00:18- Lute of Musical Sprites02:11- Perform "The Weeping Dawn"03:31- Lute of Vicious Rockery04:59- The Really Annoying Lute05:55- Mild Mockery cantrip07:20- Just a bit of pointless mischief and silliness08:39- Hidden item example
Ember's Lute
Inspired by Lohse of Divinity Original Sin 2, this mod adds 3 lutes, 1 lyre and several spells that lets your avatar perform with musical sprites and spirits.Who is Ember, and What's so Special About Their Lute
My original goal for this mod was to make it easier to play the performable songs in game with various different instrument combinations. There are 6 performable songs including the DLC, however each of the songs can sound completely different depending on which instrument tracks are active. I wanted it to feel more seamless than manually equipping instruments to party members, swapping them in and out etc. So, somewhat inspired by Lohse of DoS2, the idea of a lute inhabited by musical sprites took root. Sprites provided the reason for how the performer can play "complete" songs, as well as "conduct" the performance by toggling instruments in and out of a silence mode.
Some months and A LOT of scope sprawl later, the first version was released. Ember is the name of my original Durge. I am not very good at naming things, so that's what I went with. In retrospect, had I called this mod "Be a Faerun DJ" (light shows and in-game track mixing lol), then it may have better got across its original purpose!
If you prefer to perform with companions, then "Share Musical Gifts" lets your party members auto-join performances and be toggled in and out of silence by instrument type
What's Included
Each instrument in this mod enhance music performances in the following ways:
- grant musical proficiency
- enable auto-join of your music performances on supporting instrument types (musical sprites, band summons or companions)
- unlock passives that let you toggle instrument-specific music on and off mid-performance
- add custom VFX
Themed Instruments
All of the features in this mod are enabled through equipping one of its themed instruments.
Ember's Lute of Musical Sprites
This lute is themed around playing with musical sprites or spirits.
- Musical sprites automatically appear and join music when a performance is started
- There is a unique sprites VFX for each song (6 if you have the DLC), with sprites dancing around the lead performer
- Performing "The Weeping Dawn" has your player joined by the Spirit of a Tiefling bard, who will sing along with you
There is a variant of this lute in the chest which does not automatically summon musical sprites, called The Lute of Infinite Showmanship. You may prefer this somewhat theatrically named instrument when performing with party companions.
Ember's Lute of Vicious Rockery
This lute is themed around performing with the spirits of a long-forgotten Rock Gnome ensemble, The Vicious Rockery.
Spider's Lyre of Rolling Bones
This lute is themed around performing with the undead ensemble, The Rolling Bones. It offers an alternative band of skeletons and zombies to perform music with.
Ember's Really Annoying Lute
Every time you perform on this lute, it will whistle along with you. It also unlocks a handful of curses and cantrips themed around being annoying or causing mischief and mayhem.
- Mild Mockery: a no-damage version of the cantrip Vicious Mockery that is shareable with the party. Party members can insult anyone (or each other), without violent retaliation. It triggers the same automated voice dialog as Vicious Mockery.
- Musical Coercion Curses: apply a curse that makes people dance or sing when a specific song is played.
- Etc. etc., you get the idea. This is not an evil lute, but it is a bit of an a-hole.
There is currently no in-combat musical performance support for any of the lutes (behaves the same as vanilla in-combat i.e. about as useful as a chocolate teapot), but I am planning to add this in a future update.
Lute Trader Locations
- Act 1 - the halfing by the entrance to the druid and tiefling den
- Act 2 - the harper quarter master at the Last Light Inn
- Act 3 - the Chromatic Scale store
All Ember's Lute items will appear on vendors inside an Ember's Lute treasure chest. If you cannot see this chest on one of the above vendors, take a long rest and try again. If you have the Tutorial Chest Summoning mod, you can also find the Embers' Lute chest inside thecartilaginouschest.
