Curses

"A malign influence you must defeat."

- In-game description

 are a type of Obstacles. Curses are encountered after all other obstacle types, and can produce malign forces that may cause trouble later. When the Curse (Obstacle) is faced in a Vault and is not defeated, it will spawn a corresponding Curse (Situation), but it will not hinder the player's progress through the Vault.

Curse Obstacles possess the Curse aspect, whose image and description are displayed here.

Of the four Curses that exist, three of them can be counteracted with the principle of, which is otherwise only useful against the Peril A Western Sea.

Behavior
All curses have similar behavior, as noted above. Once the dormant curse appears, it will remain dormant for a random number of 60-second intervals. At the end of some interval of dormancy, it will become active with a magnet slot. It will remain active for 60-second intervals until it finds an acceptable card. Then, the player will have a 60-second window of time to insert a high-level Influence, to counteract the curse. The curse will then consume the influence if one was provided, or transform the card that it had previously grabbed.