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alt title(s): Artifacts Of Doom 
" They call it Halo"
— Cptn. Keyes, Halo
"You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what way?" "In many ways. It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him." — Frodo and Gandalf, The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Artifact Of Doom is somewhat a unique villain in that it is an inanimate object. Nevertheless, it's pure evil; and is a threat of corrupting all to The Dark Side. It may also cause Great Insanity, not to mention death.
This item has a palpable presence beyond merely being a device. Its threat is ever constant, whether destroying those it directly opposes, or consuming those who dare use it from within with dark whispers of power. Nonetheless, it is incapable of action on its own; its power lies in manipulating its user to act for it. Therein lies the irony: if people would just leave the thing alone, it would be harmless, but since Evil Feels Good some idiot will inevitably try it out and nearly doom us all.
There will be a conflict among the heroes, between those who say they should dare to use its power and resist or somehow purify the corrupting effects; and those feel it should be destroyed/sealed. The artifact will often make this conflict escalate to a Hate Plague, with deadly consequences.
Still think it's worth the risk? Think you can handle it? After all, once you realize how evil it is, all you have to do is get rid of it or destroy it...
... Both of which are easier said than done.
Often has An Aesop on how power corrupts and over-reliance on technology/magic is a bad thing.
If the artifact is a wearable item that refuses to come off, then it's also a Clingy Costume.
Tome Of Eldritch Lore and Evil Weapon are subtropes of this one. Usually found at half-price at The Little Shop That Wasnt There Yesterday, or handed out by the Evil Mentor (if he hasn't turned himself into the artifact, that is). Occasionally doubles as an Artifact Of Death. More often, it is an Amulet Of Dependency.
Not to be confused with the Artifact of Doom 3.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- The Jewel of Four Souls from Inu Yasha, which was formed when a powerful miko locked her own soul into an endless battle with a multitude of demons in order to contain them after her death. Even a shard of the Jewel gives demons enormous power, making the cause of much bloodshed... and it turns out to have a malevolent will of its own, making it the Man Behind The Big Bad.
- Inu Yasha also features a mild subversion: the sword Tokijin is so evil that it possesses the smith who forged it and animated his corpse after his death. The protagonists warn Inu-Yasha's Aloof Big Brother not to touch it — and then stare in astonishment when he effortlessly suppresses the sword's evil with his own power and proceeds to kick Inu-Yasha's ass with it.
- Beaten to death on Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Apparently, it's common practice to design cards so powerful they are too dangerous to actually be used. So they have to be locked up and kept out of the wrong hands, to give the protagonist and company something to fight for. Not to mention the millenium items around which the entire series is based.
- The titular notebook from Death Note kills those whose names are written in it. This is slightly different from most of the other examples on the list, in that it doesn't appear to be sentient or subversive all on its own — the danger comes entirely from the power it places in the hands of the user, and how he decides to use it. On the other hand, Ryuk does mention that nobody who uses the Death Note can die happy. Also, to quote Ryuk, "Don't think somebody who uses a Death Note can go to Heaven or Hell." What Ryuk doesn't say is that there is no afterlife — nobody is going to Heaven or Hell.
- Ryuk mentions (in the very first episode) that the first human that picks up the Death Note will ultimately have their name written down by the Shinigami that dropped it.
- Digimon Adventure 02 features the Dark Spores. The good news: they make you faster and stronger, and provide genius intellect. The bad news: They turn you cold and sadistic. Worse news: their real purpose is to resurrect a seriously nasty baddie once enough of them have collected enough energy from those they've corrupted. Even worse news: they're imperfect copies of the real thing, so if they're not harvested, you die. But there is good news: I Just Saved A Bunch Of Money On My Car Insurance By Switching To Geico!
- So, they're a poor man's DG Cells?
- PS: Don't play with the Beast Spirits in Digimon Frontier, either. You can learn to control yourself while using 'em eventually, but that's only after an episode or two of wrecking everything in sight. If you're not one of The Chosen Ones, using 'em at all may be hazardous to your sanity.
- In Berserk, there are small magical items called Behelits. They look like eggs with human facial features scattered around them at random. When their possessor hits an emotional nadir, the features rearrange into a screaming face, and the four members of the Godhand appear to offer the Behelit's owner the chance to become a demon... by sacrificing those close to them. And then there is the Crimson Behelit, owned by Griffith, which transforms its bearer into a member of the nigh-invincible, demonic Godhand.
- Plus, if you don't want to do it? Tough luck. You're getting sucked into hell anyway.
- The Book of Darkness from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which grants ultimate power to its user upon filling its 666 pages. Oh, and it takes over said user once said pages are filled and goes on an omnicidal rampage until it burns itself out together with said user, whereupon it resurfaces somewhere else to snooker another mage. The guardians that accompany it never mention that part for some reason.
