If there is any truly social role within the realm of medieval fantasy it is the bard.
An expert of music, stories, and trickery, no team of adventurers are complete without their trusty chronicler enshrining their legend with every step. Serving as their face when it comes to social interactions and also as their support when battle inevitably breaks out, bards can be molded to fit whatever group they choose to be a part of.
The most important part of playing a bard is knowing your party’s strengths and weaknesses. For the most part understanding what your team lacks is beneficial to someone who is an actual jack-of-all-trades. Bards offer fantastic support to all the other classes either as a backup healer, a secondary spell slinger, or a magician with great utility. However when on their own and in the right company, bards can easily outshine others in both magic, combat, and social interactions—but be warned for a jack-of-all-trades is a master of none, and not focusing on particular aspects of adventuring can spread a bard quite thin.
It is said that if one’s name is taken in song that they can never truly die, and so it is the bard’s purpose to immortalize in their art the adventures they experience. From a tossed coin to the symphony of the greatest goblin, bards across the land can influence the world around them with the power of their song. History is written by the winners, but rebellions can be sparked by the single twang of a lute.
Instructions on how to create a bard can be found here.
- Analyst (GPG #26) - Creativity comes in many forms, but math, numbers, and statistics typically run counter to artistic inspiration. Not so for the these bards. Their intensely theoretical logic is an art unto itself, leading to leaping conclusions and unlikely connections that lend themselves to solving puzzles, calculating precise mathematical equations, and hypothesizing possible outcomes.
- Dancer (MMM) - Bards are consummate performers, and can specialize in a wide variety of arts. Perhaps most known for their musical skills, either playing instruments or using their voice, dancers are instead those bards whose body is their instrument. Graceful and perfectly controlled in their movements even when appearing wild and frenetic, they inspire those who see them to join in the dance while confounding their enemies.
- Darksinger (PMG MOAR: L&D Pg. 13) - Darksingers are, as the name implies, bards who put their unique magical skill set to sinister or shadowy use. Specialized in stealth and fear, they often ply their trade in service of dark causes and masters, though some more noble examples exist (typically in the service of clandestine organizations). As they grow in skill, they become unnerving phantoms, jangling the nerves of their enemies with music or taunts that seem to come from everywhere or nowhere.
- Greensinger (PMG MOAR: W Pg. 18) - Bards with an especially close tie to the natural world, greensingers are typically found in rural communities where civilization and the wilderness exist side-by-side. These bards enjoy a strong, friendly connection to nature that even some druids find difficult to comprehend. It is not at all unusual for a greensinger to have a retinue of helpful creatures assisting them with their day-to-day tasks. More powerful greensingers can call upon beasts from the wilds to defend them.
- Hotshot (GPG #5) - Every bard performs to inspire, to demotivate, to bring joy or hope or victory. Some are orators, some are musicians, others dance or paint. For hotshots, however, the movement of the body isn’t enough. Instead, they perform on horseback or from behind the wheel of a flying machine, dazzling onlookers with daring maneuvers and spurring others to greatness.
- Loremaster (AG Pg. 130) - Knowledge is the realm of the loremaster. These bards strive to learn all that they can, often as the aids to sovereigns and powerful ruling councils, cloistered away in spires filled with ancient texts, or teaching in colleges for other bards or mages. For a loremaster there is no greater achievement than real truth and understanding, knowing the facts of reality with a certainty that empowers them to dive ever deeper in search of even greater comprehension.
- Lore Weaver (GPG #1) - From bawdy tavern stories to epic poetry, art is frequently used to preserve the past and present of different peoples and cultures. The lore weaver, however, is less concerned about what stories can tell them about the past and more focused on what they say about the future. Drawing on the structure of countless stories, a lore weaver can twist fate towards their preferred narrative.
- Ollave (PMG TT-St Pg. 2) - There are some bards that revel in irresponsibility and see life as one huge, hedonistic party. You’re not one of those. You have a role somewhere between “priest” and “historian” and act as a caretaker of the important cultural memories and tales of your society. You may still enjoy a good wild party now and then, but achieving this level of training requires a serious investment of time and some harrowing tests, and it is unlikely you want to treat all of that effort and hardship casually.
- Mentalist (GPG #21) - Bards pick up knowledge from many places: lore passed down through the ages, words that slip from the lips of an unsuspecting target, and the unspoken information that a shrewd observer can pick up from a line of questioning, just to name a few. These bards well know that what one does not immediately notice still holds great power and what is seen but not necessarily interpreted at first lives within a person’s subconscious. Those that can tap into that unprocessed knowledge can do so to great effect.
- Minstrel (AG Pg. 130) - Bards are known for the telling of epic tales, thrilling acts of legerdemain, and beautiful musical renditions, but none more so than minstrels. Traveling the land to ply their musical and theatrical trades, a minstrel soaks up the world around them so that their future retellings of their travels are as detailed, evocative, and interesting as possible.
- Mountebank (AG Pg. 131) - The twisting of words is itself a kind of art—the mastery of which is the purvey of mountebanks. Throughout the course of any adventure there are plenty of trials where a sufficiently delivered boast can be more effective and useful than the mettle required to follow through on it, and the eloquent experience of a mountebank pulls its worth then so sufficiently that their frequent self-centered accolades are worth the trouble.
- Orator (GPG #26) - Life and death are in the power of the voice, and none know this better than orator bards. Any loud mouth might sway a listener to support a noble cause or thwart an evil plot, but the skilled orator reveals deeper truths to listeners—truths which are not at first readily evident.
- Psalmist (PMG MOAR: L&D Pg. 13) - Music and faith are so deeply connected, some beliefs say creation itself was a divine song or dance. Music is profoundly spiritual even when religion isn’t involved, and religions of all organizational styles use it to connect to the divine, impart meaning to their adherents, and add gravity to their services and ceremonies. Psalmists, divinelyoriented bards, tap into this and bring it out into the world, sharing the word of their faith through magic and song.
- Sound Sculptor (DDG Pg. 32) - Sound sculptors, as the name implies, are bards who have taken their skill with sound far beyond merely producing beautiful or inspiring music. True masters of sound, they use their music to see the unseen, damage their foes, and even protect themselves and their allies.
- Soul Soother (SoS) - Soul Soother bards are masters of the gentle melodies: the songs that put children to sleep and give solace to mad kings. With compassion, understanding, and patience, they work to heal the rifts not only between individuals, but within them, replacing strife with serenity, and turmoil with peace.
- Vagabond (AiZ Pg. 56) - As wastrels and castaways, vagabonds have no formalized campus. Instead, they roam the land and sea, gathering stories and recruiting outsiders and miscreants to be apprentices for a time before foisting them off on some other vagabond whose path they cross.
- Warchanter (AG Pg. 132) - The frenetic pace of battle can easily confuse and overwhelm, but the beating of drums, horns of trumpets, and resounding hymns of warchanters drive their forces onto victory. These bards understand combat as a beautiful art form and use their talents to enhance it, urging allies to withstand greater suffering and spreading their magic across the field of battle.
- Whisperkeeper (GPG #26) - Whisperkeeper bards are secret holders whose capacity to memorize and then lock away information, even from their own conscious minds if needed, makes them invaluable allies. They are often contracted to relay vitally important messages, overthrow corrupt governments, or safeguard ancient and dangerous knowledge.