Curses! CURSES! - Sin-eating and Ergotherapy

The oaths of humans have power
The coin of fae is courtesy
The thralls are led by purpose.

It can all become curses, for—
Curses come with a pointed finger, and a strong emotion.
But curses also come as accidentally self-inflicted world-truth.

A curse is a wound on the essence.
Or maybe a wound is just a curse on the body.

Nadia Waheed

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This is an Ode

My girlfriend is an occupational therapist.
In Danish this is an Ergotherapist. What a rad word!
Where a physiotherapist helps ease the pain of your body, an occupational therapist eases the pain of lost meaning when the body or mind gives out.

How do you keep your morning coffee routine when cerebral palsy has robbed you of the ability to pour your own cup?

They give meaning.
They help find training that can motivate.
Break things up into goals so small they can be accomplished.
So you can find a way back into the health of meaningfulness.

This inspired me.
My girlfriend is a curseworker:
Helping untie the soulknot of the curse that can be resolved.
Easing the pain of that which can't, and teaching acceptance.
Finding new methods of life-appreciation.

Safiya Zerrougui

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CURSES! 

In the poetic logic of my world, when you become so stoic that you become impenetrable—it is a self-inflicted curse.
You become rock-like because you see yourself as a rock.
Joints creak.
Words fall dull on your ears.

An oath of silence can become a noose—an invisible string tied around the neck, and pulled taut.

Chimerism and obsession can lead to undesired changes.
Moth-wings you did not want, and a fascination with light too strong not to obey.

They can also come from the outside: a witch’s finger, when you wronged them. A heated argument.
A curse always includes an effect—a possible endstate—and either an implied or direct emotional charge.

I HATE YOU AND YOUR VIOLENT OUTBURSTS. I WISH YOU WOULD JUST LEAVE ME, KEEL OVER, AND DIE.

Anatomy of a Curse

That’s a very clear example. You’ll figure out the more unclear ones. Not my job.

But HATE is the emotion.
It’s the hammer that drives the cursenail into your soul.
VIOLENT OUTBURST is the target. The object of the hate.
LEAVE ME → KEEL OVER → DIE is the progression.

If it doesn't have all these things—is it then a curse?
Your world is not my world. Not my monkey, not my circus.
But those are the things I listen for.

Any curseword spoken with emotion is that—a curse.
Don’t swear, kids!

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It is said fascination is the most beautiful of all curses:
Bound to resolve by itself, a product of love, tying two beings together—
And it may spring forth again when fancy strikes.

A couple that has been together for life may carry a curse so strong it keeps them both alive,
and drags the other into death should one fall.

That is what we in our world call heartbreak.

M R N

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Nature of a Curse

A curse’s strength can be found in its meaning.
If the curse is relevant to the person (look to traits-and-things-related-to-it on your sheet), it will be worse.
A nightsworn navigator being cursed with eversleep will start at a more progressed state—because fighting off the drowsiness means more to them.

It is a condition on your sheet.
It gains power when its emotion is fed into, and may momentarily strengthen you.
Then it blossoms—horridly.

All curses fester unless treated.
The noose tightens.
The stone inside the heart grows boulder-big.

A curse may worsen after a meaningful unit of time.
(Some have a direct trigger—“by next full moon.” Others simply worsen if indulged.)

A curse is also power.
Something that can be tapped into.

Lycanthropy is a curse. You may give in.
The GM may say:

“Only if it’s worse.”

They will make you hate how the curse pulls you toward success.

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How Does It Progress?

Whenever meaning impends.

Seeing the person you were cursed to leave.
Trying not to fall asleep at night.
Avoiding the feeling that caused it.
Failing to speak.
Failing to feel.

.

Voidbug

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Lifting Curses

Sometimes, my girlfriend takes the pain in.
It feels as if she is eating the sin.
I have 10% of her left when she comes home.

Other times, she makes a plan, and has to trust the very slow process of healing.
So small it could grind down the soul with monotony—but still, it is progress.

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Curse Digestion

Anyone cursed can work to digest the curse.

This is a process of real bile, fever sweat, acceptance, and deliberation.
To pass the curse through you, you must pass through it.

Every day, you must:

• Commit an act opposite the emotion
  (Someone cursed by stoicism must act as their emotions demand. Player or character emotion? You know what works at your table.)

• Refute its command, in whatever way is fictionally challenging
  (Someone cursed with silence must try to speak, bile pushing upward with every syllable.)

If both are done, the curse lessens in effect.
Change a word of it. Move one step back.
You are no longer keeling over (KEEL OVER), but going near the cursed subject causes pain (LEAVE ME)—and that, too, is what needs to be refuted.

A curse that is not refuted by its meaningful interval will worsen.

Outside help is paramount to conquering a curse (and finding meaning, and removing bias—all things related to cursework and ergotherapy).

Anyone can help in this process:
Instead of once per day, whenever a fellow character realizes you are refuting the curse, they may notify that you are fighting it.

Help from a skilled curseworker may even make curse digestion testless, depending on the fictional situation.

There are many more curses than there are wars.
And much more need for cursework than swordplay.
We should dare make it interesting.

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Eat the Curse of Another

A curseworker (these special ones are called sin-eaters), or anyone foolhardy and dear enough, can try to eat the curse off another.

