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To set the stage: The BBEG has taken cursed artifacts and passed them out to various people. These people have NO idea they are cursed. The purpose of the artifacts is to harvest souls. Souls of the victims created using the artifacts, and the soul of the artifact user once the players kill them. Each artifact has an attached Infernal contract. By using the artifacts they gain power, but there's a cost.

Here's the question for any lawyers/paralegals out there that play D&D. I need legal verbiage that permits a "bind on pickup" style clause in the Infernal Contract. The best I've come up with is that there's a clause that if the person uses the item, or has it on their person for 24 hours they agree to the contract. Sort of like the 7 day free trial that you see on some subscription services.

I thought about using the Attunement mechanic to satisfy this, but:

Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity. If the short rest is interrupted, the attunement attempt fails. Otherwise, at the end of the short rest, the creature gains an intuitive understanding of how to activate any magical properties of the item, including any necessary command words.

"Intuitive" is the keyword. That tells me that they understand what it is, how it works, and how to use it. I need it to appear to be a simple magic item that has no malicious purpose.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Reminder to everyone that answers, partial answers, suggestions on where to find an answer, frame challenges, and general advice to the asker do not belong in comments. \$\endgroup\$
    – Oblivious Sage
    Commented Nov 14 at 0:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ If I understand correctly, the intent is that upon using the artifact (or fulfilling some other appropriate condition), the user is implicitly bound by the contract, but they are not made aware of the contract's existence in the process? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Nov 15 at 3:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah. The intent was that the gift of power would be so alluring they won't ask many questions. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Dec 7 at 13:32

3 Answers 3

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They have to know or be able to find out

See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?

There is no way that any “deal with the devil” would be enforceable in modern jurisprudence in any jurisdiction on Earth. Basically because any deal that is for an illegal purpose, unconscionable or not freely entered into is not a legally enforceable contract. As described, your ‘contract’ fails on all three.

The illegal purpose is that it seems to require the user of the artefact to murder other people. That’s an illegal purpose.

It’s unconscionable because the consideration by the user (their immortal soul) is wildly out of proportion to the consideration provided by the devil (which isn’t really clearly explained, but it only lasts for a finite time which is insignificant compared to infinity).

While the law recognises adhesion contracts (take-it-or-leave-it contracts) and acceptance by conduct, it still requires knowing acceptance. Not that the user needs to actually know all the conditions, but they need to be in a position where they can find out.

Now, you could fix this by:

  • Removing the illegality. OK, you don’t have to kill anyone, but if you choose to do so, we get the soul.
  • Removing the unconscionability. For every day you have the artefact, we get your soul for 10,000 years - not a great deal, but no longer unconscionable.
  • Allowing informed consent. As you attune to the artefact, you become aware that it is part of a contract - and then dump 460 pages of single spaced legalese of the character and say “you can read that if you want, when you’re ready, sign at the bottom.” Which is how online contracts work.
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    \$\begingroup\$ This is a good answer \$\endgroup\$
    – nonymous
    Commented Nov 13 at 22:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ Considering that devils may not find murder apprehensive (or even generally illegal) and "trade my eternal soul for specific but finite favors now" is such an established trope for infernal contracts, a GM can probably ignore the first two issues without breaking suspension of disbelief even if their players are legal experts out of game. At least it could be argued that these two principles do not have the same meaning in an infernal court of law as in an earthly one. \$\endgroup\$
    – Surpriser
    Commented Nov 14 at 10:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Agreeing with Surpriser. This is a contract in a game settings, between player characters. OP did ask for "any lawyers/paralegals out there that play D&D" and want legal verbiage - but some considerations can be ignored as part of the setting (as pointed by Surpriser, #1 and #2, though it's good to have them in the answer). My particular pet peeve is "freely entered". First of all, this contract is not only between PCs, but also players. Having a "gotcha, I pulled the rug from under you" from the DM is no fun. (1/2) \$\endgroup\$
    – Nyakouai
    Commented Nov 14 at 17:10
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    \$\begingroup\$ To be fair you could easily find out, its not my fault you don't speak common infernal mana runes like most of the civilized multiverse. What? you haven't learned to see magic runes, well I can't account for every possible willful disabilty in a standard open contract notice. \$\endgroup\$
    – John
    Commented Nov 15 at 2:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ The documents have been available in the planning department on Alpha Centauri for the last 5 years. For heaven’s sake- it’s only 4 light years away! \$\endgroup\$
    – Dale M
    Commented Nov 15 at 4:44
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It sounds like you don't want a contract but a curse

That's really all there is, but I'll answer more to prevent down votes.

