Arrathudum

Arrathudum (Cursed Items) are cursed fetishes.

Some objects are cursed. Powerful emotion, as noted, leaves a resonance. This residue can feed the spirits of an area or even create a locus. The residue can also, at times, mark an object in the physical world with a strongly negative spiritual resonance. Only scenes of great horror and atrocity can change an object in such a way. The Forsaken call such objects the arrathudum, or the "accursed icons."

Accursed objects work according to the following rules:

• Every arrathudum has both a power and a drawback. These both occur at the time of activation.
• Because the object serves as a link to the Shadow, like a pinprick between worlds, the object can help a werewolf cross the Gauntlet. When stepping sideways at a locus, a werewolf with one of these objects in her possession gains a +1 to the roll to enter the spirit world.
• A player can purchase these objects with points in the Fetish Merit.
• Activating a cursed object follows the same basic rules found on p. 204 of Werewolf: The Forsaken, with a few exceptions.
• Any entity with a Morality Trait can roll that Trait to activate the object; vampires roll Humanity, werewolves Harmony and so on. Cursed objects seem to react more strongly to souls that seem "stronger" in some way. Given their slight corruptive influence, this is not necessarily a good thing.
• A point of Essence spent will not obviate the need for a roll; as the object has no spirit, Essence cannot "bribe" the spirit.
• Failure to activate the object still earns the owner the item's drawback, but not its power.
• Dramatic failure requires a roll to resist Kuruth.

Cursed Item Fetishes

Black Phone: The man came off the mountains, a hermit driven mad by his own isolation. He entered the ski lodge - just ramping up for the season and playing host to several skiers and vacationers warming themselves by the fire - and opened fire with an autoloader shotgun. A few escaped. Most ended up in a heap in the center of the room before the man turned the gun on himself. One one of the end tables was an old Western Electric (300 series) Art Deco rotary phone, an antique that wasn't hooked up to anything. The phone, flecked with blood, became arrathudum the moment the man ended his own life atop the pile of still-warm corpses.
When the arrathudum is activated, a werewolf can use the phone to speak to any one werewolf that he has met in the past, no matter where she is in the physical world or the Shadow. The conversation is not two-way; the werewolf with the phone speaks to the target, not vice versa. The werewolf can communicate a number of sentences equal to his Primal Urge score.
Drawback: For the 12 hours following activation, the werewolf's Social rolls may be affected. On all Social rolls, the "10 again" rule no longer applies. In addition, any 1's that come up on a roll are subtracted from successes. (This latter part does not affect dramatic failure rules.) This manifests as the werewolf stutters or misspeaks, unable to find the proper words.
Action: Instant

Razor Wire Knuckles: The storm was a real frog-squasher. Lightning flecked the darkness every second or so, and the thunder about tore the sky into ribbons. Storms didn't usually spook the cattle, but this wasn't a normal storm, and the whole herd shared a sudden twisting fear. The animals stampeded, running together the the far end of the field where they battered the coils of razor wire, bloodying themselves so that they could escape. Ans escape, they did - toppling over the edge of the subsequent cliff and into the flooding gully below. Hundreds of animals, plummeting to their death. Legs broken, flesh ripped from stray wire.
One coil of that wire - still rusty with cow's blood - seems naturally shaped to fit one's fingers so that they serve as a kind of skin-tearing set of lethal knuckles. The wire knuckles do +2 damage (lethal), and attacks made with them are done using Brawl. Upon activation (done at the moment the knuckles do damage to a foe), the razor-barbed knuckles sting the wound. The following turn, two more continuous lethal damage are conferred to the foe, ignoring Defense and armor. In addition, for the remainder of the combat, the foe hears the braying sounds of a dying herd of cattle, distracting him from making successful attacks. The foe's attacks are therefore hampered by -1 penalty.
Drawback: After the arrathudum is activated, every subsequent turn of combat (until the combat is over, per the Storyteller's designation), the user must roll to resist Kuruth. Entering Death Rage does not cause the werewolf to attack, but instead incites him to flee (as if one of his last three Health boxes were filed, per the rules on p. 174, Werewolf: The Forsaken). If he succumbs, the flight instinct kicks in immediately. Vampires and other supernaturals capable of frenzy test to see if they go into frenzy in similar fashion.
Action: Reflexive

