Many thanks to Brad for this great idea. I complained that I was having a dry moment and just could not think of a hook. He came up with this one, and I loved it. Here it is.

An old wizard with too many years behind him has fallen into the grips of dementia. He comes screaming into the local tavern claiming robbery. All of his spell components are missing! Nothing of great value, such as his magical items, gold hoard, or priceless works of art, have been taken. Only his spell components are missing. Many people dismiss his ravings as those of a forgetful old man. Many of the locals claim this is not the first time he’s used up all of his spell components while experimenting with new spells, and ignore him. He storms up to the PCs table and offers to make them all a unique magic item if they find the thieves and return his collection of strange and rare spell components.

Do the PCs ignore the man? Do they take advantage of his dementia, agree to the job and find some lackeys to claim to be the robbers? Do they frame someone and buy the man new components? Perhaps the robbery is real and the PCs are on the trail of someone trying to destroy all local magicians’ abilities to cast most spells?