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[Footkerchief]

-Foe Wails: The weapon emulates the voice of those destroyed by it and screach out threats, screams, and wails of its previous victums.

This is such a great idea.

[Nivim]

-Death Bind: If possession of the artifact should pass from one person to another then the previous owner will instantly die.

This reminded me of the movie Covenant where a character could will their power to another character, along with their life. So this could be expanded more into a "Soul Bind", in that the artifact gains power with each person who wields it and passes it on. So your "ancient family heirloom of no real worth" turns out to give you the skills of your ancestors. There of course would be a limit on how much skill the Artifact could contain, but I guess that would be based on the value of the artifact and just how skillful the ancestor was.

Sweet Smell - Positive thoughts are important.

-Finder: Some artifacts can never truely be lost. If tossed into a Volcano, Bottomless pit, or bottom of the ocean it will without fail find another master.
-Lost: Some artifacts can never truely be kept. If the artifact loses its owner or becomes lost it travels to another location likely to never be seen again.

You did re-read the thread didn't you? Anyway, I think that these two should kinda be tied as a possibly sentient object. A number of powerful artifacts have some personality and will, these two things would be a representation of that will (The Ring, God-killing weapons from the Draegerian series, some Elder Scrolls artifacts, some Might and Magic 1-8 artifacts, Need of course). Where an artifact will leave an owner for some reason (owner misusing artifact, boredom, time for a change...), and find another one. The artifact may decide to be lost for almost any amount of time depending on past experience, or stay with a person if they like them.

Innocent - A good explanation for this would be the weapon being possessed with a good spirit, and paralyzing attacks. It could be one of those things where a great holy power of elven good blesses something, while you expect awesomeness, and get this.

Phantom Hold - This one would be really easy to do, I think it happens occasionally already as a glitch.

Heavenly Diplomacy - Could you explain more clearly?

Soft Bonus - Materials that shouldn't make weapons already get a pretty large damage penalty.

Flaming wake - So very much like what a SoF does when moving through a field of flowers.
Hm, on this and Ice Wake, how will you keep stupid dwarves from wiping out the fortress with them?... Does create more Fun and an incentive to always look at a new artifact the instant it is done. Be even more Fun if it can be combined with the enchantment that makes the maker keep and use it for life.

Faster and Faster - We will need chance of collision damage for this, and possibility of blazing up a hill at incredible speeds then off the cliff at the other side.

Disguise of Age - Not really a disguise, and doesn't really fit with a cloak. I would prefer some time-related object. If not, a belt, as it would add an obvious way to use it.

Disguise of Majesty - Reminds me of that story in which a couple of men manages to trick a king into buying a nonexistent robe made of "cloth that is visible to all but the stupid". And no one wanted to tell the king that he was naked, as it would "prove" them the fool. This cloak would be the reverse of that. Where you can wear nothing at all and no one will care...of course, no character in the game cares about that anyway...

I notice that a lot of the glove ones seem to be enchantments that could be applied to any number of objects.

Skill Stealer - I feel as though this requires some negative side effect, but none come to mind.

Hand Protector - Leave name at "of protection" and also give it the ability to block incoming attacks with hands. It's one of those general enchantments that could be placed on all but a weapon and vary from object to object.

Robbing - A name change to "Duplicity", might not be the right word, but it makes fun of the effect being both a trick and a duplication.

Robbing Blind (+) - Again, not a good name. I think, the Hands of Health and Harm, or the Hands of Surgery would describe it much better.

Theft - Call them "Hands of Fetching" and give a few more theivery based abilities, like stealing the king's pants from the other side of the fortress. Like others, needs a negative side effect. Such as leaving your hand in whatever interdimension rift you make to reach through (the king finds a morbid, amputated hand suddenly appear in his pants).

Heart Throb - I think this should be divided a bit. Grabbed a person's emotional heart shouldn't have much in the way of visible effect, and should be kept separate from gloves that give an insta-kill for anything with a heart.

And a new one for gloves;
- Creation/Conjuring : Allows the user to create crafts out of nothing if they have enough skill beforehand and imagination in their personality.

[Neonivek]

DANG! I forgot to include the "Please don't judge the items by their names" clause.

Though wow I didn't think anyone would respond after it fell that deep.

Soft Bonus: Materials that shouldn't make weapons already get a pretty large damage penalty

-I written it badly, it was supposed to be an ability that allows otherwise soft, light, and/or flimsy materials in artifacts to gain bonuses similar to the harder materials. So that Chalk Sword can suddenly match strikes with a Steel sword.

Heavenly Diplomacy - Could you explain more clearly?

If this is what I remember correctly. It is supposed to allow you to kill people without the chance of suffering divine retribution from an enemy god if you are on a religious quest.

needs a negative side effect

A Negative side effect, Curse, and Cost effects? Sure! that will be my next one!

