Interesting/Untraditional Bards

Can we get some examples of Bards that don't appear flamboyantly gay?

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>Bard
he's a Necromancer, dingus

A blind black jazz player

Bards that are legitimate historians that perform through ortatory tale-spinning instead of jerking an instrument like a wanker

this

Skald
Loremaster who tells stories instead of singing/playing instruments

So 5e lore bard? I like this idea

Search "Bard" on Google images.

So much this.

If you go read the vidas of medieval troubadors you'll see that on average they were well educated petty knights who sang and composed in addition to their military duties for their liege.
Many died in battle (like Friedrich von Hausen and Jaufre Rudel, crusaders). Others were actual rulers, like William of Aquitaine (a fucking duke) or Alberico da Romano and Rambertino Buvalelli (italian podestà).
This idea that bards were mostly faggish performers is a modern thing.

>Not liking faggish performers
Bitch please !

OP's image is an actual character from Shaman King. He uses his guitar to channel the spirits of his dead mariachi band. So technically he'd be a multiclass of the two.

So essentially Valor Bards?

Historian whose sole mode of communicates is through musical vocalizations?

Had a concept for a sheltered bard/composer type who came to believe that the best works of art were bred from great suffering and adversity and he would never achieve true greatness in his craft without experiencing that so he set out to see it for himself.

Would a Bard primarily be a student of language, a student of history, or of both?

Math bard on a quest to figure out how to make the 13/8 time signature work in a song.

Valor should really be the standard archetype, yes. The second most common should be the ones about courtly politics and satyre.

Probably a bit overdone if not just a shit idea, but a "bard' who's more of a wizard from an extremely distant land, wherein the schools of magic developed differently than generic fantasy Europe. So instead of casting via spellbook they cast via incantations and such.

Another one is literally these guys but in 5e.
>Warlock 3, Pact of the Blade, talk your DM into letting you summon a giant harp instead of a sword
>Lore Bard X
>Use it to cast Eldritch Blasts and Bard spells

Mechanically it ends up as a blastier Bard with short rest spell slots but slower progression.

youtube.com/watch?v=SsI5B6QQqIk

>flamboyantly gay
You do realize that the clothing they wear was flashy and expensive for the time right? It's the kind of clothing that says "I get pussy wherever I go"

It's the medieval equivalent of a tailor made three piece suit with a Rolex.

Depends. Troubador and minnesanger inspired bards would be more interested in language. Skald and druid inspired bards history.

Tbf in most rpg they're incorrectly depicted as differently dressed from the rest of the nobility, which effectively makes them look extravagant and faggy.

or their spellbooks could just be in musical notation, like a spell is written as a song or a movement and the higher level the spell the more grand of a composition it is

More like Dirgesinger, a prestige class for Bard.

Never heard of this

Interesting

Crude, slapstick jesters who enact vicious haranguing to intimidate the enemy and play deadly, sadistic tricks in battle.

...

I'd say the arts, history, math, accoustics and language are all good vocations for bards.

Well Peyote Diaz (for that is his name) isn’t a bard, just a guy who plays guitar.
In Shaman King, the conceit is that you summon some kind of spirit (ghost or otherwise) and have them possess either you or some object they have an affinity with, the closer the better (a samurai and any katana would be good, a samurai and his particular katana would be better).
He summons the ghosts of his late mariachi band and has them possess his guitar. He doesn’t actually need to be able to play, and in fact any Shaman could take the guitar, summon the ghost band and do the same things.
So he’s not a necromancer/bard, he’s a necromancer who happens to have play guitar with his favorite ghosts. Nothing magical about the guitar or its playing.

>Why, you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and that ain't saying much for you

Literally “money for nothing

Oh no you canta foola me
I know there ainta no sanity clause

Dire Straits?
I'm pretty sure that song was about musicians living off their music, which is pretty much the opposite of troubadors, who lived off their independent income and had feudal duties that took precedence over their art.

I don't know why that other user mentioned the song, but the actual story behind that song is they were in a Sears and overheard the employees talking about them and made their comments into a song.

I meant the “these people look act and talk like fags but people pay them for it and women want to fuck them cuz they’re famous musicians”

Yeah which is wrong. They weren't paid for the most part (at least the famous ones mostly weren't), and it's more likely that women were on their dick due to them being aristocrats rather than due to their music.

A bard that uses a cursed bone flute, or an ocarina made of a skull. He travels the world using his cursed instruments to conjure the souls of long dead warriors and write down their tales of ancient wars and forgotten heroes.

Wasn't Vivec a warrior poet? That sounds like a bard

Would we consider Tolkien a Bard?

goddamn I love that cover so much

youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOKjy-9-o

I always wanted to make a skeletal bard that plays the sax. It's a shame that the DMs I've played with didn't like undead.

I remember someone requesting this pic during the soccer world cup in south africa years ago. The idea was a bard that used a vuvuzuela to apply crippling AoE debuffs to enemies

>scholar
>storyteller
Yes

A religious bard who looks more like a monk who sings Gregorian-esque chants imbued with holy magic and espouses the gospel whenever he isn't proselytizing or philandering.
Even if he comes from a Protestant-like fantasy equivalent of a sexually repressed religion, he would definitely still be a slut, but more subtle.

I made a motivational speaker for a one shot. The kind that just inspires with "If you can dream it, you can do it"-ish quotes. I liked it and would do it for a long term campaign.

Is that Applestand

...

I don't get the reference.
I was thinking more like Arthur Dimmesdale with less guilt and more cantillation.

One of three stooges. Viciously mock your enemy by bopping him on the head.

Kubo is the best thing to ever happen to bards

I want to play a campaign with an upper middle aged bard necromancer that wants to be a one man band essentially

...

There could also be a heavy focus on philosophy and debate. And aside from the obvious pedo priest gag there's always being a slut for the divine truth and knowledge.

Every encounter in that movie would be great ib a d&d session.

A necromancer-bard who calls up the spirits of dead heroes to learn their stories directly from the source. I intend to use that as a Spirit Magic tradition if i ever get to run a Mythras game.

*charges into his lit class in armor wielding a mace screaming about the greatest of the Geats*
What do you think?
Dick is fine, but wouldn’t you rather fill your mouth with the words of the Lord?

Grucho Marx is to comedy as Ron Jeremy is to pornography, that is to say he's a huge prick.

How the fuck do you roleplay this shite?

Protip: You literally can't unless the Player is an actual real life bard

>Song Mage casts spells by singing of heroic antics of legends, often calling spirits or manifestations of the protagonists or their trials.
>War-Chanter Phalanx who have a call-and-response phrase to communicate orders from commanders to soldiers, as well as perfect dancing sync to match movements and organize maneuvers.
>Disney Princess sings to gather woodland creatures or natural spirits.
>News-Crier giving slightly altered information to the public to manipulate public opinions and loudly rule with soft power gestures.
>Mysterious Stranger that always talks with an odd cadence. Raps for spells, but prefers to sneak word-magic unnoticed via focusing on percussive somatic effects rather than melodic ones.
>Skyrim Dragonborn
>Unaging Bard who adventured until their own legend and binding their life to it to remain as long as their story does. Periodically props up events and people over the centuries to recreate their story over and over again to keep the ball rolling. Opposed by undead bard who is sick of the same shit over and over again and is essentially trying to write and craft fan-fiction AU's of the story to get anything new.

Just create some random history tables and roll on them for each "performance."