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Artifact Of Doom / Video Games

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Examples of the Artifact of Doom present in Video Games.

  • Ancient Domains of Mystery has a Ring of Doom, which, once worn, can only be removed by uncursing the ring in some manner (at which point it retains the dooming effects, but may be removed... but will curse itself again if worn again). Many other items in the game are also "autocursing", including some literal artifacts. Particularly nasty artifacts include the Scythe of Corruption and the Medal of Chaos, both of which, in addition to autocursing, corrupt the player.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: The Dypheus' Breath is an ancient spear hidden within Hinterland that can manipulate any type of portal or gateway. It also acts as a seal for Amok, during the False Ending where it is removed, Amok proceeds to unleash her Mechanical Abominations by using the spear to open a gateway.
  • The black block from Antichamber. It floats around, emitting darkness wherever it goes, and tends to show up right as you get to gun upgrade rooms. What it is, what it is doing, and why it tends to pass by the block guns is never touched upon at all. However, it's a prominent moving thing doing something, so it's worth investigating.
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • The Apple, a.k.a. one of the Pieces of Eden. As observed by Altaïr in the Codex, where he states "I freed myself. But now I wonder... Did I really? For here I sit — desperate to understand that which I swore to destroy."
    • Also reportedly observed by Ezio at the beginning of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, who ends up in a similar situation.
    • Other Pieces are even worse. The Shroud tries to get people to use it to heal themselves or others with a Compelling Voice, but it is either actively malevolent or just very, very broken. The results range from Body Horror to Came Back Wrong. Occasionally, it will actually heal someone. Not helping is it's got a precursor mind inside it.
    • Interestingly, in "The Tyranny of King Washington" DLC, it appears that this is the effect of the Apple that was given to George Washington, who then goes on to turn the new United States into a dictatorship bent on world domination. However, it was all a warning by the Apple as a vision. Seeing the vision horrified Washington into rejecting the idea of a monarchy out of hand and he chews out the next person who suggests it who is really a hallucination embodying his lingering ambitions.
    • The Apple seen in Assassin's Creed Origins and its "Curse of the Pharaohs" DLC, which has caused it to unleash nigh-unkillable projections of pharaohs who previously held it.
    • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has a set of Apples used by a Precursor bio-genetics project which have a tendency to turn people who touch them into monsters. Valhalla clarifies that if someone has sufficient willpower, they can stop the process. If they don't, well...
    • Speaking of which, it's shown in Valhalla that at least some Apples are capable of defending themselves while not being held. One on the Ilse of Skye responds to Kassandra setting foot on the island by brainwashing dozens, if not hundreds of people simultaneously, causing an outbreak of madness and insomnia, and as they and Eivor get closer uses projections pulled from their subconscious to slow them down.
    • And no, destroying them is not an option, either. The last time someone tried it resulted in The Tunguska Event.
  • Asteroid 5251 has the crystal in the Nether fortress (actually a diamond block) that is what's powering the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Baba is You has the "Done" keyword found in the true final level, The End. Assembling it with an object reference destroys the object completely (rather than turning it into nothingness like "Empty" would). And the goal of the level is to make "All is Done", leading to a Sudden Downer Ending in an otherwise quirky and colorful puzzle game.
  • Baldur's Gate III:
  • Cursed Items in Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness have actual practical use in-game. You can use a Thiefs Pickpocket skill to plant these on enemies to debuff them or give them unique loot from another nearby NPC's inventory to start a fight. Justified since the entire kingdom is cursed with Greed so putting on loot they inexplicably found in their inventory is in-character in this setting.
  • The trilogy of The Black Mirror games has the titular Black Mirror. Hidden in a massive cave system under the castle of the same name, it transports the souls of anyone evil who dies near it to some kind of hellish dimension (if not the Hell), generates shadow versions of people that can torture said souls or kill the living, and literally radiates evil that only certain people can resist. It's heavily implied that the trilogy's Big Bad Mordred was a heroic person until he was corrupted while studying it. No one knows why it exists or who made it, but one character claims that there's proof that it's as old as the universe itself.
  • The Nox Nyctores from the BlazBlue series have fairly nasty side effects. Tsubaki's Izayoi (which eventually robs its user of sight) is so nasty that Ragna's arcade win quote consists of him recognizing it and warning Tsubaki that she should get rid of it as soon as possible. It is arguable that Ragna isn't one to talk, though — especially not considering the fact that his Red Right Hand is the titular BlazBlue, an artifact of doom that, if he ever lost control over it, could spawn a monster with the potential to destroy what is left of the world.
  • The Celestial Stone in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is a priceless gem that's said to contain limitless power, but much of its 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.
  • One of Professional Angler's lines in Card City Nights 2:
    "Hey, should I tell the Navigator that I fished up an evil alien artifact that could doom us all? Best not, huh?"
  • 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.
