Amulet of Concentrated Awesome

Excuse me while I save the world with this... actually I have no idea what this is.

Bandit Keith: In order to tell your future, I'll need you to give me your necklace.
Yugi: My puzzle? No way! Without it, I can't pretend to be good at card games!

— Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

Man, this guy really sucks, are you sure he's the real hero? I mean look at him, he couldn't kill a half-brained ferret if his life depended on it. Wait, what is that he has in his hand? Oh god, my arms! The pain!

Basically speaking the hero (or villain) has some sort of item (often a Power Crystal, sometimes a Magical Accessory or Ring of Power) that makes him awesome. Just having it is enough for him to take a level in badass and just tear shit up. It may be a lucky charm of some sort or be some sort of artifact or gadget that actually causes his insane upgrade. Watch out if the hero loses it however as he is undoubtedly screwed if he does (most definitely if the object has some sort of power, less so if it's a simple lucky charm) and it may make an unscrupulous bystander a Hero for a Day.

Of course, who said it had to be an object? Why don't we go nuts and make it his entire outfit? Or how about a Transformation Trinket?

It may even be an Empathic Weapon.

Say, have you ever considered a career in badass? Why not join The Chosen Many?

This trope has a common subversion in Magic Feather, in which the artifact does nothing and the concentrated awesome is all the character's own. Another related trope is Artifact of Attraction, in which the item is so appealing that multiple characters are fighting for possession of it. If the opposing side's response is to get an amulet of even more concentrated awesome, it results in Bigger Stick.

Another danger is that sometimes the Amulet of Concentrated Awesome turns out to be an Amulet of Dependency or Artifact of Doom.

Contrast Amplifier Artifact, which augments existing powers. Compare Super Weapon, Average Joe.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Hey, you know that kid Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh!? Yeah, he's carrying a puzzlebox that kinda holds the soul of a 3,000-year-old pharaoh with a mean streak. Seriously, mess with this kid and he will give you the worst Mind Rape in the history of mankind.
  • Speaking of, if you see anyone toting a gold artifact with a vaguely Egyptian eye symbol, you'd best stay on their good side.
  • Any number of rare cards, from Exodia to Blue-Eyes White Dragon to Red-Eyes Black Dragon, considering the Serious Business children's card game is played on portable holographic projectors that somehow hurt the player every time their monster is destroyed/they lose life points.
  • Be very wary of anybody toting a gold artifact with a vaguely Egyptian eye symbol with any number of rare cards. Not only can they hurt you with a hologram, they can modify this children's card game so that your actual life is in danger or your soul gets sent to the dub-only Shadow Realm.
• Tsuna from Reborn! (2004) would've been worthless if not for his Dying Will Bullet.
  • And now, everyone gets as many as they want in the form of rings (knockoffs of the Vongola Rings) and boxes.
  • And now that they're back in the present, everybody uses the very same bullets.
• Bishop Hazel from Saiyuki has a Star of David pendant which allows him to pull souls from dead youkai bodies and put them into dead human bodies, effectively bringing them back to life.
• Sheeta's necklace in Castle in the Sky.
• Fullmetal Alchemist gives us the Philosopher's Stone. So powerful, alchemists don't even need a circle to do their stuff, and their alchemy is still supercharged to the point of appearing to violate Equivalent Exchange. Except it doesn't, since it's Powered by a Forsaken Child, and thus has already made one half of the exchange.
• Lala Ru's pendant in Now and Then, Here and There, which is actually all the water on earth concentrated into a single blue stone is this trope personified, as Lala doesn't really have much else going for her in the series.
• Lyrical Nanoha's storage-mode for Devices, in particular Raising Heart, which is an actual amulet of concentrated awesome.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Lacrima, which are concentrated spells. The most powerful are the Dragon Slayer Lacrima, which when embedded into a person makes them an artificial Dragon Slayer. So far Laxus and Cobra are the only two Artificial Slayers seen.
  • In the Grand Magic Games arc, we meet two new Dragon Slayers in the form of Sting and Rogue from Sabertooth. Although they're unique in that not only are they infused with Slayer Lacrima, they've also been raised and trained by real dragons.
• The Jewel of Life from Ronin Warriors. It turns the normally helpless Mia and Yuli into a force to be reckoned with.
• Marin is given what seems to be just a pretty necklace midway through Brigadoon: Marin and Melan. Turns out it's a powerful object which allows her to transform into anything she sees, including weapons, vehicles, and a fighting robot. Behold, an Action Girl is born!
• Princess Knight: Sapphire's boy heart acts as this for Plastic, who goes from an immature spoiled brat to a man ready to do what's right, rather than what his father tells him to do, after swallowing it.
• The Metal Vessels from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic are this, Transformation Trinket, and Empathic Weapon all rolled into one. Dungeon Conquerors contain Djinn within some sort of metal item, be it a sword, bracer, or even a piece of jewelry. This gives the user Elemental Powers and the ability to enter a Super Mode where they combine with the Djinn itself.
• Bests in Rolling Girls get their powers from heart-shaped crystals that fall from the sky.
• The Destruct Code orb in Sands of Destruction turns out to be one for Kyrie. It's a storage medium that allows him to remember who he really is and what he's capable of doing: turning everything to sand. Without it, he's a very ordinary boy who's quite useless in a fight.
• Asta in Black Clover is the only one who can't use magic in a world of magic users, and while he's gutsy and physically strong, he doesn't stand a chance against an average mage. That is, until he gets a grimoire that allows him to use Anti-Magic.

