String, Harpy Hair
Ultimate Equipment Guide II
Author Greg Lynch, J. C. Alvarez
Publisher Mongoose Publishing
Publish date 2005
According the Seamus, harpy hair must spend an entire month in alternating baths of soapy water and vinegar to become sufficiently clean that it can be woven into instrument strings. The end result of this process, however, is a string that any bard would be thrilled to own. The sound of harpy hair strings tends to be discordant and shrill, causing the bard playing the instrument to suffer a -1 circumstance penalty on all Perform checks, due to the absolute Concentration required to keep the strings from turning a beautiful melody into a grating screech. However, once the bard has mastered the use of harpy hair strings, he can use them for the purpose for which they are sought and harvested. A bard using an instrument equipped with harpy hair strings enjoys a tremendously augmented fascinate ability with his bardic music, increasing the DC of all saves against the ability by +4. This is only effective on the fascinate bardic music ability, and has no effect on any other aspects of bardic music, including abilities like suggestion, even if they are linked to fascinate.
Harpy Hair: 20 gp per string