How does a farmer end up with a magic item?

[Calico_Jack73]

Attila's "Sword of Mars" was supposedly discovered by a shepherd who noticed one of his flock limping for no apparant reason.

The historian Priscus says it was discovered under the following circumstances: "When a certain shepherd beheld one heifer of his flock limping and could find no cause for this wound, he anxiously followed the trail of blood and at length came to a sword it had unwittingly trampled while nibbling the grass. He dug it up and took it straight to Attila. He rejoiced at this gift and, being ambitious, thought he had been appointed ruler of the whole world, and that through the sword of Mars supremacy in all wars was assured to him.

— Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths ch. XXXV[2]

I wonder who left that behind?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila

 

[Bloosquig]

Reminds me of Harry Turtledove's "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump". Its a modernish tale using magic as technology and goes on about the safe disposal of toxic spell components.

This gives me more ideas about spell poisoning and proper magical item disposal and quests you could do with it. Maybe a city magistrate comes by because you've been running too many buff spells and with that magical armor and sword sorry sir, your above city statutes governing maximum spell exposure so I'm gonna have to confiscate that magical sword for your own safety.

And of course you could have a inter-dimensional clean up crew warping around gathering up loose magical items to prevent misuse and clutter. The list goes on and on I love this site and the ideas you guys give me.

 

[Storyteller01]

The dragons really need to work on thier table manners. Always dropping pieces of adventure on the floor...

 

[Hussar]

Given the rather long, drawn out histories that so many fantasy settings have, it's not really surprising I suppose that you would find magic bric a brac floating around. Makes farming a much more attractive, but possibly very dangerous, profession. Turn up a magic sword and retire. Break that iron bottle with your plow and get eaten by a demon.

 

[SiderisAnon]

What are some interesting anecdotes about PCs losing magic items in your campaigns?

My personal favorite is from a game back in college. The main plot of the campaign was collecting pieces of a map that lead to a "great treasure". Each party member started out with one piece and they acquired more pieces along the way. One very unpopular character (mostly unpopular due to the player) ended up dead and buried when a temple collapsed around the party. The rest of the party decided that digging him up for his gear wasn't worth it ...

... until late in the campaign when they realized that about the only piece they were missing was the one they left buried with the body.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Our group jokes and grumbles about the silly places you find treasure in dungeons and in modules - places nobody in his right mind would poke around, often, like the classic jewelry in the monster's gut.

However, in one adventure we and our opponents were shrunk to ant size in a magic garden. We defeated, but did not kill, our opponents and took their magic items, including a ring of domination. In order to accomplish common goals, we redistritbuted magic items and took our prisoners' parole after an epic battle with a scorpion, but the LG cleric and my LG monk were adamant that rings of domination were Just Wrong, interfering with free will as they do. We didn't have the means to destroy it, so we pushed it inside the scorpion's carapace (we ate a lot of the scorpion and it was delicious, thanks to my maxed cooking score). After we regained our full size, we realized that we'd created an old-school improbably-placed treasure to beat them all - inside a scorpion shell, miniaturized to the point of invisibility, in the untended garden of an abandoned castle.

 

[Agemegos]

a certain shepherd beheld one heifer of his flock limping

Odd. What is a heifer doing in a flock of sheep?

 

[Bloosquig]

A practical joke from the Archmage Fluffius, sheep 1 / sorceror 18. Now if we could just get the Dominate off the shepherd peace might finally be restored...

(one of these days I'll start spelling stuff right. Just not today apparently. )

 

[green slime]

Odd. What is a heifer doing in a flock of sheep?

Do you really want to know?

 

[sniffles]

Others have already said these things, but these were my first thoughts on seeing the thread title:

Inherits it from an ancestor.
Finds it buried on his land or lying in the bottom of a pond.
Is given it as a gift or barter, by someone who doesn't know what it is.
Finds it in the stomach of slaughtered livestock or game.
Finds it hidden inside a log or stone that he's using to build a new house.
Takes in a lost, sick traveler, who then dies and leaves the item among his personal effects.
It is sent to him mysteriously by a relative living in a distant location.
Discovers it in an ancient ruin that lies near his land.
It fell out of the sky one night during a display of shooting stars.