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Artifact of Doom: Difference between revisions
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* Any of the various [[Green Lantern]] Corps rings could become an Artifact of Doom under the right circumstances. The Orange Lantern ring curses its owner with ever-lasting greed and hunger. The Red Lantern ring causes heart stoppage and uncontrollable rage, and you can't take it off without it killing you. The Black Rings bring the dead back as undead Black Lanterns that crave hearts.
* The Star Brand from ''[[The New Universe]]'' is exactly like this. A limitless power only held back by one's imagination, it can only be used by living things. The first time someone tried to place it into a inanimate object to get rid of the power, it initiated the White Event, the world's biggest [[Superpower Lottery]]. The second time, it ''[[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|vaporized]] [[Pittsburgh]]!'' Even worse, even if you do get rid of it, you're keeping a portion of the power that will recharge itself back to full. It's so dangerous that, when the New Universe Earth was transported to the mainstream Marvel Universe, the Living Tribunal erected an impenetrable barrier so it won't contaminate the rest of the universe with its power.
== Fan Works ==
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* ''[[Ponies Make War]]'' has the Sliver of Darkness, which was responsible for Princess Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon, and more importantly to the story, Twilight Sparkle's transformation into [[Complete Monster|Nihilus]].
== Film ==
* The Loc-Nar in ''[[Heavy Metal (animation)|Heavy Metal]]''.
* The poisoned apple from [[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White]] and the Seven Dwarves.
* Maleficent's spinning wheel from ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]''.
* The Black Cauldron from...''[[The Black Cauldron]]''.
* The One Ring from ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]''.
* The infamous videotape in ''[[The Ring]]''. Watch the innocuous, unlabeled tape, and she will hunt you down and kill you, unless you pass the curse to someone else by making a copy of the tape and sending it to that person.
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* Any videotape holding Sadako's soul in ''[[The Ring]]'' can be this.
* ''[[Death Bed: The Bed That Eats]]''; despite being regarded as a cheesy B-movie, the eponymous bed has an interesting backstory. A demon falls in love with a human woman, and creates a bed that they use to consummate their love. But she is killed in the process, and his tears of grief fall on the bed, turning it into a monster that preys on humans once every hundred years.
== Gamebooks ==▼
* The ''[[Lone Wolf]]'' gamebooks: in addition to the evil armies, [[Evil Overlord|demonic Evil Overlords]], various [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Sealed Evils in Cans]], and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|hostile wildlife and environments]], Lone Wolf runs into several Artifacts of Doom. The Darklord weapons and the Death Staff are examples of evil weapons that have gameplay penalties when used in battle. Story-wise, the worst artifacts are the [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Doomstones]]. The Doomstones are essentially crystallized [[Black Magic]] created by a powerful demon that eventually corrupts and kills anyone who uses them that isn't ''already'' a being of pure evil. Meaning that the strongest antagonists can use them with impunity; but Lone Wolf collapses as soon as he gets ''near'' one.▼
** The Doomstone of Darke featured in Book 16 ''The Darke Crusade'' deserves a special mention here. {{spoiler|In the end, it turns out to be the REAL [[Big Bad]] of the book, having made the [[Disc One Final Boss]] its frail, near-undead puppet.}}▼
** A rather weird example is the Moonstone, a GOOD Artifact of Doom: crops grow better, children are born healthier, summers are longer... but it threatens to destroy the natural equilibrium of Magnamund.▼
== Literature ==
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* "Dissolve," by [[Jonathan Coulton]], seems to be about one of these, but the lyrics are a little vague.
== Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myth and Legend ==
* Andvari's ring in [[Norse Mythology]], from the tale of Otter's ransom, isn't really magical, except in so much as it kills anyone who has it and is told they have it (though this last part is rather inconsistently applied). The ring in the Edda ''does'' have one magical power, that of increasing gold. While not a clear-cut example of this trope, it inspired at least one more famous example.
* The Ring of Gyges, a metaphor for corruption in Plato's [[The Republic]]. This ring merely turns the bearer invisible, as the One Ring had in [[The Hobbit]], but Plato argued that the temptations the ring presents would ultimately corrupt anyone who chose to use it. Inevitably, theft, murder, and betrayal would follow, as these were the easiest and most obvious uses of the ring. Ultimately, the use of the ring proves so addictive that its bearer cannot part with it, and can thing of nothing else but his jealousy of keeping it.
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* In a Polish fairy tale, the fern flower will grant any wish, as long as it's only for yourself and you never share the benefits with anyone. If you are charitable even once, everything you wished for is taken back, and the flower disappears.
* The Ark of the Covenant has shades of this, even outside [[Raiders of the Lost Ark|that one story.]] The instructions for its creation and care were very specific, and when one of its attendants touched it without proper precautions, it struck the man dead.