- And even if you're Genre Savvy enough to not use it, it will just eat your life force instead.
- The Book of Darkness is an interesting case, in that the only reason it's an Artifact of Doom is that it's malfunctioning. As it originally was, it was a harmless book meant to store knowledge of magic from all over the universe.
- The aztec stone mask from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is the main cause for most events of the series, especially the bad ones, due to its ability to turn the wearer into a vampire when splashed with blood.
Card Games
- The Mirari
 twists and corrupts those who seek its power in the post-Invasion world of Dominaria in the Magic The Gathering storyline. However, this a subversion; it's revealed in the end that it was only meant to be a probe, but ended up spilling magical power into the world, the power inevitably corrupting the bearer.
- Also, within the card game exists the "Door to Nothingness" artifact. Its ability costs a ridiculous amount of mana, but when activated, your opponent loses the entire game, no matter what.
- 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 Shadowlands Taint does so, and various artifacts bear the Taint. These include the Bloodswords and the Anvil of Despair, just to name two.
Comics
- In the Marvel Universe, the Darkhold is a Tome Of Eldritch Lore penned by Chthon (an Elder God turned demon lord) to serve as a foothold in Earth's dimension after his banishment from it. Anyone who uses it risks becoming enslaved to Chthon's purposes.
- Satirized in Nodwick by "this one ring," which was a one ring parody that inspired an epic Lord of the Rings-esque plot based on hype alone. It had no actual powers, but only Nodwick realized this and no-one else believed him.
- By the end of the story, history repeats itself when Nodwick bribes off the story's Gollum-equivalent with "this one rock". Yeah, it's just a rock. Cut to the Distant Finale...
- In the DCU, the Eclipso diamond is a black crystal that can grant its host fearsome mystical powers. The cost? Said host almost always becomes a flesh puppet to the evil spirit within the diamond, often referred to as "Eclipso".
- The Tactigon from Avengers: The Initiative might go here. It's a shapeshifting alien weapon that can become whatever its host wants or needs. It's choosy, too; it won't work for just anybody, but it has an unfortunate tendency to pick hosts that are ... troubled. Its first known host was a suicidal girl who at least tried to use the Tactigon for good, but its second host was out and out Ax Crazy.
- Although it's more of a Tome Of Eldritch Lore in the Evil Dead movies, the Necronomicon develops into this in the comic book Army of Darkness spinoff, possessing a malevolent sentience, corrupting the people who stumble upon it for its own purposes, and generally trying its best to get rid of the hero once and for all. Oddly enough, as the comic books developed the Necronomicon into an artifact of doom, its Tome Of Eldritch Lore traits seemed to diminish accordingly: more often than not, the comic book version of the Necronomicon simply uses its powers as it or its owner sees fit, with no spell recitation involved. This might've been a Pragmatic Adaptation for the comic book's episodic format, since very few people in the Evil Dead universe are qualified to translate and read the book's ancient language aloud.
- The titular artifact of The Mask grants its wearer Nigh Invulnerability and reality warping powers, but also loosens their inhibitions until eventually they become a cackling Ax Crazy mass-murderer. It's also addictive, and can't be removed by anyone other than the person wearing it.
- The alien costumes / symbiotes of Spiderman, with an added Body Horror bonus.
- A clever (probably originally Italian) Donald Duck story centered around a mysterious item from outer space that did absolutely nothing, but was still more an Artifact of Doom than a MacGuffin. It was so absolutely and completely useless anything done with it was automatically a waste of time and amounted to nothing. It was in the possession of Scrooge McDuck first, so he naturally tried to make money out of it, but his every attempt merely broke even, until he managed to sell it to Rockerduck (at zero profit). As time went on, the sheer uselessness of the item made it hold a peculiar fascination to people, and news of it apparently spread globally. Everyone was in fact so affected by the uselessness that they began to turn apathetic and think nothing was worth doing because it was useless, or were inspired to start doing completely useless things themselves. A researcher then came to the conclusion that the item could cause The End Of The World As We Know It unless it was launched back into space to remove its effect on the collective psyche. But when they did this, the story subverted its own premise, because the item saved the entire planet; it was picked up by an alien armada of doom, whose leader consequently decided attacking the Earth would be pointless, and decided not to bother. Perhaps a True Neutral equivalent of the default evil Artifact of Doom.
Films
- The Loc-Nar in Heavy Metal.
- The infamous videotape in The Ring.
- The puzzle boxes in Hellraiser.
- Sith Holocrons in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Not exactly in the movies, thou, except as harmless fan-service atrezzo.
- The gun from Juice. The moment Bishop uses it, he is unable to stop using it even on his friends.
- The titular ship in Event Horizon.
