Old Bounties

 Currently posted on the corkboard in the Adventurer's Guild, the glorified tavern near the heart of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Endeesy, there is a map and a number of notes (in order from oldest to newest):

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Map

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS MAP, IT IS PROVIDED AS A COURTESY TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS

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A Bride For The King

By order of His Royal Majesty Terek, Second of His Name, King of Gus, Vice-Admiral of the Dread Fleet, Ninth Count Rogan, and Emperor of the Mongrelfolk:

The king desires, to be brought before him for marriage, the most beautiful woman to be found in the all the reaches of the cosmos, whomsoever she may be. The reward to any man who brings such a woman to the King shall earn the eternal gratitude of the kingdom and ten thousand platinum coins, or some equivalent favour.

Addendum from the Dowager Queen: This woman must additionally be clever, competent, capable of defending herself in battle, and should preferably bring an alliance to some powerful nation. If these conditions are met, the queen will see to it that he who completes this task shall have his greatest desire fulfilled to the greatest extent of possibility.

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Coded Message

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Dragon Hunt

Sir Randolph of the Kingsguard offers the following standing bounties:

1,000 gold for the head or plate and horns of a brass dragon.

1,500 gold for the head or horns and frill of a silver dragon.

2,000 gold for the head or horns of a copper dragon.

2,500 gold for the head or crest of a bronze dragon.

7,500 gold for the head or barbels of a gold dragon.

Juvenile or younger dragons shall earn half the listed bounty, while old and older dragons shall earn twice the listed bounty. Additionally:

500 gold for the head of a metallic half-dragon of any race.

250 gold for the head of an individual of any race partially descended from a metallic dragon.

750 gold for the head of any Dragonborn of Numiel, who are always metallic.

Moreover:

2,500 gold for a live chromatic half-dragon individual of any race.

1,250 gold for a live individual of any race partially descended from a chromatic dragon.

ADDENDUM: By order of His Royal Majesty Terek, Second of His Name, King of Gus, Vice-Admiral of the Dread Fleet, Ninth Count Rogan, and Emperor of the Mongrelfolk:

The Dragonborn known as Scarecrow is to be left alone, and not targeted for this bounty.

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Engineer Headhunting

By order of His Royal Majesty Terek, Second of His Name, King of Gus, Vice-Admiral of the Dread Fleet, Ninth Count Rogan, and Emperor of the Mongrelfolk:

As befits a state of war between two nations, the king offers a standing bounty for the destruction, capture, or other removal from engineer hands, of any engineer-controlled submarine.

This shall earn a captain a letter of marque and official status as a privateer for the kingdom of Gus, with all the rights and responsibilities due thereto. Additionally, a reward of 1,500 platinum coins per submarine shall be granted. Additionally, engineers, sea- or war-forged, or githzerai, captured while working for or with the engineer nation against Gus, shall earn a bounty of 25 platinum coins per captive. The heads of engineers, sea- or war-forged, or githzerai, killed while working for or with the engineer nation against Gus, shall earn a bounty of 10 platinum coins per head.

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Oliphaunt Snax

 

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Demon Infestation

As many may already be aware, the countryside has been plagued by foul and fiendish beasts, issuing forth from the caves and mines of Mount Dis. As a protector of the Realm, I feel it my duty to investigate, but other duties keep me occupied between N.D.C. and the Omorashi border. As such, I issue the following bounties:

For concrete, verifiable information regarding the ultimate source of the infestation: 2,500 gold

For a detailed map leading from the surface to the ultimate source of the infestation: 5,000 gold

For the temporary or permanent stoppage of the infestation, by any means: 50,000 gold

Bounty posted by Sir Nakazawa of the Kingsguard

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Pumayyaton's Statue

Seeking the following effects, in any form – spell, scroll, wand, wish or limited wish, or miscellaneous:

Animate Object

Permanency

Stone to Flesh

Awaken Construct

See Pumayyaton the Sculptor. Rewards include a powerful elephant statuette, a taciturn yet loyal Dread Guard, a snarky yet effective sword, or elegant custom-crafted statuary.