Comic Books

• Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld: Amy Winston's Amethyst gemstone started out as being something along these lines. But she and her gem got pulled into the Infinite Crisis and things got weird. Like when she found out that her "real" dad was actually a magical entity inside the gem. Yeah, weird.
• In Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis, unable to understand sea creatures naturally, Arthur initially uses a magic amulet to talk to the fish before it and its powers are absorbed into him.
• Blue Beetle: The scarab, the icon of the Beetles' legacy. Granted, its awesomeness only truly came to light when Jaime Reyes inherited it.
  • The scarab's awesome may be so intense it affects Jaime's friends and family, too.
  • The Ruby Skarab is Marvel's Alternate Company Equivalent (except with a shorter history). If handed to people who already have superpowers, it becomes an Amplifier Artifact. A really, really powerful one.
• Bottle Of Awesome: The Bottle Of Awesome from the comic of the same name. Considering the bottle's last wielder is a homeless wino, the bottle probably exacts a very steep price.
• Dial H for Hero: The H-Dial is a long-running DC plot device: A magic telephone dial that can turn whoever uses it into a completely random superhero for one hour at a time.
• Doctor Strange: Doctor Strange has a few, though historically the Eye of Agamotto is by far his most famous. However, he typically doesn't need them, but he will use one if the situation calls for it. He once used the Eye of Agamotto to temporarily stalemate an omnipotent Thanos.
  • Doctor Strange actually has several such artifacts, all calling on the power of various supernatural beings. In the first issue of Infinity Watch after the Infinity Gauntlet event, he was able to use them all together to match Adam Warlock while he held the gauntlet complete. It was only for a few seconds, but long enough for Strange to convince Warlock he was drunk on his own power.
• Green Lantern: Most Green Lantern's (and all the other colors) are not extremely dangerous without their rings. There are exceptions in there, as they're various aliens with a variety of alien capabilities, but they're all greatly powered by their rings.
• Iron Man: Without his armor, Tony Stark is merely obscenely rich and brilliant. A genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, to be precise.
• Marvel Universe:
  • The Cosmic Cube in the Marvel Comics universe makes its holder omnipotent. It's been an Amulet of Concentrated Awesome for the Red Skull and the Super-Adaptoid, and maybe others. It also has a long history as a MacGuffin.
  • The Infinity Gauntlet, also in the Marvel universe, offers similar levels of power once all six Infinity Stones are added to it. Typically associated with Thanos, who's a Physical God with it.
• The Sandman: Although not an Amulet of Awesome for its original owner Morpheus, the Dreamstone taken by Doctor Destiny allowed him to take on the Justice League... and torture and murder a large number of people before Morpheus finally defeats him.
• X-Men:
  • Cerebro for any number of telepaths. Professor X can already freeze a whole crowd. With it, what limits has he?
  • On the other hand, his half-brother depended entirely on the Cyttorak gem to become Juggernaut.
• Doctor Occult's orb/talisman can rip through numerous souls in Hell itself.