  • The Frozen Flame from Chrono Cross. It's one of the most desirable "treasures" of El Nido, and almost everyone wants to get it and have a life of fortune. In reality, however, it's a fragment of Lavos, and if you aren't the Arbiter (Serge, the 17-year-old boy who lives in Arni Village), having contact with it results in death. Oh, and it's also the source of power of Chronopolis, and it can't be accessed because the arbiter is now someone else. In a nutshell, the thing is wanted by every single Big Bad of the game.
  • 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 Relic of Moirai in Contra: Shattered Soldier is revealed to be the mysterious force that the alien attackers were trying to recover, but it was taken and hidden by the Triumvirate, as revealed by Lance Bean after you defeat him.
  • Crash Fever has the QUEENS' Accelerators, dormant versions of the QUEENS which, when fed large amounts of the data of ALICE itself, awaken into a much more powerful form. They also have a bit of an Emotion Bomb property. Subverted with Azathoth, who wasn't so much evil as she was childish, but she was a Walking Wasteland, so instead of trying to fix her, as that would mutate the workers who did so, the researchers stopped the project and sealed Aza inside an enormous egg.
  • In Crypt of the NecroDancer, nobody who messes with the Golden Lute comes out looking pretty. It corrupted the eponymous Necrodancer (formerly the bard Octavian). Cadence's father sought it, and became Dead Ringer. It's in the process of corrupting Melody, who it brought back from the dead. It tempts Nocturna with the possibility of becoming human again. Then, in Cadence of Hyrule, it adds Octavo and Ganondorf himself to the list of those enthralled by its power.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: The Biochip, an Arasaka 'artifact' containing an A.I. clone of a real person's mind, and effectively the secret to immortality. The catch? Whoever is unlucky enough to 'die' while plugging it in will be mentally replaced by the original as the nanomachines slowly change the host's DNA and brain cells to that of the A.I.'s, starting from the fatal wounds. The Artifact the player character steals at the beginning of the game contains a nuclear terrorist.
  • The Casket at the beginning of D'LIRIUM apparently transforms the setting from a land of cute ponies into an Eldritch Location crawling with demons, and grants the protagonist a myriad of dark powers in the bad endings.
  • Pontiff Sulyvahn in Dark Souls III regularly used a few of these (the two Pontiff's Eye Rings and the Dancer's swords) as Uriah Gambits to the Outrider Knights, a position deliberately given to those he didn't like. Wielding one will eventually cause the user to lose their mind until they become a crazed berserker, and if worn for even longer, will eat at their humanity until it transforms them into bestial abominations with their armor fused into their skin, with their only thoughts being his highest guards.
  • The Markers from the Dead Space series.
    • In the first Dead Space, the Marker is actually a government-manufactured copy of the real one, which is a sentient containment device for the Big Bad that spawns the Necromorphs. It makes people slowly go crazy, see their dead relatives, write strange messages on the wall in their own blood, and kill themselves. It's also what creates the titular "dead space" — an energy field that repels the Necromorphs.
    • In Dead Space 2, Isaac inadvertently creates another Marker that does all the same things minus the suppression and almost starts something called a convergence event.
    • Dead Space 3 reveals the Markers' true purpose, and it is ghastly. They are the tools an incomplete post-convergence Necromorph is using to gather the raw material it needs to make itself whole.
  • Department 42: The Mystery of the Nine involves the recovery of nine cursed artifacts with a limited intelligence that enabled them to escape the safekeeping of the eponymous agency and do various funky things to their unlucky possessors.
  • Doom³: The Artifact from Resurrection of Evil. It was created by the forces of Hell to counter the Soul Cube the martians created to fight them, and to act as a key many years later when humanity has colonized Mars. It gives the wielder the powers of super speed, One-Hit Kill, super strength and invulnerability but it has to be fuelled by human souls and as long as it's on the living world, Hell will always have a way there. The only way to make sure that Hell won't conquer Earth is to destroy The Artifact in Hell for good... which Betruger will not tolerate.
  • Dragon Age:
    • The Obviously Evil and ominously glowing Red Lyrium Idol from Dragon Age II. Found in a Primeval Thaig located in one of the furthest depths of the Deep Roads, it drives anyone who handles it for an extended period stark raving mad.
    • Red Lyrium returns in Dragon Age: Inquisition, having fallen into the hands of the "Red Templars", who apparently are using it as a substitute for the regular Lyrium they are addicted too. The results aren't exactly pretty. It's also revealed just what makes Red Lyrium different from Blue Lyrium: Red Lyrium is infected by the Blight.
    • To a lesser degree, the Eluvian, although it was originally a perfectly "normal" Magic Mirror before the Darkspawn got to it. Merrill believes that repairing it (even if it takes dealing with demons) could restore some lost elven heritage, while her mentor doesn't think it's worth the risk. In the end, we never find out what it would have done. According to her mentor, the real problem wasn't the Eluvian itself, but rather the Pride demon (the same one Merrill dealt with to repair the Eluvian) that was waiting on the other side.
