X2 - Castle Amber 2026 - Session 6.1 - Curses and Boons

We Were Promised Jetpacks are from Scotland.
This statue is cursed. 

In my last post, I didn't detail what each party member received from the Statues. 

Lance received a magic item, a +2 shortsword. Merry was given a +2 flaming sword, which he gave to Khouri. Both also received a ring of fire resistance, which they each kept. This means every member of the party has at least one magic weapon and a magic item. 

Khouri was cursed to grow a tail, which would slow her movement. As a post-human, she is immune to haste and slow. Instead, she was briefly incapacitated as her systems fought off the curse. She gets very hot when these sorts of alterations hit her. She might be able to fight or run while under this effect, but at a penalty. I love this effect as it is both helpful while coming at a cost. 

Merry was diseased, but he has a divine immunity to diseases. No effect. 

This is a Disney Magic Sword.

Sybil had her Intelligence go up from 13 to 14. This is not entirely helpful since she is chaotic with a disastrously low Wisdom of 6. On the positive side, she gains another bonus 1st-level spell. I use the old D&D Wisdom table for Magic-Users, switching out Intelligence for Wisdom. I got the idea from the Goldbox game Champions of Kyrnn.

The final curse is very interesting. Dorian was cursed with Empathic Healing. I totally ripped this off from the text-based game, Gemstone IV. 

Here is how Empathic Healing works: 

Dorian's cure and heal spells only work on himself. He can't directly cast them on others. Nor can he cast the reverse of a healing or cure spell at all. They don't function for him.  

When healing someone else, he picks a fixed amount of damage to cure: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 20. You'll notice these numbers match dice. The subject of the healing immediately receives these hit points, up to their maximum HP. He cannot over-cure someone to more HP than what they had. Any extra HP is lost. When curing blindness, disease, etc., the subject is cured immediately. 

In the next round, the damage or status is moved from the healed to Dorian. 

Transferring hit point damage works like this: Dorian picks a number from the list above. He rolls a die to see how much damage he suffered in the transference. But there is a push-down effect. If he attempted to restore 20 HP, he rolls a 1d12 to see how much actual damage he took. A choice of 12 results in a 1d10 die roll, 10 points is reduced to a 1d8, and so on. Curing 4 HP, he receives a flat 2 points of damage. Dorian needs to be aware of his own resources since this could kill him outright if he doesn't have enough HP. 

In the third round, he can cast whatever spell he wants on himself to get rid of the damage. 

In the case of blindness, disease, etc. Dorian is allowed the same saving throw the victim failed. If necessary, he can cast the appropriate cure on himself, either immediately or when he has time. Since Clerics pray for spells, he can do this even when blind, deaf*, poisoned, cursed, or diseased. This is a benefit to Dorian here as the allowed saving throw can eliminate the need for casting a spell.

There is one more effect of this curse: it is communicable. If someone uses magic to heal Dorian, like Merry the Paladin or a different cleric casts a spell on him, the healer could also be cursed to have Empathic Healing, too. 

I like curses that work like legal stipulations. There is some good with even the worst curse. Khouri and Gabby have equally weird curses on them. Khouri is nearly immortal, but she is not subject to haste or slow spells. Other magical effects won't work on her, but I haven't explored all of these options yet. Gabby accidentally let a spell get away from her when she cast the Bonds of Hospitality on the Unicorn and Dragon**. She is forever bound to be hospitable to them because they are immortal. The same goes for Alexei, which is less of an issue as he is insubstantial. This will become a plot point later. 

Curses that become a definition of a character are the best because no one has to work to remember them. They just are. 

Next time, the party will meet a person slightly more cursed than themselves. 

*A second campaign note: I have a status for being deafened, and there is a second spell for curing it. It is the same level as the one for blindness. 

**Third campaign note: Unicorns and Dragons are effectively immortal in my campaign. They can only die from violence and misadventure.