The Honorable Badge: The cop found that his job carried privilege and distinction. The badge afforded him respect - respect he used to pull over people and kill them. A sociopath, he found it easy to deceive his way onto the force, and once in a cruiser by his lonesome, he was able to mount a considerable body count before being caught and eventually sent to the electric chair.
His badge, an item cursed by the pleas and screams of those who believed the officer to be a savior and not a killer, can help a werewolf pretend to be someone else. When the badge is activated, the character appears to one person to be exactly whom that person most desires to see at that moment (anybody from a long-lost father to a mailman who should be delivering a package from home). The werewolf designates the target of this illusion at the time of activation, and that person must be within the werewolf's line of sight. At this point, the werewolf gains +5 go any Social rolls when dealing with that person, as she believes him to be whom she most wishes to see. The person may make a Wits + Composure roll to see through the illusion, but this roll is contested against the werewolf's own Wits _ Subterfuge roll (a roll to which he gains the +5 Social bonus). This power lasts for one scene.
Drawback: One hour after the badge is activated, the werewolf's hands begin to drip with blood. The blood starts slow at first, the flow light. But over the next eight hours, the blood begins to drip as if running from a leaky faucet, steadily oozing. The blood cannot be contained by gloves - it simply oozes around the edges and even through the toughest leather. Anybody attempting to track the werewolf does so with a +4 bonus. After the eight hours are up, the blood dries upon the hand and flakes off in flecks of rusty brown.
Action: Reflexive

Nizar's Tabuk: It was a bloodbath. Saddam's Baathist army marched through Al-Hillah, violently quashing a Shi'a uprising by murdering both soldiers and civilians. From a distant window, one of Saddam's snipers fired into civilian crowds with alarming accuracy. The man, Nizar, was preternaturally talented in the art of murder, and every bullet fired found its mark. He believed his rifle, a marksman's Tabuk (looking like a modified Kalashnikov), was blessed by Allah and so was a potent weapon against the uprising. It would be nearly 12 years before Nizar was killed in the United-States-led invasion of Iraq, but his rifle - which since earned hundreds more kills - found its way through many hands since that time.
By itself, the scoped single-shot Tabuk rifle has the following stats: Damage 2, Range 200/400/800, Clip 30+1, Strength 3, Size 3. When the rifle is activated, however, the werewolf can add his Resolve to the roll to attack. Also, damage taken from the shot is aggravated. Finally, when activated, the gun uses up no ammunition. (The gun must be activated for every turn of attack.)
Drawback: The gun is hungry to kill. Once an hour has passed since the last activation, the drawback takes effect unless the werewolf activates the weapon and shoots someone. after the hour, he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand tall, and the gun grows cold. He has three turns in which to shoot someone with the activated weapon. Failing to do so results in the gun making a terrible wailing sound, a screeching howl that unnerves all who hear it. Those within 100 yards of the weapon suffer a -1 penalty to all Mental rolls, as they are unable to concentrate. The werewolf who last activated the cursed item, however, suffers a -3 penalty to all rolls no matter how far away he gets from the rifle. He can always hear the sound cutting through his ear drums like a dentist's drill. The rifle screams this way for eight hours, at which point it abruptly stops. The werewolf's -3 penalty ends at this point, as well.

Keys of Cages: In the basement of the Columbus Avenue tenement, the men in pristine suits kept the women locked away in kennel cages. The women were used as slaves for various abysmal pleasures, sold to powerful men with big money and endless desires. The basement was kept mostly dark except for a few Coleman lanterns. The women were fed poorly, and made to wait in their own waste. One night, when being led from her cage, one of the prisoners managed to grab a ring of keys from her jailer, and stabbed one into his jugular vein. She was killed, of course, but the misery left its mark on those keys.
The keys are now cursed. On the ring are nine keys, one for each severe derangement in the World of Darkness Rulebook (see p. 96-100). When the keys are activated, a werewolf can use one of these keys (he may not know which key corresponds to which derangement) to lock any door that has a keyhole. The key fits the keyhole, regardless of its physical dimensions. The key doesn't actually lock the door. The key merely curse the door with its power.
From that point on, any who try to open that door automatically gain a severe derangement (one that corresponds to whatever key was used to lock it upon activation). The derangement lasts for one month. The effect on the door, however, is permanent - the only way to remove the effect is to destroy the door. All doors locked by a Key of Cages gains a +5 to its Structure.
Legend suggest that more than one suck keyring exists - any atrocity tied to being locked away (prison riots, concentration camps, a father who locks his children in an attic) may become thusly cursed.
Drawback: A werewolf who uses these keys is cursed - his next roll, no matter what it's for, suffers an automatic dramatic failure. This drawback is present every time he activates the keyring to lock a door with madness.

References

• WTF: The Rage: Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 141-143