Expand Your Armory: Expressive Weapons
Music has a long and storied place in the Zelda franchise. It usually doesn’t get much use within battle, though Hyrule Warriors show just how deadly musicians can be!
Whether to covertly assassinate a royal official, or to protect others, or just for the sheer ?????, plenty of instruments have been weaponized over the course of Hyrule’s history. Click to read more about Expressive weapons!
Expressive weapons are intended to help their wielder communicate without words. They grant the wielder a bonus of (Weapon’s Rank / 2) to performing Social Maneuvers.
Redesigning instruments for battle does make it so that amateurs cannot use them like their regular Instrument equivalents. However, with proper training (represented by the Battle Bard feat below), they can once again be used as regular Instruments.
New Weapons
| Weapon | ACC | ATK | DUR | Edge | Hands | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bell1 | 2 | +1 | +0 | Blunt | 2 | Arcane | Expressive, Wizardly |
| Dancing Shoes1 | 5 | +0 | -2 | Any2 | 2 | Melee | Expressive, Hands-free, Sweeping |
| Fan1 | 5 | -2 | -1 | Any2 | 1 | Melee | Expressive |
| Flute1 | 3 | -1 | +0 | Piercing | 2 | Arcane and Ranged | Expressive, Wizardly |
| Gong1 | 3 | -2 | +1 | Blunt | 2 | Melee | Defensive, Expressive, Sweeping |
| Guitar Axe | 2 | +3 | -1 | Sharp | 2 | Melee | Expressive, Sweeping |
| Harp1 | 4 | +0 | +0 | Sharp | 2 | Arcane | Expressive, Wizardly |
| Microphone1 | 4 | -1 | -1 | Any2 | 1 | Arcane | Expressive, Wizardly |
| Ribbon1 | 4 | -1 | -2 | Any2 | 1 | Melee | Expressive, Extending |
| Violance3 | 3 | +1 | +0 | Piercing | 2 | Melee | Expressive, Long, Sweeping |
Note 1: The Bells, Dancing Shoes, Fans, Flutes, Gongs, Harps, and Microphones are entries above are purposefully built weapons instead of regular Instruments. Not all bells, dancing shoes, fans, flutes, gongs, harps, and microphones are built to be weapons. However, they can be used as improvised weaponry as appropriate, and thus typically fall apart after one battle.
Note 2: Dancing Shoes, Fans, Microphones, and Ribbons can be either Blunt, Piercing, or Sharp, determined when the item is first made.
Note 3: Portmanteau of violin + lance.
While not all possible Instruments are represented above, you can use the guidelines found in the Design Your Weapon article to homebrew your own!
New Expressive Weapon Options
New Feat: Battle Bard
3 tokens
Learn Requirement: Perform 3
Effect: You can use Expressive Weapons as Musical Instruments with a rank of (Weapon’s Rank – 1).
New Feat: Crafting Style: Hylian
3 tokens
Learn requirement: Smithing 3
Effect: You may choose to use this whenever crafting a weapon. The weapon costs 1 more Material and has 1 greater Attack Power. This weapon is also Expressive.
Quest Hooks
The Picori Festival is in full swing, with plenty of entertainment acts for visitors to watch. One standout event is a ribbon-dancing ceremony, featuring visiting danseuses from a faraway land. When the Festival’s combat tournament begins, though, the crowd is amazed to see one of the dancers in the arena – armed with nothing more than her ribbon. But what could she hope to win?
The Goddess’s Harp is an artifact of Hyrule’s ancient history, said to have been owned by the goddess Hylia at the world’s beginning. While not as well-known as the Master Sword and the Megaton Hammer, when disaster strikes and all music is lost from the world, this Harp – and the Hero who wields it – may be the only thing that can restore peace to the world.
The world of dreams is a strange one, where the present, past, and future all commingle, hiding truth in indecipherable prophecy. When bards and songstresses the world over begin having the same dream, night after night, of a lonely island in a tumultuous sea, they must band together and explore this curious dream world to acquire potent musical weapons once used by the Hero of Legend: the Instruments of the Sirens.
28 October 2020 – Crafting Style: Hylian now properly costs 3 tokens.
11 April 2020 – The Gong and Violance now properly have the Sweeping keyword.
Thank you to community member Snacks for naming the violance, and Elemental Knight for the quest ideas, and for the rest of the Discord community for feedback and suggestions!