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Justice For Prior Trakis

REWARD:

Information sought leading to the whereabouts of a band of evil adventurers who broke into the monastery on Perch Hill, terrorized the monks, and murdered Prior Trakis, a paladin of the faith. See Abbot Waxter at the Monastery with any information. Be on the lookout for a group consisting of:

an orc-descended man, in possession of a horse

an engineer man

an Omorashi human woman

an elf by the name of Aramil Silverleaf, with a scar over one eye

two additional human or elf men

Be warned: these individuals are armed and extremely dangerous. They may be in league with an evil erinyes devil – this creature is very powerful and should not be engaged without proper training.

They may also be in possession of copies of several volumes of the Evil Encyclopedia of Evil – if found, these books should not be read and may be returned to the Monastery for an additional reward of 250 gold pieces each.

Authorized by Numiel’s Archbishop of Shell, Jov Sauart

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The Evil Encyclopedia of Evil

Interested parties seek copies of any volumes from the Evil Encyclopedia of Evil. Bring these documents to the Cathedral of Quasxthe; ask for Viblet Kewne. The reward shall be 1,000 gold pieces per volume.

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Ruins in the Mines

The proprietors of the Tiv-Beckett Cold-Iron Mine no longer need the mines cleansed of centipedes, as they have been thoroughly dealt with. However, as a notice to the public, we have struck ancient ruins of an underground civilization in our digging. We offer no reward for exploring these ruins, but adventurous types may choose to investigate nonetheless.

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Join The Adventurer's Guild

Becoming a Member of the Adventurer’s Guild carries a flat fee of 25gp. Among other benefits, Members get a 50% discount on rooms, food, and drinks at the Guild, and may request rescue party insurance for each mission they undertake.

A member of the Adventurer’s Guild may become a Journeyman if he finds and returns one of the five Journeyman’s Keys, hidden somewhere in the caves and dungeons of Mount Dis. Among other benefits, Journeymen get free room and food at the Guild, and receive a 5% discount at participating adventurer supply stores.

A Journeyman may become a Guild Master upon completion of some special quest for the Guild Masters. Among other benefits, the discount at participating adventurer supply stores increases to 10% for a Master.

Members of all levels must pay dues of 5gp per month.

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Join The Mage's Guild

Levethixi, vorastrixi, vur lyrik xiekivi svaust klae wer suiaerl auneli, usv tikilvi sweekmonir ekess xkhat mishun: siofme voranir ekess wer hertan di hewi. Drekim vin kamati persvek wer hertan ui aaiovew aurix vur asildk aurix rinovup welun. Nezcaubolic re vi cuaili sva wer hertan, zadl ekess shio yorir ini hertan ankini, zadl ekess wer kivan korshim ihk tija kirmipri, vur zadl ekess kemir vur vdri cuailiri.

Translation for characters who can read Draconic: <Wizards, Sorcerers, and other Wielders of the arcane Arts, or any One seeking to become Such: consider joining the Mage’s Guild. Apprenticeship in the Guild is 50gp plus 10gp per Month. Benefits include a Room at the Guild, Access to all Lectures by Guild Teachers, Access to the vending Machine for material Components, and Access to Training and Meditation Rooms.>

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Mad Druidry

The Mad Druid Seye Ipivi demands components for a mad ritual of his own devising:

the spleen of a seven-horned sheep

seven leaves from seven treants

the acidic saliva of a green dragon

seven vials of anarchic water

seven ears from seven elves

a topaz, a sapphire, a ruby, a pearl, an opal, a diamond, and an aquamarine

The Mad Druid shall well reward bringers of these things, to the tune of 100 gold for each individual item!

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Rename the Endeesy Five

On a bounty board in an inn in Noodleton:

For Sale: Right to the Name of this Fab Five, formerly known as 'Endeesey Five'. You can purchase and we'll call our group in the name of your choice! Justine's Justice League? Noodleton Noodlers? You pay the money, you pick the name! Contact the Man in Red for more info.

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Slay Sewer Monsters

By Order of Sir Nelson of the Kingsguard:

To increase safety for the workers in the sewers, the Crown offers 1 platinum coin for every destroyed monster in the sewers under the Crown District.

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Ingredients for Sir Winden

Sir Winden of the Kingsguard will pay one thousand gold pieces for a live troll, which he seeks for medical experiments.

Additionally, he requires at least one vial of the blood of some petrifying creature -- a medusa, cockatrice, basilisk, or the like. For this he will pay five hundred gold pieces.

