abyssalbrews

Vanity

Added 2023-12-14 16:00:07 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

I’m always one for a show! Whether it’s sauntering down to the local theatre to take in a rousing portrayal of the Kobold and the Courtesan or going to the high brow showhouses of the high district for a more refined dramatic experience, I consider them all equally entertaining for their own purposes. It was at one such show that I saw an orchestra member so enamored with himself he had strapped a mirror to his violin. Upon approaching him, he confessed that he had become ever more obsessed with himself since coming to own that violin and bid me rid of it before he lost total control of his life. I didn’t think it was so dire, so I took it back to my shop. I dare say I look rather fetching playing it.

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Design notes from Matthew:

Musical instruments are always an interesting treat to develop. I’m not sure if it’s just my real life bardic tendencies or what, but I rather enjoy putting the ideas of what kind of power music could convey into an item. It’s why one of our first items was a musical sword after all. The concept came to me when I first saw a violin with a mounted sheet music holder. I found the aesthetics of it quite fascinating and wondered what kind of creation I could cook up with the idea of something mounted to a violin. Turns out it was a rather self-centered one. I think that’s rather fitting for many bards.

The 5E version of this was actually a very straightforward design. I knew what I wanted it to be from the start, which was a bit of reflective benefits when it comes to your bardic inspiration. It’s basically just an even more limited version of that adding a flat bonus instead of a dice based one. I like that it does give you a little benefit but also doesn’t outweigh the benefit given to others.

The PF2E version was far less obvious for me to put together as “bardic inspiration” isn’t a core feature of all bards there. Instead, I wanted to give it its own feeling and accomplished that by making a fun little scene of a person playing a song to another, but it’s really about them in the end. I think adding a bit of humor to our items goes a long way and I felt the need to include that here as well. The idea of the mirror negating flanking was a late addition because I realized a mirror can also just be a mirror. You would think that would be obvious, but it isn’t always.

I’m redoubling my efforts on getting more content out to you all as we move into the holiday period. I had a bit of con crud to get over post PAX, but I feel extremely ready to make cool things and put them in your hands. My hope is that going forward, 2024 will be the best year of AB content we’ve ever had!

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