    • Vigilance, the sword forged by Wade for the Warden-Commander from the bones of an Ancient Dragon. The epilogue of Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening states that it was later stolen by the Antivan Crows, and rumors abound that it's changing hands rapidly, steadily growing in power and possesses a will of its own.
  • Dragon Quest:
    • Dragon Quest III:
      • The Golden Claws. Far worse in the original game, where it causes an enemy fight every step of the game. In subsequent versions of the game, this only happens while you are in the pyramid; exiting the pyramid breaks the curse. Also in the original, this was the only additional claw the martial artist could use other than the standard.
      • Anything that curses you when equipped. Unlike most Dragon Quest games, they don't have any uses as items either.
      • Bonus points, however, go to the Sword of Ruin, a cursed weapon that is second only to the Sword of Kings in terms of sheer damage, and has a much higher critical hit rate than comparable weapons, but carries the downside of preventing you from attacking about every 1 in 3 rounds. In the original NES version, this weapon is actually sold in a weapon shop in Rimuldar(!), despite the curse.
    • Dragon Quest VIII: The Sceptre of Trodain, which is locked up in a vault in what was once the castle, chained to every single wall in the room, in the dead center of a Magic Circle. Or, it was, until Dhoulmagus stole it and unleashed Hell. Its original name was the Godbird Sceptre, and it was used to seal away Rhapthorne, Lord of Darkness.
    • Dragon Quest Heroes II: Twin Kings and the Prophecy's End:
      • The Sword of Discord grants its user tremendous power, but also drives them to homicidal madness and fury.
      • The Cup of Kings, originally a benevolent artifact, becomes this thanks to Fractos' influence.
  • The Messiah Armor in Duel Savior Destiny has been cursed by the failure of Messiah candidates who put it on before and the grudges that infested it. While it can turn someone into the Messiah, they'll go on a killing rampage and risk destroying the world, which is exactly what the Messiah is actually supposed to do, leaving it questionable what the curse on it truly does.
  • The Mani Mani from EarthBound (1994) is very desirable, and 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 the Big Bad's rise to power.
  • The Echo Night series has a reoccurring one in the form of the Soul Stone. Taking the form of a knife with a small red sphere embedded in the hilt in the first two games and a cylindrical mineral with one sharp point in the third, the Soul Stone has three traits that remained consistent throughout the entire series. First, the Stone can grant the desires of the wielder.note  Second, the Stone requires human sacrifices to fuel its powers, and each of its owners go on massive killing sprees trying to achieve their goals. Finally, With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
  • The Elder Scrolls is positively rife with these. Each game seems to feature at least one as part of its main quest, with others showing up in the side quests or deep backstory. To note:
    • Throughout the series, the Legendary Weapon sword, Umbra. In The Elder Scrolls novels, it was too much for even Clavicus Vile, a Daedric Prince, to handle. It steals a good chunk of his power before he manages to get rid of it. The sword absorbs the souls of the people it kills and corrupts the wielder — one to the point that the sword supplanted her identity, and she was known by its name as a remorseless killer. Though it has no apparent effects in gameplay, it always has a new wielder by the next game...
    • A number of artifacts associated with the Daedric Princes, especially the more malevolent ones, qualify throughout the series. Most don't have an 'air' of "doom" on their own, but the means to acquire them often gives them one. For example, a person carrying Mehrunes Razor or the Mace of Molag Bal had to do something for the Daedric Prince of Destruction or the Daedric Prince of Domination and Corruption (respectively) to make that person worthy of receiving the artifact.
    • Arena features the Staff of Chaos. The Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn used it to imprison the emperor and usurp his throne. He then broke it into pieces which the Eternal Champion has to recover.
    • Daggerfall has the Numidium, a Humongous Mecha of Dwemer craftsmanship which may have been responsible for the Dwemer vanishing utterly. It was used to forge Tiber Septim's empire and each of the main parties wants the Mantella (Numidum's control rod, powered by the soul of the Underking, a possible Shezarrine) for themselves. Which one gets it is up to the player.
    • Morrowind has the Heart of Lorkhan, which crosses over with being a Cosmic Keystone. The literal heart of the "dead" creator god. The Dwemer tapped into it using the "tools of Kagrenac" (Wraithguard, Keening, and Sunder), causing them to disappear. Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal then used the tools and the heart to achieve divinity. The Nerevarine will need to gather the tools and unbind the heart in order to defeat Dagoth Ur. The ash statues, which connect people to Dagoth Ur and slowly infect them with corprus, are another.
    • Oblivion also has several. The Mysterium Xarxes plays a part in the game's main quest.
    • Skyrim:
      • Several Daedric artifacts are acquired by doing some extremely unsavory and "doomy" things. One can kill their companion, a Priest of Mara, to acquire the Skull of Corruption, an artifact Magic Staff associated with Vaermina, which gains power by stealing the dreams of people and giving them nightmares instead. Likewise, the Ring of Namira is acquired by luring a Priest of Arkay to a cave, murdering him, and eating him along with a coven of cannibals. The ring then allows you to gain health by consuming the flesh of the dead.