Sample Cost effect
-Tithe of Nod: Everytime the artifact is used it steals the ability to slumber from the wielder. Creatures without the ability to slumber do not become sleepy but rather slowly go insane as their daydreams invade their reality.

a lot of the glove ones seem to be enchantments that could be applied to any number of objects

I do that with a lot of effects.

[Nivim]

 And I forgot to assume it existed... I keep expecting the name is what you tack on to the name of the artifact. What do you mean by "fell that deep"? In the forum list? Eh, I use the "show new replies" and "unread posts" buttons to look around.

 So, it would be more like "Aspect of [metal]"? Where the weapon would have properties of another stronger material.

 Ah, so it would allow you to kill a priest without getting hit by lightning if you were a member of another priesthood.

 Not exactly what I meant. More around the lines of the more powerful enchantments need to have some side effect tied to them to balance them out. Such as the Skill Stealing gloves also causing your skills to slowly reduce over time. Many artifacts around the fantasy worlds have a powerful ability, but also a side effect that is part of that ability. For some reason, many games call the ones like these "relics" and the ones with only a positive effect "artifacts". And example of a relic (from MM8) would be the sword with a shrunken medusa's head at the pommel that powers the enchantment. Anything you attack with it gets paralyzed, but it has a speed penalty of 40.
 For the insomnia side effect, don't you mean as long as it is used? The way it is worded right now would mean the instant you use it you permanently lose the ability to sleep. Would it have a variable amount of time till the curse goes away?

[Neonivek]

Alright, so I am having problems with this site right now so I can't respond so quickly.

So, it would be more like "Aspect of [metal]"?

Not so much, it has its own power and attributes.

So I guess if there was a description it could say: "It brings out the inner perfection of *material*"

For the insomnia side effect, don't you mean as long as it is used?

The problem is that I don't want to make multiple copies of the same power with different triggers so I left it vague
-When held with floating time (as in, if you held it for an hour, maybe it takes away your ability to sleep for two hours)
-When Held without floating time
-When Used
-When a power is used

Though it isn't Pernament automatically but it can conceivably have such a high cost that it can easily become pernament. (Imagine an insane Elven King who consolidates his rule with the power of an artifact that is the source of his madness)

[Neonivek]

Goodness, will I ever just let this topic die? Probably not. I warn you, I have no spell check.

So intentionally misinterpreting someone's response I have chosen to base this artifact post on curses, side effects, and costs. Artifacts may be powerful tools but they can also be powerful burdens. This page will be dedicated to the many ways artifacts can hinder its use or harm the user.

As always feel free to contribute your own, in fact I wish it, and don't judge anything based on the name I give it.

What is the difference between a curse and a cost?: For the sake of this topic only a curse is anything that befalls the user for owning or holding an artifact, they arn't nessisarily lifted when the artifact is lost or removed. A Cost is something that must be given up or inflicted in order to use the artifact.

Now expect plenty of copies between curses and costs. As well for costs I won't be writing out what a “Use” is, it is intentionally left vague. Also if an exact number or period is given for a curse it is used as an example. Aging for example could cause the owner to age a year everyday.

Requirements are situational costs.

Curses
-Aging: The artifact causes the owner to age twice as fast
--Countdown: Those who use the artifact have a period of time to life until they drop dead.
--Aging 2: The artifact causes the owner to age at a rate of one year everyday.
-Sickly: Those who hold the artifact can never recover from diseases or resist contracting them.
-Loyalty: This artifact pledges your loyalty to a powerful creature such as a megabeast, demon, or god. They are able to communicate to you and give you orders through the artifact. If they feel you havn't made strides to fulfil their wishes they can also impart punishment of pain and injury or if they have even less patience they could simply slay you.
-Infertility: Those who have owned this artifact are incapable of having kin except through adoption.
-Hideous: You slowly become hideous. People will avert their gazes and those with a weaker stomach may vomit. This is culturally dependent.
-Beacon of Justice: You become incapable of attacking anyone who isn't interested of attacking you. This unfortunately includes animals and trees.
-Wound: You gain a wound, usually a flesh wound, that will never heal.
-Freezing: No coat or suit can protect you from the elements.
-Hibernation: Every slumber becomes longer and longer until you arn't sleeping for hours but days, months, or even years.
--Eternal Slumber: Everytime you slumber a counter ticks down. Eventually the holder will simply sleep forever unless cured. They will cease to age or require nurishment.
-Statue: Your flesh is slowly replaced with metal or stone slowing you down. When this transformation is complete you become a statue. (Also works as a cost)

