Item Seed: Smoke Scabbards.

Smoke Scabbards – Google Docs

Smoke Scabbards

These charming assassination tools somehow never get officially banned by various nations or public institutions; Smoke Scabbards are simply too useful. In their natural form a Smoke Scabbard is a dirty grey-brown thin sheet of magical fabric. When it’s used to completely wrap a weapon (usually no larger than a dagger), the sheet and whatever it’s wrapped around transforms into a cohesive cloud of gas that can be inhaled and kept in a container — like, say, a pair of lungs — for eight hours.  At the end of that eight hours, the Scabbard is expulsed from its container and solidifies back into a sheet and whatever it was wrapped around. If the Scabbard was being kept in somebody’s lungs, the expulsion does not cause direct damage but is highly unpleasant.  Note that the magical effect can be ended early, if desired.

Law enforcement personnel hate Smoke Scabbards, whether or not they’re technically legal.  Possessing one is not quite an ‘Oops, he fell down three flights of stairs and into a wall of spears while in custody’ situation, but anybody caught with one will end up having a bad day. And it’s a fair reaction to have, because murder cultists and assassins’ guilds love Smoke Scabbards.  At least four high-profile assassinations over the last five years have featured these items, which means that the Mages’ and Enchanters’ Guilds are under severe pressure to discover the enchanting circle that’s making Smoke Scabbards, in order to shut down production.  

 

The reward for doing so is pretty hefty by now, too.  Hefty enough to interest reasonably experienced adventuring parties, in fact.  Just keep in mind that you can never be quite sure that the people you’re shaking down for information are actually unarmed…