      • The Eye of Magnus, an Ancient Artifact associated with Magnus, the god who served as the architect for Mundus, the mortal plane, but abandoned it part way through creation. While it's unclear exactly what it does, it clearly possesses enough raw magical power to potentially destroy the entire world. Which is exactly what the Thalmor ambassador to the College of Winterhold tries to do with it. Indirectly, the Eye of Magnus doomed the ancient Falmer civilization. Due to both the Ancient Nords and the Falmer vying for control of the Eye, it led to a war in which both Saarthal and the Eye were lost. The Ancient Nords drove the Falmer underground into the arms of the Dwemer, who betrayed, enslaved, and twisted them into the blind, bestial Morlock-like creatures they are today.
    • Online has, in the Summerset expansion, players tasked by the Psijic Order to find and recover the eight fragments of the Staff of Towers. The Staff is an ancient relic that is tied to/duplicates (there's not much difference in the setting) the eight Towers of the world that "define reality" around them. What happens when you create one immensely powerful magical artifact with eight conflicting "rules"? Bad things.
  • EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: The mysterious bracelet unearthed at the start of the game. It drives animals into rampage, grotesquely transforms human bodies until they die if worn, and has a mild psychic domination effect on Miku. It's also meant to be a ring worn by the ancient Latour warrior race, and transforms its sole living member into a demonic giant. It's even possessed by an ancient spirit called Noah, who seeks to manipulate those around the bracelet towards an unknown objective.
  • Fallen London:
    • The Eyeless Skull. You need to find at least one to unlock the Cave of the Nadir, but holding on to one for too long will cause you to draw cards that substantially drain your stats when played. The kicker? You cannot discard these cards until you get rid of the skull.
    • This is the true identity of Jack-Of-Smiles: a large set of Polythremian knives that will possess their wielders with their shared consciousness and get to murdering everything in sight. The forge that produces them qualifies as well.
  • 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 (a Necronomicon knock-off) into the mix, which you can destroy by pressing it against the obelisk, which absorbs the book and grows in power.
  • Spoofed in the second Fantasy Quest game with the Golden Cufflink of Fire. You never learn precisely what it does, and the villain who possesses it is a bit of a joke.
  • Fatal Frame has Kunihiko Asou as the inventor of several of them in his lifetime. Mostly in the form of various Camera Obscurae, which allow the user to see ghosts. But it also has the threat of potentially leading to insanity and being Driven to Suicide from overexposure of his artifacts.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy VII has the Black Materia, whose only purpose (that is explained to the player, at least) is to bring a cataclysmic force against the planet and destroy it. On fear that Sephiroth will 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 indoctrination kicks in and Cloud delivers the goods.
    • In Final Fantasy XIV, dragon eyes can be this in the wrong hands, but this is most telling with the Eyes of Nidhogg. One eye is in possession of the Azure Dragoon Estenien and he spends the Level 30-50 Dragoon storyline slowly slipping away because of it. He regains himself soon after and the Eyes play a major role throughout the Heavensward storyline. When Estenien and the Warrior of Light kill Nidhogg, they realize the eye the dragon had wasn't the same as Estenien's. Turns out that eye belonged to Hraesvelgr, Nidhogg's brother. The other eye was actually hidden in the casket of the First Azure Dragoon and used by Archbishop Thordan VII to become the primal King Thordan I. When the Archbishop is slain, the eyes are reunited and Nidhogg takes over Estenien's body, restoring his own. Once the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud save Estenien and toss the Eyes into an abyss, the Ascians retrieve them and give them to the maid Ala Mhigan Ilberd, who uses its power and his slain comrades' prayers to create the beast Shinryu. Thankfully, when Shinryu is slain, Estenien finds the fallen eyes and destroys them, ending their threats.
  • The Geneforges and canisters in the Geneforge series. You will become violent and crazy if you use the Geneforge or too many canisters. By the time you realize this, you won't care.
  • God of War:
    • Pandora's Box fits this trope in most settings, but here, it was probably more responsible than Kratos was for what happened. When Kratos opened the box to fight Ares, instead of drawing in the powers of Chaos that embody Kratos' personality, he somehow accidentally repelled them. They infested the gods instead, feeding on their flaws and driving them insane with extremism, ambition, and paranoia. Zeus himself fell prey to Fear, addling his mind with paranoia and driving him to antagonize Kratos for something he hadn't done yet, and used the other gods as meat shields to fuel his ego. In the third game, as Kratos slays each infected god, the chaotic forces of the Box are released upon the world, causing cataclysms that ruin what is left of Greece.
