Identifying owner of a weapon

[Candor]

I have a young bard that I have been very slowly building up. At what point is a bard sufficiently skilled to determine whether a found weapon is owned by another character?

[Luxelle]

Candor ... the person's name from a lost weapon only happens under certain (mysterious) conditions.

I was not even aware of it for the longest time, so I don't know when it begins to show for a younger bard. Since not all lost weapons will sing their true owner's name ... I'm not sure there's an easy way to test, aside from letting the local bards know you want to test it with a young bard when someone finds a weapon like that.

We *think* the weapon has to have been disarmed and the owner die. Whether this applies to stolen weapons in OTF, I'm not really sure.

I rarely see the person who lost the weapon when I find one that sings it's owner's name, so I can't really ask the circumstances they lost it.

All of this to say ... I defer to elder bards for more information. Data collection for this might be very useful, please let me know how I can help.

[Candor]

I realize that a weapon does not always state its owner, but most weapons lost in OTF are due to being disarmed.

I discovered that Archales' bard guide states that identifying the owner of a lost weapon is "rather time sensitive so best to try with a few hours of the item going missing". Previously when I found a good weapon and no one claimed it, I tried with my bard to identify the owner, but that would happen days later (I largely rely on people responding to my posts to claim a lost weapon).

I had no idea identifying the owner via a bard song was a time sensitive feature. Oh well.

[Ososis]

I'm putting a label on my gear "property of Ososis, reward for return". Labels are cheap.