“ With a huge number of sacrificial victims, another realm long ago secretly bound a Prince of the land spirits, Iorstonn by name, thus ensuring the fertility, and improving the magical defences, of their realm. But binding that Prince to one spot has disrupted the weather and magical patterns (ley lines?) over half the continent. Things have become bad enough that a coalition has been formed to rectify the situation, once divinations have established the cause.
Your party is one of the teams assembled to do the rectification: find the binding object and steal it ('so that we can destroy it here in our realm, of course'...*) or destroy it over there. Presumably the Prince will be grateful to his rescuers and angry at the binders, but with a greater spirit like Iorstonn one can never be sure: such beings are 'tricksy'.
* Of course, the rulers of our realm might want to control Iorstonn for their own ends...”
“ The bronze Gladius Tyrvaard carries has been enchanted by the Spirits to be very heavy to any but the wielder. Tryvaard (or any others who use the blade) will find the sword light and easy to wield. Those on the receiving end receive a strike as if made by a much larger and heavier blade. For such purposes (damage, ease of parry, breaching armor), it strikes as if it were a two-handed sword of great size. The blade, being spirit-forged, is also extremely durable, well stronger then normal bronze.”
“ The PCs are walking along the road, when suddenly a bunch of bandits attacks. The player's dismiss it has just a random encounter, when they find an ornate ring on the leader, obviously out of place with the seemingly poor bandits, who could only afford cheap leather and weapons. This ring has a symbol on it, which, if researched, sets the PCs on a quest. And from then on, the players don't look at random encounters the same way...”