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#bards
emptyjunior · 1 month
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mazey and fig's deep dive into the core of Bard Magic literally literally was so good, I'm foaming at the mouth thinking of it?
Like do you level up your bard powers by levelling up your craft? By becoming an accomplished technical musician or a professional level dancer?
Or is it about the feeling? And your magic gets stronger as you practice simply because there's effort and time being put into this act of creation. It's about your pursuit of excellence in your craft, which only coincidentally happens to express itself as fame and technical perfection.
But it doesn't have to for a lot of people!
Like I think in the magical world of dnd, a proficient and powerful bard can look like anything!
Maybe somebody's great uncle on the bayou, who sits in his rocking chair playing banjo all day every day, is nameless to the world, can't read music, would be an absolutely Deadly bard because he has that compatibility with his music. He has a deep and profound connection with it.
Someone who's the life of the party, spends all their time thinking about stand up material just for the benefit of their friends, is a sparkling conversationalist with incredible comedic timing everytime, for them that Is the top of what they want their craft to be. There is troves of magic being created there, and it's coming from their connection to people and willingness to entertain.
A kid playing hopscotch on the street, coming up with more and more elaborate steps and jumps. A hospice carer who sings lullabies for the elderly, using their songs as pain relief. Two best friends who have paddy cake down to a practiced artform where they can Double their attacks if they do it together.
I just loved them talking about the realities of what Bard Magic would look like in the real world, asking if she should be worried about her rockstar career because that's her craft, but then thinking is my loyalty to some label even the music?! Because surely that's not the music, that's not where the magic is.
Just bard magic existing because people have so much raw emotion and power when we create and entertain, when we Sing and Dance for each other that of course in a magical world there is power to be drawn from that.
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randomencounters · 8 months
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Encounter: Satyr that has swapped his panflutes for jazz saxophone
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manicpixiedickgal · 1 month
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Being a musician is more erotic than I think people give it credit for. Like. Fingering out power chords on a guitar has the same energy as rubbing someone’s g-spot as they finish. A violinist is gently caressing the strings of their instrument and holding it close to their face. A woodwind player is salivating and getting their instrument wet before they put the tip in their mouth. In this essay, I will explain why the Bard class-
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prokopetz · 11 months
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Concept: D&D bard who specialises in the art of mime and has some bullshit custom feature that replaces all of their spells' verbal components with a somatic component for thematic consistency.
Question: what does the resulting somatic component of vicious mockery look like?
Bonus question: what does the resulting somatic component of power word: kill look like?
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gingermarshmallow · 3 months
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Looking at the new Fabian art and suddenly picturing Ruha's toxic ballet instructor from s01e08 of Make Some Noise as the Bard Dance instructor at Aguefort.
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Poor Fabian is Cindy
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goatanarchy · 3 months
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A wonderful bard for @dujour13 🎶✨~
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aetherictree · 11 months
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Does Edgin flirt specifically with Xenk, or is it just that as a Bard he's naturally inclined to flirt with everybody but he just hasn't had anyone he can do that with around him? Til they meet Xenk, he's got Holga (who is, well, Holga), Simon (an anxious sorcerer who he has known for years and so long got past that, just makes things awkward), and Doric (a traumatised teenage girl young enough to be his daughter who triggers his paternal feelings, and even if it wasn't weird she'd just be obliviously immune to his charms anyway). Xenk is the first time he can fully express himself.
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alpaca-clouds · 4 months
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What are Minstrels, Jesters and Bards?
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Keeping it up with me rambling about the middle ages and fantasy, let me talk about one of the things that seems to confuse a lot of people - especially because most fantasy media just kinda mixes this one up. The difference between Minstrels, Jesters and Bard. Given that all the words are so often used interchangably. But, indeed, there is a big difference, if we look at it from a historical perspective.
The very, very basic differentiation is like this:
A Bard was a Celtic song writer and storyteller
A Minstrel was a medieval travelling singer, poet, acrobat and storyteller
A Jester was a medieval singer, poet, acrobat and storyteller working at a cort. In the late medieval time they were more acrobats and people telling jokes though.
Also there is Troubadoures, who were mostly singers and storytellers at the courts.
Let me talk a bit about the different groups in detail, though.
Bards
Bard as a word comes specifically from the Gaelic word for "poet", which basically tells us most about them. as with so many things concerning the celts, the early history of them is not very well known. We do know, though, that they played a certain role within the Gaelic and Welsh societies both in keeping the oral history of the societies alive, as well as celebrating chiefs and warriors with their songs. Other than other aspects of Celtic societies, the bards did remain for a long while into the medieval period, though how the societies treated them did vary a lot by region.
While in some areas due to their connection to the Celtic (and hence indigenous) religion and culture, they were seen as "second class poets" in some areas - especially in Ireland - with the true poets being connected to the church.
Never the less: Whatever we still know about the Celtic mythology of the British isles is all only known thanks to bards. Because bards kept those oral traditions alive at times till the late and post-medieval period, allowing them to be written down.
