I'm working on some varient victory conditions that involve mythos "artifacts" so I'm looking for some ideas for artifacts.

The best would be HP Lovecraft items, or those of other mythos writers (Howard, Derlath, Bloch, Lumley etc), followed by items from Call of Cthulhu and such, then crrations from other sources.

The Artifact should be a super item, a powerful magic effect, but yet very cheap for the effect. (Most ordinary people don't realize the value)

However, there are two major dreawbacks:

1.) The artifact is "cursed" in some way, not bad enough to be crippling, but something detrimental. (Like wielding Stormbringer had a downside, or Tolkein's One Ring could be used for invisibility, but had a negative effect too)

2.) The mythos creatures also need the item to complete some awful ceremony (like summoning the AO), so the player carrying the item will get some extra monster attention.

Some examples of Mythos artifacts:

Shining Trapezohedron, Fire of Asshurbanipal, Clock of Dreams, Mirror of Nitocris, the Black stone etc

Other mythos artifacts mentioned in (Chaosium's RPG) Call of Cthulhu: Disc of R'lyeh, Arc of Vlactos, Gate Talisman etc

I'd be interested to see what ideas people might have for an artifact's major benefit, and also it's malevolent effect.

Are you thinking of these Artifacts as Items, Heralds, or some mix of the two?

Bhu said:

Definately as items (unique)

Here is one I've made for the Shining Trapezohedron. I had some other artwork, but I've borrowed the one from the "cursed items" thread.

It's not showing up when I peek at the thread.

What I was thinking of suggesting though was make the Artifact an Item of some sort, and make a Herald by the same name to represent the bad effects. Link the Herald to a specific Ancient One if you want to like Dagon gives extra penalties if Cthulhu is the Ancient One. The Herald can do something like make the first person who gets a random unique item get the Artifact instead, that way it actually shows up in the game.