Whispers
Most folk are happy to welcome a bard into their midst. Whisper bards use this to their advantage. They appear to be like other bards, sharing news, singing songs, and telling tales to the audiences they gather. In truth, the way of Whispers teaches its students that they are wolves among sheep. These bards use their knowledge and magic to uncover secrets and turn them against others through extortion and threats.
Many other bards hate their whisper peers, viewing them as parasites that use a bard’s reputation to acquire wealth and power. For this reason, members of this teaching rarely reveal their true nature. They typically claim to follow some other affiliation, or they keep their actual calling secret in order to infiltrate and exploit royal courts and other settings of power.
Talents
| Talent | CP | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|
| Psychic Blades | 5 | Bardic Performance |
| Words of Terror | 5 | Bardic Performance |
| Mantle of Whispers | 20 | Words of Terror and 20 CP of Bard Talents |
| Shadow Lore | 50 | Mantle of Whispers and 70 CP of Bard Talents |
Psychic Blades
Cost: 5 Character Points
Prerequisite: Bardic Performance
You gain the ability to make your weapon attacks magically toxic to a creature’s mind.
When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can spend a use of your Bardic Performance to deal an additional 2dM psychic damage to that target.
Words of Terror
Bardic Performance
Cost: 5 Character Points
Prerequisite: Bardic Performance
You learn to infuse innocent-seeming words with an insidious magic that can inspire terror.
If you speak to a humanoid alone for at least 1 minute, you can attempt to seed paranoia in its mind. At the end of the conversation, make a proficient Charisma attack against the target’s Wisdom defense. On a hit, the target is now Frightened of you or another creature of your choice. The target is Frightened in this way for 1 hour, until it is attacked or damaged, or until it witnesses its allies being attacked or damaged.
If the attack misses, then the target has no hint that you tried to frighten it.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Mantle of Whispers
Cost: 20 Character Points
Prerequisite: Words of Terror and 20 CP of Bard Talents
You gain the ability to adopt a humanoid’s persona.
When a humanoid dies within 30 feet of you, you magically capture its shadow. You retain this shadow until you use it or you finish a long rest.
You can use the shadow as an action. When you do so, it vanishes, magically transforming into a disguise that appears on you. You now look like the dead person, but healthy and alive. This disguise lasts for 1 hour or until you end it as a bonus action.
While you’re in the disguise, you gain access to all information that the humanoid would freely share with a casual acquaintance. Such information includes general details on its background and personal life, but doesn’t include secrets. The information is enough that you can pass yourself off as the person by drawing on its memories.
Another creature can see through this disguise by succeeding on an Insight check against your passive deception. Your passive deception gains +1d for this check.
Once you capture a shadow with this feature, you can’t capture another one with it until you finish a short or long rest.
Shadow Lore
Cost: 50 Character Points
Prerequisite: Mantle of Whispers and 70 CP of Bard Talents
You gain the ability to weave dark magic into your words and tap into a creature’s deepest fears.
an action, magically whisper a phrase that only one creature of your choice within 30 feet of you can hear. Make a Performance check vs the target’s wisdom defence. This check automatically fails if the target doesn’t share a language with you or if it cannot hear you. On a miss, your whisper sounds like unintelligible mumbling and has no effect.
On a hit, the target is Charmed by you for the next 8 hours, or until you or your allies attack or damage it. The target interprets the whispers as a description of its most mortifying secret. You gain no knowledge of this secret, but the target is convinced that you know it.
The Charmed creature obeys your commands for fear that you will reveal its secret. It won’t risk its life for you or fight for you, unless it was already inclined to do so. It grants you favours and gifts that it would offer to a close friend.
When the effect ends, the creature has no understanding of why it held you in such fear.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.