[Chazar]

I would think that shapeshifters retain cursed headgear during shifting, unless they lose/gain a head during shifting (which shifting critter does such a gross thing anyway?)...

You could try to put the item on a commander who has no head. Maybe then Dom2 would put the item directly into the lab. So try it out with a unit that has only misc-slots (remember, the ''#commander'' directive works with any unit number and gift-of-reasons if necessary).

Otherwise, maybe a disease-inflicting item might do the trick, provided that disease-killed unites put their items into labs...

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Then again, Alneyan's suggestion seems quite sensible to me! [Edit: I intended to refer to his initial suggestion by using an extra nation and a few extra-turns to send the items to everyone! But his second suggestion (modding a shifting-scout-with-no-slot-second-form) is quite good as well and works for a resuable generic setup!]