Fan Works

• The Lost Element is this and an Amplifier Artifact: it allows its proper wearer to use magic regardless of a horn (or lack thereof), but it cannot be removed by anypony else but by the wearer's own hoof, and if someone aside from the proper wearer tries to take it off, or wears it and tries to use its power, it will shut off and refuse to work (at best), or burn/zap them with a spell blast at worst. like the Elements of Harmony, it remained dormant until its "spirit" is found. Take a guess on who that is.
• George's shapeshifting ring and John's water-charm in With Strings Attached.
  • Though John would be reasonably formidable without the water-charm, thanks to the little changes he underwent in the First Movement.
• Sally-Anne Perks lost her magic when cursed by a jealous Ginny Weasley toward the end of the Harry Potter fic The Silent Trio 5: The Curse of Exum. In The Silent Trio 6: The Coming Storm, Harry gave her an amulet powered by the voluntarily-donated stored magic of her friends and family. With it, she could cast any spell she was capable of as a witch. Without it, she was more or less a Squib.
• Timeless Academia has a villainous example in how it interprets Caster!Gilles' Prelati's Spellbook. When Izuku summons Gilles, he arrives in his Saber form as opposed to his Caster self. However, in the following summoning chapter, the book is summoned as its own entity and manages to turn Saber!Gilles into his Caster form. However, when Cursed Arm destroys the book, it reverts Gilles back to his Saber self.
• In the Better Bones AU, Male members of the Sisters get an object to keep with them that allows them to see ghosts without needing the rest of the group's channeling.
• In The Archmage's Last Bow, the Alicorn Amulet makes a reappearance, only this time it's stated to be even more powerful than originally seen in "Magic Duel" and The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan. Now it's called the Gem of Soul, one part of a Disassembled Macguffin called the Crown of Life, alongside two sister gems, the Gems of Mind and Body. While the Gem of Soul enhances magical ability, it causes its wielder to slowly go insane. While the Gem of Mind enhances the wielder's mental acumen, the wielder's body withers. And while the Gem of Body grants physical strength and other benefits, it siphons away its wielder's soul until they cannot feel the touch of magic again. When wielded together in the Crown, their strengths overcome the others' weaknesses and make its wearer immensely powerful.

Films — Animation

• Aladdin and his lamp. You know that singing dancing genie? Imagine the destruction you could cause by simply asking. Jafar does think about it — granted, it was less "Cause wanton destruction" and more "Make ME able to cause wanton destruction", but still, he gets Genie to lift up the palace, raining rubble onto the citizenry. In the Disney version, the Genie explicitly doesn't kill. Property damage, intimidation, and severe maiming should be OK.
  Jafar: You'd be surprised what you can live through.
• Ms. Brisby's amulet from The Secret of NIMH.
• In The Transformers: The Movie, the Autobot Matrix of Leadership is the receptacle of the power of the Primes and is the one thing in the entire universe that the planet-sized Big Bad Unicron fears.
• Turning Red: The family has a ritual to seal their red panda spirits into a talisman, which can only be done under a red moon. If the talisman breaks, however, the spirit returns to its host. This happens to Ming when her talisman is damaged during the botched ritual to seal Mei's panda, causing it to break completely when her anger becomes too strong to contain. The others then willingly break their talismans to help reseal Ming's panda spirit.

Films — Live-Action

• This is essentially the plot of The Tuxedo, in which an ordinary limo driver finds a high-tech tuxedo that suddenly gives the wearer awesome martial arts skills.
• This is what the eponymous mask is from the movie, The Mask. Take an average wimpy banker and give him a several thousand-year-old mask belonging to one of the Norse gods... What do you get? A nigh-unstoppable force that can do anything from pull a giant mallet out of his pocket, to cause a police force to break out into an elaborate song & dance routine... Or in the case of Dorian, make them an unstoppable force of Evil.
• The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy's ruby slippers.
• Subverted in the movie Krull with the ancient glaive weapon used by prince Colwyn. It is said to be an extremely powerful weapon that Colwyn will need to defeat the beast of the black fortress and rescue his princess. Once Colwyn has the glaive, he is told not to use it until he absolutely must. It remains unused until he breaks into the black fortress at the end of the movie, where he uses the glaive only twice; first to cut open the prison trapping his bride, and second to attack the beast, where it stabs the beast in the chest which is not even enough to kill the monster. Colwyn ends up defeating the beast with The Power of Love, manifested as a magic flamethrower from his hand.

Gamebooks

• In later Lone Wolf books, several enemies have their strength boosted through the roof by some artifact (often an evil one) to make a credible threat for Lone Wolf (or his lieutenant). The item is usually mentioned alongside the name of the enemy next to the stat block. Another common point is that the magic doohickey will never be picked up by the hero afterward, to keep game balance. Either it is destroyed in the fight, too evil for Lone Wolf to consider using, or just forgotten about.
  • The most infamous example is Zakhan Kimah's Orb of Death in The Cauldron of Fear. Notable is that we see how he received the artifact from Lord Haakon in exchange for his allegiance to the Darklords in a previous book, Shadow on the Sand.
  • In The Dungeons of Torgar, Baron Shinzar with Ogg-kor-Kaggaz (a flaming battleaxe) or the Ziran with a Powerstave — in both cases only if you have the Sommerswerd.
  • In The Plague Lords of Ruel, Brother Croumah with a Power Rod and an Acolyte of Vashna with a Medallion of Protection.
  • Warlord Magnaarn with the Nyras Sceptre in The Darke Crusade; though here it is two-edged since the Doomstone was also bringing him to the brink of undeath.
  • Demonlord Tagazin wears a Power Helm for his final battle against Lone Wolf in The Deathlord of Ixia. Not that he wasn't already plenty dangerous without it.
  • Ixiataaga himself with the Deathstaff (uncharged at the time, luckily for Lone Wolf). Though again, the Deathlord would certainly still be a terrific foe even unarmed.
  • Prince Lutah's Ring of Power in Dawn of the Dragons is another stand-out.
  • For enemies of Lone Wolf's lieutenant in the New Order Series, there are Sesketera with a Medallion of Weaponskill in The Buccaneers of Shadaki, Baron Sadanzo with a Gem of Naar in Mydnight's Hero, or Xaol the Necromancer with a Serpent Rod in Trail of the Wolf.

