Magic Songs and Minstrel Class

Tove Jansson

When playing with magic songs, every PC starts out knowing a song, chosen at random. Songs may be sung as often as you choose, for as long as you choose. Every song requires you to sing clearly; some may require the use of instruments.

1. Leitmotif: Sounds like an old, familiar tune you've known all your life, reminding you of home and happy memories.

Each person has their own leitmotif, which you may play if you've heard it before or know the person very well. (Individual leitmotifs don't have to be learned as separate songs, this one lets you learn any number of them.) You can hear your leitmotif over any distance, even if you're deaf. Subject may reroll failed saves vs. despair, apathy, or death. If played for 1 minute, restores 1 hp, no more than once per day.

2. Song of Starlight: Sounds like a fragment of an angelic melody, bringing courage in the deepest darkness.

Unnatural evil creatures must save vs. fear to approach within 10' of you (even those which normally have no fear). If their HD are less than your Minstrel level, they must flee on a failed save. You and your allies may reroll failed saves vs. fear.

3. Song of Birds: Sounds like birdsong. The exact type varies depending on what kind of bird you're talking to.

Allows you to speak to songbirds. You can also talk to other birds, but they may be confusing or hard to understand. Your speech must rhyme, or the birds will think you're impolite and refuse to talk.

The knowledge of birds, as well as their willingness to talk, varies depending on their species and habitat. Rumors spread quickly among them, but many such rumors will be inaccurate or incomplete. Birds who like you or owe you a favor may be convinced to carry messages, spy on your enemies, and so forth.

Some birds (1 in 20?) are the souls of the dead who travel the skies in the warmer seasons and return to the caves of the underworld in the winter. They will be significantly more knowledgeable than the typical bird, and may remember things from a long time ago when they were alive.

(Alternate version: Allows you to talk to a particular kind of bird. This bird is generally friendly to you and other locals, and will gossip and trade favors. In your home region, you can always find such a bird to talk to if you're outdoors and spend 1d10 minutes calling for one. If there's a rumor table for the area, add hearing rumors from birds as a random encounter. Elsewhere, you may spend 10 minutes calling for a 1 in 4 chance of finding a bird of that type. Failure indicates that there are none around; you may try again in a day or in another area. When very far from home in a place where that bird's appearance is still plausible, the chance is 1 in 20.)

4. Song of Death: A slow, longing lament for opportunities lost and hopes unrealized.

Keeps a dying person alive for a little while longer. You must choose the subject when you start playing. On the turn the subject would normally die, they don't. At the start of each turn thereafter, the subject has a half chance of dying; otherwise, they cling to life for another round. Taking damage or any action other than talking or singing requires them to make another roll. (If not in combat or some other tense situation, may keep the subject alive for 1 minute per success rather than 1 round.)

5. Song of the Forest: Might sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQZ6zzLpoNQ

Woodland animals flock around you. They will be friendly and peaceful as long as you keep singing, after which they will quickly disperse and resume their normal behaviors. Animals that were already hostile or startled reroll their reactions, taking the new one if it's better. If the local wildlife are frightened while you sing, they won't come out for you for at least 1d6 days.

There are also songs for other terrain types and their animals (desert, ocean, wetlands, etc.); you may pick one each time you get this Song (including the first, if another terrain type would be more suitable than forest).

6. Blood Oath/Song of Blood: Grim and terrible. Involves a lot of low chanting and lengthy poetic curses.

To make a Blood Oath, you must know your enemy's name, and they must have killed or done great wrong to you or someone you care about. Swear to kill your enemy within a year and a day, and describe exactly how you will kill them. If you sing the song of blood while fighting that enemy, you pass all saves vs fear from them, and if you get a critical hit against them, you kill them in the way you described (if possible). While under the oath, you cannot gain xp, and if you fail to carry it out within the time limit, you lose a level and the Oath ends. You may not make a new Oath if you already have one going.

7. Danse Macabre: Music to make the dead dance; either a quick, lively jig or a very slow, somber waltz. Requires a fiddle or similar string instrument with a bow.

Humanoid corpses and skeletons in the vicinity will rise and dance, if they are sufficiently intact and interested in doing so. The dance requires 1d6 rounds of playing to get started. You'll get around 2d20 dancers in a typical graveyard or battlefield. You can talk to them, but they aren't necessarily interested in talking to you. When you stop playing, the dead will return to their rest.

Any pre-existing undead will join the dance; intelligent ones get a save. The living may join in if they choose. Anyone who attacks a participant in the dance must save. On a failure, they die on the spot, their flesh falls off their bones, and they join the dance.

