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I do like keyed fiddles, and they've more than enough strings, but they're split into primary and resonating strings.

I guess you could have the drone and melody strings be neutral, and then have the 12 resonating strings each be associated with a kind of magic (eight winds+Dhar+waaagh+divine and then a twelfth of some kind?)
 
I was thinking of a xylophone instead of drums, once I remembered what I was envisioning; a xylophone can basically be 8 or 9 things to hit with a thwack after all. Just run a drumstick along a set of 8 or 9. Not sure how many pieces a xylophone usually comes in though, but, eh.
That could also work.
How does it compare to the other options? It does seem simpler than a hurdy-gurdy or a portable organ, but does it suffer in some other area?
 
I'm all for getting that back when we have the time, but it's not going to the Asrai. That's Mathilde's Ranald-without-a-moustache place now.

Agreed, also...
*Somewhere in Athel Loren*
"Y'know last time I danced for Loec he kept looking at me like I was about to get the biggest laugh in my life."
"Did you?"
"Of course I did! Some bumbling youth snuck up on me and painted a mustache on me when I was sleeping! What's more I found this note pinned to the shrine!"
He hands over a crisp note, folded neatly with a seal in the shape of a cross already broken.

Dear Dancer,
With warmest regards....
Finder's Keepers.

LOL- RANALD RULZ>LOEC DROOLZ
 
[X] Fiddle

An instrument that portents doom, but if played often enough may bring salvation against the uncaring things from beyond your little corner of the world? If only for a time?


Also, a local who finds themself a wizard may have a strong affinity to the only obhect that interacts with the winds in their village. I love the visual of a wandering wizard using a fiddle as a focus.
 
The key, I think, is going to be in relative pitch, not absolute. If you whistle a single note it's incredibly difficult to say whether it's a C or an A or whatever, it's so difficult that even professional musicians who do music every day can't do it. If you whistle two notes, though, you can tell how far apart they are exactly. Whatever we build must produce multiple notes which are differentially affected by the winds or dhar.

What this means is that pipes and drums and chimes and the like are in my opinion a no-go, they would just be completely imperceptible. The hurdy-gurdy is actually a very strong contender, as are the organ and bagpipes. If we wanted to be super careful we'd go with a set of pre-modern valveless horns, which can only play a single fundamental note, all tuned identically except for their sensitivities, so that we can objectively measure intensity by timing the beat, the interference pattern between the reference and measurement waves. That'd be a little underwhelming for music, though, much more of a measurement device.
 
[X] Spinning Lyre
I am, and always will be, a sucker for the a e s t h e t i c, as Boney puts it, and an ominous lyre starting to spin jerkily into motion without the touch of mortal hands as an omen of what's to come is very aesthetic to me. And while I understand why clockwork isn't really workable, it does pain me a little that there can't be an absurdly high number of extraneous gears and springs to click click click as the lyre goes faster and faster.
 
I do very much like the image of some musician, who knows and is well in touch with their instrument, also using it to tell of coming danger and favorable or unfavorable portents. Whatever comes up, It'll be so much fun to imagine these things in travelling troupes.

It does raise the question of how this might shape the world in other ways, however. I find myself wondering if such things might be formative to young wizards. If a tool like this can enable someone to hear the winds, however coarsely, it feels like it might also end up as the tool of some wizard, since it is said that the biggest barrier to shaping magic is the ability to see what you're doing. That, or exposure to it as a way of understanding the winds making auditory windsight more common.

A little more out there, I'm also struck by the thought that It feels like there's a little overlap between the winds and the influence of the gods, so I find myself wondering if it might so happen that some of these could sound a little different in a hall of faith. (Unintentionally as a side effect, mind, not built in. The sort of thing that might come up in a folktale that focuses comes from a deity using the instrument as a means to reach their followers, not one that focuses on the inventions of a genius mage.) Or perhaps end up in the tale of the talented village priest, who among other feats, could play the instrument like no one else.

Looking at images of the Portative, it's far, far outside the aesthetic space of the usual organ, and seems almost like one made a harp out of pipes, so I can't invoke the mad count at the pipe organ, and perhaps that's for the best.

I do feel like it's either the Portative or the Hurdy Gurdy for me thus far. Perhaps the bagpipes or the tambourine since they both have strong aesthetics to them and those who play them — and in Warhammer!Scotland the former would be a shoe in — but I feel like I still like the prepared options more.

[X] Spinning Lyre
[X] Portativ
 
[X] Portativ

Being the easiest to maintain goes FAR, I think portability is of lower importance as long as a wagon can get it from shop to village, something like this would spend most of the time in a fixed location playing location BGM.

If you needed to investigate spooky shit in the woods you probably do not want to use a noisemaker for your Dhar meter. Better hire a Journeyman for that job.
 
Perhaps the bagpipes or the tambourine since they both have strong aesthetics to them and those who play them — and in Warhammer!Scotland the former would be a shoe in — but I feel like I still like the prepared options more.

Bagpipes were pretty much everywhere in Europe during the middle ages. I almost included it as an option for that reason but it would take restructuring to make it work and I retreated in fear and awe from the idea of an eight-drone bagpipe.
 
[X] Portativ
The portative organ is a row of flues with associate keys played with one hand and a small bellows operated with the other, which can be easily carried on one's back or slightly less easily in one's arms. Its size makes it less convenient than more easily portable instruments, but will make it more easily maintainable by anyone that can work metal than something more fiddly might be. While full-size organs are most commonly associated with the Cult of Sigmar, more portable ones remain popular even in areas where Ulric or Taal and Rhya are more dominant.
 
I think I'll vote for Spinning Lyre if someone can make a good pun of it. Or a terrible one, I'm not picky. There's gotta be something with Liar and Greys.
 
Alright, we've got some good discussion on all of this from a practical standpoint, but have we considered an impractical one?

Actually, come to think, if we picked Portaviv how much work would it be for some lunatic visionary to scale them up to a full sized pipe organ? Something someone could just do or a whole new research project?
 
[X] Spinning Lyre

I like it for it's versatility. I fear it might be a target of "bad sound warning = cause of bad things", but in that case it'd just be one more way to filter out the gene pool. The instrument itself could probably also include a "mute" option too, with some clever engineering to disconnect the strings from the "horn" or whatever that part is called.
 
[X] Bagpipes

Sometimes these bagpipes herald your impeding doom with terrifying wailing so loud your ears hurt. And sometimes they in addition notify you about higher concentration of dhar and waaagh energies in the air.
 
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