Literature

• In The Chronicles of Amber, Merlin eventually "finds"/is given a Spikard, a ring that frees him from dependence on the Pattern and Logrus by tapping into a multitude of other magical sources. It is also, not surprisingly, a Semantic Superpower.
• In "Clubland Heroes", the hero Blackfist gets his powers (super strength and invulnerability) from an amulet made out of a gemstone plucked out of the eye of a statue in a long-lost South American temple.
• In Cassidy Webb and Mabel Harper's The Dread Eclipse, the protagonist Caren uses a form of Filipino magic called agimat that requires the user to implant enchanted amulets beneath the skin, and each amulet seems to grant the user different powers.
• In Robin Jarvis' Deptford Mice trilogy, the Silver Acorn pendant and the Starglass are the two sources of power for the squirrel monarch known as the Starwife. Until both objects are joined together in a ritual that results in acceptance of the Starwifeship, the Silver Acorn's magic is unstable and can be used by anyone, including those with evil intentions.
• The Lambda Driver from Full Metal Panic! qualifies as this, though Sousuke is badass even without it. He tends to be screwed if a situation happens where he needs it and it won't work.
• The Subtle Knife in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Before, Will is a scared kid hiding from the police. After, he faces down the King of the Armoured Bears.
• In R.A. Salvatore's The Highwayman series, Branson keeps a magical healing stone pressed to his forehead by pushing it up into his mask. With it, he can overcome his sickness and flip, twirl, and cut anyone to ribbons. Without it, he's a gibbering, useless moron.
• E.E. Doc Smith's "Lensman" series.
  • Later in the series, Kimball Kinnison finds that he does not need to be wearing the Lens for it to work, and the children of Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall are born with the full innate abilities of a 2nd stage Lensman, no Lens required
    • Though those children do end up creating their own Lenses to help them focus their powers (or something like that), so the Lenses do still do something.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort believes the Elder Wand to be this. It isn't, at least not for him, because according to the rules by which ownership of the Elder Wand transfers, it belongs to Harry, not to Voldemort. It absolutely refuses to harm its owner, once Harry reveals the truth about who really defeated whom.
• In Terry Mancour's Spellmonger Series, most of the main character mages wear Irionite/Witchstone amulets around their neck. this incredibly rare form of amber has the power to amplify magical energy to a ridiculous degree. It is so powerful that just owning a piece basically makes you more powerful than every non-irionite owning mage on the planet.
• Elric of Melniboné, without the sword Stormbringer, is a sickly albino prince trapped in a Decadent Court.
• In The Iron Teeth, amulets are made to hold particularly fine magic crystals and seem to allow multiple uses of those crystals somehow.
• In The Girl from the Miracles District, Robin's deer head pendant is actually a powerful amulet synched with his magic aura. It lets him pass through magical defences like a hot knife through butter, provides a Deflector Shield of its own, and protects Robin from mind-influencing magic to some extent.
• In Cassidy Webb and Mabel Harper's Form and Void, the protagonist Caren uses a form of Filipino magic called agimat that requires the user to implant enchanted amulets beneath the skin, and each amulet seems to grant the user different powers.
• The Bands of Mourning are a legendary set of artifacts said to grant the wielder the power to use two of the three types of magic in the setting (the third deals with stealing the other two, and can't be stored). The Southerners' medallions are these to a lesser extent. Feruchemy is a magic that stores the user's attributes like strength, speed, or sleep in metal to be tapped later. Normally, only the person who stored the attributes can withdraw them, but the Southerners designed medallions that can grant Feruchemy to anyone.

