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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy E Grenemyer" data-source="post: 7508833" data-attributes="member: 12388">Item Backstories: Item the Second: Bead of NourishmentContinuing along with the idea of Inherited Traits and Accidental Enchantments for magic items, we have next on our list the Bead of Nourishment from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, p.136. This one took more than ten bullet points to lock down. • In Cormyr, the Wizards of War aren’t effective as they once were. • The Mage Royal, Ganrahast, has been forced to find other ways to spy and to glean information—methods less preferable to his predecessor (and father), Vangerdahast, who cultivated a reputation for leaving disloyal nobles drooling and witless after he pried into their minds with his magic.• After all, Mind Reaming is now forbidden in Cormyr. The Suzail Writ grants some minor protections from spell-based eavesdropping, too. Ganrahast had one hand tied behind his back, and his job wasn’t about to get any easier.• The common people have long placed their trust in war wizards, for Cormyr’s mages have served as a check on the power of Cormyr’s nobility. This trust absolutely had to be maintained. • Thus, the Wizards of War needed to learn how to spy by means other than magic, how to craft and wear disguises, and take on roles as persons other than mages. To do this, they had to cooperate and learn from the Purple Dragons and select Highknights, who’ve long had to spy the old fashioned way.• Because so much of the spell research and planning done by the Brotherhood takes place within the Royal Palace and Court, the work of reshaping the war wizard’s tactics started there, too. • The Palace and Court are also the scene of failures in spell research and magic item creation. The dross from countless crafting attempts lay heaped in sturdy wooden crates placed in chambers divided from each other by thick walls of stone, and locked away behind iron-shod doors.• One such chamber held a much-used copper frying pan from the kitchens of the palace. Twice the handle from this pan snapped on the Royal Cook of the Low Kitchens at an inopportune time; he vowed there would not be a third.• The pan was rescued by a war wizard before it could be melted down and recast. The mage desired to craft a cooking pan that could purify whatever food or drink was placed in it, no matter how rancid—a useful item for anyone needing to spend days or weeks at a time away from ready access to provisions. The gods had other plans, however, for all the war wizard succeeded in doing was crafting a not quite magical pan that absorbed edibles and drinkables, leaving no trace. • Failures in item crafting, just like successes, must be recorded by the crafting war wizard. These reports are submitted to a superior and then filed away with other Dark Documents (i.e., documents not meant for public consumption or review). The pan was disposed of in a crate with other recent failures.• The report was read by another war wizard, who was convinced the copper pan held the essence of the food and drink. After retrieving the pan from its crate, she spent two long tendays of her free time experimenting. Finally, she coaxed something out of the pan by means of her magic: grey, lumpy gelatin that slowly congealed into little beads. • “Tymora hates a coward,” as the saying goes. The Wizard of War said as much, them plucked a bead out of the pan and ate it. • Her tongue did not grow the length of her arm. Her teeth did not fall out. She did not empty the contents of her morningfeast all over the floor. She felt quite fine. It wasn’t until the next morning that she realized she’d had no desire to eat for most of the prior day.• As much as possible, Highknights and Wizards of War plan their activities in advance. If a spying mission will last for a tenday or more, requisitions for supplies are made and orders issued by the Clerk of Vigilance (the seniormost Highknight of all Cormyr). • One set of orders finds its way to a certain war wizard, who is tasked with retrieving a much-used copper pan from a heavily defended part of the Royal Palace. Another order finds its way to the Royal Cook of the Low Kitchens, that he may order his assistants to pile leftovers onto carts for delivery elsewhere in the palace.  • The war wizard, along with carts laden with food fit for a King, converge on another heavily defended part of the Royal Palace. Here she crafts Beads of Nourishment by means of the pan and her spellwork, so that the Cormyrean spies the Beads are intended for need not be encumbered by supplies of food and water, nor fear going hungry. And there you go.</blockquote>

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