== Tabletop Games ==
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** [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=227302 Worldslayer]. "Whenever equipped creature [i.e. creature wielding the sword] deals combat damage to a player, destroy all permanents other than Worldslayer."
* The Black Scrolls in the ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' [[Collectible Card Game]] and tabletop RPG are immensely powerful magical scrolls that corrupt any who study them. In fact ''anything'' (including people, places and objects) that has enough of the [[The Corruption|Shadowlands Taint]] does so, and various artifacts bear the Taint. These include the Bloodswords and the Anvil of Despair, just to name two.
▲=== Gamebooks ===
▲* The ''[[Lone Wolf]]'' gamebooks: in addition to the evil armies, [[Evil Overlord|demonic Evil Overlords]], various [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Sealed Evils in Cans]], and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|hostile wildlife and environments]], Lone Wolf runs into several Artifacts of Doom. The Darklord weapons and the Death Staff are examples of evil weapons that have gameplay penalties when used in battle. Story-wise, the worst artifacts are the [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Doomstones]]. The Doomstones are essentially crystallized [[Black Magic]] created by a powerful demon that eventually corrupts and kills anyone who uses them that isn't ''already'' a being of pure evil. Meaning that the strongest antagonists can use them with impunity; but Lone Wolf collapses as soon as he gets ''near'' one.
▲** The Doomstone of Darke featured in Book 16 ''The Darke Crusade'' deserves a special mention here. {{spoiler|In the end, it turns out to be the REAL [[Big Bad]] of the book, having made the [[Disc One Final Boss]] its frail, near-undead puppet.}}
▲** A rather weird example is the Moonstone, a GOOD Artifact of Doom: crops grow better, children are born healthier, summers are longer... but it threatens to destroy the natural equilibrium of Magnamund.
== Theatre ==
* The Ring of the Nibelungs from [[Richard Wagner]]'s [[The Ring of the Nibelung|eponymous operatic cycle]], cursed by its maker to destroy all who possess or covet it. The curse comes with a truly ominous [[Leitmotif]], which plays every time someone is killed because of it. Wagner, in loosely adapting the [[Norse Mythology]] example above, extended the symbolism of the lust for gold, relating it (in typical 19th c. fashion) to the „''Wille zur Macht''‟, the fundamental anti-social aspect of which he symbolized in the idea that the Ring could be made only by one who had renounced all natural affections.
== Theme Parks ==
* There are a few in the attractions at [[Disney Theme Parks]]. A notable one is in the ''[[Indiana Jones]]'' sequence of ''The Great Movie Ride'', where a real life Cast Member plays the role of the poor fool who tries to take it.
== Toys ==
* The Ignika in ''[[Bionicle]]''. On top of that, it was made exactly like the One Ring.
** The nui stone may also count as this.
== Video Games ==
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* In ''[[Endstone]]'', the Banestone. The most powerful overstone, and it drives its rockers mad.
* In ''[[Consequences of Choice]]'' The Invisus is a powerful stone entrusted to the class of Necromancers by the demigods of death.
== Web Original ==
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* ''[[Tech Infantry]]'' has the magical sword Kuar, which grants you invisibility and increasing magical power, then sucks out our soul. There is also The Orb, a mystical artifact of untold power which is sought by the Caal.
* The {{spoiler|gyroids}} in ''[[The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing]].''
* The Book of Stories in the eponymous [[The Book of Stories
* The Heart of Darkness in ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' corrupts Phylis Alince into rallying [[The Alliance]] in attacking the Sith en masse and nearly converts her to the dark side.
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara's]] {{spoiler|Magic Gun}} is a subversion of this. The cultists who created intended it to be a {{spoiler|a weapon powered by pure hate and agony, and used their own daughter to power it. But the weapon backfired, killed them, and the spirit inside the gun eventually became more benevolent and a partner of sorts to Linkara.}}
* In the webisode, "Curses!", [[The League of STEAM]] have a cursed artifact appraised, in a curio shop that apparently specializes in [[Artifacts of Doom]].
== Western Animation ==
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* 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 & Dragons]] are particularly popular targets). [[The Moral Substitute]] may or may not be allowed.
* A common joke in Hollywood is that [[Academy Award| the Oscar statuette is cursed]], and that winning it means the recipient's career is likely to go downhill. This would be funny if not for the fact that this happens to a ''lot'' of Oscar winners. To give two examples in recent history, [[Nicholas Cage]] has starred in a lot of garbage since winning Best Actor for ''[[Leaving Las Vegas]]''; [[Geena Davis]] won Best Supporting Actress for ''[[The Accidental Tourist]]'', but would later be known for ''[[Cutthroat Island]]'', one of the biggest [[Box Office Bomb]]s of all time.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]]
[[Category:Plot Device]]
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[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Artifact of Doom]]
[[Category:Magic Items Index]]
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