Live-Action TV

• This is the defining plot device of The Greatest American Hero.
• The family wand in Wizards of Waverly Place seems to give Justin incredibly enhanced powers when he uses it.
• The Supernatural episode "Bad Day at Black Rock" features a really lucky (not for the rabbit, obviously) rabbit's foot which turns out to be a curse because holding it gives you great luck but you always lose it and then your luck turns homicidally bad.
• The Goa'uld from Stargate SG-1 get most of their godly powers from a fancy hand device and the rest from other tech. But the hand device does the flashy, intimidating stuff.
• This trope is used in roughly every Ultraman, Super Sentai (Power Rangers), and Heisei Era Kamen Rider series as the lead character's Transformation Trinket, since their abilities without them are fairly limited compared to their transformed state. Somewhat averted in Super Sentai and Kamen Rider since they usually have basic martial arts skills that they can use against some of the weaker enemies when their powers aren't at hand. Although it's averted almost entirely in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as one of the rules was that they couldn't use their powers until they absolutely had to.
• The Arrowverse has the Zambesi totems (originally stated to be five, but later a sixth is discovered), one of them was given to each of the Zambesi tribes to protect themselves and passed down through generations. All but one look like gems of different colors and shapes. The one different one is the Spirit Totem (also called Anansi Totem), which looks like a bunch of metal teeth on a necklace and allows its wearer to temporarily be imbued with the spirit and qualities of a chosen animal. There are the standard four elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire) with predictable powers (although the Earth Totem also allows control over plants). The recently discovered sixth totem is the Death Totem, allowing its wielder to animate and control the dead.

Music

• Ambiguously Implied in Poets of the Fall's video for "Choice Millionaire," with the Hopecatcher, a steel feather pendant that the subversive Deus ex Machina gives a labourer to facilitate escape from the Machine. Still, it is quite literally depicted as a Magic Feather.
• "Amulet of Justice" by Gloryhammer is about the quest to acquire said artifact, said to "set the spellbound free", and is the last item Angus McFife retrieves before rescuing the princess (who happens to be imprisoned in a shroud of ice) from the evil sorceror.

Pinballs

• The Time Crystals in Pro Pinball: Timeshock!, which can generate a shockwave capable of destroying all of existence.

Tabletop Games

• Powers in Champions are purchased with Character Points. A power's cost can be reduced, thereby allowing the character to buy more powers (or to make each existing power stronger), by giving the power Limitations. One such limitation is "Focus", which means the power won't work without a specific physical object in the character's possession. A Focus is worth a bigger bonus (reduction to the cost of the power) if it's Obvious (i.e. everyone can tell the object's responsible for the power) and Accessible (i.e. an opponent can grab it and take it from you). So ... a lot of characters, particularly when they're just starting out, are built with the vast majority of their powers through an Obvious, Accessible Focus. You can guess what happens to that Focus all-too-often over the course of an adventure.
• High-level magic items in Dungeons & Dragons can drastically increase the power available to a player, or give them entirely new powers in addition to those they already have. Most players will only get them late in a campaign, but once they do, they can turn a battle in their favor. Artifacts are even more awesome, but with the downside that there are either only one or very few of them in the world. Some magic items and artifacts of particular note:
  • The Staff of Power and its upgraded variant, the Staff of the Magi, can cast powerful spells without the character needing to use their own power and provide powerful wards against magic. Just don't break it, that could end poorly.
  • Since spell casters generally don't get to use armor, they can make up the difference with some sweet magical bling, like the Robe of the Archmagi, Robe of Stars, or Cloak of Displacement.
  • Simple weapons like the Nine Lives Stealer, Vorpal Sword, and Oathbow ensure that martial classes can get in on the awesome as well.
  • As for artifacts, the most infamous may be the Hand and Eye of Vecna, the remaining hand and eye of an evil god, which grants awesome power but comes with the risk that Vecna himself might take notice.
  • Only slightly less known is the Book of Vile Darkness and its good counterpart, the Book of Exalted Deeds, which contain wisdom and lore that not only can make a character soar in the awesomeness department, but also provides some sweet boosts.

