Strings skill
The Strings skill is trained when you PLAY musical stringed instruments. Stringed instruments produce sound when tautly-drawn strings are plucked, bowed or strummed, causing them to vibrate. This class of instruments includes zithers and lyres (strummed), fiddles and violins (bowed) and harps (plucked). They are the creation of the goddess Faenella.
Bards use string instruments to play certain Enchantes, and their skill with the instrument can affect their ability to perform the enchante properly.
String instruments may also be played just to be played, and there are several mood and tone options available. Bards have extra options available to them for playing instruments that are not available to other guilds.
Bards may also use stringed instruments to create a dance floor in any performance-worthy space, as long as they meet the Strings skill requirement. Clerics and Paladins can gain devotion or soul state respectively by flawlessly playing a psalm or hymn for an Immortal in a holy place.
Training
The best experience per time ratio is achieved by finding an instrument/song combination that is played "with only the slightest hint of difficulty."
Stringed Instruments
Stringed instruments range in size from 10 to 50 stones and can have anywhere from 4 to 24 strings. Some require a pick or a bow in order to be played and all stringed instruments require tuning as the strings gradually lose tension due to inactivity.
In addition to a number of hand-held and portable stringed instruments, there are also some stand-alone instruments (such as harpsichords and cellos) available for playing across Elanthia.
Stringed instruments include:
- aeolian harp
- angle harp
- bagana
- balalaika
- bandoura
- bouzouki
- bow harp
- cistre
- cittern
- cobza
- concert zither
- crwth
- cythara anglica
- faenellica
- fiddle
- folk lute
- gittern
- guti'adar
- harpsichord
- kelsa
- khurmary
- kithara
- komungo
- lap harp
- lira
- lute
- lyra
- lyre
- mandolin
- mayuri
- nehpar'i
- psaltery
- pyi-pya
- ramkie
- rebec
- simple angle harp
- sitar
- sra'ajhh
- tallharpa
- tambura
- uti
- valiha
- viol
- viola
- violin
Note: This list is compiled from the Instruments chapter in songbooks. It is not a comprehensive list of all instruments in the game, but rather a list of the general templates available.
Stringed Instruments By Difficulty (Easiest to Hardest)
From this post.
- lyre, guti'adar
- sra'ajahh, pi tambura, kithara, angle harp
- lap harp
- faenellica, box fiddle, mandolin, sarangi
- fiddle, lute, pi sitar, rebec, cistre, khurmary
- violin, cittern, gittern
- lyra viol
- large harp
- psaltery
- banjo
- zither