Contract Law 101

A contract is an agreement between two parties that creates an obligation to perform (or not perform) a particular duty.

A legally enforceable contract requires the following elements, all of which are discussed in more detail below.

  • An Offer (I’ll mow your lawn this Saturday if you pay me $40)
  • An Acceptance (You’ve got a deal)
  • Mutual Consideration (the value received and given – the money and the lawn mowed)
  • Legal Parties (A contract with a minor is not legally enforceable. Because of age and presumable lack of experience, the law considers a minor contractually incapable.)
  • Legal Purpose (An agreement to purchase marijuana, for example, is not a legal contract. Because the subject matter of the agreement is illegal, the contract is not enforceable and the parties have no legal remedies for breach.)

Source: University of Texas at San Antonio

What you are asking for does not meet a lot of these criteria. Touching an object does not legally bind you to anything. Even the process of investigation doesn't qualify. Spending an hour near something, checking it out, and learning it's features doesn't automatically make it your problem.

Holding the artifact doesn't make an offer. The holder isn't forced to accept the binding. It just wouldn't work that way.

... But a curse would work

PHB 20214 has little I could find on curses beyond this bit under attunement:

A creature's attunement to an item ends if the creature no longer satisfies the prerequisites for attunement, if the item has been more than 100 feet away for at least 24 hours, if the creature dies, or if another creature attunes to the item. A creature can also voluntarily end attunement by spending another short rest focused on the item, unless the item is cursed.

And there are about two dozen items that are marked cursed between the DMG and all the supplements. Looking at a popular one, Shield of Missile Attraction has some boilerplate text:

Curse. This shield is cursed. Attuning to it curses you until you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic. Removing the shield fails to end the curse on you.

Basically, once you attune to an item, you're cursed, even if you get rid of the item.

Attunement

Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties).

So a character can hold the item, check it out, learn all about it, but not be attuned. However, the act of attunement is very similar to a legal contract:

  • An offer (the boon it grants) - Check
  • An acceptance (you took an hour out of your day to say yes) - Check
  • Mutual consideration (you get power, artifact gets "power") - Check
  • Legal parties (fuzzy area since one party is an object, although perhaps sentient)
  • Legal purpose (also fuzzy since "how to activate any magical properties" may not be fully spelled out)

Artifacts

This is an artifact. Not your run of the mill Bag of Holding.

An artifact is a unique magic item of tremendous power, with its own origin and history. An artifact might have been created by gods or mortals of awesome power. It could have been created in the midst of a crisis that threatened a kingdom, a world, or the entire multiverse, and carry the weight of that pivotal moment in history.

Per the DMG, an artifact can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. I would say that one of the detriments is that you cannot remove the curse with a 3rd level spell. It needs something more powerful than that.


This has the makings of a powerful plot armored object that cannot be removed or given away and force the PCs to find a way to destroy it before it destroys them.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I used something similar. You were partially right. I really appreciate how well written and researched this answer is. Made my life a lot easier. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Dec 7 at 13:37
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At least under the law as understood in the United States, there is no way to do this.

Generally, at least in the law as understood in the U.S., there is no way to form a contract even close to what you are proposing.

First, you will find authority that says that for there to be a "meeting of the minds". In other words, there must be meaningful agreement on the terms. Your situation expressly calls for them not to know about the agreement and thus fails this test.

Now, it could be pointed out that "meeting of the minds" is older language and many jurisdictions have either abandoned it or interpreted it in ways that focus on objectively manifesting assent to be in a contract rather than actually agreeing. It is not unheard of if people don't read contracts to find out that they have agreed to terms they did not realize they were agreeing to. But no court in any jurisdiction in any time period in history that I am aware of will let someone stumble into a contract without at least having some pretense of an ability to learn all of the terms and then manifestly assenting to them.

Even if that is set aside, Dale M correctly points out that there are other problems. I believe that some of the other problems are even worse form a legal perspective then he suggests.

He correctly points out that contracts for illegal purposes are void. He is right, but he then suggests you might be able to get around it by rephrasing things such as "If you chose to murder with this, we get your soul, but there is no requirement to murder." First, a court would still find that the contract involves an illegal purpose and is immediately void for that reason. Second, that actually raises problems of whether there is consideration for the contract since if the person who acquired the weapon decides to use it for display only the creators are receiving nothing.

