Phosphor [&]

some fun secret lore is that we* cast a curse on some people once when we were younger, and it took

the tl;dr is, in a game we played a long time ago, a rival guild did some bullshit that seriously hurt a bunch of people in the guild we were in, turned people against each other and all that. and we were so angry about that, my gosh

I don't entirely remember the line of thinking that led to it, but we ended up gathering up a bunch of expensive items, as well as some purely symbolic ones, and we walked to the top of an in-game mountain, all the way to the giant torch burning at the top. and we destroyed each item one by one, calling out a curse for each. with this, they would lose their wealth. with this, they would lose their friends. and with this, they would realize that everything that they did was for nothing, and they would regret ever sinking their time into the game to begin with.

it was a silly ritual by a very upset teen. but a few months later, that guild imploded, and many of its members left the game entirely.

now, I do not really believe in magic as an invisible supernatural force. I'm inclined to turn to more mundane explanations first - like it's honestly no surprise that a group full of super toxic people would implode, especially once they no longer had an external rival to rally against. but sometimes I'm tempted to try and reproduce our results. you know. for science.

*this was before we knew we were plural, so the exact ownership of this curse is a little foggy. probably was The Girl's