Master Harper

A master Harper 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.

Becoming one
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 favour.

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.

Mundane abilities
Like Harper agents, Harper mage and Harper 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 others.secret Harper lore that improves 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, Liira, 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 spending 4 minutes studying them (2min for general purpose, another 2min for age) and 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 Liira's hand, Liira'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.
 * Liira's blessing

High level Master Harpers are able to, once a day, flawlessly memorize long and exacting inscriptions, poems, instructions, contracts or other writings. These include magical passwords, words or phrases of activation but not entire written spells.
 * Oghma's Echo:

Master Harpers could communicate by mean of a special sign language known as harpspeak.

Ex-Masters
It is possible for Master Harpers to violate the code of the Harpers or intentionally turn away from the society. Such an individual quickly gains a bad reputation among other Harpers and can no longer use any of the divine blessings (such as Oghma's Echo). A petition to the High Harpers and an atonement spell from a deity they choose can bring a fallen Master back into good graces.

Master Harpers who are also High Harpers aren't deemed to have strayed until a majority of their fellow contemporaries meet and deem them to have done so. As there is seldom a consensus on Harper policy, Master Harpers must have knowingly endangered other Harpers or maliciously intended to harm the whole organization for these elite Master Harpers to be voted out.