Metaphysical properties of mundane items

[SionEwig]

Playing in a game (modern setting) where my character has a sacred bundle/spirit bag/set of totems, all things that he has found. Now, the items themselves have no real metaphysical/magical properties but the character thinks that they do. I can come up with the New Ageish properties of the various rocks and minerals, but can't really think of reputed properties of the other items. Any ideas of what properties the character might think the following items have?

01) part of a turtle shell - red-eared slider

02) seed from a red buckeye

03) small redwood twig

04) frosted piece of purple beach glass

05) thorn from a black locust tree

06) antique square nail

07) old brass house key

08) sea shell, scallop type

09) old Orange Crush bottle cap

10) flint or chert arrowhead

11) old marble

[The Colonel]

A big part of the work of a medicine bag is the symbolism of a specific item - either how you accquired it or who gave it to you.
So the redwood twig might be one you accquired by climbing to the top of the tree and might assist with your endurance.
The house key might be the link with the ancestor shrine in your family home and help you contact your honoured dead.
The marble may be from your childhood, the arrowhead a gift from an old ghost, the turtle shell from a river spirit who you befriended.

[patchwork]

Originally Posted by SionEwig

01) part of a turtle shell - red-eared slider

02) seed from a red buckeye

03) small redwood twig

04) frosted piece of purple beach glass

05) thorn from a black locust tree

06) antique square nail

07) old brass house key

08) sea shell, scallop type

09) old Orange Crush bottle cap

10) flint or chert arrowhead

11) old marble

1) the turtle's shell is it's safety and it's home, and it's been shattered. Ruin, destruction, homelessness.
2) seeds of a tree that's pretty, poisonous, and specific to the American Southeast - I'd like to go with gossip or false flattery. If the game supports the theme, I might go with racial division/slavery.
3) ancient, towering, but new and fresh growth - longevity, perhaps?
4)stained glass, royal glass, under the sea for a good long time - an old social order, long since overthrown. Ruined nobility.
5)hm...LOTS to work with with the plant in general, but if you want the thorn specifically, I'd emphasize "poisonous to horses" and its leading edge role in an ecology (black locust can handle a variety of soil but needs lots of light; it expands into grasslands and open spaces, starting to convert the prairie to forest, then dies once it's a proper forest because it no longer gets enough light). Self-sacrificing pioneer for its community.
6) from a fence? from a house? iron nail symbolizing the Crucifixion (even though it's not that old)? Building things, especially walls and fences, keeping things out.
7) You know what brass is in the modern age? Shell casings. I have brass tableware for 16 made entirely from melting down spent shell casings from Vietnam. Violence transformed into a key, violence as the only way to pass through a thing.
8) again, modern age, scallop shell = Shell Oil. Oil on the beach. I'd try to invoke Deepwater Horizon with this, personally.
9) in itself...nothing at all. Tied to a person who gave it to you or shared it with you, if anything.
10) painstaking skill, patience, repetition. knapping over and over, many small strikes, discarding flawed stone until you find a "good" one...slow, diligent work.
11) like, little glass ball? For all the marbles. Innocent gambling, childhood games, contests of manual dexterity and the prize for same (but innocent. remember the childhood angle). There's actually way too much symbolic language associated with specific types of marbles. If he doesn't know the languages of color and pattern from a marble (and can't find an old man who played marbles religiously as a child to explain them) this could, uh, be dangerous to invoke.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by SionEwig

Playing in a game (modern setting) where my character has a sacred bundle/spirit bag/set of totems, all things that he has found. Now, the items themselves have no real metaphysical/magical properties but the character thinks that they do. I can come up with the New Ageish properties of the various rocks and minerals, but can't really think of reputed properties of the other items. Any ideas of what properties the character might think the following items have?

01) part of a turtle shell - red-eared slider

02) seed from a red buckeye

03) small redwood twig

04) frosted piece of purple beach glass

05) thorn from a black locust tree

06) antique square nail

07) old brass house key

08) sea shell, scallop type

09) old Orange Crush bottle cap

10) flint or chert arrowhead

11) old marble

The scallop(Aphrodite's shell) represents beauty or love . Opened outward it represents that the love is given. Closed it represents the freedom to choose.

[jason taylor]

Black locust represents resilience(because it is hard) and restlessness(because it is a wide spread species) and freedom(because Abraham Lincoln chopped posts made of this).

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The scallop(Aphrodite's shell) represents beauty or love . Opened outward it represents that the love is given. Closed it represents the freedom to choose.

Also, St James of Compostella - it was the pilgrim badge of the Camino de Santiago.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Also, St James of Compostella - it was the pilgrim badge of the Camino de Santiago.

I should have thought of that one-my mother and brother both read books about the pilgramage. I just didn't make the association.

[jason taylor]

One I thought of that wasn't mentioned was a carabiner. It could symbolize oaths or honor or friendship, kinship, etc(because each is their own but they form a chain).

An ordinary chain might do as well but not only does it already imply servitude, not freely chosen bonds, but a carabiner can be undone by the owner implying that friendship can't be broken but it can be betrayed.

[SionEwig]

Thanks everyone, lots of good stuff here that I can use. Keep em coming. Never know what might spark an idea for someone else.

[Flyndaran]

Orange Crush bottle top: consumerism, gluttony with its processed mockery of "real" fruit, and as basic litter all makes me imagine power over one's base urges of hunger and need.