The Muhaddi - Bardic Storytelling

I want to start producing useable material for the Pioneer campaign, and that requires a little more time to incubate.  But I did want to expand a little bit on bards and talk about one of my classes, the Muhaddi.

I've always been frustrated by attempts to shoehorn non-Abrahamic faith structures into the Cleric class, in all editions.  Religion in canonical D&D is a Western polytheistic construct based on a Christian idea of paganism (probably all Gygax and co. knew about actual polytheistic faiths practiced in the real world).  It does not model, in terms of the specific powers it grants, Buddhism (any form), Daoism, Shintoism, Hinduism, or any of the Native American faiths, to name a few.  It also does a piss-poor job capturing what Grecian polytheism was like, as opposed to the Roman conceptualization of Grecian polytheism.  Remember that the Romans appropriated the Greek gods, gave them new names, and also fundamentally changed how they were discussed and worshiped.  Prior to the Romans, the Greek gods didn't have domains or areas of interest.  Instead, the faith was a collection of stories about the titans and their children.  There were temples and shrines devoted to specific characters in these stories, but one didn't necessarily pray to Hera for marital success while giving offerings to Apollo for musical prowess.  You would instead go to the local temple, devoted to whatever patron figure had claimed your geographic area, and ask them for help.  The Romans bureaucratized this process, with temples to multiple gods and requiring specific offerings for each god for each aspect of each god and so on.

Both of these are really interesting faith systems, but they are totally distinct in theology and practice.  What was particularly intriguing to me, though, was the similarity, at least to my non-expert eye, in the role of stories between this Grecian polytheism, some Native American religious traditions, and Zen Buddhism (which is often taught in a martial arts context entirely through metaphoric stories).

This idea of religion defined entirely through stories was incredibly interesting to me, so I designed one for my world, tentatively referred to as the Endless Myths of Fiája, the Wanderer.

Prior to the Tarluskani's unification and subsequent conquest of the lands north of the Sea of Shadows, they were disparate nomad tribes that sustained themselves via raids on the Confederacy to the south.  Each tribe had a single leader, usually the best warrior among them, and they were counseled by a Muhaddi, a divine storyteller.

The Muhaddi, in their dreams, travel to a strange land named Fiajodo, where Fiája the Wanderer tells them the stories of her travels.  In all the stories, she is a peerless warrior and canny thinker who wanders the land solving people's problems.  She is joined and opposed by other First Ones, individuals with skills to rival Fiája's.  The Muhaddi share these tales (via oration, dance, or song) with all who will listen, inspiring their listeners to attempt the epic deeds depicted in the stories.

While the origin and background of the Muhaddi are drawn from my world, their abilities are very similar to the Performing Arts bardic artwork effects I discussed previously, but on a much less powerful level.

The first ability of the Muhaddi is quite mundane.  They can perform a loud chant that draws people to pay attention to the Muhaddi, affecting all who can hear the Muhaddi's voice. 

Muhaddi can also curse people, with the number of people affected increasing with their level.  The curse gives penalties (ultimately leading to death) to those acting against the Muhaddi (attacking them, stealing from them, and so on).

Muhaddi can tell stories that inspire their listeners.  The stories take anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour in the telling, and all who walk away find that their ability to perform a task, emphasized in the story, has been improved for the rest of the day.

A Muhaddi, with another story, can also enflame the passions and pull at the heartstrings of that audience, inciting them to take some specific action immediately after the story ends (essentially a Suggestion spell).

Their final ability is to become an incarnation of one of the figures from the stories, gaining Master-tier in a few disciplines for the rest of that day (essentially they gain all of the abilities of another class at 15th level), with the caveat that they are no longer themselves - they are this character that they have summoned (like extreme method acting).

These powers can't provide an immediate and enduring effect for a community, but they do have a limited ability to shape action in the moment.  This, to me, gives me an alternate list of bard abilities beyond whatever core abilities are given to them by the game system (that often implicitly assume a musical bard) that strongly parallels the artwork rules presented earlier.  While I don't think such a thing is possible for each choice of medium, it is nice to have ways to further differentiate between them (and, since the Performing Arts list of art powers is not nearly as powerful as most of the other lists, it is a nice way to give a Bardic Performing Artist a little more oomph).