Creating a background story for a weapon...

I have a weapon for one of my characters that I would like to create a background and story for. While I do recall reading something about this kind of thing somewhere, I don't recall where.

That aside, I wonder if anyone else does this kind of thing for their characters? And, if so, what methods you use? What's worked for you? What hasn't?

Its different every time, but you should be able o answer these questions:

What kind of weapon? What is its purpose?

How does it tie into the campaign world history?

How do you expect it to interact with the PC? His party?

In my last campaign, each PC had a magic item that leveled up with him, gaining new powers. Each item was named, had a history, a maker, and a story about how it came to be where it was. The fighter's sword was a cleric-killer. It had silence on a crit powers, did extra damage to anyone with a holy aura, etc... She used it to hunt down an evil cult; the original owner had been killing clerics who rose up against Imperial rule (in a time before the emperor became a follower of the God of the Dead himself). It was lost in the dungeon when stolen by an evil rogue who tried to use it to slay a wizard (he thought the silence power would work vs anyone, not just a cleric, due to some bad research on his part). The PCs never discovered ALL these details, but it was fun watching them learn some of it.

I didn't make all that story up at once. I knew, when they found the blade, that a rogue had brought it there after stealing it from the rightful owner. The rest came with other bits and pieces of backstory for the whole campaign region.

A background for a weapon is always cool. The Weapons of Legacy book is nothing but items that have names and backgrounds.

I usually only write out a background for my intelligent weapons and then give that story to the player as if the weapon told it to him. I recently just read one of those stories I wrote a few years ago. It was a couple of pages long and I forgot I wrote all of that.