Mistrels
Minstrels developed a lot in what their role was. In the early medieval period they were often still bound to courts of kings and lords, where they would perform a wide variety of things. Songs, poems, theatre, acrobatics and dance being most among them. But in the high medieval period it became more and more common that the courts would employ jesters and troubardores, who were more specialized. With those a lot of minstrels became travellers. They would travel the lands and always remain in cities and villages for a while, collect stories, perform their arts and then move on. As such they helped to spread stories throughout the lands - though people could not always be sure whether the stories they told and sang were true or not.
Minstrels often had close networks among each other, though. Exchanging stories and songs they had written and collected. As such they often had a very wide repatoir that they could share with the people.
It should be noted that while there were people like this throughout the entire medieval world, minstrels as we would call them were most common in Medieval France and England, with some also being around in Germany (that is the Holy Roman Empire). Travelling singers and songwriters in the rest of Europe had a bit of a different background, often being closer to the celtic bards.
And yes, minstrels are very much the closest thing here to what bards in DnD are displayed as.
Jesters
Among those noted here, jesters are probably the one occupation people have the best idea of, given that they are fairly big in even modern popculture - even outside of fantasy. I mean, in your standard deck of cards the "Joker" usually is portrayed as a jester.
Jesters were fairly interesting. While they also would at times do poetry and songs, they often were more acrobats, joksters and magicians, who most of the time were bound to the court of a lord, duke or king. In these positions they did however often serve a very important role, as they were allowed to hold a mirror to whoever they served and give them the truth. Basically: They were allowed most of the time to criticize even kings. (Which does not mean that they always got away with it - but usually they got away with way more than most people.) As such a common idea of a jester was, that they were supposed to be wise and also act as a sort of advisor to whomever they served.
Interestingly enough there is a lot of historical evidence that often enough this specific roll was filled by disabled and disfigured people, who could not work in other rolls. Which in hindsight is interesting especially because it gave some disabled people a very important role within the society.
Troubadours
Finally we have the troubadours, who were most of all singers and poets working at the courts. Their art was seen as more "high class" than the work of the normal minstrels. They often would entertain nobility during their feasts and on festivals and celebrations. While they were not the same as jesters, they often were however allowed to parody and do satire of the lords, with that also reflecting on their actions.
So, yeah. There is a difference between these words. While there definitely were bards that served as troubadours, and troubadours who ended up becoming minstrels... It was a bit of a difference between those roles.
The fact that the bards were so tied to celtic cultures is especially a fact that so often gets overlooked.
So, there you have it. xD Maybe some food for thoughts for my dear fellow bard players.
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aviancali · 10 months
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red-dead-sakharine · 3 months
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Sell your soul for a song
Requested by @hydropyro
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Those were some expensive lyrics, but at least the song turned out nice...
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little-witchys-garden · 8 months
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There is a very large wild Fool Jester hybrid on my porch, I have my sliding glass door closed but it keeps shaking its bells and looking at my two albino mime/circus clown mix..
My bard is hiding in the backroom anxiously singing while my Gaelic poet keeps cursing at it and shaking his quill.
I have no idea what to do, I tried calling clown control and they arrived but they aren't getting out of the car..
I'll edit the post with updates if anything happens
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animentality · 7 months
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Yoooo the bard insults for vicious mockery in baldur's gate 3 are so funny.
My bard just said "your body is a temple to an idiot god."
That has the same energy as the iconic line from dodgeball.
"ouch town, population: you!"
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randomencounters · 8 months
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Place: the Harmonic Palace, a Bardic College research facility
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itsapmseymour · 1 year
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How to be the best Bard in DND
1.) Be Ace, you will never flirt with anyone you cross paths with cause you studied all of your damn buffs.
2.) Be Pan, by flirting with everyone, you have the highest odds of negating any combat.
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nmnmrsz · 2 years
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cornbreadcreations · 7 months
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About Tieflings...
so, Baldur's Gate 3, my Tav is a tiefling, right, and sure, this means i can read infernal and all and help Astarion with his contract but important to know about tieflings is their dietary habits.
tieflings are mostly carnivores, and they like their meat rare, or raw. they dont mind eating the less traditionally savory parts of a carcass, either, such as the gristle and tendons n other stuff like that
and in a pinch can even sustain themselves on ROCKS of all things.
this has led to two realizations
one - my tav *cannot* cook, and this is a long standing joke for me ever since i made my group eat 7 potatoes and a single fish for a long rest, and literally just an entire pile of pears. its a little 'inside joke but only with myself' that Thaeval cannot cook to save their life, just, absolutely awful but no one else wants to do it so they keep at it until Halsin joins the camp and since hes not running around with us as much he handles the cooking like the big father he is but also, a tiefling could absolutely drink a goblet of blood and be just fine.
i could see Thaev enjoying a glass of venison blood with Astarion one evening, or, a scene i like even better
post-game, everyone out getting drinks, and some uppity barhop starts giving Astarion crap because he realizes thats not wine in his glass, but *blood* and as vampire hysteria is just starting to pick up, Thaev comes along, delicately plucks the glass, takes a big swig, and confirms 'nah, just a dry red. dont you ever drink *sweet* wines?' and no other tiefs are present, so whose to question THAT?
i dunno just fun thoughts
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