Please, feel free to list your absurdly powerful unique magical artifacts which are less than useful for your PCs. I'll start.

The Hand of Sir John Franklin
Force: 8

Appearance:On the physical plane, The Hand of Sir John Franklin appears to be an unremarkable mummified right hand, no different from any other snow-mummy hand. Chemical analysis reveals a very high concentration of lead. On the astral plane, it has an obvious, but unidentifiable, aura. Consult the table below for assensing results.

1 Success: It appears to be enchanted
2 Successes: You can feel longing and desire emanating from its aura
3 Successes: Deep down, you can feel a great fear and mild insanity; it muddles your thoughts and gives you a headache
4 Successes: You feel nauseous, your stomach aches, and you're cold, colder than you could possibly imagine.
5+ Successes: A song, buried deep within the artifact's aura, fills your head.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

Effects:
The Hand of John Franklin is capable of moving under its own power, though it does not do so with any intelligence or reason. If placed on the ground or a flat surface it will reorient itself to reach toward the Beaufort Sea and then stop. It does nothing else.

If one has a compass, then the angle between the Beaufort Sea and Magnetic North can be used to determine one's general location, assuming that one knows the distance between the Beaufort Sea and the current location of Magnetic North and has a firm grasp of trigonometry. If you know your current location relative to the Beaufort Sea, then it can be used as a makeshift compass.

Compared to Global Positioning, it is a pain in the butt, but it doesn't need batteries. It rolls its force as a teamwork bonus to all navigation tests made in its presence.

Love it !!

I like it, I'm about to go play some Halo 3 with my roommate and unwind from exams for a bit, but after that I made an artifact head that had survived from the 4th world in my game. Tons of knowledge, but more trouble than it was worth. I'll post it's stats.

Chris

..and if you collect the whole set of undead limbs, you can stitch your own zombie!

...that could be a case of the sum of the parts being more trouble that it would be worth

Once upon a time, Blackjack's had a page of funky and useless artifacts, but I can't find his page now. Does anybody know if it still exists?

I remember I had a decent one from SR3 that I handed to a player... not sure on the aura of it (or the assensing chart), but....

Constantine Match
Force 2

Appearance: On the physical plane, the object appears as an unremarkable, though well worn, box of wooden matches. If shaken, one can clearly hear a single match inside the box. Opening the box reveals a single blue tip 'strike anywhere' match.

Effects: If the match is struck anywhere, it lights...anywhere. The match itself will burn in any environment, however lighting other materials is nearly impossible, since it doesn't pass that quality on to other objects.

It gives off heat and light for as long as a normal match of the wooden variety.

When the match is initially struck, a wracking coughing sound emminates from it (Perception test, DC 4 within 10 meters to hear it... I guess that would translate to a Perception test with a threshold of 2?).

If the match is burned and placed back in the box, it will be re-usable (ie: appear as a new match) 2 hours later. Opening the box before 2 hours have elapsed reveals the burned-out match, and the requires an additional 2 hours of time for the match to 'regenerate'.

Note: The player in question was a huge comics fan. He loved it.

Nice, ThePolo