Costs
-Age: For every use of the artifact the user ages a year
--Life-span: For every use of the artifact the user lives one year less
-Sacrifice: The artifact is inert unless a sacrifice is made to it in which case it   remains active for a day.
-Soul Weight: The weight of those you slain weights heavily on your soul. For everyone you slay with this artifact an invisable weight is put upon you.
-Forgotten: Everytime you use the artifact someone forgets about you.
-Sanity: The Artifact eats bits of your sanity every use.
-Transformation: The artifact contains the template of a creature. Every use you start to become more and more like this creature eventually losing your mind. Should your mind be totally lost you effectively die.
-Leprosy: The artifact takes a body part with every use. It could start with your toes and fingers and eventually devour your arms and legs.
-Depending Dependent: The artifact has an Avatar that represents its personality and interests. The avatar can prevent you from using an artifact if you don't fulfil its needs, its death also prevents you from using the artifact. An example is a small girl who would demand you deliver onto it jewelry, gold, and food.
--It is entirely reasonable that this cost could in fact be a benefit. A  powerful loyal Avatar could be a power in it of itself.
-Slumber: For every use your next slumber extends by a single day.
-Blood: Every use of the artifact drains blood dirrectly from your body.

Requirement
-Night: The artifact can only be used under the shade of night

For some reason I feel like this is enough for now. Enjoy and thanks for reading.

[Chromie]

Clothes of Living On: The relatives of the dwarf who was used to make this don't consider him dead as long as it's worn. Also, the dwarf wearing this piece of clothing has the highest skill of the original owners.

This is foul and creepy and awesome. The dwarf should inherit the skin-dwarf's family relationships as well. NECRO-BIGAMY BAYBAYY.

I also like the idea of an artifact that would trail blood or slime or vomit or stones or sand. Gems might be a bit OP.

And for weapons with effects like 'starts a fire' or 'freezes the area' to not murder your fortress, the effects could trigger when the dwarf goes into a martial trance. Or you know, you could just go ahead and let them torch/freeze the fortress, for maximum fun.

[Nivim]

 I don't know where you misinterpreted a post, perhaps in another thread. Objects of power always have some kind of cost, but there are many situations in which the cost is one you can ignore or don't care about. These are the "good" artifacts. The concept of cost, side-effects, curses, and requirements, has been in many places (everywhere I can think of at the moment), however, the cost is almost always directly related to the gain. Such as boots that increase your speed, but do not increase your reaction time (leading to events like where one charges up a hill at blazing speeds to slay their opponent only to run off the cliff at the top), or Morrowind's Boots of Blinding Speed. The Boots of Blind Speed do exactly what the name suggests; they give you incredible speed but blind you completely, making all that speed more of a danger than anything else (however, you can cast a very short duration protection from negative magical effects, wear the boots, and completely resist the blindness). The gain-cost/curse/requirement are usually very closely related to each other, and it is better to create the effects as a whole rather than dissociating them. You can still have quite a bit of variation, but you should try and make enchantments where the positive effect is the negative effect, where the nature of the positive enchantment also has a negative side. Another speed-related example is something that increases your speed, but decreases your longevity. Or stated differently; because you are moving faster, you are also aging equally faster.
 I assume the "Night" one on your list is just another example; I recall one book in which there were a type of sun priests, and at dawn they could summon up all kinds of fun powers, but had none at night.
 On the topic of that disclaimer, why don't you just put x amount of y time type for each different thing that needs it? That way you wouldn't need a disclaimer.

 For the Transformation cost, whether you lose your mind (and thus control of your character) would be entirely dependent on what creature you were turning into. If you wanted it to be specifcally for mind/identity loss you would call it "Bestiality". (I know you don't like me messing with the names, but it helps clarify things.)
 For Leprosy, wouldn't it start with the skin?
 The avatar ability could be expanded, such as soul-binding the object to more than just a person or monster, but to a culture, religion, or piece of land.

Spoiler: "An Example" (click to show/hide)

 I recall on of the Valdemar books had a throne and crown (depicting incredibly life like gem-eyed wolves) that contained the spirit of the Empire, every new emperor added to this spirit's strength, and this spirit, although bloodthirsty and treacherous, always had the safety of the "pack" in "mind". The latest emperor of the Empire became senile and was going to try and cause a lot of destruction on his death by channeling the energies of the mage-storm, the throne & crown allowed him to die (mostly because of an even more treacherous successor) and absorbed almost all the power he had collected.

[Dakk]

Kay, probably mentioned already but:

Types of artifact:

Ancient artifact: An ancient relic from some old civilization that still stands or has been forgotten. They are generated in world gen and are usualy found in randomly generated places (tombs, temples, etc) or found in a civ's capital, kept as a object of worship and maybe even wielded by a worthy champion (if its a weapon) in times of need. They are usualy found in hidden places, locked away in a secret room, for the terrible power they wield.
They can have any power and come in any shape, but they are almost aways very powerful.


