Musica Aeternam - A Bardic Handbook.pdf

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Credits
Lead Designer, Concept, Writing
David J Moore


Artwork
All artwork is in the public domain.
Cover photo: William-Adolphe Bouguereau,
L’art et
la litterature,
1866.
Pg 3: Silvestro Ganassi,
Fontegara,
16th Century.
Pg 4, 10, 12, 14: Jost Amman,
Das Ständebuch,1568.
Pg 5: Gustave Doré,
Vivien and Merlin, Idylls of
the King,
1868.
Pg 6:
Hermes, Euridice, and Orpheus,
Relief in the
Villa Albani in Rome.
Layout
Ted Hartle
Special Thanks to:
Ted Hartle, Jeremy Kapsar, and Marc Altfuldisch for
feedback and suggestions.
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D&D
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characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any
reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast.
©2016 Wizards of the Coast LLC, PO Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, USA. Manufactured by Hasbro SA, Rue Emile-Boéchat 31, 2800 Delémont, CH. Represented by
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Not for resale. Permitssion granted to print or photocopy this document for personal use only.

MUSICA AETERNAM
2
T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
Chapter 1: What makes a Bard?......4
Archetypes and Stereotypes .............................4
The Bard in History and Myth
The Bard in Dungeons & Dragons
Role in Society ................................................. 7
Bard, Scoundrel, or Star?
Role in the Party..............................................8
Chapter 2: New Class Options ......10
Bard Colleges ..................................................10
College of the Spheres
College of the Silver Pen
College of the Sacred Yew
College of the Eternal Veil
College of Song Immemorial
Troupe of the Shadowdancers
Feats ...............................................................16
Arcane Visage
Battledancer
Diplomat
Melodic Casting
Virtuoso
Epic Boons ......................................................17
Boon
Boon
Boon
Boon
of
of
of
of
Many Faces
Primal Music
the Iron Mind
Unerring Skill
MUSICA AETERNAM
3
C
HAPTER
1: W
HAT MAKES A
B
ARD
?

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood,
Rob’d in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master’s hand, and prophet’s fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre;
—Thomas Gray,
The Bard: A Pindaric Ode
A
RCHETYPES AND
S
TEREOTYPES
Ask a handful of D&D players what a bard is or
does exactly and you’ll likely to get back any
number of different answers. Which one is your
bard? A fencing scoundrel with razor wit and a way
with the wenches, a lute strapped to his back? A
powerful hermit magician who can see the future?
A superstar singer who can sway the hearts and
minds of the audience? A War Chanter, wading
through combat with a sword in hand and song in
the air, inspiring her comrades to glory? A jack of
all trades, master of none, skill monkey? An RP
specialist who’s nearly useless in combat? A
support caster?
The D&D bard has shifted in definition from
version to version, pulling on equally varied
inspirations from myth and history. It’s no wonder
that players and DMs alike can’t agree on what a
bard should be. Fortunately, in Dungeons and
Dragons 5e the rules are
flexible
and easily allow
the core bard class to be shaped into any of these
different characters. So then, the question really
isn’t which bard is the true bard. It’s who is your
bard going to be? Which path will you take? There
are many to choose from, with many different play
styles. Let’s wade through some of them
first
to see
what they are and where they came from, to give
you a few archetypes to pick from and strive
towards.
T
HE
B
ARD IN
H
ISTORY AND
M
YTH
Who cares? You’re here to play D&D, not pretend
you’re a Celt in bronze age Europe. I mean come
on, you play because it’s
not
real life. But here’s
the thing; the core D&D classes were distilled from
our own world’s countless stories and myths,
which were passed down through the generations.
If we just look to them, we can see the archetypes
of the perfect
fighters
and wizards, ready for us to
model characters after. But the problem with
bards…well, bards are a mess to be honest. So,
just real fast, let’s get the myth stuff, the
inspiration for the fantasy bards, straight in our
heads, before we see how well that transferred over
to D&D.
When it comes down to it, there are two types of
bards (and I’m using bard in the generic way here,
not the very specific historical one): Magicians and
Musicians. Or, to put it in terms that might be
easier to relate to, there’s Merlin and then there’s
Orpheus.

MUSICA AETERNAM
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Merlin
Merlin, believe it or not, wasn’t a wizard,
or a mage, or a sorcerer. He was actually
a bard. It’s a little muddier than that,
because a bard in the early celtic world
was the closest thing they had to a
wizard. Bards held the very important
role of history keepers, where we get the
concept of bardic lore from. These
societies were pre-writing, so all history
had to be remembered and passed on
orally, and the easiest way to do this
was in poetry or song. These weren’t
alway songs for entertainment then.
They were more often long, winding
epics, chronicling all of the major events
in your tribe or kingdom and praising
your leaders.
Bards studied for years before they
could assume this role of power in
society, related to and just beneath that
of the druidic priests. They were
prophets and advisors to the kings, and
had some reputed healing abilities.
Aside from recording history in poetry
and song, they also told the future and
could curse their enemies through
poetry, through the power of words.
While they weren’t the entertainer/
performer that many think of with a
bard, their magic did have a musical
element to it, as did a lot of magic in the
ancient world, and the words in their spells were
musical in their delivery. (An “incantation” has the
root word “cantare” in there, after all, or “to sing”.)
The Merlin of history (or Myrddhin in Welsh) was
one of these men. Myths would then take him and
add even more powers to his legend over time, like
the ability to shapeshift.
The ancient celtic traditions eventually died away
(quite literally as the Romans hunted the Celtic
druids to extinction and later the English king
Edward I had 500 Welsh bards rounded up and
killed to cut off the Welsh from their history). Even
after that, the role of the bards would still continue
on for centuries, on into the more modern
kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland. Here the bards
were simply defined as a class of court poets and
musicians, usually harpists, though their words
Vivien and Merlin
were still often thought to contain magic and an
insulting verse from a bard could cause real harm.
Another related note here, on skalds. The nordic
skald is very similar to the celtic bard in history
and practice. Fantasy, however, has taken the
skald and made him or her into a War Chanter, a
singing warrior who inspires all around them with
their voice. There is very little evidence for this
treatment, unfortunately. They practiced as poets
in nordic societies and were thought to have
similar magical powers to the celtic bard. There are
stories of them inspiring others with magic before
battles, but stories of them wading into combat
themselves, consumed in song and the glory of
battle, just don’t seem to be there.


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