Item: Captivating Score
Activate 2 (concentrate, manipulate)
A captivating score is a piece of parchment prepared for musical notation, long enough for a short song. You must be trained in Performance to properly compose this missive (or trained in an appropriate Lore skill your GM allows). You choose one of the emotions described below and write a musical composition to convey that emotion about a subject of your choice, typically a person or group. When activated, the missive plays a note-perfect rendition of the inscribed score. Each creature that can hear the score must succeed at a DC 28 Will save or be influenced to feel the emotion you chose toward the subject of your composition. This lasts for 1 hour, typically returning the creature to its initial attitude unless new events have altered their attitude long-term.
- Positive Your song engenders sympathy, adoration, joy, or a similar emotion. An affected creature's attitude toward the subject improves by one step, such as from indifferent to friendly.
- Negative Your song spurs anger, sadness, jealousy, or a similar emotion. An affected creature's attitude toward the subject worsens by one step, such as from indifferent to unfriendly.
When composing this missive, you can add a small notation or illustration of a type of instrument. If you do, the music sounds like that instrument, and if you didn't specify, it sounds vaguely like a recorder. The choice of a louder instrument doesn't make the music carry farther.
Trait Effects
Auditory: Auditory actions and effects rely on sound. An action with the auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or otherwise produce the required sounds. A spell or effect with the auditory trait has its effect only if the target can hear it. This applies only to sound-based parts of the effect, as determined by the GM. This is different from a sonic effect, which still affects targets who can’t hear it (such as deaf targets) as long as the effect itself makes sound.
Consumable: An item with this trait can be used only once. Unless stated otherwise, it’s destroyed after activation. Consumable items include alchemical items and magical consumables such as scrolls and talismans. A character can Craft consumable items in batches of four.
Emotion: This effect alters a creature’s emotions. Effects with this trait always have the mental trait as well. Creatures with special training or that have mechanical or artificial intelligence are immune to emotion effects.
Incapacitation: An ability with this trait can take a character completely out of the fight or even kill them, and it’s harder to use on a more powerful character. If a spell has the incapacitation trait, any creature of more than twice the spell’s rank treats the result of their check to prevent being incapacitated by the spell as one degree of success better, or the result of any check the spellcaster made to incapacitate them as one degree of success worse. If any other effect has the incapacitation trait, a creature of higher level than the item, creature, or hazard generating the effect gains the same benefits.
Magical: Something with the magical trait is imbued with magical energies not tied to a specific tradition of magic. Some items or effects are closely tied to a particular tradition of magic. In these cases, the item has the arcane, divine, occult, or primal trait instead of the magical trait. Any of these traits indicate that the item is magical.
Mental: A mental effect can alter the target’s mind. It has no effect on an object or a mindless creature.
Missive: A missive is a piece of magical stationery that must be crafted and composed before it can be activated. All missives have the missive and consumable traits. Missives are often constructed of paper, parchment, or vellum, but any other thin, portable material that can hold writing or embossing upon it can be crafted into missives. After being crafted, the missive is a blank sheet until a message is composed upon it, completing its magic.
Related Items
| Name | Level | Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| Bewildering Spellgun | 9 | Common |
| Owl Screech Egg | 7 | Common |
| Stage Fright Missive | 5 | Common |
| Ghost Ampoule | 4 | Common |
| Talespinner's Lyre | 11 | Uncommon |
| Panaceatic Salve | 10 | Uncommon |
| Burglar's Rosebud (Greater) | 8 | Uncommon |
| Candle of Truth | 8 | Uncommon |
| Messenger Missive (Multiple) | 7 | Common |
| Red-Handed Missive | 7 | Common |
| Heartening Missive (Bull) | 6 | Common |
| Heartening Missive (Rabbit) | 6 | Common |
| Heartening Missive (Turtle) | 6 | Common |
| Sargassum Phial | 6 | Common |
| Heartening Missive (Butterfly) | 5 | Common |
| Explosive Missive | 4 | Common |
| Glimmering Missive | 4 | Common |
| Messenger Missive | 4 | Common |
| Burglar's Rosebud | 3 | Uncommon |
| Candle of Inflamed Passions | 3 | Common |