    • The Blades of Chaos become empowered and cursed by Kratos' rampage. Every time Kratos tries to throw the blades away, his luck fails and something bad happens to him as the blades return to their owner. Eventually, Kratos uses their undying heat to fight off the cold sections of the Underworld.
  • The first arc of Granblue Fantasy features the Dark Essence — crystals used by the high-ranking officials of the Erste Empire to drastically increase their combat abilities, and to corrupt Primal Beasts into their more violent Malice forms.
  • In Gyossait, the eldritch organs of the titular Earth goddess can mutate mortals into horrifying gods.
  • The ARI from Heavy Rain, since it's highly addictive and can eventually kill Norman Jayden, the character using it. If it does, his Rabid Cop partner Blake puts it on and sees a digital version of Jayden standing over him with a Psychotic Smirk on his face.
  • Heroes of Mana has the Mirrors of Esina. "Esina" is actually "Anise" spelled backwards, making them the Mirrors of Anise, with the real mirror hiding in the Sea of Chaos right where the Goddess of Doom is standing.
  • The Raysphere of inFAMOUS is an unusual example. It can't influence those who use it because it's not sentient, but its ability to grant superhuman powers at the cost of killing thousands of lives is incredibly tempting. The game considers intentionally using it an In-Universe Moral Event Horizon.
  • The Anubis Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future is the Stand of a sword, rather than a living being. In a similar way to the below Soul Edge, the Anubis Stand possesses whoever removes it from its scabbard and turns them homicidally insane. Three characters 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 its 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).
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The Keyblades shattered the world from one large one into millions of small, isolated world-shards, due to a war between good Keyblade wielders and evil ones (the shards were saved from total destruction by the hearts of children, although the good keyblade wielders may have helped). It's not for nothing that the general reaction of people who recognize the Keyblades for what they are goes something along the lines of "oh god, get away from my world-shard NOW".
    • The real Artifact of Doom in the franchise is the χ-blade, the legendary blade that is believed to grant control of Kingdom Hearts to anyone who wields it. The Keyblade War that shattered the world into its current state was fought over this thing, and the Keyblades themselves are artificial (and not anywhere near as powerful) imitations of it. The original χ-blade was shattered at the conclusion of the Keyblade War, and the Big Bad's ultimate, series-spanning goal is to recreate it.
  • The Master Crown in Kirby's Return to Dream Land gives off this vibe. On a closer observation, it appears to be controlling Magolor, as it has a tendency to squirm around shortly before he performs many of his attacks and it takes on an appearance reminiscent of a parasite while he's using it. Magolor Soul is also described as being an Empty Shell that's been possessed by its power, which further implies that the thing has a will of its own. This is explicitly confirmed in Return to Dream Land Deluxe — not only does the Crown itself serve as the Final Boss of the Magolor Epilogue, but both its and Magolor Soul's Flavor Texts clearly state its desire to destroy everything in sight, and how willing it is to basically kill its host in order to do so.
    • In Kirby Fighters 2, the True Final Boss has King Dedede and Meta Knight wear the Mask of Dark Bonds as their last resort to finally defeat Kirby. The masks grant them great power and new weapons to go with it, but they also lose themselves in the process.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
      • The titular mask. To put it in perspective; everything wrong in Termina when you get there? All of it was done either directly or indirectly by the Skull Kid wearing the Mask. And on top of ruining everyone's lives, he's planning to drop the frickin' moon, destroying the entire land of Termina. And he can do it. Oh, and it's not just a power-up artifact of doom: the mask is intelligent, and is possessing the Skull Kid. And when Majora decides he's outlived his usefulness, the mask discards the kid like an old pair of socks.
      • The Fierce Deity Mask is noted in its description to potentially be every bit as bad as Majora's, and going by how it turns the final fight against Majora itself into a Curbstomp Battle, it may be a great deal more powerful.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
      • The Fused Shadows, which are hyped up to be an Artifact of Doom by the Light Spirits that Link rescues throughout the game. However, they all agree that, despite the potential for evil the Shadows hold, Link needs to collect them in order to have a chance of challenging Zant's power. Their power is proven when a single fragment can turn a Deku Baba into a vast two-headed monster, or an ordinary Goron into a low-budget Balrog that causes Death Mountain to constantly erupt. It's later revealed that the three fragments only make up half of the Fused Shadows. The other half is the strange helmet thing that Midna wears, and with them, she pops Zant like a balloon, using only a 'fraction' of their power, though Ganondorf isn't so remotely fazed. They don't corrupt Link or Midna, though the risk to Link is graphically illustrated by Lanayru in a horrifying Dream Sequence. It's suggested that like most Twilight magic, they're not inherently evil, just incredibly dangerous, and Link's Triforce and Midna's powers (plus the fact that she's the rightful owner) insulate them. Instead, the main corruption is implied to come from the temptation of power itself.