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Retrieve Wizard’s Familiar

A Mage of the Mage’s Guild, Dr. Paul Wal-Dover, has lost his beloved cat familiar, Papageno. He suspects he was kidnapped for the exotic menagerie of Wang Port in the Omorashi Empire. He can afford to pay with his half-expended Staff of the Woodlands if Papageno is returned to him.

While you’re at it, bringing Dr. Wal-Dover any interesting live magical beasts from the menagerie for study would be rewarded with gratitude, though he cannot afford to pay for this service.

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Vigilante Justice

By Order of Sheriff Clarissa Ten-Jones:

An individual known as the Violet Shadow has been gruesomely and extrajudicially killing criminals and stringing them up in public places. Pay no attention to the popular esteem for this vigilante; her executions are not the justice of the Crown, and a stop must be put to them.

REWARD

For information leading to the arrest of the Violet Shadow: 1,000gp

For the death of the Violet Shadow: 2,500gp

For bringing the Violet Shadow in alive for trial: 5,000gp

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Protect an Eladrin from an Inevitable

I, Sir Joseph of the Kingsguard, have taken under my protection a tiny Coure Eladrin. This poor celestial creature, having inadvertently violated ancient pacts and natural laws in her fight against Evil, finds herself on the run from a Zelekhut Inevitable bent on enforcing the Law.

For the defeat of this Inevitable, or otherwise helping me to protect this Eladrin from it, I offer up to 5,000 gold.

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Supplies for Repair

The crew of the Mango Mango, a [scribbled out] ship, currently parked in Worchestershire, seeks supplies to repair their [scribbled out]

We seek:

boots of levitation, winged boots, broom of flying, or carpet of flying, 7000gp

a fan feather token, 250gp

an anchor feather token, 40gp

salve of slipperiness, 900gp

sovereign glue, 2000gp

universal solvent, 40gp

some small chunks of elementum, (keyed to any element is fine) or dragonshards, 5000gp

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Koprulu Invasion of Romus

News has filtered in from Romus that the Fylkir of Inglip, Latya Koprulu, having received mysterious instructions from her god, has gathered an army of gropagas (priests) and slaads (Outsiders from the Chaotic Plane of Air) and launched an invasion of eastern Romus.

Numiel's Archbishop of Shell and the local Abbot of the Monastery of Numiel at Perch Hill have sent out word that all true Numielites are encouraged to join the fight against the forces of chaos.

Contrariwise, the local gropagas of Inglip at the Inglip Temple and Arena Complex have sent out word that all followers of Inglip are encouraged to join the fight on the side of chaos.

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Slay the Enormous Bententacled Monstrosity

Sir Nelson has been told that at the center of the top level of dwarven ruins under Mount Dis dwells trapped an enormous betentacled undead monstrosity of truly prodigious size. Though trapped, this creature remains a dangerous menace to all life. Destroy this creature and I am authorized to grant a reward of a single book or scroll of your choice from the Royal Library or a single article of your choice from the Royal Armory.

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A Bride for Viscount Appleton

Mardero Haight, the Viscount Appleton desires the affections of a certain Kathleen, wench at the Hungry Owlbear tavern in Appleton, but she has thus far spurned him. If anyone were to coerce her to return the Viscount's affections, by any means necessary, he would reward them with a fully functioning and profitable apple orchard, complete with servants and workers, recently seized for non-payment of taxes.

If anyone brings up this bounty in the presence of anybody prone to gossip, one discovers that the Viscount Appleton is a man of fearsome reputation, his appearance and appetites described as each more terrible than the other. No telling what truth there is to these rumors.

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Ask Your Cleric About Nerzohexoate

Do you feel sad sometimes? Do you suffer from angst? Does unbearable existential dread get you down? Are you plagued by a persistent feeling of doom or despair? Ask your cleric if Nerzohexoate is right for you!

(Side-effects of Nerzohexoate may include, but are not limited to: light sensitivity, erectile dysfunction, inflammation of the splanch, constipation, anal leakage, polydactylism, sneezing, eructation, projectile vomiting, hypochondria, thirst, sinus or ear infection, mild electrocution, albinism, dizziness, nymphomania, sensory overload, cardiac arrest, and death.)

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Billiam & Billiam, Attys at Law

Hurt by adventurers? Adventurer-related medical bills piling up? Victim of theft or robbery by adventurers? Had your perfectly legal business or religious practices disrupted by adventurers?

