abyssalbrews

Pine Lute of Planning

Added 2022-08-04 16:00:06 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

While some are made for combat with their swords flurrying and magic flinging, some are more of the mindful sort. We acquired this lute from an odd individual that said his plan had failed one too many times. You see, thinking ahead is a value of its own so long as your plans don’t fail. Perhaps he was just tired of being the brains of the operation. Perhaps he was just a bit too tipsy to know what he was doing. Either way, we’re now bringing you this lovely lute.

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Design notes from Matthew:

Bardic instruments are just an absolute joy to try to design. Honestly, I love interacting with class specific features as it gives a lot of interesting utility to play with. You can make generic items forever, but tying them in with a class feature really seems to make them feel integral to a character style. I’ve found that sometimes it can even help define a character within a party environment and that’s something we’re big on.

This lute was a bit of a reference, but I love the concept of a bard that’s always thinking ahead and working to make sure things go right. I wanted to give something that would help solve a problem I’ve noticed at times with Bardic Inspiration. You can deal it out, but sometimes it just won’t have much of an impact. Either people hold it for the right roll which never comes or they roll it and fail anyways. While I love the class feature, it presents a problem where it sometimes feels useless.

I wanted to solve that issue by giving people the ability to plan ahead. Prerolling your inspiration is a bit extreme, but it does allow you to apply it in a reactionary fashion. Now you can say “no, you actually succeed on that check” and that can be quite powerful. It also doesn’t lock you out of giving normal bardic inspiration either so the options abound. It’s powerful, but I think it’s potentially a more fun way to engage with the mechanic.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

It’s tricky to illustrate an item that is an homage to something else without flat out copying it. It’s also much harder to get the proportions and colors right from a single picture reference. Now I know how Adam Savage feels when he works on his many Blade Runner and other movie props solely based on screen caps and behind the scenes footage.

It’s tricky to illustrate a lute, make it unique, and still make it look like a lute; however, challenges like this is what AB is all about. Lutes are pretty standard looking instruments, luckily adding glowing elements and other decorations helped set this one apart, I particularly like the idea of having some carvings right over the soundhole, it’s one of those things you can only get away with in a fantasy setting because in the real world that would significantly change the sound and acoustics from the instrument, mostly likely for the worse.

While we love churning out weapons and armors, I think some of my favorite items are the ones that are a bit off the beaten path. Wondrous items, instruments, quirky pieces that offer different ways to interact with the world, I think they’re all great. It’s also really fun to consider ways to interact with combat that isn’t just strictly damage. Hopefully you enjoyed this addition to our catalogue!

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