A Quick Note on Compatibility The design intent is that the main file of this mod will never override any base game behaviour or assets, to keep it as mod-list friendly as possible. If I provide override options, then they will be provided as modular, optional .pak files and be clearly indicated as such.
This mod does not change the vanilla music performances. Its custom music performances, instrument toggles and spell effects are only triggered when you either equip one of its instruments, or use the instrument varnishes. It's just a design approach and there are pros and cons. Pro is it should be compatible with most other mods, and happily co-exist alongside other music mods. Con, music performance functionality added by another music mod will probably not work on the custom instruments in this mod (but should be fine with vanilla instruments).
Common Issues If you are experiencing interrupted musical performances, then read thisarticlefirst and see whether adding the optional musicperformworkaround pak under the
Interrupted Music Performance Issues / No Performance Animations
Some mods that continuously re-apply statuses can interrupt vanilla music performances. I recommend you check in-game that you can perform music before adding any music or instrument mods to your load order, especially if you have not performed music in-game for a while.
Dependencies
Norbyte's Script Extender is a requirement for this mod to work correctly. I recommend that you confirm you can see the message on your BG3 Main Menu screen, which should read something like "Script Extender v16 loaded, built on May 14 2024 21:45:04" in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
Known Conflicts / Compatibility Information
I'll update a list here of mods that I know either to not work with this mod, or require a specific load order.
No current known conflicts on latest version.
- This mod uses custom statuses and spells, which are only triggered when one of its custom instruments are used, or if a varnish is applied to another vanilla or custom instrument.
- It should not conflict with other music mods, although it may require unequipping the Ember's Lute instruments to switch back to either vanilla music performance functionality, or another music mod in your load order.
- Depending on what the other music mod does, its music changes may not work on the instruments in this mod unless I patch it in to the custom music statuses.
Installing and Uninstalling
This mod can be added safely at any point in a campaign using either Vortex, BG3MM or if you prefer, installed manually. It is possible to uninstall this mod mid-campaign, however because it adds custom items, spells and statuses safe-uninstallation mid-campaign has pre-requisite in-game steps. Please see this article for a guide to installing and uninstalling this mod.
Thanks and Credits
A list of mods that appear in some of the images and videos uploaded to this page:
- Tav's Hairpack, by Toarie - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/213
- Extra Gear, by pooteeweet - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/3483
- Fancy Camp Clothes, by pooteeweet - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6919
- PseudoKociaras' Heads by PseudoKociara - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6152
- Izzli's Pigments and Tinctures by Izzli - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/4706
- Transmog Enhanced by Eralyne and Wayden - https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/2922
- Gleaming Sun Reshade at Baldur's Gate 3 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)
(Please let me know if you spot a mod I might have missed and I will add it). Massive thanks to:
- Norbyte for Script Extender and the LSLib Export Tool
- LaughingLeader for BG3ModManagerand the BG3 Modding Tools
- ShinyHobo for the BG3 Multi-Tool
- Shivero's VFX Auto Color Changer
- An anonymous IRL friend who was guinea pig for some early mod testing
Permissions
All the assets in this mod, are either derived and adapted from the BG3 base game, or for better or worse (mostly worse), my own creation.
Anyone is welcome to unpack this mod to inspect how things have been put together and you do not need to request my permission to do this. Provided you can make sense of the chaos! This mod has grown organically over the last few weeks I've been working on it, and it's the result of a LOT of experimentation, trial and error. I've gleefully jumped in to pretty much every rabbit hole that piqued my curiousity as I tried to figure how how the pieces fit together. So, structurally, it won't offer the most straightforward examples of how to achieve things in BG3. I've tried to compensate for this with lots of comments to explain whatever madness was going through my head at the time.
>>This mod doesn't contain music assets, it calls the music events fromthe BG3 base game, or the Divinity DLC song pack (if you own it). The only requirement isNorbyte's Script Extender. It will(is intended to)still work if you do not own the Divinity Song pack DLC, but you won't be able to perform its three songs - Sing For Me, Divinity Main Theme, Queen of the High Seas.<<
