Shadowbeat
| The Shadowbeat song style was first designed by the founder of the Harbingers Guild, Nirrti, along with the help of Mahalla, the Dead Voice of an Elder Goddess who was consumed during the Elder Wars. Shadowbeat music is both melancholy and powerfully rhythmic, creating a unique musical style. |
| Skill | Learned At | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | Master+0% | You may compose songs expressing your own creativity. |
| Sustain | Master+0% | The ability to maintain a song. |
| VenomDrops | Master+0% | Increase the potency of poisons. |
| ShadowLight | Master+33% | Mother Night's shadows conceal her children. |
| DiscordantChord | Master+66% | This painful chord shall crush the disharmonic soul. |
| NightFade | Gifted+0% | The power of night fades the ego of the weak. |
| SpiderLegs | Gifted+25% | Navigate webs with the ease of a spider. |
| Refrain | Gifted+50% | A musical structure that allows repetition of a stanza. |
| Reprise | Gifted+50% | A musical structure that allows reversal of a stanza. |
| ShadowChord | Gifted+75% | Music to direct shadows against your enemies. |
| BarghestBlues | Expert+0% | Hearing barghest howls disrupts herb balance. |
| ShadowRave | Expert+33% | No one can resist dancing to the beat of your music! |
| Shadowpulse | Expert+66% | The song of shadow increased the flow of blood. |
| CaptiveAudience | Virtuoso+0% | Both friends and enemies hear nothing but your songs. |
| BloodyCaps | Virtuoso+33% | A song to make any redcap's mouth water. |
| DarkHeart | Virtuoso+66% | Music that inspires those touched by Glomdoring. |
| SlaughFest | Fabled+0% | Dark fae who hear this sound will be driven to a frenzy. |
| CrowCaw | Fabled+33% | Hearing the Cawing of Crow can drive a weak mind mad. |
| WidowsMercy | Fabled+66% | The poisonous black widow looks mercifully upon your agony. |
| Encore | Mythical+0% | Play a rousing encore performance. |
| NightshadeBlues | Mythical+25% | Hearing this sound causes the ultimate depression. |
| SpiderCantiga | Mythical+50% | Melody will manifest stinging venoms. |
| WyrdSong | Mythical+75% | The song of the wyrd protects its own. |
| Dirge | Transcendent+0% | Let a funeral dirge lead them unto death. |
Composition
| Syntax |
| COMPOSE NEW <song> COMPOSE LIST |
As your ability in your song specialization increases, you will be able to compose new songs. You can write your own song and set it in stanzas. Each song can consist of up to 9 stanzas, and certain powers can also be invested in each stanza. Powers are divided into 3 types: Low (L), Medium (M) and High (H). Low types can only invested in stanzas 1-3, medium in stanzas 4-6 and high in stanzas 7-9. Low stanzas generally have simple effects, medium stanzas have stronger effects, and high stanzas have very strong effects. Some song powers need to be targeted and others will create a passive effect that stays around you. As a general rule, you will not be able to stack passive effects.
When playing a custom song, it always begins in stanza 1, each time you play the song, it progresses to the next stanza until the song ends or you change to another song or a certain amount of time elapses, whichever comes first. Note that before the time elapses, you can take other actions so long as you continue your performance before the time elapses.
| Additional Notes: |
| [OLD NOTE, PLEASE VERIFY] Whenever you play a song, all the effects of the song (excluding targetted ones) up to whatever you've played are active as long as the song is playing, and each one will tick every ten seconds. You can't control when each effect ticks relative to the others. Thus, performing a song is more like raising defenses in advance than it is like attacking.
How long a song lasts from the last time it was played depends on your skill in Music and its specialization, and in Dramatics, Most song effects will impact only allies or enemies, and then, only those who are not deaf and not captivated by another bard. Even you, yourself, won't be affected by your own song if you're deaf. Note that what is called a "stanza" here is really a single line, with a limit of 65 characters. If you don't imbue a power into a stanza, it won't cost mana or ego when it's played, so you can use unimbued songs for performances. Imbued stanzas will have a description when played that's impacted by the imbued power. Note that you can change the imbued power in a stanza in a song already in progress, and the change will take effect immediately. This does not consume equilibrium or balance. |
Sustain
| Syntax |
| SUSTAIN |
This ability will allow you to slow the music you are playing to imperceptible levels, effectively freezing the music in place.
| Additional Notes: |
| The purpose of sustaining your song is to freeze it so it's inactive (none of the effects will impact anyone) but is no longer ticking down to its time running out. You can then reactivate it before you need it by playing a single stanza (or refraining, if you have the Refrain skill), which reactivates all the effects in all played stanzas instantly. |
VenomDrops
| Stanza: Low (1-3) Targetable: No |
Those of your enemies who hear the sound of this music will find their resistance to poisons dramatically decreased and thus are more susceptible to being poisoned. Also, your allies who hear this song will find themselves better able to resist being poisoned.