Contact Billiam and Billiam, Attorneys at Law, Licensed Knave's Guild Affiliates!

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Put Down Peasant Revolt

By order of His Royal Majesty Terek, Second of His Name, King of Gus, Vice-Admiral of the Dread Fleet, Ninth Count Rogan, and Emperor of the Mongrelfolk:

It has come to our attention that an insurrectionist known to the people as Milla Hillthorn has been rallying the peasants of the Northeast in revolt. When the guards of Reachham seek her, she is nowhere to be found, perhaps warned of her pursuers in advance.

REWARD

For information leading to the arrest of Milla Hillthorn: 1,500gp

For the death of Milla Hillthorn: 3,000gp

For bringing Milla Hillthorn in alive for public punishment: 6,000gp

DM as Provider of Information

When a player asks, "What do I see?", the average DM finds this a perfectly reasonable question, and attempts to answer the question (unless it's dark, or the relevant character is blinded, or whatever). Same with "What do I hear?" These are your standard-issue primary human senses, how we get most of our information about the world, and thus naturally how the DM conveys most of the information about the characters' world to the players. The DM might reasonably call for a Search/Spot/Listen/Perception check, if there's information that would be available only to particularly observant characters.

When a player asks, "What do I smell?", "How does it taste?", or "How does it feel?", the DM might be a little taken aback, as these are unusual questions, but will generally still attempt to answer the question. Again, perhaps with a Perception check, though one might be at a bit of a loss for what skill to use in 3.5 -- probably a basic Wisdom check. It's been said before (probably by me, among many others) that a decent DM will volunteer sight and sound data, while a masterful DM will neglect no senses when giving information. (This can be overdone -- nobody wants to hear a full discourse about how the air feels and tastes on every room their characters enter -- but underdoing it is a much bigger risk in practice.)

I leave as an exercise to the reader coming up with situations in which lesser-known senses, such as proprioception, might come up in play.

But when a player says "I cast detect magic", the common DM reaction is frustration or annoyance. Especially in Pathfinder, where cantrips/orisons like detect magic are at-will, so players have been known to "spam" them. The ubiquity of detect magic is, in fact, quite a common complaint I hear about Pathfinder. (To a lesser extent, the same goes for paladins and detect evil, even in 3.5.)

I've seen more than one DM frequently resort to "The area in general is so powerfully magical it gives you a headache and you can't pick out individual magic effects." This is may be a legit technique for lending particularly epic or eldritch locations an extra element of "you're dealing with things you can't understand", but, if you use it, you should definitely reserve it for, say, the final dungeon of the campaign, where you're walking into the lair of a physical god. (But even then, if you're high enough level where you're a reasonable challenge to said physical god, one would think your techniques for casting detect magic would have advanced along with everything else on your sheet, so even in the presence of supremely powerful magic, you can still pick out details.) Fun fact: There are, in fact, rules for detecting "Overwhelming" auras with detect magic, but they're limited to epic-level spells and artifacts.

And if you do that, you should do it for other senses, too. A mission to the elemental plane of light, where everything is so bright that it gives you a headache even if you keep your eyes closed and there's no way to pick out visual details. Or the plane of darkness, where no light sources function. A cacophonous factory floor, where you can't discern individual sounds. Perhaps even your sense of proprioception fails when you come in contact with stuff of the Far Realm. The one such example that I have seen DMs use fairly often in practice: stenches so strong they make you gag.

As with most DM sins, I've been (partially) guilty of this one myself. I have been known to say "This entire area is permeated with an ambient aura of evil", in the case of an area proximate to a permanent portal to the Abyss, when paladins were using detect evil. But! This is a case of more information, not less: the ambient evil didn't render them unable to pick out finer details of evil. When there was a demon in the next room, they could still pick out the demon's evil aura from the dungeon's ambient evil aura. And meanwhile, they had the information that there's something so evil that's been here for so long that the evil has soaked into and permeated the very stones themselves.

Anyhow: why is the DM reaction to "What do I see?" so different from the DM reaction to "I cast detect magic"? They're both usage of the character's defined abilities to gather information about the world. Perhaps it's that the rules for detect magic are slightly complicated and the DM doesn't feel like dealing with them. Perhaps it's that detect magic, unlike sight/taste/proprioception/etc, is not a standard-issue primary human sense in the real world, so it seems more legit to deny characters the full use of detect magic than it would to deny them the full use of their other senses.

