Item: Trickster's Mandolin (Greater)
Sought after by many unscrupulous bards, this instrument is surprisingly light and easy to carry, but also empowered with a number of spells carefully selected to help with fooling others or making a hasty retreat. While playing the mandolin, you gain a +1 item bonus to Deception and Performance checks.
Activate 1 (concentrate)
Effect You change the instrument's color and shape to one you prefer, and you can turn it into a different handheld string instrument that takes two hands to play.
Activate Cast a Spell
Effect You expend a number of charges from this instrument to cast a spell from its list.
- Cantrip Prestidigitation
- 1st Illusory Disguise, Item Facade, Ventriloquism
- 2nd Blur, Illusory Creature, Illusory Disguise, Invisibility
- 3rd Illusory Disguise, Phantom Prison, Shared Invisibility
Craft Requirements Supply one casting of all listed ranks of all listed spells.
Trait Effects
Coda: Instruments with the coda trait work mostly like staves and have the staff trait. There are two differences: Coda instruments are in the form of musical instruments, and they can be prepared only by bards. Because they're not physically staves, you can't attack with a coda instrument, nor can you etch it with weapon runes. The process of preparing a coda instrument involves playing significant portions of songs related to the spells within the instrument—either old standards or ones of your own creation. This leaves magical reverberations within the instrument that allow you to complete the songs by playing their coda later in the day.
Illusion: Effects and magic items with this trait involve false sensory stimuli. Magic with the illusion trait creates false sensory stimuli. Sometimes illusions allow creatures a chance to disbelieve the spell, which lets the creature ignore the spell if it succeeds at doing so. This usually happens when a creature Seeks, Interacts, or otherwise spends actions to engage with the illusion, comparing the result of its Perception check (or another check or save the GM chooses) to the caster's spell DC. Mental illusions typically provide rules in the spell's description for disbelieving the effect (usually via a Will save). If a creature engages with an illusion in a way that would prove it's not what it seems, the creature might know that an illusion is present, but it still can't ignore the illusion without successfully disbelieving it. Disbelieving a visual illusion makes it and those things it blocks seem hazy and indistinct, which might block vision enough to leave the other side concealed.
Occult: This magic comes from the occult tradition, calling upon bizarre and ephemeral mysteries. Anything with this trait is magical. A creature with this trait is primarily constituted of or has a strong connection to occult magic.
Staff: This magic item holds spells of a particular theme and allows a spellcaster to cast additional spells by preparing the staff.
Related Items
| Name | Level | Rarity | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trickster's Mandolin (Major) | 12 | Common | 1900 gp |
| Bagpipes of Turmoil (Greater) | 8 | Common | 460 gp |
| Drums of War (Greater) | 8 | Common | 460 gp |
| Entertainer's Lute (Greater) | 8 | Common | 460 gp |
| Pipes of Compulsion (Greater) | 8 | Uncommon | 460 gp |
| Seer's Flute (Greater) | 8 | Uncommon | 460 gp |
| Bagpipes of Turmoil | 4 | Common | 90 gp |
| Bagpipes of Turmoil (Major) | 12 | Common | 1900 gp |
| Drums of War | 4 | Common | 90 gp |
| Drums of War (Major) | 12 | Common | 1900 gp |
| Entertainer's Lute | 4 | Common | 90 gp |
| Entertainer's Lute (Major) | 12 | Common | 1900 gp |
| Pipes of Compulsion | 4 | Uncommon | 90 gp |
| Pipes of Compulsion (Major) | 12 | Uncommon | 1900 gp |
| Seer's Flute | 4 | Uncommon | 90 gp |
| Seer's Flute (Major) | 12 | Uncommon | 1900 gp |
| Trickster's Mandolin | 4 | Common | 90 gp |
| Kora of the Unending Story | 14 | Rare | 4500 gp |
| Fiddle of the Maestro | 16 | Rare | 10000 gp |
| Accompaniment Cloak | 11 | Common | 1300 gp |