      • Just one shard of the Mirror of Twilight from the same game turns demure, unassuming Yeta into the crazy ice-monster Blizzeta. Afterwards, Midna comments on this (as well as regretting that they had to hurt Yeta to free her), saying that they could be assembling something terrible which they might end up having to destroy (as Queen of the Twili, she later decides to do exactly that, to prevent another Ganondorf or Zant wreaking havoc on their respective worlds). Ironically, once intact it's actually faar less dangerous. In pieces, the influence it has is... questionable.
        "NOT TAKE MIRROR!"
  • Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places): The onklunk. Once you get it, everyone wants you dead. Seriously.
  • Manifold Garden: The dark cubes evoke this, though they actually help to remove darkness from the world.
  • Mass Effect:
    • In Mass Effect 2, there's a Reaper which died 37 million years ago. It still indoctrinates people.
      "Even dead gods can dream."
    • In the mission Arrival, a science team discovers Object Rho, a Reaper artifact which indoctrinated the scientists to make them lure Shepard into a trap.
    • Any Reaper tech can act like this. Even the seemingly disposable Dragon's Teeth can brainwash nearby people into impaling themselves on the spikes, thus transforming into Husks.
  • Mega Man:
    • Mega Man ZX gives us the original Biometal, Model W, which is what remained of Dr. Weil of the Mega Man Zero series.
    • The OOParts in Mega Man Star Force aren't explicitly evil, but they do want to rebuild the tribe they are from, starting by taking over whoever possesses them.
  • Phazon from the Metroid Prime Trilogy. The Space Pirates 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 web-based MMORPG Mojo Ave has 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.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Mortal Kombat: Deception introduces the Datusha Kris, Ashrah's weapon of choice. Originally said to purify its user with each evil slain, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon reveals it to be a sentient sword that manipulates (or even forces) its user into becoming a Blood Knight, apparently so that it can slaughter the Vampire race, of which the kris is its only "natural" enemy.
    • Mortal Kombat X has Shinnok's prized amulet. Various groups seek to use the amulet's power for themselves, but after Shinnok is released from his amulet by Quan Chi, which he then uses it to conquer Earthrealm. The Stinger of MKX reveals that after Shinnok was reduced to a mere head, a corrupted Raiden dons it on his chest as a battle trophy.
  • NetHack has some dangerous items, such as the Cursed Potion of Sickness and the Amulet of Strangulation.
  • Odin Sphere has the Cauldron, which not only helpfully pulses with evil red light but also serves as a catalyst for the wars that consume the world, and drains the very life out of the universe via its creation of psyphers. King Valentine also boasts in Armageddon that these wars were All for Nothing, as he has cursed the Cauldron to turn anyone but him who tries to use it into a pooka.
  • Paper Mario:
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is built around an Artifact of Doom: simply opening the damn door could doom the entire universe, and had already blown Rogueport sky high once.
    • The Chaos Heart from Super Paper Mario, 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.
  • Planetside: It's heavily implied that the Vanu's Lost Technology has some memetic mind-altering effect on people and drives them to try to bring others into contact with the stuff to propagate the effect. The people in the Vanu Sovereignty do weirdly keep claiming to be "enlightened".
  • In Queen at Arms, certain dialogue trees may lead to the revelation that the crown of Orthera is enchanted to make the wearer bloodthirsty, power-hungry, and deeply paranoid.
  • The Crystals are revealed to be this in Raiden V — they have the ability to assimilate entire worlds and reshape them in their image.
  • Randal's Monday: The ring is this incarnate. Those who touch it end up having their minds distorted and actions manipulated by the object's will, if the business bum is to be believed. Add in its incredible power, and it could potentially turn someone into a mad god.
  • In Return Of The Obra Dinn, the shells, which are responsible directly and indirectly for almost every death in the game. There are three separate mutinies trying to steal the shells, a group of mermaids attack trying to get the shells and then get captured, and then a bunch of spider crab riding monsters and later a kraken attack the ship to save them. The monster attacks only stop when the third mate gives the last surviving mermaid the shells and frees her, but by that point almost everyone is already dead.
  • Runescape has several quests that involve artifacts of doom.
    • The Stone of Jas is an artifact containing a nearly limitless amount of power, it is the original source of the runestones that are needed for casting spells in the game and touching it briefly during a quest causes your combat levels to temporarily increase to more than double the maximum level you can reach by training. Prolonged contact with it can turn a mortal into a god. However, it has a huge price for using. When somebody uses the stone of Jas, the Dragonkin, a race that is cursed with protecting the stone, become enraged to the point of turning into Omnicidal Maniac until they calm down by committing acts of destruction. And every time somebody uses the stone their power increases, currently they have nearly become gods themselves.
    • On the plus side, it has no direct effect on the user's sanity, unlike many of the powerful Artifacts on this page, and there is at least one Dragonkin who has not yet gone insane and who wishes to free themselves of the curse. If someone managed to break the curse by working with the sane Dragonkin, they could use the stone without needing to worry about the Dragonkin, as the Dragonkin would now most likely try to get revenge on Jas.
