The Curse of the Bolt

It all started with spilled blood, when men did true evil to a good man trying to stop a battle. It created a mass of Evil, bound to the weapon that murdered a holy man. Blood soaked that weapon. When the weapon was destroyed, one piece survived, a bolt. That bolt, or the metal of that bolt, has karmically found its way into a weapon as history has passed. That weapon has become a curse upon Humankind. Though its form has changed, the Pool of Evil born of murder before battle is still here with us, corrupting and destroying to maintain itself.

All because of a bolt.

The city was to come under seige like so many did during this time. The Father, Father Simon by name, believed what he preached, trying to get others to follow peace in that violent time. Just before the armies came, he went out to give comfort to an outlying villager who was too sick to come into the city. He did not get back in time, as the force was already making camp in the fields about the city. He beseached the commander, who had him escorted away. He ran about the camp, preaching peace and love to the soldiers who were preparing for battle. He was pushed away by halbard point. He ran before them invading force. He stood in front of the city gate. He cried to heaven to help him save the city and the innocents. That good men could live in peace.

That cry was answered by the command to charge and the wet thud of Father Simon against the sturdy oak.

The city gate soon broke and the force poured in. It was a frenzied battle. Soldier fought soldier and civilian in the city. No one gave quarter, and those who asked for it seemed to be laughed at.

The campaign continued. The Bloody Ram, as it was called, was brought along by the forces. It was their good luck charm. It broke the gate and saved them weeks of seige.

It broke nine more gates, castle, city, and abby, that campaign season. As the gates were broken, a frenzy of death and destruction followed. The force became an army that killed, looted, and pillaged, that campaign season. In the last battle, at a small walled town called ... well something.. it is not longer there, the Bloody Ram was destroyed. The defenders, out manuvered the main force having its way with the city, and came at the unit holding the gate (and watching over The Bloody Ram). While they died to the last two men before they escaped, they managed to destroy the hated ram. Burning it to chared ruin and twist of metal. It is said that the ram burned green flame, but that is attributed to the varnishes on the wood by scholars.

The Lord, who was now a petty king, was sad to have lost the weapon. He was happy and confident that all his problems were over. However, he spent the next decades of his life desperately defending the towns, cities, and lands he took that long red summer.

One of soldiers took a different kind of souvineer that day. He took one of the surviving bolts from the ashes of the Bloody Ram. The bolts had secured the ram head onto the long wooden mass of the ram. Bolts were always hard to come by in those days of before mass production. He would keep it to use it later. He was one of the mechnicians, those who made the seige weapons for the army.

Thus it began. The traveling of the curse.

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For the next few seasons, the seiges were bloody affairs, full of violence and madness.

It was kept by one of the soliders and used to make a catapult on his next campaign.

It should be noted that this nameless soldier died leading a bloodthirsty charge. In fact, that madness infected the entire camp. Instead of patiently waiting out the seige or taking surrender, The Army of Lord Bathiasis continued to smash itself upon the castle walls. When the walls finally came down, they slaughtered everyone inside to the last cat. Thus the patteren continued from campaign to campaign. The culprer was the bolt. The metal elements of the seige weapons were conserved and re-used from campaign to campaign. Who ever inherited the soldier with The Bolt became the "Master of the Red", crusher of fortifications and slayer without mercy. This pattern continued on from year to year through the "middle times".

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Possessed Siege Artillery! It is a style thing.

My spin is that a specific piece of seige weapondry (a battering ram, lets say) Something bad, evil happened. It spawned Evil. It started the curse.

The weapon eventually was destroyed... except for one lone bolt. The ones that help secure the metal head to the large wooden piece

That bolt was incorporated into another seige weapon. The bolt was used in a seige ballista or something. hat bit of metal get incorporated into a cannon, one of the first.

The evil continues to cascade. The curse continues, as the piece of metal is combined and remelt. So all these cursed weapons are all descnedents of this one cursed bolt. It is always a seige orriented device, or artillary (since seiges no longer go). Sometimes it seems to kill innocents. Sometimes it is the weapon that fires the first attack of a war. If it does not do "uber magic", if it just does quiet magic.. quirks of probablity, twines of fate, and always leading men into doing "bad".

It is a cursed item.. always making war more bloody, more dangerous, and more innocents die.

It starts with a Battering Ram
It became a Ballista or some such weapon
It became one of the first cannons, the cannon that was always around when a war started. Responsible for the 30 year wars.
It was a civil war cannon that wounded and maimed but did not kill.
It is part of a howitzer that targeted orphanages and hospitals in WWII and Korea.
It became something in vietname
Now it is a the casing of a nuclear weapon.

Full Item Description

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History

Magic/Cursed Properties