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| Source: The Old Man with a Fly, by Georges de la Tour |
Class: Vielleur
You are an old Wise One with a few songs left to sing. A welcome sight on the road or at a festival, and an invaluable asset in any propaganda campaign.You need your voice and both hands to perform your songs. Songs are intelligible to about 200' outdoors, and much farther underground. If you have at least one template from this class, you never fumble with staves or knives. You cannot perform music while wearing armor heavier than light or while carrying a shield.
Skills: 1. Military History 2. Civil Engineering 3. Misanthropy
- A Soothsayer, Comfort
- B Mimicry, Well-Known and Well-Knowing
- C Discomfort
- D Wisdom
Starting Equipment: old silk finery with tattered cape (as unarmored, +2 save), an excellent backpack (+2 slots if packed by you), an ungovernably loud two-handed instrument (see list below), and three things from the possible contents of your pockets.
Soothsayer
In your youth you walked down every road and sang in every bar. As you matured, and grew in understanding, you railed against the powers of the earth. When you aged, and grew weak and tired, they punished you. You are irreparably blind.
What they couldn't take from you was your songs; time did that for them. You remember only one of the following twelve epics:
Remember another epic song every time you gain a template in this class. If you don't at least finish the introduction of a song (about ten minutes), your rhythm is lost and your songs lose their effects for the rest of the day. Songs can always be performed as mundane music without any supernatural effects.
- Song of the Child
I saw a pale imperial pomp go by, with helmet and horned miter and heavy wreath,
high strange ensigns hanging in the sky, and great shields like the gates of death...
This is an old melody from a world even more strange and dangerous than the one we live in. While you perform, all those who can hear and understand your words are invisible.- Song of the Elder
Know that in this grotesque old masque too loud we cannot sing,
nor dance too wild, nor speak too wide, in praise of a hidden thing.
And though the jest be old as night, still shaketh sun and sphere
an everlasting laughter, too loud for us to hear...
The Vielleur who taught you this song was as ancient then as you are now. He's dead and resting, G_d-willing. While you perform, all those who can hear and understand your words cannot change states of consciousness; those awake are immune to sleep; those asleep cannot wake; those charmed get no further saves &c.- Song of the Skull
The last slender bond is severed.
For him who ends here the world also ends...
This is that song which echoes inside the heads of monks as they starve themselves to death. While you perform, all those who can hear and understand your words forget their lives before you began singing. Only their most ingrained habits and the most fundamental aspects of their personalities persist. Charm and other mind-altering effects are undone instantly; lies are forgotten; illusions end. You remember you are a Vielleur, and you remember how to perform this song.- Song of the Snake
There lives one moment for a man when the door at his shoulder shakes,
or the taut rope parts under the pull, and the barest branch is beautiful
one moment, as it breaks.
On many a foreign shore (where pagan children crawl) the song of the Snake is performed by musicians smeared in blood and fat, dancing around and over great bone-fires. While you perform, you move as fast as the wind. You can cover thirty miles in an hour across even rough terrain. Rivers, walls, and impassible terrain stop you, but guards, dogs and weather do not. Those who can hear and understand your words may choose to accompany you (or can be bound up and dragged along); travel in this manner is disorienting to anyone with vision. Don't lose your way — this song can make you very lost very quickly.- Song of the Dog
Hush! I shall know the place when it is found: a twisted path under
a twisted pear tree — this I saw in the first dream I had ere I was born...
Did you learn this song on an island? Set in some black western sea like a flaw in a mirror? Did it echo among the trilithons, stirring old ghosts to life? While you perform, all those who can hear and understand your words know the way to the place they most want to be. The path is forgotten as soon as you stop performing.- Song of the Dancing Girl
Like the sprouting fields of grain may women bring forth with their husbands,
and may those who are yet virgins one day be blessed with children...
The lyrics were graffiti on the walls of an arena, the melody obvious from the shape of the coliseum. While you perform, all those who can hear and understand your words cannot take damage from any source.- Song of the Crown
I must rejoice beyond the bounds of time, though the world may shudder at my joy,
and in its coarseness not understand what I mean...
More songs in this genre exist, but the g_ds only taught the song of the Crown to mankind. While you perform, all those who can hear you can understand you. Madness is temporarily abated. Animals who have seen you before will recognize you, and will not attack you unprovoked. Unintelligent undead become intelligent undead (this is usually a bad thing).- Song of the Tower
The lonely sunsets flare forlorn down valleys dreadfully desolate.
The lordly mountains soar in scorn, as still as death, as stern as fate...
This was a favorite of Alden, and was written originally for the harp. While you perform, those who can hear and understand your words and who have fewer HD than you cannot move. Those with more HD must attack you or flee (their choice).- Song of the Eye
Destruction builds windows, and her legend witnesseth
to the saint of guns, the saint of gunners, and the saint of sudden death...
A fearsome song of war, madness, filicide and lightning. As you perform, winds rise and stormclouds roll in. After five minutes the gale is so strong that ranged attacks automatically fail, and flying creatures must land or crash (their choice). After ten minutes, only the strongest and most aerodynamic creatures may approach where you sing. After thirty minutes, the thunderstorm begins. For every hour you sing you have a cumulative 1-in-6 chance of being struck by lightning; if you are struck, those who can hear you are also struck. Lightning that doesn't kill you also doesn't end your song.- Song of the Lantern
Have you found, with all your boasted wisdom, how hard at the last it is to keep the soul from splitting into atoms,
while we, seekers of earth's treasures, getters and hoarders of gold, are self-contained, compact, harmonized,
even to the end...
