Musical Market
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting edition of Magic Market, where we bring you new magical items to fill your treasure hordes and outfit your mighty heroes. It’s Music Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, and when I think of magical items and music I know that I think of magical instruments, and that’s what we got for your today; enjoy.
Devil's Keys
This grand piano is constructed of a polished mahogany that is always cold to the touch, and features keys of ruby-stained ivory and petrified ebony. The cords themselves are created from steel forged from the captured weapons of planetars, and the hammers are covered with velvet, rather than felt. The sound produced by the instrument is striking and powerful. An inscription in an older dialect of Fiendish precisely explains the piano’s function.
Firstly, the pianist must give up his soul in exchange for the talent to use the piano. The ritual involved in this process is explained in detail in the inscription and requires 24 hours to perform. A character who has surrendered his soul in this way can play the piano in order to use one of the following abilities each day. A character who has given up his soul in this manner cannot be brought back to life by any means. A wish or miracle spell can be used to restore the character’s lost soul, at which time he may be returned to life through normal means. A character who gives up his soul in this way immediately becomes evil, though he retains any other aspect of his alignment (thus a lawful good character would become lawful evil, etc.).
Chord of discord: To use this ability, the pianist must succeed on a DC 15 Perform (keyboard instruments) check. Any creature with a soul who hears this tune must succeed on a Will save (DC equal to 1/2 the result of the Perform check) or become hostile to the next creature with a soul that he meets.
Chord of fear: To use this ability, the pianist must succeed on a DC 20 Perform (keyboard instruments) check. Any creature with a soul who hears this tune must succeed on a Will save (DC equal to 1/2 the result of the Perform check) or be stricken with fear, becoming panicked for 1d4 minutes. While the actual source of the affected creature’s fear is indefinable, affected creatures flee from the piano.
Chord of soul snaring: To use this ability, the pianist must succeed on a DC 40 Perform (keyboard instruments) check. If he succeeds, the pianist may choose a single creature with a soul that can hear the performance, and that creature must succeed on a Will save (DC equal to 1/2 the result of the Perform check) or lose his soul as though he had given it up to the piano, except that the target gains no benefit from this. This ability can be used once per day.
Harp of Heavenly Melodies
This beautifully-crafted harp of polished yew glows a soft gold and features strings made from tail hair freely given by a unicorn. The sound produced by the strings is airy and soothing to all who hear it. Strangely, this harp features an additional string, which, when plucked, perfectly tunes the instrument. A brief inscription in the Celestial tongue contains a prayer to an obscure demigoddess of light and music called Oriania. Any character who speaks this prayer before a performance using the harp of heavenly melodies is granted a blessing by the demigoddess, giving him a +5 bonus on his Perform (string instruments) check. Additionally, all performances made to impress an audience with this harp which result in a check of 30 or higher have an increased chance of attracting the interest of a good-aligned outsider (roughly 20% + 5% for each point by which the harpist exceeds 30, to a maximum of 95%).
Shaman’s Drum
This simple drum is made from unworked oak and wolf hide, and produces an oddly distant and hollow sound. Music produced by this drum is especially pleasing to animals, and in natural areas the local fauna are often attracted by even routine performances with the drum. These animals have a starting attitude of indifferent towards drummer and any other nearby living creatures for as long he plays the drum, and for 1d4 hours thereafter. A character who succeeds on a DC 30 Perform check while playing this drum attracts the attention of Laniu, the spirit wolf, who appears to him in his dreams the following night and explains how to use the magic of this drum. With the proper knowledge, once per day this drum can produce one of the following effects.
Call the sky father: This ability requires the drummer succeed a DC 15 Perform (percussion instruments) check, and calls a lightning bolt from the clear sky, which deals 5d6 points of electricity damage to a single creature. During a thunderstorm or similarly stormy condition, this lightning bolt instead deals 10d6 points of electricity damage to the target. A successful Reflex save (DC equal to 1/2 the result of the Perform [percussion instruments] check) halves this damage.
Call the earth mother: This ability requires the drummer succeed on a DC 15 Perform (percussion instruments) check, and summons to life plants from the ground, as though with the spell entangle, except that the effect persists for as long as the drummer continues the performance (it is a move action to maintain this performance for most characters, but a character with the bardic performance class feature can maintain this effect as a free action) and the Reflex save DC is equal to 1/2 the result of the Perform (percussion instruments) check.
Voice of the Bralani
Legend holds that the first bralani was a great bard, and that when he was killed, his voice shattered and fled his body in many directions. Eventually, the fragments of the fallen azata’s voice would settle and became these magical talismans, which can be found throughout the planes. Whether or not the legends are true is a matter of debate for scholars, but the magic of these plain, clay, 1-inch talismans is very real. Any creature that can speak who swallows the talisman gains a +2 bonus on all Perform (sing) checks for 24 hours. Additionally, a creature who swallows this talisman can summon the powerful voice of a great virtuoso, allowing him to make a single round of bardic performance to inspire courage as though he were a bard with a level equal to his current Hit Dice. Using this ability expends any magic remaining in the talisman, and it ceases to function for the rest of the duration.