d12 Bards frequenting Chagrinspire

These guys get around and have been to more places than the party. They gather stories and spread news and may serve hidden powers. They keep popping up in new villages you just discovered because they have already been everywhere. Some know too much.

d12 Why a bard wants to join the party
1 Wants to record an epic poem detailing great heroes at just the right time
2 Desperate dandy wants friends and memories to tell others about
3 Profit to be a middleman for adventurers and public
4 Loves to gossip and boast about adventurer friends
5 Seeking lost lore or songs of the type recovered in ruins
6 Researching for a comedy play about buffoon murder hoboes
7 Wants to see real blood and violence to help writing career
8 Agent of a State who reports everything to the secret police of some foreign ruler
9 Agent of a faction operating inside the wastes
10 Agent of a vile cult seeking recruits and victims
11 Freelance agent mostly works for banks and merchants, reports to a secret master for cash

12 Mind controlled by Black Sphere agents who can see through the bards eyes while the bard just gets funny headaches and doesn't know why they have head scars roll a d6 why they think they are a bard. They have dreams that inspire their interests and attention sent by their masters

d12 Bards frequenting Chagrinspire who know too much
1 Varny Grumble is a grumpy old bard out of touch with youths but plays old army favourites and marching songs of the long-defunct 3rd Empire. He would love to be important, influential and acknowledged by the nobility. Adventurers are a means to and ends. Will enjoy serving a party with humility but eager to sell them out or write their adventures in the gutter pamphlet press of Shadelport. Plays a lute and a flute
2 Mimsy Skuttles a wild young new school bard of ambiguous gender and gang fashions with really cool hair. She is part deep one so seeing the world before she transforms into a fish folk forever. Keen to see the land first and have wild romances and collect cool jewelry. Plays a famous harp called the Gadfly and sings sea shanties and about life under the sea

3 Grog Halfstain a barbarian skald reporting to barbarian kings important details like wizards that need beheading locations and stockpiles of books to burn. He is more open-minded and flexible in his duties and finds that travelling with adventurers is a good way to see an area and make some money. He is actually a royal bastard and one day hopes his contacts will make him a strong ruler. He likes to fight and see battles and kill spell casters and civilised snobs and plays a lyre and bagpipes. His songs are about barbarians killing wizards and dragons and burning cities

4 Gadley Eelfat a large lad new to bardic travel as a lifestyle and on the run from family who want to marry him to a foreign kingdom for family business. Cheerful and cooperative, but a bit nervous and clumsy at working in a folk lifestyle. Surprisingly good at diplomacy with nobility who like manners and his harp skills. Lots of proper songs noble dynasties like about their origins and collect dungeon songs

5 Avora Ramora a seafearing bard taken to inland travel away from the international pirate guilds of Shadelport. Keenb to rob and murder for treasure and willing to deal with slavers, smugglers or even idealistic doo-gooders who pay. Shey might decide altruism makes better company than a pirate or criminal scum. She plays lute and a flute and all her songs are vulgar sea shanties about mermaids, octopi folk and lonely old fishermen

6 Bargent Cockswain a failed druid became a bard to get revenge on everyone he knows by being better and richer than them. Reports to a druidic circle and even wood elves sometimes for potions. If can't get potions then likes to drink. Plays Mandolin and horn and sings of the land spirits and tree folk but mostly resorts to songs for drunks to drink more

7 Casper Horlicks - frog bard agent of several frog folk kings and has travelled in Auldwood and human lands in disguise. Has also visited faerie nobility and returned. He helps enemies of the Black Sphere while staying away from their attention and helping adventurers find stuff is often part of some scheme. More altruistic than his masters he believes in diplomacy and rapid escapes. Dresses like a faerie or a human dandy and likes ruffs. Plays a lute and bagpipes and sings of water elementals and frog magic since the dawn of time plus some human and elf songs of love

8 Vangur Hwortz a bard from the unholy northwest reporting to merchants and private interests for profit. Keen to travel and see what is happening in the region. Will try and sabotage the forces of the Empire or crusaders from Lamnutainia. Sings about the corrupt and important emperor whose throne is a gold toilet. Collects slanderous gossip for blackmail and plays a fiddle or a small dulcimer