- The Spear/Lance in Constantine
Gamebooks
- The Lone Wolf gamebooks: in addition to the evil armies, demonic Evil Overlords, various Sealed Evils in Cans, and 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 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. In the end, it turns out to be the REAL Big Bad of the book, having made the Fake Boss its frail, near-undead puppet.
Literature
- In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Legion, learning of the Black Cube causes the Cabal to change their plans. They give up their subtley to openly contact the Alpha Legion and tell them they must flee the planet at once: their enemies are using the Blood Magic to bring about the Black Dawn, which will wipe life from the planet.
- The first two books in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series had the Black Cauldron, based on a Welsh myth, used by Big Bad Arawn to create his army of the undead. After the good guys steal it, it starts magically spreading discord among them. To destroy it, Someone Has To Die. The Disney Animated Canon made a very decayed adaptation simply titled The Black Cauldron.
- Somewhat subverted in Excession by Iain Banks, in which the titular Excession is an object which does absolutely nothing, but almost causes a galaxy-spanning war over who gets to say they own it.
- The Piggy from William Sleator's Interstellar Pig is similar. The aliens chasing it believe that, when an unknown timer runs out, only the planet with the Piggy will be spared from destruction. But the Piggy itself later tells the human protaganist that it has the "hiccups" and will actually only destroy whatever world it's on during its next hiccup. The hero soon realizes these are both lies to keep "the game" going: the Piggy's real purpose is to study each alien species, and the story of the game exists solely to manipulate everyone into alternately chasing it and tossing it like a hot potato.
- In Steven Brust's Dragaera books, Morganti weapons have a cold, low-level intelligence that hungers to consume souls. The blades are so awful that they even unsettle their bearer. However, the most powerful Morganti weapons are called Great Weapons, and have a more developed intelligence that can be controlled, leading to a symbiotic relationship.
- The Blackened Denarii from The Dresden Files. Just touching a coin is enough to invite the fallen angel bound to it into your mind, where they will toy with your perceptions, offer you power, and eventually try to turn you into their flesh puppet.
- Mordite is worse. Any entity short of an Eldritch Abomination will suffer Critical Existence Failure simply by being near it.
- An example by Ramsey Campbell is the Messa/Massa di Requiem per Shuggay, a morbid opera designed not only to drive its audience mad, but to summon the blind idiot god Azatoth at the end of the performance.
- The malevolent play script titled The King in Yellow, from the collection of short stories of the same name by Robert W. Chambers.
- The Illearth Stone from the Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant is pure evil and extremely powerful. Even shards cut from it are potent magic items that can corrupt people. Additionally, if the Illearth Stone or a shard of it is in one place for long, its evil anti-nature aura will kill off all the plants in a large radius around it.
- The titular grail in Teresa Edgerton's The Grail and the Ring became this because it was corrupted when its powers were first revealed. Subverted Trope in that the object can be redeemed, and doing this is a necessary step to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
- Played straight in Simon R. Green's Blue Moon Rising (the Infernal Devices).
- Things like this also turn up in his Nightside novels, but in weirder forms (e.g. the Speaking Gun).
- In P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, the Ivory Knife and the Book Bound in Pale Leather are this and yet not, in that they're given to the Kencyr by their God, and will be used by the three avatars of God, the Tyr-ridan. The Ivory Knife is the "very tooth of death", a pinprick from which is fatal, which rots and kills anything it touches. Heroine Jame keeps it in her boot sheath for the longest time.
- The titular object from the short story The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs. The monkey's paw grants the user's wishes, but at a tremendous price. "It had a spell put on it by an old fakir, a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow." The thing was created purely to cause suffering. It's pure evil.
- The Wheel of Time has an entire city that acts like this. Shadar Logoth will quickly corrupt anyone who stays too long. This isn't much of a problem when you consider that people who enter will quickly get killed by Mashadar, an evil cloud that hangs over the city. Mat Cauthon picks up a dagger on his stay there, and this acts the same way. He quickly succumbs to hating people, and is nearly killed by the taint of the dagger before he is finally separated and healed of the taint. However, Rand eventually finds a way to use the city against the Big Bad without being corrupted by it, namely by making its power and the city's cancel each other out, albeit with the side effect of erasing the city and several kilometers of earth beneath it from existence.
- Stephen King's The Dark Tower depicts two of a set of thirteen Artifacts Of Doom — the Wizard's Rainbow, a scattered set of color-coordinated Crystal balls that inspire a covetous "my precious..." instinct. The pink one appears to cause addiction to Reality TV. But the Doomiest of them all, Black Thirteen, instead inspires a mixture of terror and murder-suicides, and is implied to act as a sort of Weirdness Magnet for disaster when Jake and Father Calhoun unknowingly decide to stash it in a subway locker beneath the World Trade Center in June 1999.
