Lute of Vocal Chords
Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)
This lute features a wooden face at its center. When played, it springs to life and sings alongside the music it makes, provided you know the words to the song. While the lute is singing in this way, you have advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks made with it.
The lute's voice is magically understandable to any creature that can understand at least one language, allowing you to communicate through song.
The voice is powerful and operatic. You choose whether the voice is masculine, feminine, or androgynous each time it sings. If you're a bard and are using the lute as a spellcasting focus, it can perform the verbal components of your bard spells for you (provided it can create sound), allowing you to cast such spells even while you're unable to speak.
Listen to our song,
it doesn't run too long,
just long enough to cast,
a spell to charm you fast.
Comments (2)
I instantly want to use this for "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" style communication with a creature they don't share a language with, since it sings their language if you know the words to a song. They'd be forced into using songs as metaphors to cover a message. Personally, I'd probably tweak this (for that idea at least) such that the spellcasting focus part is what requires attunement, but not the rest. So two characters could pass it back and forth to communicate in metaphor.
Great pivot to let it be used as a McGuffin! Sounds like a blast: lemme know how it goes!