Tonight my group is just about to finish the end battle in ToD. Assuming that all goes well, the PCs will gain possesion of a Shadow Pearl. Smart PCs will avoid it like the plague.
Of course, not all PCs have that self-preservation gene. The necromancer/flesh warper wasn't in the party for BG, and if he gets hold of it he might detonate it to "see what happens". I'm not 100% sure he would see the results as a "curse".
I am wondering what other groups did with the pearl after defeating V.
When running the battle, my party ripped through Vanthus in about three rounds. Just as he was about to reach into his pouch to retrieve the pearl, he got two arrows straight through his nasty demonic heart from Lavinia's hero.
They found the pearl and thanked the gods that he didn't have time to detonate it. They then found a pretty lead box and planted it deep under the ground in Lavinia's garden, after several days examining it and trying to dispel it. The druid just awakened a fig tree, so now the fig tree and his monkey friends are the gaurdians of the pearl. Seems like a pretty decent idea to me.
my players started at L4 from a previous couple games, so I didn't run the first two mods in their entirity. I did run Kracken Cove and made it pretty rough. Every single one was diseased or poisoned or....they made several comments about how glad they were this hadn't happened in a civilized area and have been doing research about the area of effect and that kind of think.
I expect they will pull out all the stops if they even suspect Vanthus has a pearl. None of then really enjoyed the savage pirates and most wanted to run away. Heck, gettting them to check out Kracken Cove was pretty difficult and forced. They didn't even want to go down and explore it. But now that they have witnessed the results, I am sure they will take every step possible to prevent it in the future. If they don't, Savage Farshore is going to be an interesting adventure for them.....