It is a box of fairly standard children's toys. There are dolls, blocks, carved knights and animals. Everyone will think, 'Oh I had one of those when I was young.'
Full Item Description
It is a box of toys suitable for children (ages 1 to 4). They are sturdy, wooden, comfortable, and painted brightly. The box is also brightly painted and a good toy carrier. There seems nothing amiss with it.
Magic/Cursed Properties Of course these are in the Garage Sale from Hell Codex.... you know there is something wrong with them.
The items are enchanted with three enchantments.
The first is to weaken any defenses the child's home and play room might have. This is a slow, draining process, that only the most dilligent might notice. This draining empowers the entire process.
The second is to encourage the child to focus on its self rather than other. Once any defenses the child might have are breached, the process begins. This is also a slow process, shifting the child from the general good to the selfish towards the Evil. The child will not be come Evil until much, much later in life. Of course, by that time... who remembers who gave him that box of wooden toys.
The third is to cause the child to trust a specific astreal being. This astreal being could be the Evil Cultist or a specific demon who helped create the toys. Once the defenses around the child are down, the astreal being can slip in. The item allows the child to see the astreal being easily, and protects the astreal being from being sense by others. This astreal being becomes the child's imaginary friend. And that friend will help to mold the child.
This is a great item for long term plans, disrupting prophicies, corrupting future rulers, and 98 other uses.
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Also in
Codex hubs that gather this piece with similar work.
- Garage Sale from Hell MoonHunter
Bonds
Curated bonds across the Citadel — sign in to bind a bond. Kindred Favors are another thread in the same weave.
Links to this article 1
- Garage Sale from Hell MoonHunter linked by MoonHunter
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I wonder if there is an Evil Toy Company secretly producing these things?
Nah. All it takes is some evil enchantments (a few compulsions, a few minor summons, and they can be binary or trinary (i.e. require two or three pieces to make the spell a whole... thus escaping most detection) on some new toys, commissioned or purchased.
I can see a warning sign in the way the children play with the tainted toys from the chest. Enacting murders with dolls, famous massacres with toy soldiers, the sort of play that one associates with mad generals and sociopaths, not the innocent play of childhood. Evil evil evil.
Poetic... very nice... take two paws up.
Exemplary. It's exceedingly rare that childhood is taken into account in games except as the amorphous "dark past" or "low beginnings" type of thing. It's wonderful to see items specifically intended to produce icky weirdness.
I had forgotten about this one.
This one doesn't ring very true to me. It's a good idea, but generic 'EEEvullll' is rare. Far, far more common is the self-deluded evil that believes it's different because its goals are 'good': The bigot, acting to ensure the 'purity' of his land; the zealot, who believes that all infidels must convert or die; the revolutionary, who believes that any sacrifice is worthwhile to bring about change; the fascist, who believes that only a strong central government can correct the wrongs of the past. While there are people out there that are truly, sociopathically evil, they often cloak their ideas in a facade of self-justification.
'Evil' toys would often reflect the backgrounds of their creators: Noble toy knights and nasty toy peasants that suggest that the peasants 'need to learn their place'; Religious themed toys that subtly emphasize the truth (or hypocrisy) of a faith; dolls that make one group look good and kind, while another group is depicted as ugly, stupid menials.
In a land where supernatural evil is aggressively present, something like that would be almost inevitable.
Evil, for this item, is in terms of self serving being to a higher celestrial power of a darker nature. In the generic, Evil Cultists (which do not operate out in the open). These people would have glimpses of the future (via their demonic allies), and forsee that certain people might interfere with their plans. Thus they might take actions to eliminate future concerns or possibly utilize said component.
Now, nobody, especially me, likes cardboard Evil for the sake of Evil.
Now these people would not neccisarrily call themselves Evil. They would see themselves as enlightened and 'free of common morality that is there to enslave a person to the status quo'. They think they are deserving of certain things that society has yet to feel fit to provide. Nobody thinks they are the villian in their own story. They think they should 'get their due' and will take any means to achieve that. If that happens to be demonic forces, then they have an edge the rest of the poor saps refuse to take because they are cowards, or too stupid, or too weak.
This is different! I likey!