Guess what? I am back with one of my humorous encounters from the Feengrenze. This time, it is a rework of one of the encounters I published in one of the encounter packs before the rebrand, Hold Up the Musical. What is more absurd that being robbed at songpoint? I cannot think of anything that is stranger than that. Also did you notice that I hid a folk rock reference into the post? Kudos to anyone who spot it.

Robbery With Violins and woodwinds

An encounter for a party of 4 level 4 players with the 2024 rules and 2025 monster manual

You’re traveling through the wilds, far from any town or settlement, on a summer day. The wind is hot on your face, and the shade of the trees dapples the road. You can hear birdsong off in the distance and something else. You hear a voice, a man singing off-key and flatly coming up the track in the opposite direction. The man is dressed in green tights with a scimitar and a pistol at his belt, and a cocked hat.

If the players make a DC 12 perception check or passive perception of 12, they can hear rustling in the woods with the occasional sound of an errant hand on a drum or tortured squeal of a flute. When the man gets close enough, he starts humming the starting bars of Whiskey in the jar. Before singing the opening verse. If you can sing the following, 

He starts to sing

As I was a goin’ over the far-famed Silver mountains

I met with a band of travelers and their money they were counting

I first produced my pistol and I then produced my saber

Saying “stand and deliver” or the devil he may take you

The man draws his weapons on the on the third line and sings once again, stand and deliver or devil he make take you. Suddenly men with drawn bows and battered musical instruments burst from the underbrush. The men with musical instruments start to play a tortured melody while the rest sing backing vocals off-pitch and offkey. The resulting din is the most unpleasant thing you ever heard. 

A bandit captain, six bandits, and four performers with various musical instruments break from the underbrush. 

• The leader repeats his demand for the players to hand over all their valuables in the same off-key singing the players heard earlier while the performers play and bandits. He threatens to kill them if they do not comply, and if they do comply, they will merely rough them up a bit and leave in the forest black and blue.
• The bandits must sing while they fight. If they stop singing or playing music, they cannot make attack actions.
  • If you can have the enemies sing as they make their attack rolls
  • If a player makes a dc 14 performance check they can make a counter-performance that leaves the bandits stunned silent for a single turn.
  • Likewise, the silence spell is very effective here.
• When asked why they are singing, the bandit’s captain will count into the song, performers start to play their instruments to a jaunty Celtic tune, and the band of bandits will join in with backing harmony as a group, poorly singing a song about how they held up a young archfey by the name of Princess Clíodhna and took her hostage. They forced her to sing for their amusement while making threats on her life if she did not sing. They held her captive for 3 days and 2 nights before she escaped. Her last act before leaving their camp was cursing all of them so that each and every one of them must sing while they steal.
  • A player can make a dc 12 history check to recall that Princess Clíodhna is one of the youngest archfey in the Feengrenze, being only 10 years old and known for her singing voice.
• The performance takes about 5 minutes, and once they start, the curse compels them to complete the entire song, and while they sing such a complex number, they suffer a disadvantage for all checks. This gives the players a chance to either prepare for combat or escape

The Bandit’s Lament

If you are struggling to come up with a song for the footpads to sing here is a few verses that should suffice 

(A rowdy, off-key tune, ideally set to a rollicking Celtic rhythm.)
Oh, we rode down from the mountain cold,
With blades so bright and pockets bold,
A lass we found with golden hair,
And a voice that danced upon the air!

Sing for us, ye little fay,
Or never shall ye see the day!
A song, a tune, a melody sweet,
Or feel the steel and taste defeat!

For three long days, she sang our tune,
By firelight, ‘neath sun and moon,
But on the dawn, she laughed so free,
And spoke these words so dreadfully!

“Sing, ye rogues, till breath is gone,
Let every theft become a song!
Raise your voices, off ye go,
Or fate will strike a deadly blow!”

Now when we sneak, we hum a note,
When we stab, a verse is wrote,
When we flee, our voices crack,
And silence brings a curse most black!

So here we stand, our throats run dry,
Singing, stealing, ‘til we die!
Stand and deliver, we’ll take your gold,
But by the gods, our song grows old!