Bard: Difference between revisions

Bards believe the cosmos is a work of art—the creation of the Three. That creative work included harmonies that continue to resound through existence today, a power known as the creation energy, khaagaazh. The bards of the College of Creation draw on that primeval song through dance, music, and poetry, and their teachers share this lesson: “Before the sun and the moon, there was the Song, and its music awoke the first dawn. Its melodies so delighted the stones and trees that some of them gained a voice of their own. And now they sing too. Learn the Song, students, and you too can teach the mountains to sing and dance.”<br>

Dwarves often encourage their bards to become students of the Song of Creation. And among Dragonwrought, the Song of Creation is revered, for legends portray Bahumat, Tiamat, and Sardior—the greatest of dragons—as three of the song’s first singers.

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== College of Dance ==

Bards of the College of Dance are practiced artists of the battlefield, leaping, twisting, twirling, and flowing through any terrain. To these bards, the world is their stage, and they are not shy to share their expertise in the art of dance. This college of bards is vast and diverse, with many different genres and styles of dance.

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== College of Diplomacy ==

Bards of the College of Diplomacy understand that statecraft, like music or drama, is a complicated artform. Formally trained as couriers, aides, stewards, geishas, and ambassadors, these performers use civility and social protocol to open doors where others cannot. In mastering their craft, these individuals also learn to see the connections between magical and social networks, and recognize how each can influence the other.

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Bards of the College of Drama seek to empower the hearts of others by memorializing that which has been lost. Those who follow this tradition are intimately familiar with the immense hardships of a fickle world, but they have also witnessed the strength and beauty that blooms in the wake of loss and victory.<br>

These bards are often travelers, looking to experience life to its fullest, with all the highs and lows that journey entails. Members of the College of Drama are rarely gregarious performers living for the spotlight. They are more likely to be quiet observers composing heartrending ballads or contemplative poems and saving them for when they will have the greatest impact.

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== College of Eloquence ==

Adherents of the College of Eloquence master the art of oratory. Persuasion is regarded as a high art, and a well-reasoned, well-spoken argument often proves more persuasive than facts. These bards wield a blend of logic and theatrical wordplay, winning over skeptics and detractors with logical arguments and plucking at heartstrings to appeal to the emotions of audiences.

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== College of Flame ==

The College of Flame is home to bards who sought knowledge and expertise on the natural rhythm of a flickering flame and how to replicate it.

==== Bonus Proficiencies ====

The College of Glamor is the home of bards who mastered their craft in the vibrant realm of the Fey Forest or under the tutelage of someone who dwelled there. These bards learn to use their magic to delight and captivate others.<br>

The bards of this college are regarded with a mixture of awe and fear. Their performances are the stuff of legend. These bards are so eloquent that a speech or song that one of them performs can cause captors to release the bard unharmed and can lull a furious dragon into complacency. The same magic that allows them to quell beasts can also bend minds. Villainous bards of this college can leech off a community for weeks, misusing their magic to turn their hosts into thralls. Heroic bards of this college instead use this power to gladden the downtrodden and undermine oppressors.

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The loyalty of these bards lies in the pursuit of beauty and truth, not in fealty to a monarch or following the tenets of a deity. A noble who keeps such a bard as a herald or advisor knows that the bard would rather be honest than politic.<br>

The college’s members gather in libraries and sometimes in actual colleges, complete with classrooms and dormitories, to share their lore with one another. They also meet at festivals or affairs of state, where they can expose corruption, unravel lies, and poke fun at self-important figures of authority.

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These bards take their pursuit of muscular perfection seriously, and will often parade their bodies unbidden. What these individuals lack in self-awareness or humility, however, they more than make up for in raw, physical power. After all, confidence fuels the strength of these bards, and this is a quality they have in abundance.  

When they join this college, it is common for bards to adopt pseudonyms that help them play to a crowd.

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Their talent with weapons inspires many blades to lead double lives. One blade might use a circus troupe as cover for nefarious deeds such as assassination, robbery, and blackmail. Other blades strike at the wicked, bringing justice to bear against the cruel and powerful. Most troupes are happy to accept a blade’s talent for the excitement it adds to a performance, but few entertainers fully trust a blade in their ranks.<br>

Blades who abandon their lives as entertainers have often run into trouble that makes maintaining their secret activities impossible. A blade caught stealing or engaging in vigilante justice is too great a liability for most troupes. With their weapon skills and magic, these blades either take up work as enforcers for thieves’ guilds or strike out on their own as adventurers.

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== College of Tailoring ==

Knights have their swords and shields, musicians have their songs and instruments, you have your needle and thread. You are a tailor, a master of cloth, to you, clothing is so much more than just something to keep the elements off, but an expression of yourself. The clothing you wear and create is an extension of your being and empowers your own magical abilities, allowing you to create even more beautiful garbs and even repair the world and people around you.

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== College of Valor ==

Bards of the College of Valor are daring skalds whose tales keep alive the memory of the great heroes of the past, and thereby inspire a new generation of heroes. These bards gather in mead halls or around great bonfires to sing the deeds of the mighty, both past and present. They travel the land to witness great events firsthand and to ensure that the memory of those events doesn’t pass from the world. With their songs, they inspire others to reach the same heights of accomplishment as the heroes of old.

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Unseen in broad daylight, the bards of the College of Whispers use their knowledge of obscure magic to beguile and infiltrate: hoarding secrets and shaping the unwritten history of the world.<br>

Known as emissaries to those versed in bardic lore, these spies and enchanters are controversial figures: some consider them base scoundrels using dark magic and deceit to amass power; others see them as noble watchers in the shadows, using their secret lore as a weapon against evil.

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[[Artham O'Carrick, Bard of Old]], who died to save the quant Caloro.

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[[Sadosc Buldarum]], the Turtle Dragonwrought Bard.