Primary Stats/Alignment:
Main Stats - Charisma, Dexterity
Roles - Party Support, Party Face, Skill Monkey, Secondary Spellcaster
Class Basics:
Bards specialize in using songs or performances to alter the attitudes and abilities of enemies and allies. In addition to their performances they have a skill and knowledge-centric nature giving enhanced knowledge about any enemy. They also have enough martial capability to specialize in a weapon to help support their caster nature.
History in Dycides:
When the age of Dragons finally came to an end, and peace was known throughout the land, the skills of dancing, ballads, and sagas were celebrated. As years passed bard colleges spotted the landscape as bards were brought to fill the roles of entertainers and keepers of old stories and history. In the age of Vacancy reached it’s peak the entertaining bards were the pinnacle of most parties, while afterward the potential for manipulative was truly made apparent.
Religious Influence:
While not always embracing all of her teachings, most Bards love Shelyn as the patron of Art and beauty. Those who love freedom over all things are most often worshippers of Cayden Cailean, the accidental god. Otherwise a bard that wants work often finds themselves working with a variety of faiths, learning tunes about all Gods so that celebrators will accept them and their potential shifty ways.
Society:
0 to -- (Neutral to Negative)
Bards were once seen as almost divine in the ancient days, but now are often assumed to be manipulators rather than joy bringers. The focus on enchantment and illusions was laid bare in a text written by a Free Peaks dwarf named Filo Gruxel, titled, “The Bard, Parasites to a Culture of Free Minds.” Since the book became a fairly well travelled text thirty years ago, performing bards have been treated as annoying to potential threats in some lands. Other lands, especially in more rural landscapes treat a wandering bard with excitement, but in general people are careful and have their guards up when a minstrel enters their town without warning. That said, an established performer who is seen on the up and up is treated much more warmly than fledgling artists.
Archetypes:
When Barataria decided to become a “legitimate” member of the Dycides rather than a pirate port, the Buccaneer was their shining example. Not very informed they instead specialized in bringing the fleets together. Rather than backstab, they forced surrender, incapacitating their foes, through hilts, blade flats, and enchanting performances that laid any mutiny to rest. They serve as the mortar that has united what was a traitorous pirate den into the most threatening force in the North Seas.
In Salvan the grand lecture halls are populated with some of the greatest intellectuals in the Dycides. Masters of knowledge, the Archivists have read more than most in Salvan and are willing to inform at great length. Usually Orators rather than singers or dancers, able to daze, confuse or bore their opponents with their droning on. For their allies rather than help them strike, they defends them with knowledge about all the abilities that might threaten their allies. While most seek only the stories in ancient volumes rescued from war, others seek to write their own knowledge and take to the road, knowing one day their tome will be the stuff of legends.
Performers come in a variety of types, flavors, and enticements in Life’s Spice. Those that take to the world of a bard are often tutored by Lord Granthur Sirensong directly or indirectly in the art of Sound Striking. Rather than pulling a blade, a Sound Striker can do battle with words erupting into a sonic bombardment. They give up their ability to plant suggestions, for the potential to assault the bodies of their enemies with words that can literally rip a person to tatters. To enact Lord Granthur’s will there need not be blade drawn.
Echoing in the mountains of Tenacity Hold are the dulcet tones of the Songhealer. Enjoying their mountainous home they seek to the safety of others, mastering the use of healing magical wands to keep allies safe. Those skilled enough to chant the hymn of faith find themselves capable of healing on par with the greatest healers of the Dycides. Their songs are fabled to even bring those they deem worthy a resurrection. No one has seen such a feat in person, but the stories bring hope to all that travel with a Songhealer.
Zal Cavesh is a place with little optimism, only stringent order. Few if any songs are sung, as everyone has a job to do, and such frivolity would be a waste of time. The certified Dirge Bard believes the same, only they don’t seek to allow anyone a break, even after they die. Using their voice alone they harness necromantic energy to demand the dead to get up and do their work. After new Ferdalag and Kervosh ripped the ordered lands of Cavesh apart, the Dirge Bards know they will restore order, or die trying. Of course if they die, they expect another of their order to make sure their corpse acts as an example of a productive workforce.
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