Shamisen of the Changing Winds (Patreon)

Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement by a bard)

This shamisen has a tiny cherry tree growing along its base. When played, the tree's leaves rustle in a magical breeze. You must be proficient with a string instrument to use this shamisen.

You can use an action to play the instrument and release a flurry of cutting wind from it. When you do, you can choose to make a ranged spell attack against a target you can see within 60 feet of you, using your spell attack bonus, as part of that action. On a hit, the target takes slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Charisma modifier.

When you score a critical hit with a ranged attack using the shamisen, make a Charisma (Performance) check using the instrument. If the total of the roll exceeds the target's AC, the target is incapacitated until the end of your next turn, as it's transfixed by the music. A deafened creature or creature that can't hear is immune to this effect.

Whenever you expend a use of your Bardic Inspiration, you can magically change the instrument's tuning. Whenever you use an action to play the instrument, you also gain a benefit associated with its tuning, which lasts until the end of your next turn. Alternatively, you can spend 1 minute to retune the instrument. When found, the instrument is set to a random tuning.

• Honchoshi. While set to this tuning, the summoned wind swirls around you in a protective breeze, granting you a +2 bonus to AC against ranged attacks.
• Ni Agari. While set to this tuning, your walking speed increases by 10 feet.
• San Sagari. While set to this tuning, your spell attacks with the shamisen score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Alternatively, you can spend at least 1 minute playing the instrument. When you do, the air around you in a 40-foot radius grows still. The atmosphere within that area becomes comfortable and dry (regardless of the weather), and any creature that isn't deafened and can hear the instrument that starts its turn within the area must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your bard spell save DC. On a failed save, a creature is indifferent about targets of your choice that it is hostile toward. This indifference ends if the creature is attacked or harmed by a spell or if it witnesses any of its friends being harmed. The effect lasts until you move, stop playing, or lose concentration (as if concentrating on a spell). When the effect ends, the creature becomes hostile again, unless the GM rules otherwise. A creature is immune to this effect if it can't be charmed. Once this property has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

The peak was silent, its sanctum now only home to the wind alone. Even as pretenders rose to the other shoguns' thrones, their powers would only prove to be torn from them time and time again.

The clear, soulful notes of a shamisen grew as single figure crested the winding stairs: her curling horns and intimidating smile all that were left to marked her for who she was. Allowing her hat to be swept aside by the tumbling wind, she allowed her song to run wild. Gusts rose around her, sweeping around her to a fevered pitch before six sharp notes rang out.

With each strike of the shamisen, a pillar split. The sanctum's roof first bent inward before collapsing into splinters amidst the howling gale, the last such symbol extinguished.

The music changed to play gently with the swirling dust, as even the rage-riled winds calmed to listen. Amid the rubble, and within the now-resting figure, two writhing wells of emotion grew still as their twinned souls at last found solace together. As one passed, one rose.

The instrument's strings fell silent, and the mountain wind returned. Her smile was no longer pride, or anger, or vengeance. Just calm.