He correctly points out that the contract is clearly unconscionable, but suggests that could be removed by making the penalty temporary instead of permanent. I partially agree but partially disagree. Unconscionability is a complicated topic but it is essentially an attempt to avoid blatantly unfair contracts. The word "blatantly" in that sentence is meaningful. The law will allow a certain amount of unfairness. But it will void a contract that it blatantly unfair on policy reasons. Its thus conceivable that the unconscionability could be cured without altering the fundamental nature, but it would have to come much closer to parity than 1 day to 10000 years. Also, the idea that the wielder may not have understood the implications comes in under unconscionability even if there was a way in principle for the wielder to have learned of them.

Finally, he suggests that you could get informed consent through fine print. This is true to a degree and like he says is largely how many online contracts work. But that starts to look like a contract of adhesion, and at the risk of greatly simplifying a very complicated topic, generally with a contract of adhesion if the clause is something that a reasonable person would not expect to be in a contract, that clause is void. In that case, the contract as a whole may exist, but requirements that you surrender your soul or have to commit murder will be void.

No contract that is remotely close to what you describe would ever be found enforceable by any court I am remotely familiar with

You could get somewhat close through a quasi-contract.

Quasi-contracts are a way to avoid unjust enrichment. They are contracts implied by law and can be implied to exist by the conduct of the parties. Under some circumstances, you can find yourself bound by a quasi-contract without intending to enter into one. Quasi-contracts are related to causes of action for unjust enrichment and restitution.

One law-school-style example of a quasi-contract is if you see someone's house is being damaged by heavy rain due to a hole in the roof, find out that the occupants are out, and leap into action to board up the hole, then you are probably entitled to recover the value of your time, effort, and materials used to board up the hole under a theory of quasi-contract or unjust enrichment. The idea is that if the occupant had been there, they certainly would have agreed to pay the value of such services to prevent their property from being badly damaged from the rain, so the law will imply such a contract.

This gets closer to what you want. People can and do wind up in quasi-contracts in the real world without actually agreeing to it in any meaningful way, with no way of knowing the full terms, and without even knowing about it until later.

The problem is that quasi-contracts only allow recovery of what is clearly fair. As long as it does not get into unconscionability, a contract will be enforced even if it is unfair. A quasi-contract is the opposite and a court is not supposed to award more than what is fair in a quasi-contract. Also, quasi-contracts just like regular contracts will not be enforced if they are for an illegal purpose or against public policy. That eliminates just about anything dealing with murder.

Still, you could get closer to what you described this way. If a fabulous sword plainly emblazoned with a demon's sigil appeared to a character every time he needed a sword, and the character then took it and used it, a court might just find that each usage formed a quasi-contract and that at the end the character needed to pay the value of that usage.

Such value would never equal the persons soul and things like the 13th amendment if under U.S. law or similar would cause problems if the demon insisted in being paid in service or similar. But it does allow the character to incur a debt without realizing it while still staying reasonably true to modern day law.


Admittedly, since this is clearly a fantasy setting this is almost redundant, but since my day job is being a lawyer, I should note that nothing I say here or anywhere on StackExchange should ever be viewed as legal advice.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I think in this setting it's a question of the place of jurisdiction. While all you said is true for human courts (and even for dwarven, elfish ...), this soul business is a celestial/fiendish thing. Those "people" might thing completely different on criminal acts or unlawful paragraphs :-) . And last comment, 'consent by fine reading': The idea of a scroll several feet long, written in tiny script (at least after the first paragraph) with lots of cross-references is very appealing to me and is used in many movies also :-) And, like others, I think that a curse is more approbiate in this case. \$\endgroup\$
    – Flynxer
    Commented Nov 14 at 9:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Flynxer I agree with your comment in a sense. But the call of the question specifically asks for lawyer/paralegals so I assume they want something close to a modern earth perspective. If you are simply assuming a system of laws that deliberately has no connection with earth, then simply declare by fiat that whatever fits the story is legal and you are done. You don't even have to worry too much about internal consistency to be accurate since there are a lot of inconsistencies in earth laws. I agree that a curse is more appropriate incidentally, but that's not what the question asked. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Nov 14 at 16:54

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