Russian Minuets
Description: a set of thirty minuets, scored for harpsichord and written by Makar Olegovich Samarin (1702-1756?). The individual sheet music seems to have been printed in the 19th century in France, then bound in leather a century later by a Berlin bookbinder of dubious reputation. Rumors that the leather is actually tanned human skin are false.
Powers: If a Russian Minuet is performed before a live audience of at least one hundred people, one of those people will die of heart failure before the night is out. Resuscitation can work, if there’s medical staff on hand and ready to spring into action, but there’s no way to prevent the original heart failure. As for everybody else: it is apparently a marvelous rush to feel a Russian Minuet target another person. The sensation is not physically addictive, but it definitely can produce a psychological dependence. Fortunately, both the positive and negative effects only work in a live performance; streaming, televised, and digital productions do not have the same effect.