Rub your charms and talismans! Beware the dreaded voodoo doll! Strange effigies of pirates and even skeletons are a dangerous and hysterical weapon in the hands of your sea fearing kin.
However, it is rumored that the Order of Souls has ways to counter such hexes. It is said that they can even provide charms and talismans to protect a wise and witty pirate from the foul curses placed on cannonballs and ward off other dangers to help save one's life and soul!
New Items
Voodoo doll, charms, and talismans.
How It Would Work
Voodoo Doll (Pirate): A disposable item found randomly in the game. They are little dolls that have a hat or a coat, etc. They were made and left behind by practitioners of spiritualism and sea folk magic connected to Order of Souls.
The doll would have three limited uses. Once in a certain radius near the target you would use an emote to attune it to a target. Then the voodoo doll would have selectable options like:
Stick a Pin: Stuns the target temporarily with pain.
Hot Foot: Causes the target to dance back and forth from foot to foot as if they were standing in a campfire.
Dance: Similar to the cursed cannonball effect.
Vomit: Similar to the cursed cannonball effect.
Counter Measure (Salt): Salt has a very long history of use in rituals of purification, magical protection, and blessing. @sargent-sully suggested that dousing the voodoo doll holder with a bucket of sea water would be enough to un-attune oneself, such as it were to "dilute" the hex over the victim’s soul. I suggest the opposite could also be true by temporarily stopping the one of the uses by dumping a bucket of salt water on the victim.
No time to dip and dump a bucket full of salt water on your crew mate spinning in circles? Maybe you will be lucky enough to find the Bottle of Salt suggested by @ENF0RCER. This rare item has three uses to shake salt on a single helpless cursed pirate in a pinch or maybe enough to save your entire crew and the fate of your ship!
Good Luck Charms & Talismans: These items would be wearable. They could be adorned from the belt or hat.
These items would offer limited protection from the voodoo dolls, cursed cannonballs, and provide limited use environmental protections.
It would protect against a specific effect of a voodoo doll or cursed cannonball. A pirate could also get a one time protection in the form of a luck blessing. These blessings and protections would purchased from the Order of Souls vendor of an else of their order located on an island. Once the charged protection is used up countering the negative effects, the talisman could be charge again by revisiting the vendor.
Example Good Luck Blessing:
Bonewalking: This sought after talisman allows the wearer to walk amongst skeletons on a single island once charged without them attacking. That is until the wearer attacks first.
Alernative (Ritual Charging): We purchase the charms and talismans from the Order of Souls vendor. We the have to sail to certain islands and perform a ritual at an alter, painting, or mural to charge the desired protection effect.
It could work both ways depending on the type blessing or protection needed. Curse protections could be given at the Order of Souls vendor, but protection from sharks for example would require finding a cave painting of a shark being hunted or worshipped.
Example Good Luck Ritual:
Shark Charm: Performing a ritual in front a shark painting on a cave wall causes a shark charm to have a rechargeable shark warding effect. When a pirate wearing such a charm has their next encounter swimming with sharks, the sharks do not attack.
Mermaid’s Kiss: Charging a mermaid talisman at a mermaid statue allows the bearer to breathe water for a set amount of time allowing longer exploration underwater.
Additional Options & Variations
Voodoo Doll (Skeleton): This is the skeleton version of the same idea as a voodoo doll used against pirates. In this case a pirate turns the bone chilling effigies against their most dreaded foul the skeletons. Some of these dolls would look like your common skeleton. Others have gold or plant adornments. Some even have a tiny, little captain's hat sitting on top of their heads. Now skeleton stand on your head! Dance skeleton, dance!
Variation (Match the Pirate): A variation would be as suggested by @captain-arcanic you find a pirate with the same cosmetic, you could pull out the doll and make him dance, sleep, etc. Then it's a comic race to watch him try to get to the clothes chest to change.
Notes
This is part of an on going discussing of items and gameplay suggestions about items and things to do with the Order of Souls, spiritualism, and magic mysticism. It is part of the ongoing conversations of making loot more valuable and have more meaning that just turning it in for gold and rep.
It sprung up in the great idea of Adornments and Ornaments: New wearable and displayable Loot posted by @ENF0RCER.
This is a work in progress so more to come!
My Ideas
Fishing, Crabbing, Digging Clams, & Harpoon Monster Hunting
Walking the Plank
Outpost Under Siege
Sea Folk Magic
Usable Dagger: Weapon/Tool & Environmental Targets
Fly More Flags
Diving Helmet
Community Ideas Master List
You can find a lot more creative and fun ideas from the great minds of the community in Community Ideas Master List. Who knows maybe some of them will be coming our way soon in a future Bilge Rat adventure or update!