A song to punish the greedy and enrich the musicians. While you perform, any objects those who can hear and understand you consider valuable are attracted to you like metal filings. Loose objects fly to you immediately. Objects which are held tug against their owners' hands, and objects which are locked away will try and bash down obstacles. They swirl around you for the duration of the performance, and follow you as you go.- Song of the Hand
It is widely known among the generations of men, and heard by the people, that the G_d of Beginnings,
the Almighty King, created the first of the kindred of Men from the purest stone...
A wild cacophony of a song. Though written for orchestra of ninety musicians, it can be played by one who is willing to stomp, scream and whistle. While you perform, all those who can hear you are severely inhibited. None can move faster than half your speed. Spellcasters count as concussed. Every die rolled to perform a physical action comes up 1. If you pass a skill check, those dice instead come up your choice of 1, 2 or 3.- Ruined Song
This song has no lyrics, only wordless crying aloud. Someone ruined it like they ruined everything else.
You no longer remember where you learned this song. While you perform, those who can hear and understand you see you as the person they most desire in the world.
Comfort
You're not much practical help any more, but you do what you can. Anyone holding your hand gets a +[level] bonus to saves. This applies to the dying as well.
Mimicry
Speak using any voice you have ever heard. The resemblance is perfect; those who cannot see you will always be fooled, those who can see you will be upset and a little frightened.
Well-Known and Well-Knowing
When you encounter a new community, like a tribe of insect-women or an ancient half-abandoned city, there's a 4-in-6 chance it reminds you of an old story. If it does, the DM will explain the moral of the story, give a rough overview of the plot, and describe the main villain. Broad parallels can be drawn but artistic license will be necessary to interpret this.
Discomfort
One with your experience understands that people are vain creatures. If you listen to someone speak for a minute or so, you know what they are most sensitive about and can craft an insult that forces them to save or be stunned into silence. The first time you do this to someone they automatically fail the save.
Wisdom
One with your experience understands that people are prideful, presumptuous creatures as well. When you listen to someone speak for a minute or so, you learn the following things:
- If they are younger than you, you know what they want from life.
- If they are wealthier than you, you know what they want from you.
- If they have more HD than you, you know who their enemies are and how they plan to deal with them.
- If you pass a SKLL check, you know what their next immediate course of action will be.
Possible Contents of your Pockets:
- Old Finery. You can't take care of it any more, but you still have your pride. As unarmored, +2 save.
- Ungovernably Loud Instrument. Union pipes, hurdy-gurdy, a concertina, a small street organ, or some other tool for generating music in quantity over quality. 1 slot.
- Boiled Sugar Sweets. Butterscotch, or cinnamon. 20 doses.
- Pocket Knife. Small folding knife that doesn't lock. Deals damage as a light weapon, slams shut on your fingers on a fumble.
- Journal. You write in this with an inkless pen — you can read the scratches with your fingertips, but no one else can. ⅓rd slot.
- Backup Harmonica. You can't perform any epics with this one, but you can strike up a tune and raise some spirits.
- Huge Waterproof Hat. Straw, reinforced with wires and wooden dowels and string. Counts as a helmet, protects you and your instrument from rain.
- Rat Mask. Whatever you think this mask depicts, it actually looks like a big grey rat with fat cheeks.
- Jar of Ink. Blue, black or red; your choice. Any time the jar becomes relevant, and whenever you are searching your inventory in a hurry, ink gets all over your hands and you leave handprints on everything until someone helps you.
- Map. You can't read this map, and it doesn't seem to be a map of your world anyway.
- Identification Papers. Important for passing military checkpoints. Very obviously not your identification papers.
- Manacles. Sturdy steel manacles. You can slap these on an unsuspecting person in a hot second. They never see it coming. ⅓rd slot.
- Ball of String. 3100' of butcher's twine. 1 slot.
- A Thimble and Several Fishhooks. What?
- Pack of Cigarettes. Brand of your choice. 20 doses.
- Small Handbell. Draws attention to yourself, and annoys fairies.
- Box of Matches. 30 doses of fire.
- Flask. Contains 10 doses of cheap liquor.
- Makeup Kit. Theatrical, and completely useless to you.
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A weird or inexplicable curio. Roll 1d6:
- Paladin Flower. White petals with flecks of black. The first time you fail a save against a malicious spell, the flower suffers the effects instead and then burns to ash.
- Overwise Horn. Instead of a trumpeting, this horn produces the sound of harsh laughter and mocking voices.
- BEYOND NO DOOR. This chardun sai (⅓rd slot) records up to an hour of audio, which it will recite in a stupid voice on request.
- A piece of paper with the words "the joy of the consumer outweighs the pain of the consumed" in spidery handwriting. If someone reads from this paper aloud, they immediately suffer a freak misfortune.
- Portrait of a G_d Among the Trees. A small oil vignette a few inches to a side. The blind can see it perfectly.
- Three tarot cards. Draw three and record which they are. When your DM is in doubt, the cards become relevant in some prophetic way.
- Paladin Flower. White petals with flecks of black. The first time you fail a save against a malicious spell, the flower suffers the effects instead and then burns to ash.
