Bards of Aquila

Long have tales of wayfaring soothsayers circulated throughout all Aquila - talented minstrels who, by way of voice, instrument, verse, or a combination thereof, passed on stories from bygone eras, keeping the legends of yesteryear alive though their subjects be long since departed. Rather than allowing them to be consigned unto oblivion, it was these mythical bards who peered into the tangled threads of history to retrieve the colorful memories of heroes, cultures, and battles of eld that they may live on in song; serving to entertain, educate, and inspire their progeny.

The most distinguished among these legendary bards were said to have become so proficient with their craft that their breathtaking songs began to not only preserve these all-important memories, but give them form, using their indefatigable verses to conjure up images from forgotten centuries which were so lifelike in their depiction as to evoke the keen sensation among audiences that they were truly peering through the eyes of the long-since departed. Over the storied centuries this coveted musical tradition was upheld by no more than a dozen talented druids at once, keeping the secrets of their craft well-guarded by entrusting them to only the most worthy apprentices, all the while traveling from one humble hamlet to the next sharing their treasured songs with those lucky few villagers fortunate enough to find themselves as audience members of these elusive bardic legends.

Yet as these traditions lived on and civilizations rose and fell, whispers of the bards slowly diffused from the countryside into popular urban legend, especially on the Occan isle of Erin which held sovereignty as an independent kingdom prior to its annexation by the empire of Medriaas. So enraptured with these legends was the ancient king Dagda of Erin that he ordered his army of knights to find the greatest bard in the land, Orpheus Azarel, and bring him to the royal court in Hammelin; Dagda was a notorious patron of the arts, seeking to make Erin a center of culture by preserving its heritage as its neighbor Albion had done to great effect. Orpheus, a shrewd songster reputed as the "king of the beggars" among the peasants of Erin, agreed to serve Dagda as the nation's first court jester, currying favor with the king with his fanciful tales and using his favorable position to subtly influence the kingdom's politics.

With the power of his songs, Orpheus beguiled the king, using his fae magicks to negotiate increasingly notable positions of clout within the royal court. Though Erin's noble classes resented the great bard for his wiles, he was beloved by the masses, who regarded their rat king as a hero of the common folk due to his frequent suggestions to the king that the royal coffers be emptied for purposes of charity; southern Aquila's first great ampitheatres were constructed, providing breathtaking spectacle to the masses free of charge in the form of elaborate theatrical productions which told stories of legendary heroes through music, dance, and phantasmagoria. Orpheus and his band of jesters were prolific throughout the country, ushering in an age of artistic freedom and frivolity at the expense of the kingdom's military and commercial affairs.

Their reign was not eternal, however, as predictably the rival lords of the court grew so outraged at the magickal shroud cast over the king's eyes by the grinning jesters as to eventually plan a coup which would see Orpheus and his compatriots eradicated. The great bard and most of his students were assassinated, with his clever apprentice Artemis Roaille leading the remnants on an exodus from Erin across the Aetherial Sea to the untamed shores of Aphelion. Roaille, the spitting image of his dishonored master, devoted her life to preserving the bardic traditions of Erin, resolving to continue the legacy of her forebears in this new mysterious land even as her homeland had forsaken its kin.

Being poets and musicians first and foremost, Artemis and her lot were ill-prepared for the unkind wilds of the Aphelian interior, enduring many a cruel winter under the dark canopies of the Wyrd before perfecting the way of the bow as a means of survival. The Erinic bards came to see archery as an art unto itself; as their lutes and panpipes were instruments of rememberance and empowerment, their longbows became instruments of continuity, affording them the means to defend themselves in the harsh environs against beast and man alike. Their extended hunting expeditions into the interior, undertaken for purposes of both sustenance and narrative inspiration, eventually brought them into contact with another tribe of exiles, the Witches of the Wyrd, led by the enigmatic mage Shadowsong, one of Aquila's pre-eminent masters of the Old Ways prior to the Mad King's Hundred Year Darkness. Through trade, the bards became familiar with the religion of the Old Ways and were particularly enamored with the goddess Metarot, keeper of Time and mother to poets and travelers. Imbuing their sacred musical arts with these newfound magickal traditions gleaned from the Witches, Roaille and her devotees gradually reformed into the eclectic Coven of Metarot; led by 13 enlightened druids who instructed some few dozen chosen initiates at any given time, the coven carved their niche into the arcane as mages who used their treasured songs to guide their bows and not only inspire their allies with visions of past heroes but mesmerize and terrify their foes with visions conjured up by darker magicks borrowed from the Witches.

Though the last true Erinic bards were all but wiped out by Inquisitorius during the Empire's crackdown on occult elements, the followers of Metarot persevered, carrying on the teachings of Orpheus and Artemis by traveling the ever-expanding world and sharing their art with Aquilans as far as the port of Hamamitsu in Khotan. The closest descendants of the original coven who claim themselves as their progeny are the Howlers, an occult gang based out of Dreiton - not far from the site of Roaille and her band's original home in Ketsith, founded upon their arrival on Aphelion - who use their ancient practices of archery and song to offer their services as sellswords and bounty hunters to the underground elements of the Commonwealth; some factions within the Howlers seek to return to the teachings of Orpheus by reforming into vigilantes for the common man, and indeed the city and its territories have increasingly heard whispers of strangely-clad songsters using fae magicks to trick the wealthy into surrendering their mountains of gold to the working peasantry.