyctores from the ''[[
** It is arguable that Ragna isn't one to talk, though. Especially not considering the fact that his [[Red Right Hand]] is the titular Blaz Blue, an artifact of doom that, if he ever lost control over it, could spawn a monster with the potential to destroy what is left of the world.
* The Dark Star from ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]''.
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* Many people believe that nuclear weapons are the real life version of this trope, since knowledge of nuclear weapons and the logic of [[Cold War|Mutually Assured Destruction]] is self-perpetuating. In a classic [[Catch-22]], it would take a [[Apocalypse How|civilization-ending]] event to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle (or in the best case, terminal global economic decline) and then it would become [[Sealed Evil in a Can]].
* Two Manhattan Project physicists, [[wikipedia:Demon core|Henry K. Daghlian Jr. and Louis Slotin]], died from radiation poisoning in two separate criticality accidents in 1945 and 1946 involving the same plutonium bomb core assembly. Said device became known as the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|"Demon Core"]].
* Some fundamentalist Christians seem to feel this way about practically any form of entertainment that is not perceived to be biblical ([[The New Rock and Roll|rock music]] and [[Dungeons
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