- In William King's Warhammer 40000 Space Wolf novel Grey Hunter, Ragnor and other Space Marines encounter an artifact which makes vast promises to them. Ragnor only breaks free when it tells him he has to kneel to the Ruinous Power to get it. And the others don't break free on their own; he has to help them.
- May or may not be averted in C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, as the inscription over the enchanted bell only claims it'll drive you mad if you refrain from striking it. Even if it couldn't really cause insanity, ringing the bell awakened Jadis and introduced evil to Narnia, which is "doom" in a way.
- That tome of ineffable horrors, the Necronomicon originating in the works of HP Lovecraft, though this is largely the result of being heavily Flanderized; a major percentage of the Lovecraft's protagonists read the book without becoming more than mildly neurotic. Breakdowns only tend to happen when what they've learned from the book seems to coincide with their recent experiences.
- In China Mieville's The Scar, Silas steals a statue from the gryndilow which grants him mysterious powers, yet has the unfortunate side effect of slowly turning him into a fish-person.
- The gauntlet in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy which is made from a Power Crystal and fashioned by Hekat for her son Zandakar. It destroys buildings and fries people where they stand. It also makes his hair turn blue. Zandakar later abandons it as he find it too destructive, his brother Dmmitak uses the gauntlet and never takes it off, even when he has sex. The knife which Vortka gives Zandakar is also an example of this.
- Stormbringer, the black blade, in The Elric Saga novels, forces Elric to kill everyone he loves, brings about The End Of The World As We Know It, and ultimately survives the destruction and re-creation of the universe to spread its evil anew.
- Terry Pratchett created a device called the Gonne in the Discworld book Men At Arms, one of the few times he's been Anvilicious, due to Values Dissonance: anyone who so much as picks up the Gonne will think it "talks" to them; they begin to consider killing someone immediately. (On the Disc, sometimes just being powerful or unique is enough to make something borderline magical, and the Gonne was both. What the Gonne feared most, though, was not destruction but replication.)
- In the Discworld novel Soul Music, a primordial guitar bought at a little mystical shop takes control of an aspiring musician and his band mates. The guitar isn't exactly evil, but it is selfish, destructive, and intent on making sure "The Band With Rocks In" dies young and goes out in a blaze of glory, whether they want to or not, in order to popularize its type of music.
- Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, in R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale novels, is considered by many readers to be an homage to One Ring (if not an outright ripoff).
- The Horcruxes in Harry Potter. Like the One Ring they primarily function as Soul Jars for Voldemort, but can exert a corrupting influence to defend themselves, never mind that the creation of them is an act of evil.
- Not exactly doomy but definitely addictive is the Mirror or Erised in the first Harry Potter book. It shows you your greatest desire, but it is just an illusion. (In the movie Harry is show sitting transfixed in front of it like he's watching TV.)
- Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker features Nightblood, a sentient sword created for the purpose of slaying evil — except being a sword, it has no real idea what evil is, and as such continually goads its wielder to try and kill everyone in sight just to be on the safe side. Also a Deadpan Snarker.
- The quintessential example is, of course, The One Ring from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The ring can grant its wearer the abilities of Sauron, only more powerful. With the ring, the wearer could dominate the minds of entire armies, which would make any battle winnable. He could also control all the other Great Rings, which, among other things would enable him to multiply his wealth, control nature and alter the progression of time. Despite the wearer's intentions, however, the power would inevitably corrupt him. For this reason, the One Ring is greatly feared by characters throughout the series, despite the fact that it is never used for anything more complicated than invisibility.
- The reason the Ring never does anything flashy during the books is twofold. First off, it was a mind-control device first and foremost, so that's where it's most formidable abilities lie, and second, it "gives power according (the wearer's) stature", meaning that you have to be pretty powerful already to even use it to its full capacity. As the Ring spends 90% of its time in the current plot being carried around by a hobbit, it really can't to anything worse than corrupting everyone near it. Galadriel actually warns Frodo that if he tried to use the Ring to its full potential, it would destroy him.
- In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the portrait itself. Dorian cannot age and stays young forever thanks to its power, but the painting turns more horrible and wretched with each evil act that Dorian performs, as a physical manifestation of his tainted soul. Dorian is drawn to and repulsed by it. By the end of the book, he has the painting locked in his attic, afraid to even look at it. In a fit of conscience, he decides to destroy it, unable to bear to look at his aged and wicked face from the canvas. He stabs it, but in doing so, actually kills himself. While the portrait isn't actually evil, it reflects the evil in Dorian.
- The board games Jumanji and Zathura, while not inherently evil or malevolent, still often rain down misfortune and disaster on the players in the form of lions, homocidal big game hunters, meteor showers, and invading aliens, depending on which game you're playing. In both games, the only way to get rid of them is to finish the game (assuming it hasn't killed you first). However, even if the heroes do manage to finish and dispose of the game, more often than not it will just worm its way into the hands of another group of unfortunate saps.