Depending on the curse’s strength, there is proportional danger.
Test to see how much you can take in.

You are now both cursed.
Its progression is halted—or even reversed one step, if it goes well.
But you are both at that step now.

Test = a roll, a question to the table, or a fictional negotiation—depending on your system.

I am not your mother

Some curseworkers can let the curse spill—like a living spell that crawls back up their throat, stronger than when it left.

Pavel Orinyanski

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Let It Eat You Up

There is a left-hand path: to surrender.
Give in. Give up.

It will unmake your sheet.
Everything not aligned with the emotion, target, object, progression, or command must go.

Many do so at the edge, when the death of being unmade seems certain.

This is a gentler death.
And a curse fought will have words changed.

This is a radical, violent rebirth—not a process of negotiation like other transformations or endings.

There are curse-midwives too, who aid at that most terrible of thresholds—
Making it less of an ending, and more of a surgery.

Let it consume you. Iliothermia

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Cursework: A Play Aid for Living Curses

A curse is a truth that hurts.
It festers when unchallenged.
It blossoms when fed.
It can be carried, shared, digested—or surrendered to.

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Listening Guide

For players, GMs, and world-listeners.
Curses are born in language and feeling. Listen for:

• Big emotions said aloud, with a command or implication

• Refusal, betrayal, unmet desire spoken or ritualized

• Long-held patterns that hurt or define someone

These are curse seeds. You don’t need to name them immediately.
Let them bloom.

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1. Identifying a Curse

A curse has:

• Emotion — hate, fear, grief, love, guilt, obsession, stoicism, “just surviving”

• Target or Object — what it twists or binds to

• Progression or Command — what it causes (e.g. leave, sleep, transform, rot, fade)

It may be:

• Self-inflicted — a world-truth hardened into harm

• External — emotionally declared, ritually delivered, or socially enforced

• Relational — born of bonds, purpose, oaths, or silence

Record on your sheet:

Emotion / Target / Progression

Mark how it resonates with your traits, roles, or named elements—these increase its bite.

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2. Curse Progression

A curse progresses when:

• You avoid confronting it within a meaningful unit of time (as directly stated or implied)

• You feed its emotion (intentionally or not)

• You encounter its trigger and do nothing

Marks = worsening effects, symptoms, or complications.
They can be mechanical, symbolic, or fictional.

Examples:

• Silence → Muteness → Words heard but not spoken → Language lost

• Sleep → Drowsiness → Blackouts → Dream-possession

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3. Curse as Power

Giving in grants power—but worsens its grip.
The GM (or world) may say:

“Yes, but only if it’s worse.”

Each surrender may:

• Advance progression

• Add marks

• Amplify effect

• Shift you toward metastasization

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4. Metastasization

A curse can consume you until nothing else remains.

When you surrender fully:

• It obliterates all sheet-elements not aligned with it

• Traits, desires, relationships are unmade or rewritten

You are no longer the person you were—only what the curse made of you.

Some curse-midwives soften this threshold.
It becomes survivable.

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5. Lifting or Digesting a Curse

Refute the Curse

Daily, or at meaningful fictional moments:

• Act opposite the emotion

• Disobey the command, and take the consequence

Each success lets you:

• Change one word (e.g. Die → Writhe → Sleep)

• Step back in its progression

This is how meaning rewrites fate.

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Share or Take It On

• Both become cursed

• Progress halts or reverses

• Test to see if the marks are split or all taken by the curseworker

Some curseworkers let the curse spill—into spell, possession, contagion.
Let the result follow the tone, stakes, and logic of your weird world.

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Curse Examples

Self-Inflicted

Stoneheart
Emotion: Grief
Target: Feeling
Progression: Mutedness → Mind like stone → Petrification

False Wings
Emotion: Obsession
Target: The Loved
Progression: Flighty fascinations → Reckless stalking → Immolation

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External

Witch’s Quiet
Emotion: Shame
Target: Speech
Progression: Lips sealed → Voice gone → Forgotten by all not in sight

Eversleep
Emotion: Annoyance
Target: Stillness
Progression: Drowsy hallucinations → Nightmares → Dream-prison

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Power-Granting

Bloodhowl
Emotion: Rage
Target: Wounds
Progression: Howl-and-Snarl → Lose control → Froth and lash out → Become a wolf

Power: You may howl to terrify enemies when wounded—but the wolf comes closer each time.

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Curse Lifecycle – Quick Reference

1. Identify

Emotion / Target / Progression

2. Progress

When festered or fed

3. Use

Feed it for power (GM/world-player may ask a painful question: “Only if it’s worse”)

4. Digest

Refute emotion & command daily
Change one word or regress progression

5. Share

Take it on to slow or reverse it

6. Metastasize

Let it consume the sheet.
Become the curse.
Nothing else remains—only what fits.

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What I Really Do at My Our Table

I don’t write it all up.
I write the emotion, target, and the current step in the progression.
As it changes, I go with my gut.
I care less about the written word and the neat procedure
Than what we speak into being at the table.

The sheet represents the fiction.
The fiction is never bound by ink on paper or pixels on a screen.
It is only bound by poetic meaning—by fictional world-blood
And what tugs at your or your character’s heartstrings.

Nadia Waheed