As I alluded to two paragraphs ago, it's about information. As I see it, one of the DM's primary roles is to provide information to the party. (There's also some business with deciding what information is available, and under what circumstances, and of course deciding what the information consists of in the first place, but the primary business, for the purpose of this post anyway, is providing the information to the party.) Any situation where the party requests specific exposition (that their characters would reasonably have access to) is an opportunity for the DM to maximally fulfil this role.

So whenever a player asks for information, it warms my withered black heart, because it's an opportunity to provide exposition (and, often, to come up with information on the fly, which I enjoy and am decent at). Some DMs will try to restrict the flow of information, either because they think it increases the challenge or because they're just not good at or don't enjoy coming up with new information on the fly. I don't have much to say about the second thing, but I'll digress for a paragraph on the first:

Security through obscurity can make for an interesting fight, if used sparingly. Trial and error can make for an interesting battle. The minionry of Dr. Blelyj once fought a monster that, unbeknownst to us, was made more powerful when it was subjected to magic missile. Many lulz were had at the expense of the poor sorcerer who'd thought his magic missile was a sure thing. There are many clever monsters of this sort: albino red dragons, those gas spore monsters that look like beholders, mimics (and the general venerable and well-populated genre to which they belong, "monsters that look like harmless objects"), shambling mounds ("oh, it's a tree monster, trees usually get wrecked by lightning, right?"), and so on. Withholding one key piece of information can be a fun lark. (If you do this much, you should also make sure that your monsters don't always act as though they have complete information about the party.) But many players (myself included) don't care for every battle to be trial and error. Usually we just want to deploy our tactical abilities against the monsters' tactical abilities, and prefer to have more complete information rather than less (and sometimes invest substantial character options into perception and knowledge abilities, and it's generally not a good idea to deny players the fruits of their character building without a good reason).

Which brings me to knowledge skills! There are rules for knowledge skills, which you would do well not to ignore. The rule of thumb is "one piece of information for a DC of 10 + the monster's HD, and an additional piece of information every 5 thereafter". You don't need to indulge player requests for specific bits of information ("What kind of DR does it have?", or even "Any major weaknesses?"), but it never hurts.

My main beef with the knowledge system (in fact, one of my beefs with d20 in general) is that knowledge skills can't be used untrained. My beef with this is threefold: one, it restricts me as a DM from being able to give out information, and I always love giving out information; two, it restricts me as a player from acquiring information, and I usually love acquiring information; three, it forces me as a DM into a position where I have to say "no", which is Bad. I keep thinking of instituting a "you can use trained-only skills untrained at a -10 penalty" houserule. Other DMs I've played with have dealt with this by expanding (usually on the fly) the list of relevant knowledge skills for a piece of information: to identify a given undead creature, you might be allowed to use Knowledge(dungeoneering) or Knowledge(arcana) if you don't have Knowledge(religion), for example.

Anyway, I generally encourage players to invest points in and use the Knowledge skills, because I enjoy providing exposition and it's a good tool for that. And yes, like everything, it can be overused -- I play with a druid who tends to ask if she can use Knowledge(nature) to identify everything she encounters, no matter how obviously non-natural. But, in general, allowing players to roll Knowledge checks is generally better than not allowing it.

Do note that "Knowledge" isn't just book-larnin'. It isn't always "I read about this in a book once" (though for some characters it might be). It's a combination of that, practical knowledge ("I encountered something like this once"), observation and extrapolation ("Look, it's got flattened teeth, it's probably an herbivore, though that doesn't mean it's necessarily harmless"). So think twice before using the "Nobody has seen one of these for centuries, you can't make a knowledge check" line. (Nobody's seen the Others for centuries, but people still figured out they have DR/dragonglass or Valyrian steel, through practical observation and also it was in at least one ancient book.) Actually, that's a general principle: a thing being difficult means you should pile circumstance modifiers on to increase the difficulty, not "you can't do it". If you can swim up a waterfall with a high enough Swim check, you can deduce the properties of an ancient monster with a high enough Knowledge check. "Don't even bother to roll" is if it's too easy to fail, not if it's too hard to succeed.

Identifying Potions

Alright, so there's actually more ways to identify a potion than there are to identify other things. A simple DC25 spellcraft check will let you identify a potion, no problem.