- In the Malazan Book of the Fallen book Midnight Tides, Rhulad Sengar's cursed sword (which he only grabbed to keep an enemy force from stealing it) grants him superhuman (super-Tiste?) strength and combat ability to match the greatest swordsman. And it even allows him to resurrect, as long as the sword remains in his hand, leaving him even stronger — hence harder to kill — than before. Unfortunately, the resurrection doesn't actually heal the wound that killed him (at least not immediately, or gently) and hurts like hell, leaving Rhulad even less sane every time he's killed. And we've also seen, in the time between his death and resurrection, the Crippled God (the sword's creator and the series Big Bad Evil Guy) takes the opportunity to pound on Rhulad's soul before sending him back. Did we also mention the sword is cursed so that Rhulad can't let go of it, even if he wanted to?
Live Action TV
- Friday the 13th the Series (no relation to the movies) was about a group of do-gooders who find that a vault filled with these things were sold to various people via Deal With The Devil. Naturally, they Gotta Catch Them All.
- In Angel, the evil law firm that Angel is given at the end of season four. (Not technically an inanimate artifact, but hey.) It's a powerful weapon that will do whatever he commands, but it's always working to corrupt his thinking so that he will give it the commands it wants. The dare-to-use-it/get-rid-of-it argument keeps cropping up, too.
- In Power Rangers Wild Force, the mask of Zen-Aku resulted in Merrick going Ax Crazy and having to be locked away three thousand years ago, to be awakened by the villains to menace the Rangers in the present. By this point, he'd been so overwritten by Zen-Aku's personality that the result was an Enigmatic Minion version of Zen-Aku who didn't know what those pesky human tendencies were about and why a couple memories didn't seem to fit. Eventually, they're separated, and Merrick becomes the Sixth Ranger of the modern team. And Merrick and ZA are getting along much better now, as we learn at season's end.
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine. The Sword of Kahless appears to have the same effect on Worf and Kor, though this perception was unintended by the writers. As Kor mentions at one stage (whilst using the famous sword as a spit to cook his dinner), it's just a sword, not a holy relic. Nevertheless Worf and Kor each believe that their role in finding the long-lost bat'leth means they're destined to rule the Klingon Empire. After nearly killing each other they realise the sword will cause more problems than it will solve, and so they set it adrift in space.
- Masters of Horror: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns: Some guy, desperately in need to pay off his debts, goes in search for a long-lost film called La fin absolue du monde on behalf of a private collector. Only shown publicly during its premiere (which resulted in a massacre), everyone that came into contact with it was either driven homocidally insane or committed suicide after watching it.
- A weekly Artifact of Doom provides the premise of the Sci Fi Channel show Warehouse 13.
- Parodied on A Bit Of Fry And Laurie: "Flowers for Wendy" (purchased from the conveniently located street vendor who wasn't there yesterday) and "The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick".
- Parodied in the Ripping Yarns episode "The Curse of the Claw."
Music
- The song "Black Blade", by Blue Öyster Cult, is about a particularly nasty Artifact Of Doom (see "Stormbringer", above; the song was written by Moorcock).
Mythology
- The Ring of the Nibelungs from Norse Mythology, and later adapted into Richard Wagner's eponymous operatic cycle, cursed by its maker to destroy all who possess or covet it. When Tolkien's Swedish translator compared this artifact to the One Ring, Tolkien's reply was, "Both rings are round, and there the resemblance ceases." This Word Of God only shows that an author can describe his own work in a misleading manner.
Tabletop Games
- Crop up with depressing regularity in both Warhammer and Warhammer 40000. The Daemon weapons used by certain Chaos followers are somewhere between Artifact Of Doom and Empathic Weapon.
- Dungeons & Dragons has the Hand and Eye of Vecna. One can give one's own eye and hand to use these artifacts, but you have to cut off your hand or gouge out your eye to use it, and With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
- And there's a story about the Head of Vecna, which is supposedly used in the same way, but doesn't actually do what the user expects. It does, however, do exactly what anyone with an ounce of sense expects.
- Oh yeah, and both of the above artifacts will eventually result in you being absorbed into their original owner.
- Evil-aligned artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons generally act like this; the Book of Vile Darkness Sourcebook lists some, and is named after a particular example.
- Madrak Ironhide's axe, Rathok. Its name even translates into "World Ender."
- Exalted. How can you forget "The broken Wing Crane"! It's a book that you should not read, or even dream about, or write any part of even by accident. Or you go straight to the demons. Didn't it send the Scarlet Empress off to marry Ebon Dragon?