If you also know the Pied Pipes song, you may play a variant on this song on the lyre which causes the undead to follow you wherever you go. However, if you so much as glance at one of them, they will all collapse.

8. Song of Rain: Noisy vocal and drums, loud enough to make the heavens take notice, possibly accompanied by a dance.

This song is an appeal to the rains to come or go. It must be done under the open sky. It takes one hour to perform, and 1d4 hours for its effects, which will last for one day, to become visible. You have a 30% base chance of success, +10% for each additional singer who knows this song, +1% for each person who participates in the appropriate dance (maximum 70% chance of success). If you fail, roll 1d6 for possible side effects:

1-2: The rains weren't paying attention. You may try again normally.

3: The rains are not inclined to grant your request, and will ignore further requests for 24 hours.

4: The rains are offended, and will not listen to any participant in the song for 2d6 days or until you make a formal apology and a suitable offering to appease them.

5: The rains are spiteful, and do the opposite of what you asked. If you asked for rain, they will give you a drought; if you asked for clear weather, they will bring down a deluge. In either case, the effects last 2d6 days, and any petitions by you or any participant in the song during that time will be ignored.

6: The rains wish to punish your hubris, and give you too much of what you asked for. As result #5, but reversed.

There is also a separate Song of Wind, which works similarly but is more useful to sailors. Side effects may include a gale or a becalming.

9. Song of Summons: Thunderous and urgent, played on a horn, bugle, or drum.

Audible within a range of 5 miles. Anyone who hears it will know it is a distress signal and where it came from.

If you also know the Song of Birds and are using a drum, you may play the Talking Drum. This allows you to communicate any message you could speak within the same range as the Song of Summons. If you know the above and a specific person's Leitmotif, you may play the Sending Drum, which has a range of 50 miles and can be heard by that person only.

10. Pipes of Pan: Frantic and deranged. Played on pan pipes, of course.

Any who hear this song (including the performer, though they will keep performing, and can stop whenever they like) will go temporarily mad, required to save each round or act as though under Confusion. If their actions while under the spell of the Pipes harmed a friend or loved one, they take 1 sanity damage once the song is done; if they killed a friend or loved one, an additional 1d6 sanity damage. If you are a Minstrel and play this song to someone for 24 hours, they will go permanently insane (no save).

If you also know the Song of Blood, you can play the Pipes of Azathoth, which is like the Pipes of Pan except all who hear it must save each round or harm themselves by the most deadly means they can find.

11. Lullaby: As sweet and gentle as milk and moonlight.

This song has no effect on creatures that don't sleep or are excited or tense.

Listeners to this song (other than the performer) may choose to go to sleep immediately. If they do not, they must save each round or become drowsy (can only take 1 action per round). If drowsy, they must save each round or fall asleep. (To determine when someone wakes up, if they want to wake up, roll a d6 each hour; they awaken on a 1. Anything that could awaken a normal sleeper will also awaken them.) A Minstrel who plays this song to someone for 24 hours can put them to sleep indefinitely. (This effect has no save. Subjects need no food or water; this is fairy-tale sleep, though they can be awakened by normal means.)

12. Pied Pipes: Catchy to the point of fascination. Played on the pipes, a flute may also work. Must know the Song of the Forest in order to learn this.

When you pick this song, choose a specific kind of animal with which you are familiar (most varieties of domestic animals, game animals, and vermin are believable, large predators are unlikely unless you can justify it). As long as you play, all animals of that kind who can hear you will approach and follow you, ignoring their normal instincts and activities. They don't get a save when you begin playing, but they do whenever they are startled or obviously in danger.

You can choose this Song multiple times, with a different kind of animal each time.

If you also know the Leitmotif, you can play the Siren Song, which is like the Pied Pipes but affects a specific kind of person (though people get a save to resist the Song in the first place).

Note: You can immunize yourself to several songs by plugging your ears (not a perfect method, it sometimes gets through), going deaf, etcetera. The performer may choose to be immune to the effects of the 24-hour version of a song.

Minstrel Class: HD one step higher than most magic-using types. Learn a new song each level. Also have the ability to play a fugue, consisting of multiple different songs at once. Every round, for each song in the fugue, roll 1d6, less 1d6 for every 3 Minstrel levels you have. On doubles, your Muse is lost (you can't perform music, or produce art in general) for days equal to the number rolled, on triples for that many weeks. If the fugue requires you to play multiple instruments at a time, you'd better find a way to justify it to the DM.