Video Games

• The main character from Enchanted Arms is a musclehead who happens to be best friends with the school genius and skates by accordingly. However, despite this he is the only one able to stop nearly unstoppable monstrosities known as Devil Golems, due to him just so happening to have a right arm created from another Devil Golem.
• Summon Night Swordcraft Story 2 gives the hero/heroine the pendant as a memento for their deceased father. It turns out to be the key to their Transformation Sequence, which means it's also their Transformation Trinket.
• The main character from Beyond Oasis has this, an Armlet that can summon the 4 elemental spirits. It's useless until you clear the first dungeon though.
• Consistently subverted in the Suikoden games. The True Runes have world-shattering powers, sure, and everyone who wants power wants at least one...but what makes our True Rune-wielding heroes into heroes is their ability to draw people together. (They ain't bad in a straight fight, either). The legends of True Rune users frequently surpass their powers.
• Exspheres in Tales of Symphonia provide a major boost to the wearer's combat abilities. However, they're created by trapping the soul of another person; a "raw" Exsphere is attached directly to their skin, harvesting their life energy and eventually turning them into a monster.
• The transformation armlets in Jeanne d'Arc. Each of them can be equipped with different transformation stones that grant their bearers increased attack and defense power along with the very useful ability to act again after killing an enemy. And in the Back Story their power was used to seal away Big Bad Gilvaroth.
• Subverted in Jade Empire. The amulet seems to be that, and you have to gather the pieces of it and set them with gems to acquire powers. Until you die and it turns out to merely be an Amplifier Artifact for you but played straight for the villain.
• In Kingdom Hearts, Sora is shown to be utterly powerless before he attains the Keyblade and when he loses it when Riku steals it at Hollow Bastion. And he is only capable of killing enemies by sending the Beast to take them out for him.
  • Well, not entirely powerless—he still has his magic.
  • Sora can damage them with his wooden sword, he just does so little damage that Beast will always kill everything in the area before you can take even half the hp off the weakest enemy.
    • Blasting them with Gravity spells can get them down to the point where the wooden sword can be lethal.
  • Roxas in the Prolonged Prologue of Kingdom Hearts II is able to take on human opponents just fine, but can't even hit Nobodies unless he's wielding the Keyblade.
  • Xion starts out without a Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, though she's not entirely powerless, since she still has magic. She later loses the ability to wield a Keyblade later on, though her problem is less "I can't fight anymore" and more "The Organization will deem me useless."
  • This seems to be an issue for Keyblade wielders in general; since most of their enemies (usually The Heartless, but sometimes other beings) are vulnerable only to the Keyblade or magic, losing the weapon cripples their combat abilities.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Necromancer's Amulet is a recurring example throughout the series. While the specific effects vary between games, the amulet typically drastically increases the wearer's spellcasting abilities while giving them protection from magical attacks. In the possession of its creator, the infamous Necromancer/Lich Mannimarco, it boosts his already formidable power to near godlike levels.
  • The series' Enchanting system allows you to create magical amulets/necklaces with customized enchantments. When using certain exploits, these amulets can reach Game-Breaker status. One particularly notable example is a custom enchanted "Cast When Used" Exquisite Amulet from Morrowind. (The same enchantment can also be put into an Exquisite Ring.) Queue up a powerful Soul Gem, keep selecting powerful damaging spells until it has reached its enchantment limit, and spend some of your plentiful money to buy the enchantment. Since a "Cast When Used" enchanted item skips the standard spellcasting animation and cannot fail (as long as there is adequate enchantment charge), you can Beam Spam deadly spells as quickly as you can click the button. (Just beware of using it on foes with Spell Reflection...)

• Earthworm Jim is a prime example because, without his supersuit, Jim is just a giant worm.
• Touhou Project has Marisa and her Mini-Hakkero, a powerful magical artifact that Marisa is rarely seen without. Among other things, it's what she uses to power her Master Spark. Same with Reimu's Yin-Yang Orb from the Hakurei shrine, which used to be her only means of damaging enemies in the early games and still remains as a primary motif in several of her spell cards. According to Marisa's Grimoire, Reimu can also bean you over the head with it in a pinch.
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask gives the villain (a sad and lonely Skull Kid who gets in over his head) a haunted mask that gives him demonic powers, including trapping Link inside the body of a deku scrub and causing the moon to come crashing down. Fortunately, Link himself manages to find magical masks (including those who transform him into different races) to eventually confront him.
• In The Way (RPG Maker), all the power Rhue gains is due to his Shadow Sword.
• In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Rinaldo the alchemist tells Leon about the Ebony Stone and the Crimson Stone, two magical stones created by accident during alchemists' attempts to create the Philosopher's Stone. Both stones are extremely useful for vampires — the Ebony Stone creates a pocket of eternal night blocking the sun and the Crimson Stone grants its wielder the power to consume the souls of other vampires for power (though if a human uses it they become a vampire as well). Walter Bernhard has the Ebony Stone, which is why his castle is always shrouded in night. The Crimson Stone is in Matthias Cronqvist's possession. The entire game is actually Matthias' plan to manipulate Leon into defeating Walter so that Death could offer Walter's soul to Matthias. As a result, Matthias has both of the stones. The combined powers of these stones would help Matthias rise to power in his new identity: Dracula.

Visual Novels

• Gilgamesh from Fate/stay night is really not too impressive if you look at his base stats. If he had only his normal abilities he would constitute only a moderate threat at best. However, he has an EX rank Noble Phantasm that not only has an absurd amount of firepower but counters nearly every other Servant out there, which has led to him being dubbed the strongest Heroic Spirit. Expanded universe materials show that he can work this to his advantage against foes who are always conceptually stronger than their opponent: they can only use Gilgamesh's base stats as a yardstick to exceed, not his Noble Phantasm, meaning they can't automatically gain the strength to exceed his effective combat skill.