Video Games
- The demonic sword Soul Edge from the Soul Series of fighting games. The sword invades the mind of its wielder and turns it into its host body, removing his self-consciousness and turning him into a bloodlusting machine whose only goal is to offer the souls of those he slay to the sword. The sword's influence can also affect the user's physical appearance in varying degrees, the most common effect being a demon-looking deformed arm.
- In Soul Calibur IV, some of the characters' story paths imply that Soul Calibur, the "good" counterpart of Soul Edge, may be evil as well. In one ending, it "covers the world with crystals in an eternal utopia"; essentially trapping the world in stasis forever.
- In Ultima 4, one can acquire an item called the "Skull of Mondain" (the villain of the very first Ultima) that can instantly destroy your enemies. However, it also destroys your Karma Meter, to the point of making the game Unwinnable. Particularly sneaky, since the notion of a Karma Meter was new at the time.
- The Magatama from Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne as it can possibly curse you after leveling up, also story wise it can transform the person it inhabits or ingests into a half-demon (possessing the morals/values of a human but the powers of demons).
- This is a recurring theme in Warcraft III.
- In the Human campaign, the runesword Frostmourne (a clear
knockoff of Homage to Elric's Stormbringer) curses Arthas.
- In the Orc campaign, the blood of the Pit Lord Mannoroth corrupts Grom Hellscream and his band, turning them into Chaos Orcs.
- In the night elf campaign, the Skull of Gul'Dan (a powerful warlock) turns Illidan Stormrage into a mighty demon, and after using his new powers to defeat the Dreadlord Tichondrius (a major threat to the night elves), he's exiled by his brother for being tainted with evil. In the expansion pack, he does end up becoming evil, so maybe his brother was on to something. (Although Illidan's problems go far beyond the artifact he absorbed, and it's not been directly confirmed that the Skull sent him over the edge.)
- He also acquires the Eye of Sargeras (which probably is just a name, not a real eye) in the expansion, which seems to be one of those too.
- The novels bring us the Demon Soul, probably the worst of them all. Created by one of the Dragon Aspects under the influence of eldritch abominations, it's immensely powerful (among other things, it can control all dragons except its creator and affects its user much like the One Ring does). Even the eldritch abominations end up underestimating that attraction and their Xanatos Gambit fails as a result. It's almost certainly an homage to the One Ring, as it appears to be a plain, unmarked gold disc (as the ring is a "simple gold ring").
- The Majora's Mask, from the Legend Of Zelda franchise.
- Super Paper Mario has the Chaos Heart, which Big Bad Count Bleck creates by forcing the marriage of Bowser and Peach and uses to set in motion the end of the universe.
- DarkChips, in the Mega Man Battle Network series.
- Final Fantasy VII had the Black Materia whose only purpose (that was explained to the player at least) would bring a cataclysmic force against the planet and destroy it. Of course, on fear that Sephiroth would get through all of the traps and bosses and gain it for himself, the party of heroes decide to head in and retrieve it for themselves to keep it safe. At that point, the Kain syndrome kicks in and Cloud delivers the goods.
- Some of the True Runes in the Suikoden series are distinct Artifacts Of Doom, giving the user superhuman ability but cursing them as well.
- A interesting example is the True Rune of Punishment from Suikoden IV By the time characters figure out what it is, the rune has killed EVERYONE who is seen using it. In an optional scene, the main character can overhear a discussion where other characters discuss who is going to get the rune next after it kills the main character!
- This is pretty much why most of the 27 True Runes are bad ideas for anyone to use. The Sun Rune of Suikoden V grants nearly God-like power...at the cost of sanity (the users develops a god complex). The Soul Eater Rune from the original Suikoden will eventually kill the user's dearest friends and family to become more powerful. The Bright Shield and Black Sword runes are fine in and of themselves, but only two people that are close to one another (friends, family, etc) can use them, and they will be forced by the runes to fight each other. The only True Runes without a real drawback that have been seen in the series are the True Elemental Runes (Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind and Earth) and the Dragon rune, which hasn't been seen except for some minor parts in Suikoden I.
- Even the True Elemental Runes can be harmful. The True Fire Rune caused a firestorm that killed all the soldiers on the battlefield, even his friends, and was the reason that the Fire Bringer isolated himself.
- The Terror Mask from the Splatterhouse series is a sentient, diabolic mask (roughly shaped like a grinning skull) that grants its wearer tremendous power. Its true goal is a Xanatos Gambit to take over Hell.
- In the Chzo Mythos series of games, there are quite a few Artifacts Of Doom, the most obvious being the cursed idol that innocently sits in a bell jar in the first game until the jar gets broken.
