I am playing a German priest in a series of “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” adventures; I joined the group after their first adventures, in which they had a run-in with cultists in England. In that time my fellows became filthy rich, but one of them got struck by a curse, or rather, seven curses, which made him ugly, hairless, toad-like, and seemed to slowly turn him into an actual giant toad.

The PCs toyed with the idea of seeking revenge on the cult, but they felt ill-equipped to bring it, so we all fled to France instead, paying a smuggler an obscene amount of money to cross the Channel.

Luckily, my character knew German, English, and French, so communication was no problem.

Breaking curses

Once on the continent we looked for adventure and/or an opportunity to break the curses. We did not have the skills or equipment to tackle that, but we figured France was large and had a lot of people so it should not be too hard to find someone with the necessary resources. Alas, we did not really get anywhere, neither in towns or abbeys on the coast nor in the finest Churches of Paris. People suggested that the only person in the world with the power to help us might be the Pope in Rome, but that sounded more like a wild guess than any certain knowledge, for one, and we were just nobodies, so why should the Pope himself take the time to help a random cursed Englishman? Finally someone suggested the Netherlands as a good way to look for adventures and we took a coach to the Netherlands, where the war against Spain had entered a certain lull.

Amsterdam, the big hub of trade and knowledge, was a pulsating metropolis full of news, rumors, and opportunities. And it seemed to offer a chance to get rid of the curses in the form of a genius artist called Joop van Ooms.

Social Interaction

This adventure was a bit unusual in the sense that our weapons never left their sheaths: We were all talk and no blood. We got introduced to this Joop van Ooms and he seemed strangely unimpressed by the appearance of our stricken friend. He felt very confident that he could help, but he wanted something in exchange: Not money, but to be entertained.

We tried that as he and his servants showed us through his wizard tower and its marvels. We managed a curious mix of some of us dissing and abusing one servant, while the others attempted to reign that behaviour in to keep it from escalating.

The outcome was pretty much a sensible amount of bruhaha and honest wonder about the wondrous items in the tower.

It was enough to entertain Joop van Ooms sufficiently so that he offered us to change us all with his magical powers.

I offered to forego any changes to the benefit of servant no 2, a guy who had been deprived of his tongue: I felt that he would be better served by magical improvements, namely by the recreation of his tongue.

Van Ooms didn’t go along with that, but he gave me and those others among our group who did not want physical improvements tickets to a theater play called “The Boredom”.

Bottom Line: Big success, our cursed friend did not get prettier (and neither did those who allowed themselves to be physically altered), but he got rid of the curses.

Tow-Faced Magic

Plus, each of us got a magical item as a gift; magical items with drawbacks.

For me as a priest, my magical item was the perfect combination of useful but harmful:

A Bible that had the power to ensnare and captivate any audience that I would read it to – yay! – but with the drawback that every person so captivated ran a really great chance to lose his or her faith in God, utterly and completely.

The perfect moral quandary for a priest.

I shall stick to normal bibles for all but the most dire and horrible circumstances imaginable.

Other treasure included an eternal sandwich to feed on forever, with the drawback of making the eater a sandwich-junkie who desired to hog it for himself and become possessive like a Gollum;

And “The Quill of the Narcissist”, a magical quill that never runs out of ink. It writes invisible notes and drawings that only the writer himself can ever see; private notes for spells and wisdom unstealable, but no chance to ever pass this knowledge on to others.
And for our more violently minded friend: A super expensive gun of great effect, but one that costs wild amounts of gold to use. Our exorbitant funds won’t hold out long if he uses this weapon more than once a year.

Inspiring items!

One of the great strengths of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is the focus on taint and drawbacks of magic, as opposed to the more formulaic, quasi technical reliability of spells and wands that dominates classic Dungeons & Dragons play. These twisted and costly items combine powerful effects with costs of like strength: A reason NOT to use them. A weighing of options and decisions with consequences: The lifeblood of the OSR.

Image Source:

Amsterdam Municipal Department for the Preservation and Restoration of Historic Buildings and Sites (bMA), Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=526337