    • It is possible that he was lying, but Sliske claims that the stone is addictive, citing that everyone who has had had contact with it has tried to obtain it again even while knowing how dangerous it is. Sliske deliberately tries to start a war between the gods by offering it as a prize to the winner of his game.
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has several. First and foremost, the Magatama - demonic parasites/symbiotes used as combination of armor and spellbook, capable of transforming humans into half-demons. This ability alone is enough to make them inscrutably dangerous, and considering the apparent maker, this can't be a good thing. There are also several cursed items called Deathstones, slivers of misfortune and death, used in devil fusion to summon the Incarnations of Death as servants, and can only be found as you progress in the Labyrinth of Amala. Finally, the Amala technology strewn around the Vortex World serves as the game's Akashic Records, but peering too deeply into the knowledge the drums offer is a surefire way to irreversible insanity.
  • The Shabby Doll from Silent Hill 4, which causes unremovable hauntings if you put it in the item chest.
  • The Skull Heart from Skullgirls. Supposedly, a woman (it doesn't work for males) who makes a wish on the Heart will have it granted, but only if her intentions are pure enough. If there's even the least taint of corruption within her, the Heart will mutate her into a demonic, supernaturally powerful being, one of the Skullgirls. Fourteen years prior to the events of the game, Squigly's mother was in possession of one from Double, when Dahila and her goons busted in and killed everyone in the party including Squigly herself, she wished for her family to return, but in sense of desperation at the loss of her family, she became the Skullgirl, and her family her servants. Seven years later, the game world is recovering from the aftermath of a long war that screeched to a halt when a powerful queen got hold of the Skull Heart and wished for peace; she got her wish, but in a twisted fashion — she was turned into the most dangerous Skullgirl of all time, and the quarreling nations had to stop the war in order to concentrate on the task of killing her before she could destroy them all. Even worse, one of the characters' endings reveals that the Skull Heart is sentient, and actually ''wants'' to create more Skullgirls.
  • The Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic the Hedgehog series become this in the wrong hands; for instance, in Sonic Adventure 2, they're revealed to be the power source for an enormous cannon held within a space station, and said cannon can end the world when at full power.
  • Soul Series:
    • The demonic sword Soul Edge 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 Soulcalibur 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. Confirmed in Soulcalibur V: Soul Calibur has an avatar named Elysium living within it (just as Soul Edge has Inferno) who seeks this "eternal utopia", and takes the form of Sophitia to trick Patroklos into doing its bidding.
  • 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 Batman Gambit to take over Hell.
  • The Stanley Parable: In Ultra Deluxe, in the New Content/Skip Button ending, the Narrator creates a Skip Button for the player which exponentially skips time, ultimately leading to the Narrator's own undoing. However, it is the cause of Stanley's freedom.
    Narrator: Please, please. Please do not press the skip button.
  • Star Wars Legends:
  • Street Fighter X Tekken has Pandora, a box-shaped artifact from space that reacts to conflict from around the world, greatly augmenting the fighting abilities and physical prowess of those that are affected by it, but at the cost of potentially corrupting their souls.
  • Most if not all of the twenty-seven True Runes in the Suikoden series are Artifacts of Doom. They give their host a supernatural ability and make them The Ageless. However, each True Rune has a will of its own. What a rue Rune wants is more often than not horrifically mentally scaring or deathly to the human that is in possession of it. Examples of this include:
    • The Soul Eater Rune from the original Suikoden, which will eventually kill the user's dearest friends and family to become more powerful.
    • 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's going to get the rune next after it kills the main character!
    • The Sun Rune of Suikoden V, which grants nearly God-like power, but at the cost of their sanity.
    • The Bright Shield and Black Sword runes, which 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 True Elemental Runes (Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind and Earth) are trying to gain dominance over each other by forcing their hosts to over-use their powers.
    • The Moon Rune, which turns one into a vampire. Sealing them away won't work, since even if one is able to do so they will die once the last of the True Runes magic leaves their body. However, there are ways of mastering the power of a True Rune. Oftentimes, this will involve the bearer of a True Rune gathering the 108 Stars of Destiny. In the case of the True Rune of Punishment, this requires forgiving Snowe, whose cowardice and mistakes in the beginning of the game led to the main character's exile and disgrace in the first place. The Rune of Punishment governs atonement and forgiveness, so this act shifts it into the "forgiveness" phase. Some other True Runes require other means; for example, the mind-altering effects of the Sun Rune can be dealt with by two control runes branded on each hand to use properly.
  • The Eye from the Thief video game trilogy. To sum up its role in the first game, Thief: The Dark Project, Garett's main objective throughout the majority of the game is to locate a magic stone known as "the Eye" within a monster-infested cathedral for an aristocrat named Constantine. The catch is that this artifact is likely responsible for the monsters in the first place. Oh, and it's sentient. When you do overcome the ordeals surrounding the Eye and bring it back to Constantine, he reveals one last detail about the artifact — namely, that its evil powers can only be restored by its organ namesake. Then he and his acquaintance Viktoria both reveal themselves to be demons, and he commands her to extract Garett's eye. Yep, Garett just lost his eye. Ouch.