- The Rings in SaGa Frontier
- The Silver Armlet from Beyond Oasis
- In the game based on the manga of the same name, the Anubis Stand from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is the Stand of a sword, rather then a living being. In a similar way to the above Soul Edge, the Anubis Stand possesses whoever removes it from its scabbard and turns them homicidally insane. Three characters in the game (All from the manga) use the sword while being controlled by the Anubis Stand. The Anubis Stand is still capable of controlling others even when the sword had been broken into pieces by Jotaro. (Although it's attempts to make a child throw a large piece of the sword at Jotaro's back leads to the stand's defeat as it ends up at the bottom of the River Nile)
- Phazon from the Metroid Prime series. The Space Pirates (and, in the third game, The Federation) seem to think it's just a nifty Applied Phlebotinum that gives them lots of power. It is, however, strongly implied that Phazon has its own sentience and desires to spread and corrupt everything.
- The Federation knows about the corrupting effects of Phazon. That's why they hire Samus to help them get rid of it all. They just like the extra power it gives in the short term.
- The sword Umbra from the Elder Scrolls series. The sword absorbs the souls of the people it kills and corrupts the wielder.
- Curiously, using the sword has NO downside whatsoever in game; it's just a really powerful sword with great soul capturing ability. The fact that the sword reappears in different games with different owners is a tad ominous...
- Even weirder, you can enchant your own weapons to have the same effect as Umbra with no side effects to you or the weapon, despite Umbra supposedly being some incredibly rare uber-evil artifact.
- From Morrowind, there is the heart (divine center) of the Daedra Prince of Nirn, Lorkhan. Supposedly, the four people who utilized the power of the heart — Vivec, Almexia, Sotha Sil, and Dagoth Ur — have all been corrupted over the years by the heart's distorted influence. Only Vivec has been able to remain mentally stable and alive. It also doesn't help that the activation of the giant brass golem Numidium, which originally used the Heart of Lorkhan as a power source, always results in a causality paradox.
- The Mani Mani from Earthbound is very desirable, and even emits an aura that causes anyone who gets near it to be consumed with greed. These factors allow it to play a prominent role in getting the Big Bad to rise to power.
- The web-based MMORPG Mojo Ave (by this troper who is very sorry for wiking his own stuff) had the ultimate example of an Artifact Of Doom: "The Skull of Tony Teulan", a usable item which has the effect of turning off the game. Not the game of the user who used it, the entire game for everyone. Since there was no way to reverse the effect, it only got used once.
- The Fuyuki Holy Grail in Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero, after it was corrupted by "All the world's evil".
- The Geneforges and canisters in the Geneforge series. You will become violent and crazy if you use the Geneforge or too many canisters. Of course, by the time you realize that, you won't care.
- Interestingly, according to a legend, the keyblades from Kingdom Hearts saved AND destroyed the world. Until now, we only saw the "save" part. The "destroy" part will probably be emphasized in Birth by Sleep.
- The Marker from Dead Space. Subverted. It's actually a government-manufactured copy of the real one.
- Doubly subverted in that it's not that the Marker itself is the Artifact of Doom. The Marker is, in fact, a sentient containment device for the Big Bad that spawns the Necromorphs.
- The Artifacts from Unreal 2. Your boss sends you off to gather the bits under the guise of beating the corporations/etc. to the punch, but he's really gone mad with power. When he finally gets all the bits together and assembles it, it turns the previously innocent alien chef/janitor/etc. folk into giant monstrous things with hands that shoot singularities that will kill anything in a single hit. Even themselves. After killing one, you get to use one of their hands as a weapon... and with who knows how many of them crawling over the ship..? Let's just say you'll need it.
- The Celestial Stone in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is a priceless gem that's said to contain limitless power, but much of it's story is forgotten by time, so it's only natural that when a space pirate finally locates the stone, his body is possessed by an ancient demon god of chaos.
- The Star Forge in Knights of the Old Republic. Described as "an artifact of The Dark Side", it's a piece of Magitek that feeds off the evil impulses of those who use it. According to the sequel, only a strong-willed individual can use it with anything approaching safety.
- At least Revan was a bit Genre Savvy about it, unlike Malak...
- In one installment of Curiosities of Lotus Asia (a series of side stories to Touhou written by the creator), Rinnosuke Morichika gets "artifact of doom" vibes, via his ability to see the name and purpose of an object (but not ''how'' it is used), from a Game Boy. He spends most of the story agonizing whether he should allow it to fall into the hands of local Reality Warper Yukari Yakumo. (To be fair, it does allow you to "control a world", so to speak...)
- Uninvited for the NES features a ruby that, if it is in your inventory, results in the player being possessed by a demon in about 60 turns. It serves no other purpose.
- The Demon Crown in Cave Story. The ultimate irony is that Misery, who is enthralled by the Crown's curse, was the one who had it made in the first place, most likely in a bid for power.