9 Sherple Vagnayer a mellow guy who just wants to see real adventurers in action and sings about love and happiness. Serves the sleeping toad god patron PsaThagUlah of ancient sorcerers who are recruiting new sorcerers. He plays a double horn, cymbals and bells with lots of chants in pre-human languages

10 Calby Fanglorn seeks the arcane secrets of the ancients and knows adventurers often tend to find such things too dangerous to uncover. Calby reports to the University of Shadelport and other great libraries for the documents he finds. Plays a cistrum and a viola and sings songs of local dungeons, lost ruins and haunted houses. Offers suggestions to young adventurers and only asks for useless old documents in unknown scripts 

11 Zinbar Honeylotus a mysterious western bard singing mysterious songs and playing her double flute and lyre. Some wonder if she is human. She sends secret messages to the underground emperor who rules the western continent in secret and produces most of the world's illegal drugs. The mysterious subterranean ruler likes to have agents to watch the region for possible threats. She may travel with adventurers but is too serene for chit-chat. She will learn some local songs from people she meets which softens her. She carries a wide range of apothecary medicines also  

12 Varpa Celantrine seeks music of the Black Sphere and ancient apocalypse-era music lore. She will collect any ancient musical devices, instruments or documents. Just an interest in history. She would really like to meet their agents and get a peek at what is going on but any peeks at ancient allies are worth it. Adventurers are her best bet. She would really like to meet actual gnomes of the black sphere. She has replaced the lute for a banjo she found intact and made her come here to find more. Lots of her songs are about the apocalypse war and some folk are put off by this

d10 Weird Instruments of the Ancients
1 Harmonica - a pocket mouth organ 1in6 in silver and engraved 
2 Tin Whistle - a small cheap mass produced whistle easy to carry
3 Squeezebox - a small organ with keys played by squeezing
4 Fiddle - with various sizes and types with a bow  
5 Ukelale - small stringed instrument popular at the peak of the apocalypse 
6 Banjo - popular with rustic and travelling folk
7 Keyboards - piano or usually smaller portable harpsichord   
8 Bongo Drums - the best ones stolen from far away places with carved faces or highly ornamental
10 Brass Bugle - or various horn instruments trumpet, trombone, tuba, trumpet, saxophone, horn or simplest a bugle
11 Accordian or squeezebox, various designs and styles
12 Guitar - more often found broken or damaged but some intact and ornamental, various styles and some strange experimental ones are sometimes found and operations are related to principles of the following results
13 Death Organ - cabinet with zombie heads that moan at playing a key strikes a head with a holy symbol. Some architectural versions have a choir of zombies arranged in scales and tones. Necromancers love these contraptions to show off how many undead they can squander for status

14 Spirit Organ - glass cylinders in a case rotated with a crank make the ghosts bound inside squeal and moan. If broken a d4+3 poltergeists are released or possibly worse
15 Lightning Organ - contains glass valves and a small electrical element captured in a storm that hates everyone. The user fiddles with various knobs that light up as used, and makes eerie otherworldly noises that beings of the outer void like
16 Music Box - a magical mechanism that plays d4 songs when opened in a loop, golem versions have a face and can play thousands of tunes
17 Cylinder Recorder with a d6 used cylinders and a d6 blanks in a case, golem versions have a face and only need one cylinder or can be used to write cylinders for other machines
18 Gramophone Player in a case with 3d6 bakelite records, golem version has a face and change records and keeps a selection
19 Player Piano can read and play special notched scrolls inserted into the mechanism. 1in6 are Golem versions have faces, know hundreds of songs and sing along and load their own scrolls from an internal library. It's also good at maths and cognitive computations
20 Golem Organ has a face and can play self any tune it hears and has centuries of memories of songs which it might sing if coerced. Golem pumps air through metal tubes or might use steam but need a furnace. A rare baroque type has a singing head for each note, and 1 in 6 of these are broken and argued in a cacophony. Some have mechanical singing animatronic animals and the larger ones have wheels or are built into buildings