Web Animation

• Ranger carries one on Arenas, which allows teleportation. It's created using the same technology the Big Bad used for their teleporters.
• Parodied on Charlie the Unicorn. It's not entirely clear what the amulet is, but it's probably one of these.
  "Charlie, I have the amulet!"
  "What amulet???"
  "The magical amulet! Sparkle sparkle!"
• Dreamscape: The Eye of Reality, as seen in the flashback in "Over and Under", which lets the wielder warp reality on a small and undetectable scale.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick:
  • Redcloak's Crimson Mantle artifact grants him longevity, resistance to diseases, and the knowledge needed to change the very order of the cosmos. Nice? Even without it, though, he's still probably the highest-level Cleric seen in the setting to date. (And remember what being a cleric means in 3rd ed D&D.)
  • Xykon's phylactery, while not the source of all his lich powers (just his immortality), is the key to him becoming a lich in the first place. Once he finishes his transformation into undead abomination, he proceeds to kick ass.
• Torg's talking sword Chaz from Sluggy Freelance seems to be all that's needed to take Torg from normal to Badass Normal, even when it's not in its suped-up, kill-anything-in-one-hit form. Though after using Chaz for a while, Torg seems to have acquired some combat prowess of his own.
• Emergency Exit has Eddie's coolness enhancer, which does exactly what is describes along with giving the user of the coolness enhancer (weapon, object, person, etc) increased powers.
• Each member of the Panthera team has an amulet on a necklace "that contain[s] minerals that ease the transformation and help focus [their ]elemental power" [1].
• Completely inverted in Girl Genius with Agatha's locket before it's used to shut down Lucrezia. With it, she's an ordinary girl that can't build a clank to save her life. Without it, she's one of the most powerful sparks in the entire world.
• Part of the set-up for Winters In Lavelle- Aiden and Kari get taken to Lavelle via a crystal globe; and once there, they proceed to each get a magical Amber stuck in them. Aiden gets one stuck in his wrist that gives him fire powers, and the Amber stuck in Kari's neck gives her lightning and healing powers.
• The pendant in Vinigortonio which bestows on the wearer the mighty Pendant Attack which is a jumpkick powerful enough to break down iron doors.
• The Kings' Scepters and Queens' Rings in Homestuck do nothing for the players, but equipping them instantly gives any Prospitian or Dersite the increasingly overwhelming powers of whatever the players end up prototyping.
• The angels of Slightly Damned have three magic pendants that can grant them more power but are hard to make and the artisans who make them are low in number.
  • The first pendant they earn is the sun pendant which "calms their hearts" and gives them their wings.
  • The second is the star pendant which "clears their minds", its function is to improve their magic and it also gives them their Holy Halo.
  • The last is the moon pendant which increases physical strength, only Seraphs have these.
  • Almost every pendant has a Protective Charm that burns any demon that tries to touch it, this is because demons can access unprotected ones (albeit with somewhat different effects). Sun pendants cause them to either grow small, useless wings if wingless or make their wings larger, a moon pendant makes demons literally grow in size and strength and star pendants can prevent demons from going berserk or even give them some control over it. ^note  It's unknown if it can improve a demon's magic since the only one who has one never had anybody to teach him.

Web Original

• In Cassidy Webb and Mabel Harper's The Dread Eclipse, the protagonist Caren uses a form of Filipino magic called agimat that requires the user to implant enchanted amulets beneath the skin, and each amulet seems to grant the user different powers.
• The Remarkable Journey of Higgins von Higgings: Higgins von Higgins's Transformation Trinket.
  "The medallion!?"
  "HOOOOOO!"

