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The Taunting Turban

Largish but fetching, the Taunting Turban was created by an unknown Elemenstor for the purpose of berating shady and/or stealthy types plying their unsavory trades throughout Battal. The Turban, inspired by the loss of a particularly well-filled purse of gold, loudly taunts and belittles its wearer in what is, depending on the mood and nationality of the reader, an either inexplicable or sublimely appropriate parody of a real-world French accent. No explanation is tendered as to why the Turban should speak thusly. It is simply so.

Additionally, the Taunting Turban may never be dropped, given away, or removed in any manner by its current owner, thus greatly reducing his or her stealthiness and ability to concentrate. The Turban changed wearers only when someone stole something from the current wearer, at which point it magically transferred itself to the thief's head. This worked well for the first several wearers, but word about such things tends to spread, until its 17th wearer, Plumbo (known thereafter as "Plumbo, the Guy with the Rude Talking Hat that No One Cares to Steal From or Even Be Caught in the Same Room as Lest One Accidentally Pick Up Spare Change Belonging to or Some Such Thing and Then Be Stuck One's Own Self with the Darn Thing") ended up dying after a very lonely life with the Turban still upon his head. The Turban then faded away into history, until some decades later returning in the tale of "Baffien, the Unluckiest Grave Robber Evar."

The use of psuedo-French for the dialogue of the Taunting Turban led to yet another pile of uncomplimentary "fan" mail for Tycho Brahe. Opinions differ to this day as to the appropriateness of the dialect, the most prominent of which are that Tycho is a "Europhobe," a "surprisingly sharp observer of human nature," a "ripper-offer-from of Monty Python," or a "huge consumer of booze and drugs."

The third opinion listed above has spawned a custom at ElotH:TES Conventions, wherein the knowledgable participants spout off favorite lines from the Turban's appearances until some passerby inevitably makes a Monty Python reference. At which point the participants demand that the passerby (1) buy them all a round of drinks, or (2) prepare to receive a sound beating. Quite charming, really.