Magic relic: Created by some wizard, these are usualy for the wizard's personal need. They contain powers such as increasing the user's lifespan, increase their resistance to attacks, make them very strong, increase their size, allow them to change shape, and many many more. These artifact's powers are only limited by the wizard who created them, thus a very powerful wizard will create very powerful artifacts.

Legendary crafts: Created by moody dwarves. Dwarves are said to have some sort of inner power that one day bursts out, giving birth to crafts so well made that they are considered legendary, and some even have special powers, but the kind of power depends on the kind of mood. Secretive moods have a low percentage of giving an artifact special powers, and if it does its usualy a simple one, but one that will never run out. Fey moods create artifacts that can come with simple or incredible powers. Possessed moods will create random artifacts with random powers, but they usually come with a curse aswell, and are sometimes incredibly powerful, plus possessed dwarves seem to be able to make anything out of anything. Macabre moods will create artifacts with terrible powers that usualy come with a terrible curse aswell, from raising the dead and giving anyone who sees it terrible thoughts, to eventualy summoning a demon and causing someone to go berserk or suicide.

God gift: Sacred gifts that a god bestows upon its greatest servant. To use it, one has to worship said being.

[Neonivek]

For the Transformation cost, whether you lose your mind (and thus control of your character) would be entirely dependent on what creature you were turning into. If you wanted it to be specifcally for mind/identity loss you would call it "Bestiality". (I know you don't like me messing with the names, but it helps clarify things.)
 For Leprosy, wouldn't it start with the skin?
 The avatar ability could be expanded, such as soul-binding the object to more than just a person or monster, but to a culture, religion, or piece of land

In essence at its maximum transformation the mind of the adventurer becomes such that they are no longer the same person. Whether they are turning into a dog, demon, goblin, or tree. One that leaves the mind unscathed would be one that wouldn't cause a non-standard gameover.

As for Leprosy I couldn't really thing of a more appropriate name.

As for Avatar, indeed. I could make a whole list for just those kind of effects... hmmm

[Granite26]

good ideas Neonivek

[Dakk]

Moar artifact types because I'm tired of studying for today's test:

Otherworldly object: An artifact from another world/plane that has somehow has reached the world you're in. Pretty random regarding its powers, but they may be the harbringers of something much powerful. Ex: Demons send an artifact weapon into this world, so a champion may use it to in a war, and said weapon gathers the souls of anyone it kills. When it finally has enough souls, it channels the energy to create some portal from which the demons can come through.


Creature relic: Not an actual artifact, but rather a body part from some leegndary creature, like a dragon's skull, the metal from a bronze collossus or the horn of a rather notable unicorn. In order to keep the worldgen from being cluttered with creature relics, only named and uncommon creatures (like megabeasts) could be able to generate these. They also have rather consistent power regarding their original owner's sphere (IE a demon's hand would have evil related powers, etc).

[The Mad Engineer]

*Takes the artifact bottomless waterskin in adventure mode.

Goes to the highest mountain in the world, opens the artifact, and leaves it there.


Walks away whistleing...

[Vester]

Moar artifact types because I'm tired of studying for today's test:

Creature relic: Not an actual artifact, but rather a body part from some leegndary creature, like a dragon's skull, the metal from a bronze collossus or the horn of a rather notable unicorn. In order to keep the worldgen from being cluttered with creature relics, only named and uncommon creatures (like megabeasts) could be able to generate these. They also have rather consistent power regarding their original owner's sphere (IE a demon's hand would have evil related powers, etc).

I like this. Not just megabeasts, though. It could also be the relics of particularly heroic individuals, like that Bran guy in Celtic (I think) myth. He of the magical noggin.

[Granite26]

Moar artifact types because I'm tired of studying for today's test:

Creature relic: Not an actual artifact, but rather a body part from some leegndary creature, like a dragon's skull, the metal from a bronze collossus or the horn of a rather notable unicorn. In order to keep the worldgen from being cluttered with creature relics, only named and uncommon creatures (like megabeasts) could be able to generate these. They also have rather consistent power regarding their original owner's sphere (IE a demon's hand would have evil related powers, etc).

I like this. Not just megabeasts, though. It could also be the relics of particularly heroic individuals, like that Bran guy in Celtic (I think) myth. He of the magical noggin.

Creating these seems like a good elf (or MAYBE goblin) trick, to go along with Dwarven craftsmenship and human's legends (artifact gains power from being used to do cool stuff).

Heh... Then kobold 'artifacts' could be the little runt wanders away for a season and comes back with an artifact from somewhere else... :-D
(actually, works well if that's the mechanism 'lost' artifacts have to get back into circulation)