Master Harper

A master Harper was a member of the elite among the Harpers.

Activities
A master Harper's duty was to preserve lore by sharing it with others. They studied and developed skills, including spells, to fulfil this duty but also to help, specifically by improving the morale, of other Harpers and those who shared their goals.

Personality
All master Harpers shared a number of traits. They had a flair for accuracy of old and secret information and sought to verify, accumulate and share it.

Rank within the Harpers
While the name "master" Harper might sound like the title of a high ranking member, the truth was, that being a master Harper and holding a high rank had nothing to do with each other. Nonetheless, many senior members had at least the minor basics of the master Harper abilities.

Initiation
People who wanted to become master Harpers needed to win themselves the approval of the High Harpers like Harper agents, Harper mage and Harper priests. Unlike these three types, a person who wanted to become a master Harper could substitute this by convincing the majority of any dozen existing master Harpers to issue a vote in his or her favor.

Even with this approval, a prospective member needed some interpersonal skills, specifically to persuade, lie and see through other people. They needed to tune their senses and strengthen their mind. Other skills were skills as an artist some streetwise knowledge and some skills and understanding in magic.

Many master Harpers were bards, but some were rangers, sorcerers, wizards, loremasters, or Harper scouts.

Abilities
Master Harpers could communicate by mean of a special sign language known as harpspeak and also had other abilities both mundane and magical.

Mundane abilities
Like Harper agents, mages and priests, master Harpers collected odd bits of knowledge, which they could apply to further their end.
 * Harper knowledge

A master Harper learned special skills of the Harpers. Collectively called Harper secrets, these took the form of increased frequency to sing like bard, an additional weak spell or other secret Harper lore that improved their abilities.
 * Harper secret

A master Harper learnt how to create magic items. This ability was limited, specifically to instruments, Harper pins and a few potions, namely charisma, Cure light wounds, delay poison, detect thoughts, gaseous form, glibness, neutralize poison, nondetection, speak with animals, tongues, truth, vision and water breathing.
 * Craft Harper Item

A non-natural lycanthrope master Harper learnt the ability called lycanbane. This ability gave them immunity to lycanthropy and the ability to cure the disease in others by biting the sick so hard that blood flows, that worked like belladonna.
 * Lycanbane

Divine blessings
The gods who met at the Dancing Place gave their blessings, that showed themselves as tangible benefits. These gods were Deneir, Eldath, Lliira, Mielikki, Milil, Oghma andTymora.

Called Deneir's orel, Deneir's blessing allowed the master Harper to understand the general purpose, age and --in the case of magic runes-- power of glyphs, heraldic devices, runes, symbols and inscriptions after some brief study if enough foreknowledge was accumulated.
 * Deneier's blessing

Called Eldath's landtouch, Eldath's blessing allowed the master harper to sense the direction and general distance to the nearest drinking water, cave with a connection to the surface, or Harper refuge once per day.
 * Eldath's blessing

Called Lliira's hand, Lliira's blessing consisted of a resiliency against fear and compulsion and could provide the same resilience to others by touch and only while they touched the person.
 * Lliira's blessing

Called Mielikki's truth, it allowed the master Harper to identify plant life and forest creatures within 60ft. (18.3m) by leaves, in the case of the former, or by sight and/or spoor, in the case of the latter. It also allowed them to see through magical alterations and cover ups with illusions as well as some basic impressions about the location and time the alterations were done.
 * Mielikki's blessing

Called Milil's ear, it allowed the master Harper three times per day to identify every details of a sound within 5 minutes after heard.
 * Milil's blessing

Called Oghma's echo, it allowed the master Harper could one time per day memorize texts with the exception of functional written spells. The amount of information the master Harper could memorize was 20 minutes of recitations. The master Harper or anybody with whom the information was shared could reproduce the text.
 * Oghma's blessing

Called Tymora's smile, it allowed the master Harper to be lucky and avert danger twice per day.
 * Tymora's blessing

Ex-Masters
Like Harper agents, master Harpers' abilities were dependant on their adherence to the Harper code and membership in the Harpers. Violating the code or leaving the organization caused the blessings of the gods to be taken away and a bad reputation to spread among the Harpers.

Regaining these abilities required three steps. First, a petition to the High Harpers about the willingness to regain the powers, second, fulfilment of a quest the High harpers chose and third, an atonement spell from a deity of the High Harpers' choice.

Exceptions
There was one group of master Harpers who could violate the code of the Harpers without repercussions. Those master Harpers who were also High Harpers. This had to do with the fact, that for High Harpers, putting other Harpers knowingly into danger was - at least in practice - part of the job and the fact that the High Harpers weren't a monolithic group and were in conflict with each other over Harper policies. For a master Harper-High Harper to lose his or her powers, the individual needed to be deemed having intentionally caused harm to the organization by a majority of the other High Harpers.

Notable Master Harpers

 * Lirela Drumsinger, a minstrel who faced off against the schemes of evil mages