But something that I think the DMG may even mention (or possibly DMG2, it seems like the kind of thing that would be in DMG2): it lends verisimilitude and consistency to the world if you always describe the same sort of potion the same way.

So, in the same sheet as my list of items, I've begun to create a master list of potions. Every time anybody finds a potion that isn't already on the list, I'll add it to the list, and henceforth describe all of the same kind of potion the same way. From now on, potions of cure light wounds will always be "shimmering puce".

This gives an additional way to quickly identify potions: if you've seen a potion of glibness before and it was a transparent white potion, and you encounter another transparent white potion, it's a safe bet that's another potion of glibness. There are only 900 possible combinations, so the slightly hilarious situation might arise where two potions appear identical (like what happened when Sky the drow cleric labeled several flasks of acid "healing potion"), but that's likely to be pretty rare.

To this end, I created a master random potion chart (cribbing in part from the possible potion descriptions available in Angband), which one can consult whenever a new potion needs to be described. You'll need to roll two d30s (or one d30 twice):

Dice	Color	Quality
1	azure	bright
2	black	bubbling
3	blue	clotted
4	brown	cloudy
5	chartreuse	coagulated
6	clear	dark
7	copper	effervescing
8	crimson	fizzing
9	cyan	gloopy
10	gold	glowing
11	gray	hazy
12	green	icky
13	indigo	intense
14	infrared	marbled
15	magenta	metallic
16	maroon	milky
17	navy blue	misty
18	orange	oily
19	pink	pale
20	puce	pastel
21	puke green	pearlescent
22	puke yellow	pungent
23	red	sedimentated
24	silver	shimmering
25	tangerine	sickly
26	teal	smoking
27	ultraviolet	speckled
28	violet	translucent
29	white	transparent
30	yellow	viscous

(Any potion described as "coagulated", "clotted", or "sedimentated" should be shaken well before use. Any potion described as "bubbling", "fizzing", or "effervescing" should never be shaken, lest it explode.)

If you want to really push the number of possible combinations up there, you can first roll 1d4: 1 = roll color once, quality once; 2 = roll color twice, quality once; 3 = roll color once, quality twice; 4 = roll color twice, quality twice. This allows for things like a cloudy, marbled, silver-and-maroon potion. Perhaps if there are two colors, that might mean they're separated like salad dressing and you should shake well before using. Or if there are two colors and it's bubbling, maybe the bubbles are the second color. There's a lot of room for improvisation.

Substitution Ciphers as Clues

It turned out, near the end of the second session of my open gaming table, that the healer had actually solved the substitution cipher bounty I had provided!

The duskblade's player facepalmed about ten times in a row because the bounty turned out to be one long reference to the previous campaign, and to his last character (the elf wizard) in particular.

I gave the healer a bunch of extra experience for solving the puzzle, tempered with a slight penalty for doing it at the expense of paying attention to the goings-on of the game. Although I'm not sure what I expected - maybe for people to work on it before the game starts and after it finishes? But at least he was playing his character well - figuring out this puzzle was much more interesting to the character than anything else. Though why he took it to the mine with him rather than just solve it at the adventurer's guild, I don't know. High intelligence, low wisdom, I guess.

Incidentally, the substitution cipher I actually used was in fact the Standard Galactic alphabet. Incidentally, this is an instance where I halfheartedly, and with a modicum of success, adhered to the Three Clue Rule, which says that "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." Or, more loosely, provide at least three different ways to get to any given plot point.

I allowed for at least three ways to solve the cipher (with the possibility of more if the players had been clever enough):
1.) Brute force it the old-fashioned way (using observations like: "e" is the most common letter; "the" is the most common three-letter word; "a" and "I" are the only possible one-letter words; etc.) This was how the player wound up doing it.
2.) Roll well enough on your Decipher Script check that I give you some free letters, which makes (1) substantially easier.
3.) Have played enough Commander Keen that you recognize it as the Standard Galactic Alphabet, and consult the wikipedia page or other places that give the complete alphabet.
I can think of at least one other thing that could have partially helped, involving being familiar enough with the story to fill in gaps. (It involved a +1 Frost Dagger that the wizard had taken from the body of the High Priest of Vecna, then loaned to the swashbuckler/knight, then the vampire Baron Rogan took it off the swashbuckler/knight's body, then King Terek II had inherited it from him, and it's currently in the royal treasury and some relative of its original owner wants it back.)