Item Seed: Gravesdigger.

Gravesdigger

Description: varies.  Gravesdigger usually appears as a pistol, revolver, or submachine gun, chambered to fit whatever ammunition is reasonably available in the area.  Like most esoteric firearms, Gravesdigger doesn’t jam, corrode, or misfire; on the other hand, the artifact radiates evil strongly enough that prolonged exposure to it can curdle milk.

Minor Powers:

• Gravesdigger does maximum damage for a weapon of its current type.  It does not add to its wielder’s skill with firearms, but ignore all fumbles or critical failures.
• There always seems to be more ammunition for Gravesdigger, somehow.  This will quite often involve looting dead bodies, however.
• Law enforcement officials not in the formal service of Evil will ignore or overlook the presence of Gravesdigger.  LEOs in the formal service of Evil will recognize it on sight — and will then ‘choose’ to ignore or overlook its existence anyway, as per Hell’s standing orders on the subject.

Major Powers:

• The wielder may, upon receiving Gravesdigger, designate one person — who must be capital-e ‘Evil’ — as a target for fatal retribution.  Once that happens, the target will die, and from being shot by Gravesdigger.  The forces of Evil would have dearly loved to make this a possible scenario for non-Evil entities, but they don’t have that much control over reality.
• While the target is still alive, the wielder of Gravesdigger cannot die or be crippled.  He can be knocked down to whatever the equivalent of one hit point might be, suffer extreme, lasting pain, endure various kinds of shock and/or mental trauma, and certainly even wish that he was dead; but as long as he wields Gravesdigger he’ll be able to keep moving and shooting.  First aid or other medical care works normally on treating this, but keep track of how many times the wielder should have been dead, and see below.

Drawbacks:

• A wielder of Gravesdigger will find himself facing minions or allies of his target for as long as that target is alive.  They will attack on sight, cannot be particularly reasoned with, and will not voluntarily surrender. While they cannot harm the wielder, they can certainly hurt him.
• Once the target is finally dead, roll against health (or the equivalent), with a minus to the roll equal to how many times the wielder should have been dead in the course of all of this.  If the roll is failed, the wielder dies.

So, why did Hell ever make something like this?

Three reasons: one, the forces of Evil are, by definition, nasty and vicious.  Two, Gravesdigger is a handy and deniable assassination tool. When a human in their service gets too big for his britches, they simply hand this item over to somebody emotionally fragile and recently wronged by the human in question; and then sit back, and watch things go nuts.  Three, it’s a wonderful way to damn somebody. The average murder rate from Gravesdigger is in the high double digits, and once a wielder really gets going he can commit all sorts of sins before he dies.  And it’s not particularly mind control, so it doesn’t count as Infernal interference with free will.  Win-win!

Of course, any Evil-aligned entity found possessing  Gravesdigger can expect to be simply killed on sight by any Good-aligned entity.  And, should any Good-aligned supernatural entity discover the ultimate target of Gravesdigger, that target will be promptly brought to the wielder in order to be killed (typically, fewer people go to Hell that way).  But these minor little inconveniences are just the price of doing business. Besides, when everything works right it’s pure magic. Evil, nasty magic — but when you work for Hell, that’s the best magic of all.