    Constantine: Viktoria, are you prepared to give Mr. Garett his... compensation?
  • In one installment of Touhou Kourindou ~ Curiosities of Lotus Asia (a series of side stories to Touhou Project written by the creator), Rinnosuke Morichika finds a gray box made of inorganic material, and his Namedar power tells him that it can control people, force them to fight, cause wars, and potentially even end the world (but it doesn't say how the device is used). He spends most of the story agonizing about it falling into the wrong hands, especially those of local Reality Warper Yukari Yakumo. When he finally decides to destroy it, Yukari simply snatches it away using her gaps; the next day, Marisa shows up with a message from Yukari, clarifying that the device is a handheld game machine.note 
  • Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes has the Death Drive Mk.II, the video game console you play over the course of the game, as well as the Death Drive AAA, a "master controller" machine contained within the CIA that is linked to the Mk.II. According to the faxes you receive from "K", the Death Drive consoles were to be used to create a Clone Army, using biometric data gathered from the Mk.II's controllers to 3D-print an endless army of soldiers that could fight without being held back by physical exhaustion or moral dilemmas. He and the Mk.II's creator, Dr. Juvenile, filled the Mk.II with bugs to render it unusable, and your playing through and clearing the Mk.II's games would clear out the bugs and reactivate the AAA, allowing the CIA to use the Death Drives for their original sinister purpose. Thankfully, before you can become an Unwitting Instigator of Doom, you obtain a special Death Ball that allows you to raid the CIA HQ and prevent them from using the AAA.
  • Ultima:
  • The Artifacts from Unreal II: The Awakening. 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 stone tablet in Vampires Dawn II: Ancient Blood is considered to be this by most people. Even the heroes have doubts whether to use it or not.
  • The Ankharan Sarcophagus from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, an ancient coffin believed to contain something unspeakably powerful that could destroy the world if opened. It's actually just an empty coffin... which has been stuffed full of explosives that will blow anyone who opens it to pieces, all as part of a Xanatos Gambit by Jack and the Cabbie to upheave LA's vampire society and get rid of Prince LaCroix.
  • Vangers allow you access to several powerful artifacts, which are hidden on cursed worlds. One of them particularly stands out — the Mechanical Messiah, a Creepy Doll which looks like a Clock Punk African idol. It allows you to use its functions with destructive powers, such as burning everyone around with fireballs, robbing their cargo holds or forcibly taking their weapons, or even destroying the Spobs escave with Parapheen by causing a cave-in and turning the whole escave into soil under certain circumstances. No wonder the Messiah is considered to be cursed, and no one wants to see you in their escaves carrying this menace. One of the functions, though, is called Lucky, and activating it grants you No Fair Cheating Non-Standard Game Over, where The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You.
  • In Vanguard Bandits, the excavated ATAC Zulwarn 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. Zulwarn is so evil that merely activating it requires mass human sacrifice since it's powered by blood, though Puck finds a way to reduce the requirement down to a few drops.
  • This is a recurring theme in Warcraft III.
    • In the Human campaign, the runesword Frostmourne (a clear Homage to The Elric Saga'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).
    • Illidan also acquires the Eye of Sargeras (the actual eye of a corrupted titan who became pure evil, ironically created the Burning Legion which possessed the Skull of Gul'dan and which Tichondrious was a lieutenant in) in the expansion, which proves to be one of these as well, having the power to kill people on the other side of the world (shattering the world in the process).
    • 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 scheme 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"). This one is also the reason there's now a flaming god-dragon kept together by metal plates flying around destroying the world in World of Warcraft. He didn't always look like that. The uncorrupted Dragon Soul returns via Time Travel, and is used to destroy its own creator in the final battle of Cataclysm.
    • The Orb of Domination in Warlords of Draenor is used by the Shadow Council to corrupt and control the minds of unwilling converts. The player steals it to free Garona, only for the Warden tasked with destroying it to be corrupted herself.
  • Wario World's Big Bad is a reality-warping black jewel.
  • The aptly named Artefact from the white chamber, a powerful device which appears to serve as an execution machine for the guilty, and which Sarah murdered all her other crewmembers to get.
  • White Noise 2: The supernatural creature is tied to your dimension by one of these. Learning the truth will expose it, so it can be destroyed, which will banish the creature.
  • The Gatekeeper Statue in Wintermoor Tactics Club. It causes people to feel isolated and paranoid, and is trying to open a portal to let its demon master into the world.
  • The Monado in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. It's not inherently evil, but it happens to double as the Soul Jar of Zanza, who gives Shulk "visions" to push him in his desired direction, all while whispering advice to take out his vengeance on Egil and the Mechon.

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