Western Animation

• Mighty Max has his magic cap that opens portals that let him travel all over the world. Without it, all he has is his wits... and destiny.
  • On the villain's side, Skullmaster has the Crystal of Souls, though he commands a Hell of a lot of awesome even after it's broken.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Each of the titular Planeteers is gifted with a magical ring that grants them power over one of the four classical elements or Heart. Without the rings, or when Captain Planet is present, the teens are no more powerful than normal humans. Big Bad Zarm had more powerful artifacts designed after iron guantlets, but they were also corruptive. Later in the series the eco-villains made Evil Knockoff s of the rings, though it's debatable how much Duke Nukem (no, not that one) benefits from "Super Radiation."
• Jaime Reyes aka Blue Beetle from Batman: The Brave and the Bold has one of these in the form of a scarab. Not having it doesn't stop him from kicking ass and chewing bubble gum.
• Dora and Aragon of Danny Phantom both have amulets that turn them into dragons. This does not seem too awesome in Season 1, but by Season 2 it becomes far more awesome.
• Ben Tennyson has the Omnitrix.
• The manacle of Osiris in The Mummy: The Animated Series.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: When he first came to Eternia from Trolla, Orko had a magical amulet on his person. Sadly he lost it saving a young Adam and Cringer in Tar Swamp, which is unfortunate as it was what allowed his magic to work properly. The amulet is retrieved during the series and we see Orko manage to break a powerful spell of Skeletor's and send his Monster of the Day away, but the amulet is lost as a result.
• The Sword of Omens in ThunderCats was often treated this way (along with the other cats' weapons), though there were a few episodes devoted to showing Lion-O's capabilities without the sword. This was referenced by Safari Joe who demanded he throw away the sword in exchange for freeing the captive ThunderCats, and then is promptly defeated. He gets better.
• In Thunder Cats 2011 both the sword itself, which "built the ThunderCats' empire" and more importantly, the Eye of Thundera in its hilt are treated this way. Sure enough, Lion-O temporarily loses the sword in "The Duelist and the Drifter", and in the interim, must learn less aggressive combat skills to swordfight without magic and Sword Beam powers.
• Subverted in the VeggieTales episode parodying Indiana Jones, where the characters are searching for Samson's hairbrush in order to gain Samson's legendary strength. The bad guy takes it and uses it, only for nothing to happen. It's then pointed out that Samson's power came from God, and the hairbrush is just a hairbrush.
• Fry's seven-leaf clover from Futurama. With it, he was unbeatable. Without it, he's a complete clumsy loser.
• The Rainbow Of Light - a heart-shaped locket containing a powerful piece of rainbow in the My Little Pony movies.
• The amulets all seekers have in Huntik: Secrets & Seekers. You know, the ones that let you summon superhuman entities to fight on your behalf?
• In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Kid Stuff", Morganna La Fay's son, Mordred, steals "The Amulet of First Magic", which contains an incredible magical power, and uses it to banish all the adults on Earth (including his mother and the League) and sets himself up as king of the world. Since a stupid immature brat is still a stupid immature brat even with vast power, he ends up wasting all of the magic in the amulet in the course of one episode—but not before unwittingly dooming himself to helpless aged senility when he breaks the spell of eternal youth his mother placed on him centuries ago.
• The Heart of Kandrakar in WITCH is an amulet worn by the leader of the Guardians and has many magical uses, the primary one being changing the protagonists into Magical Girls. In season two it's revealed that each world has a Heart as the source of its magic which is either a talisman or living creature. Yes, there is a Heart of both Meridian and one of Earth.
• On Adventure Time, the Ice King can't fly or use his ice powers without his crown. It's also an Immortality Inducer, though it does come with the Artifact of Doom caveat. Oddly, removing it for short periods isn't dangerous to its host, beyond a loss of power.
  • The Nightosphere amulet allows the wearer to turn into an eldritch monster, which is how Marceline's father gets his powers. Also comes with a nice suit.
• Sari's Allspark Key in Transformers: Animated functions this way. It can do anything from reviving dead Cybertronians to granting Earth machines sentience. Without it she's just an ordinary little girl at least until the end of the second season...
  • In any Transformers series that it shows up in, the Matrix of Leadership tends to function as one of these.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The Elements of Harmony grant incredible magic power to their chosen wielders. Our heroines mostly use them to seal away this week's Big Bad. The final season opener reveals they don't even need the Elements to unleash their power as they're all embodiments of what they represent.
  • In "Magic Duel", the unicorn Trixie shows up with an Artifact of Doom that takes her meager magic powers to a whole other level — and unfortunately but predictably her nastiness too.
• In Barbie and the Secret Door, Malucia's scepter is her main source of power over others, as she has no magic of her own.
• The Amulet of Daylight (also known as the Amulet of Merlin) from Trollhunters is a magical artifact that - if one is chosen to wield it - is granted the title of "Trollhunter", becoming troll-kind's protector in the process. It magically conjures a suit of armor and a sword made of pure daylight. Should one add magic gems to it, it allows a variety of new weapons and abilities to be used by the wielder, including boomerang daggers, a shield, and so on.
• The Amulet of Avalor from Sofia the First is a powerful artifact that can bless and curse its chosen bearer based on whether they do a good or bad deed; initally this was all the doing of Princess Elena when she was trapped in it, and once she's freed, now the bearer is in control of their powers. Once the amulet is taken off, the bearer loses all powers associated with it until it's put back on again. Sofia is the current bearer who must never ever take it off, and numerous villains opt to steal the amulet to use its power for their own purposes.
• In the Teen Titans Go! episode "What We Learned At Camp", the gathered Titans fail to receive participation medals at superhero camp due to their extraordinary lack of participation... which is very disappointing to them, but, outlandishly, turns out to place them outside of a brainwashing plot. However, Trigon just orders the mind-controlled heroes to grab them, and the fight that follows is more one-sided than it had to be, where they're even stronger than usual because, despite nominally having no other special abilities, "The participation medals are amplifying their self-esteem!"
• The ring The Mighty Hercules was given by Zeus, his father, gives him the strength of ten men which he uses to right wrongs.

Real Life

• Every new technological device is this until the rest of the world catches up.
• Both sides of the Cold War possessing such 'amulets' (nukes, obviously) kept them from engaging in a conventional war that would have devastated both sides.

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