Hi.

I do realy miss the bard when i play the warhammer universe. It`s like the warhammer world have forgotten the music... And i am trying to make a bard a little like a disciple. Im going to juse blessings from the goddess of music. Im not sure what im going to name here yet. But that is for later. I have made the career card, and a story, and i am now missing the blessings, and are wondering what great id I do really miss the bard when I play in the warhammer universe. It`s like the warhammer world have forgotten a little bit of the music, (and I do really love Warhammer..).., I am trying to make the bard a little like a disciple. I am going to use blessings from the goddess of music. I’m not sure what I’m going to name here yet. That is for later. I have made the career card, and a story, and I am now missing the blessings, and are wondering what great ideas you people could have. If some other of you are interested and think this is a interesting idea, I can put what I have done so far out here. I think it is a lot of fun making a new advanced career, and would like advices from you guys. But now I need ideas for what kind of blessings I could juse music to. I need one to five rank blessings. And this is the few ideas I have so far.

BLESSINGS.

Piercing sound -

Sound Waves –

Sleep. (The lullaby.)

Paralyse (The sound of music.)

Sleep walk

Bravery

Fear

Battle music.

Calm

Fellowship - Listen to me.eas you people could have. If others are interessted

(Not sure what rank and stuff yet, but that will come, looking forward to many great ideas!!)

If they are blessings, have you an idea of what source they have as that may flavour them and determine what is appropriate.

Is this a human god or elven, other?

Ranald, for example, is "wine, women and song" and have some similarity but some difference from elven Loec "trickery, music and revelry" (wardancers). A Bretonnian troubadour might extol the Lady but wouldn't get any blessings.

I would benchmark against existing blessings, reskinning them mostly to keep parity. E.G. for sleep effect start with Sleep of Morr and tweak a bit.

I would say what you are after is an Initiate of a fitting god like Ranald who then goes into the Troubadour or Performer career and jumps a bit back and forth between priestly careers and entertainment careers.

Otherwise, you can make a pure Performer-type who uses the Leadership actions to inspire his party members.

I just shudder at the thought of introducing D&D concepts like "magic musician" to the grim and gritty setting of Warhammer

Agree with Ralzar that it's probably a great idea to switch between careers as a Ranald priest for the blessings and the minstrel, preformer, gambler and other similar careers for entertainment. There are quite a few entertainment careers in WFRP, so I do not think Warhammer forgot about the music, it's simply that music is does not produce magical effects in the warhammer world.

There's also a bunch of good action cards that are not blessings but are similar to bard effects in D&D. Such as Inspiring Words, Teller of Tales, Bribery, Honeyed Words, Sage advice, Bolster, Winning Smile, Crack a Joke, Impersonate, Quip, Skeletons in the Closet and so on... Many of these buff allies or debuff enemies in different situations. Also, a few of different Saga cards (dwarven ancestor actions) and the drunken cards (especially social drinking) could fit a bard concept. Mix that up with a few careers as a Ranald priest and get some blessings and you have a warhammer-esque bard.

But if you want to create blessings I'd do as Valvorik suggests and benchmark them against existing blessings, or find existing blessings that fit and re-name them and tweak them a bit.

I do really agree with you people about how you can make an excellent performer, but as I said, I miss what music can bring. Like, when you go to war, every country and army has been using music to bring forth the courage in the soldiers, what about a card for the musicians to give the other players a white dice on their next attack. Those sorts of things. Like how music are calming, energising. How you can play an old song about the old heroes around the campfire, and people loses one stress because their thoughts travel somewhere fare, fare away. They can finally think about something else then all the hostility that is threatening them. Or, how music can bring fear. Like every time you watch a horror movie, I can promise it would not be half that scary without the music. However, I did like the suggestion about using blessings that already exists and then making some changes about the name, and maybe twisting them a bit… I am not very sure how this will work out yet. But I do agree about not changing to much of the already existing characters, and the gods. Thou I do see a small opening to presenting a new lesser god of some sort… I am not totally sure what to do about this yet, but I am going to make some sort of either action card that the ministriel can use, for example gives courage, or remove stress… Something that the music can be used to without the “playing to earn money bit.”

About witch race, I am not sure yet… If I’m just making the action cards, I think every race can use it if they do play a instrument. If I do chose to make blessings, only the human’s race. I am not going to play with the elf gods that is a little more dangerous place to play I think.

By the way, I doesn’t need to magic music like in D&D. Like I don`t want the music to spawn weapons, or make animals obey you. I want those simple things that music can do, and that are proven that they can do. Like inspire, cause a little bit of fear, and get people to relax from a very hard day! Stuff like that!

We actually have this in the group where I GM. One of the players is a Skald (we're playing in a Norsca setting so it's really just the troubadour renamed). He doesn't have any action cards for singing during combat, but he often uses charm/leadership and Perform a Stunt to shout words of encouragement, sing songs of great heroes, call for the gods to witness them etc. When he rolls well he often grants a fortune dice or two. He has also stopped a rout or two where the players side of the battle was about to flee.

However, this is mostly when the party also has a warband with them so there are 3PCs and 20+ NPCs fighting against another group of NPCs. When it's just 3 PCs against enemies there is no way stopping to sing a song is going to make any difference. After all, the guy singing is one third of the groups fighting force not helping to actually fight off the enemies.

Edit: If he wants to be a bard who plays music which has an allmost magical ability, the only option I see is the fun Warhammery one: A lute blessed by Slaanesh

You could create Witch character, with access to action card similar to The Witch's Song (from Krijn NPC, just remove "song causes fear" part). This way you can have your dreamed singing spellcaster that is well matched to the setting

The dwarf Saga actions are singing (if you consider stuntie braying to be musical).

That is true. I think I am going to do more like you Ralzar if they want to use music they can use their creativity, and I liked the idea with using a witch class if someone wants something special. I think I’m going to go with you guys on this one! Thanks for many good advices!

Another tip: Many social and support action cards can be used to effects like giving the inspired condition, adding white dice to allies or black to enemies etc.

The Bard player can simply say that these actions are conveyed as music and song.

Furthermore, some talents help against fear/terror and loads of other effects. When the bard adds them to the party sheet, so they bonuses count for everyone in the party, the bard could say that this is because of bolstering music.

Edit: And oh, a lullaby could be a great way to assist an overnight roll (when you roll to recover wounds/criticals after a nights rest).

That is excellent advice - never create a new rule/action etc. to cover off something that can be handled in the game simply by describing the use of an existing mechanic.

This is an important thing to recall in all systems in order to prevent "system bloat" and contradictions.