- Fallout 3 gives us the ominous, Lovecraftian obelisk in the Dunwich Building's Virulent Underchambers. Not the cause of any doom so far, but it did drive Jaime pretty insane, and you do hear those "dark whispers of power" mentioned in the article description when around it. Point Lookout added the Krivbeknih (Necronomicon knock-off into the mix, which you can destroy by pressing it against the obelisk, which absorbs the book and grows in power.
- The Halo series focuses on a Halo shaped object left behind by a mysterious race millions of years ago. These halos destroy all sentient life in the galaxy.
- The excavated ATAC Zulwarn in Vanguard Bandits has the power to possess its rider's enemies; according to the worst ending, it can also grant immortality. Unfortunately, it also has a tendency to overwhelm its rider's mind and make them into megalomaniacs. This happens to Puck in the Ruin Path ending. It's not clear whether Faulkner was possessed or was evil enough for Zulwarn's approval.
- Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced the Datusha Kris, Ashrah's weapon of choice. Originally said to purify its user with each evil slain, MK:Armageddon revealed it was a sentient-sword that manipulates (or even forces) its user into becoming a Blood Knight, apparently so it can use itself on slaughtering the Vampire race, of which the kris is its only "natural" enemy.
Web Comics
- The Book of E-Ville from Sluggy Freelance. Or at least that's how most of the characters treat it. While it contains more than one spell for summoning world-destroying demons, it has yet to actually do much of anything malevolent aside from following Gwynn around.
- The motorcycle containing the soul of an Omnicidal Maniac, Evil Overlord unicorn named Sparklelord from The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja.
- The Iridium Bomb that wiped out the dinosaurs in The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob.
- In Goblins, the Axe of Piridan is a major subversion: while Bid-Ears intially senses a palpaple aura of evil around it, and we intially see it in the hands of a Complete Monster, it's actually a Good weapon. The aura comes from the fact that it's a Restraining Bolt against a powerful demon, and it won't hurt a Paladin unless the Paladin wants it too... which, of course, is unlikely at best.
- The Shield of Wonder is a straight example: it provides a random, usually very squicky, effect each time it blocks a weapon.
- The statue of Eris in Discordia behaves like this (for the few scenes before it is destroyed) because it contains the Goddess of Strife within it.
- In The Order of the Stick, the Crimson Mantle arguably qualifies. It's not clear that it has any direct control over the wearer, but it does give a divine command to enact a plan that could destroy all reality.
Web Original
Western Animation
- In Pirates of Dark Water, Dark Water itself can be hazardous to your health.
- In the 90s' Spider-Man animated series, the Evil Feels Good factor of the alien costume was emphasized, with him growing more dependent upon the suit the longer he used it.
- Emphasized? It was created for the animated series, probably to explain why Venom is so psychotic.
- In the animated series based on WILD C.A.T.S., the series Mac Guffin that the heroes and villains are in a desperate race to find, the Orb, is an artifact left behind by the Precursors on Earth that can give anyone power on a cosmic scale. It's also evil to the core, possibly more evil than the Big Bad himself. Guess the Precursors hid the thing on Earth for good reason.
- The Eye of Odin from Gargoyles isn't exactly evil, but it is incredibly dangerous to use because it enhances the dominant trate of the users personality into what often amounts to a Superpowered Evil Side. Fox became a werewolf, and Goliath became a godlike Knight Templar. The only people who seem to be able to use the Eye safely are Odin himself and the Archmage, who wasalready a crazy Evil Sorcerer.
- In one episode of The Real Ghostbusters, an Omnicidal Maniac summons a golden flute with the power to destroy the world. He usedThe Ring Inscription.
- Spoofed to epic levels on The Venture Brothers.The ORB in is a small round device constructed by the greatest minds in history over hundreds of years, with the power to destroy the world. It is so feared that the Guild of Calamitous Intent, the OSI,and the Venture Family each set up decades-spanning Xanatos Gambits to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. After all that fuss, it turns out that over 100 years ago, someone had the good sense to just break the stupid thing to keep it from causing trouble. Thus the century-long conflict over the ORB was a complete waste of time.
Real Life
- Some believe that the sacking of the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad after the 2002 invasion was in fact a cover for an operation to retrieve a Secret Object of Untold Power (possibly the Skull of Adam). According to this rumor, the operation was successful, and that is the real reason why Dick Cheney is still alive. This is, of course, only a rumor.
- PLEASE let this be true! PLEEEEEEASE! I love the idea of Dick Cheney being a Lich.
- In the 1970s and 1980s, several teenagers across America tossed their rock music albums, Dungeons & Dragons games, Ouija boards, and grimoires into bonfires, with encouragement from their Christian ministers. Contrast with The Power Of Rock.
- Two Manhattan Project physicists, Henry K. Daghlian Jr. and Louis Slotin, died from radiation poisoning in two separate criticality accidents in 1945 and 1946 involving the same plutonium bomb core assembly. Said device became known as the "Demon Core".
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