Right, a good example is Lord Searfire in the Sol Ro temple. He gives
you a generic message, but nothing more. However, if you ask him "what
about ronium?" and have sufficient faction, he makes a secondary
statement with a braceketed term that yields the Sol Cauldron. Searfire
never mentions Ronium - the paladins in Rathe Mountains tell you to see
Searfire about it. Also note asking things like "What about armor of
Ro?" What about paladin armor" etc yield no results, only the speech
trigger 'Ronium' brought up further conversation.

I was wondering if the same held true for the bardic weapon - perhaps
some NPC somewhere tells you to ask Walthin about "the bard sword" or
something, and walthin doesn't respond to the prompt unless you ask him
about the specific name of the weapon.

Ariell Thunderwolf, Karana