ShadowLight
| Stanza: Low (1-3) Targetable: No |
When your allies hear the sound of this music, they will become shrouded. Shrouded enemies that hear this music will become exposed. The shadows will also grant you 1/8 resistance to physical cutting and blunt damage.
| Syntax |
| PLAY DISCORDANTCHORD <target> |
| Power: Variable (Any) Damage Type: 100% Magic |
The discordant chord is tuned to especially harm those ears which are already suffering the tonal ailments of a musician, doing greater damage the greater the number of these afflictions the victim has. The power cost is 2 power for each affliction the victim has from among: manabarbs, egovice, and an achromatic aura. If the hapless victim suffers all three of these tonal disorders, and powerspikes, their suffering shall be grievous indeed - losing half their mana and ego in addition to immense pain.
If you have an octave active in the room, its magical ability to block the curing of auric ailments will prevent them from being consumed by the discordant chord. Additionally, it will increase the damage of your chord for no extra power cost.
NightFade
| Stanza: Low (1-3) Targetable: No |
Those who hear the vibrations of this music will find their ego dwindling, like the light during dusk. If it is actually night time, more ego will be drained.
SpiderLegs
| Stanza: Low (1-3) Targetable: No |
When you and your allies hear the sound of the Spider Legs, you can free yourself from webbing and other entanglements with greater ease.
Refrain
| Syntax |
| PERFORM REFRAIN <song> [<target>] |
Instead of moving forward in the stanzas of a song, you can repeat the last stanza you performed as a refrain. You can refrain as many times as you desire.
| Additional Notes: |
| Refraining allows you to keep a song going without running out of stanzas to play, and also can be used to repeatedly use a targeted power. |
ShadowChord
| Syntax |
| PLAY SHADOWCHORD <target> |
| Damage Type: 75% Poison, 25% Excorable Can Target Denizens |
This chord is similar to minor second, except it vibrates to the energies of Mother Night herself, sending shadows to plague those who may oppose you.
BarghestBlues
| Stanza: Low (1-3) Targetable: No |
Those who hear this sound, which is reminiscent of the howling of barghests, will find it takes longer to process purity dust wafers.
ShadowRave
| Stanza: Mid (4-6) Targetable: No |
Those of your enemies who hear the shadow rave will not be able to resist dancing to the beat and have a chance of falling over afterwards.
Shadowpulse
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: No |
Personal enemies who hear this haunting tune will find their heartrate increased dramatically, causing additional bleeding damage from attacks that normally induce bleeding. In addition, those who bleed profusely will find the melody freeze their blood, causing paralysis.
CaptiveAudience
| Syntax |
| CAPTIVATE AUDIENCE |
This will affect all allies and enemies in the room who can hear and are not already captivated by a bard. Those who are captivated will only pay attention to your songs and thus will only be affected (either negatively or positively) by your song effects. Blanknote or Blankchord will break the captivation.
BloodyCaps
| Stanza: Mid (4-6) Targetable: No |
Any enemy who hears this sound will begin to bleed profusely. They will also heal less bleeding from clotting.
DarkHeart
| Stanza: Mid (4-6) Targetable: No |
This rousing music will inspire members of Glomdoring to greater heights, causing the damage they do to be increased. This powerful sound was inspired by the lyrics of "Heart of Darkness" by Nirrti, the first guildmistress and founder of the guild.
| Additional Notes: |
| [OLD NOTE, PLEASE VERIFY] Affects all Glomdorians who can hear it, even if they're unallied or enemied. |
SlaughFest
| Stanza: Mid (4-6) Targetable: No |
Barghests, redcaps and slaugh who hear this music will be driven into a frenzy and attack faster than they normally would.
CrowCaw
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: Yes |
By imbuing your music with the sound of the Caw of Crow, you can direct this powerful music at a single enemy. Hearing that sound will drive your target utterly mad, mad, MAD!
Targets will be afflicted with two of stupidity, confusion, paralysis, and epilepsy. Additionally, the target will also be left stunned and bleeding. If the target has less than a quarter of their maximum mana, they will also suffer health damage.
WidowsMercy
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: No |
The music of the black widow - deadliest of the spiders - will course through your veins, making your damage attacks leave bleeding spider bites in the flesh of your target.
Encore
| Syntax |
| ENCORE PERFORMANCE |
| Power: 3 (Any) |
By playing an encore performance, you will speed quickly through your song at a faster tempo - your recovery of equilibrium when playing songs will be halved.
NightshadeBlues
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: No |
Those enemies who hear this sad melody will find that most things that causes their mana to go down will cost an extra 25%.
SpiderCantiga
| Stanza: Mid (4-6) Targetable: No |
This song will cause prickly sensations among your enemies, and they will be affected by a variety of poisons.
Changelog
- Report 289: Spidercantiga can now also do clumsiness and sickening (#2564 on 2021-Nov-25)
WyrdSong
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: No |
When you and your allies stand on wyrded ground and hear this song, the wyrd itself will work to protect you and yours from harm.
Dirge
| Stanza: High (7-9) Targetable: Yes |
Send your opponents off unto death with a dirge to remember them by. Once you start singing this killing note, you can do nothing that will disrupt the song.
| Additional Notes: |
| [OLD NOTE, PLEASE VERIFY] Any action disrupts the attack, which takes eight seconds and has two messages before the final (and fatal) third message. If the victim is gone or deaf at any of these messages the song will fail. |