Bandits

[huntrashmi]

So if you're beaten and robbed by bandits and they take your stuff they usually stay there for a little bit. Then if you don't get it back it turns into the bandits quest? or they are still around there wandering with my stuff and I just haven't tracked them far enough?

[Plotinus]

They'll eventually despawn but it takes a few months. They won't turn into the quest; the quest is randomly generated and creates new robbers.

A while back someone posted a python script here for finding robbers for the quest -- it'll work for finding your regular robbers too if they haven't despawned.