Nasty little present.

Just occurred to me to make a nasty enchanted item. A middle ages toy that dates at least to the Roman era, called a "sounding box". These boxes were typically small and extensively carved and ornately decorated. Within the box were thin slats of wood or metal foil, arranged in a similar fashion to a "rain stick" so that the beads or seeds within the box bounce down through intricate layers making an extended rattling sound.
These boxes were sometimes placed with the dead on the off chance they may not be quite so departed, and so the unfortunate person would rattle and shake his box.

The item when used will cause a room full of individuals to endlessly dance about the toy until they collapse of exhaustion or duration runs out.

The Captivating Carol of the Un-Christened
ReCo level 40
R: Voice, D: Sun, T: Room
(possible Req: Im to create the sound of the ghosts howling and screaming from beyond the tomb)

Any person, within the room when the spell is cast, dances a carol until the spell expires or they pass into unconsciousness from Fatigue. If individuals resist the control, the dance becomes discordant and possibly dangerous as the abrupt, flailing attempts to stop dancing jolts the person violently.
When the vile and harrowing necromancer Belanor ex Tytalus designed the spell, he purposely chose not to control the voices of those caught in the spell, so that their own voices could join in the cacophony of his wizard's sigil, that being the keening and wailing of the dead.

The variety of possibilities for the item is fun and interesting. Giving triggers or conditions, ect. I simply imagine it being used a either a method of escape or a means of trapping intruders, but I am limiting myself thinking as such.

There are probably many holes in this item and/or spell so if you see something then by all means pound away. Questions being wondered: would the spell affect anyone entering the room after it began? And if someone passed out and then awoke, would they still be affected? Should the targets get a roll to see if they can force their body to perhaps step on and possibly crush or break the box?
When I finally develop this for my table top group I think they may be just a horrified of the implications. Of course there is the matter of Penetration... dah dah duuummmm.

I am so glad that it will take Belanor 8 seasons to invent the spell at his current arts. Still I guess I will get to see it in play once of these days. (hmmm, single season to make a 1 charge item)

That's true but you know that if there is a inefficient and absurd way of doing something then I will do it, if there is any chance at all it would simply look awesome! Heh heh

Oh, there are... far far nastier ways to do this, assuming you want to be vile.

The basis of this are two unusual ranges and durations.

The first is from HoH:MC, Sensory magic from Bjoerner. Can be initated or discovered through original research.
Sound: any being who hears the sound the caster makes, structure equiv.
The second is: performance duration from performance magic.

This box has multiple spells enchanted into it.

The basis is the sounding effect. Assuming that this functions similiarly to a rain stick, it would be a performance duration ReTe which takes the stones that have fallen to the bottom... and returns them to the top. The only way to interrupt this is to physically prevent the box from sounding (by knocking it over, somehow)

Continuation of the Death Rattle
ReTe 4.
R: Personal, D: Performance, T: Group
Causes stones that fall to the bottom of the device to be lifted up a side channel of the device and started fresh while stones are falling in the device.
Base 2 (moving a small object in an unnatural way): +1 Performance, +1 Group

The Danse Macabre
ReCo(An) 38
R: "performance" (Voice), D: Performance, T: Sound
Causes people to writhe in a gross parody of the danse macabre while they can hear the performance. They must make a Percpetion check every (duration),if they /succeed/ in an ease factor 3 check, they continue or start to dance. If they botch, they no longer can make checks. Targets can control their tongues, though their mouths are forced to mime screaming souls.
Base 4 (Controlling the gross movements of the target), +2 Voice, +3 Sound, +1 Performance, +1 complexity, +0 Also affects animals
This power is triggered when the continuation of the death rattle is triggered.

The Endurance of the Dead
ReCo(An) 43
This spell causes all who hear it to ignore the penalties of fatigue... while they dance.
Base 10 (Ignore effects of fatigue), +2 Voice, +3 Sound, +1 Performance, +0 also affects animals
Linked to Danse macabre

This gives me the idea for a vis hunt, where a magi accidentally dropped this item in an important clearing... and the players encounter it and a mound of animal corpses. There are a few pawns of vis in the corpses (some perdo, some animal).