Practical Magic: The Bounty Hunter’s Body Bag and Dead Man’s Whispers

Practical Magic is an occasional series highlighting magic items and spells that concentrate more on adding flavor to the game than on being powerful. They make nice additions to the loot pile without breaking the game. Note: The magic item and spell described in this article are both designated as Open Game Content. This designation applies to all of the text, but not to any accompanying images. (See here for license.)

The Bounty Hunters Body Bag (rare, no attunement required)

Wikimedia Commons: Arbeitstasche für Nähsachen, gefertigt aus der Luftröhre eines Seesäugers (Aleuten, Nordamerika, 18./19. Jahrhundert) – Exponat der Dauerausstellung “Ozeanien – Weltbilder der Südsee” des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde München (o.J.)

This nondescript brown leather bag is about the size of a standard grain sack. A flap covers its corded drawstring closure. Despite its humble appearance, it is a modification of the more common bag of holding, first created by Barsin, a bounty-hunting wizard, and often imitated. It weights a bit less than a standard bag of holding, only 10 pounds, and holds a bit less, only about 30 cubic feet.

However, any item placed within the bag and sealed within when the drawstring closes is treated as though it were under the effects of the gentle repose spell: It will not decay or putrefy. Placing a corpse in the bag also extends the time limit on spells that restore life, stopping the clock until the body is removed from the bag, just as with the spell gentle repose.

Barsin tended to use the bag to keep the corpses of those he hunted down fresh and identifiable, to facilitate the collection of his bounties. He could comfortably store a dozen bodies in his gruesome bag (each person taking up about 2 to 3 square feet of space). However, the bag is quite versatile as it preserves any organic and perishable material placed inside of it.

On one occasion, Barsin also used the bag to smuggle a load of fresh oranges past a siege to defenders who were suffering from scurvy.

Dead Man’s Whispers
2nd-level necromancy (ritual)
Time to Cast: 1 action
Duration: 15 seconds
Components: V, S, M (an ear or the lips of a corpse)

You touch the ear of a corpse and the last sentence or utterance it heard is whispered loudly enough to be heard by you and anyone within 5 feet of you. Alternately, if cast on the lips of a corpse, the last sentence uttered by the body while it was alive is whispered. The ear or lip is not used up in the casting and the spell may be cast upon the same corpse multiple times. The corpse can have been dead for any length of time as long as the ear or lips are relatively intact.

The length of the utterance isn’t precise (and is left to the GM’s discretion to determine), but the spell usually recounts the last full sentence or utterance, up to about 15 seconds of speech. It does not translate the sound or modify it in any way. If multiple people were speaking or other sounds were going on in the background, these can be heard faintly if the ear is being used.