Bard (TUTBAD)

**Bards** are spellcaster-musicians. Verity is the primary bard of This Used to be About Dungeons

## Social Role

Bards are commonly employed in taverns to enhance the dining experience. Bards bards will also give musical recitals and use their abilities to enhance the experience. Although performing in taverns and outdoor performances is a decent living, enhancing a party - whether in a dungeon or other activities - is generally more profitable if you can do it. At the highest levels of skill, however, a famous classically-trained bard can bring in hundreds of thousands of rings with a single performance, far more than even a mid-level adventuring party can expect to make from a dungeon.

Bards are stereotyically imagined to be very sociable and extroverted, although this isn;t always accurate.

## Abilities

A bard's magic exclusively works with properties that are already there, generally multiplying them by a certain percentage. They can cast a limited number of "songs" before being exhausted; they don't have to be accompanied by literal music, but it helps maintain their concentration on the effect. Each bard instinctively develops an internal magical construct to power their magic; if disrupted by a Sorcerer, most bards are rendered powerless until they can painstakingly reconstruct it, although more gifted bards may be able to do so on the fly. Like many forms of magic, the party bond enhances bardic magic's effect on their fellow party members, and they can enhance their party members at a distance through it.

* Even a basic tavern bard can enhance the taste of food

* A more advanced bard can enhance or dampen emotions to subtly cheer people up (Verity could do this at 2nd elevation, although she's better than her elevation might imply)

* In combat, a bard can moderately enhance whatever abilities are needed for the situation. Alfric estimated Verity should be capable of enhancing strength and speed 30-40%, and possibly his senses and endurance as well. In fact, she was able to enhance strength, speed, durability, sight, hearing, and Mizuki's magic sense simultaneously on her first practice.

Advanced techniques that Verity develops over the course of the story include:

* Progressive melodies - songs which compound on their own effects to exponentially enhance an ability over time (until they reach a point beyond the bard's abilities and fall apart)
	+ Healing by enhancing an injured person's natural healing (apparently not widely known to be possible, invented by Verity on the fly)

* Keeping songs slow and weak on the back burner to stretch them out

* Enhancing a person's negative feelings as an emergency attack by screaming at them (apparently not widely known to be possible, invented by Verity on the fly)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 He hadn’t come for the music either, though it was a caliber of melody that he had only heard before in Dondrian, and not the kind of thing that he would have ordinarily expected from a small town like this. No, he had come for the bard, who was hunched over a small stool, strumming her six-stringed lute with her eyes closed, her words barely audible over the sound of her instrument.

The effect of the music was subtle but complex, with more points of enhancement than were obvious at first glance. Alfric ordered the herbed chicken and garlic potatoes, with a cup of honeyed tea, and the flavors of each were heightened by the melody, the tea sweeter but not cloying, the chicken richer and more flavorful. All that was par for the course from a tavern bard, but this girl was weaving in other aspects, subtle enough that you could miss them, *emotional* components. Alfric wasn’t a naturally anxious person, but his worries had their edge taken from them, reduced down a fraction, and when he tried to focus on old sources of sadness, he found that those, too, were blunted. The inverse seemed true as well, with a few jokes overheard much funnier than they should have been, and the cozy warmth of the tavern much cosier. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
2. ↑ “Possibly,” said Alfric. “And for a bard, it’s good training, good exposure to party dynamics and custom songs. I know that you can make decent money with taverns and outdoor performances, but party or guild level performance is where the real money is for a bard, even if it’s outside the traditional adventuring structures.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
3. ↑ “The quoted offer, the reason we flew out here, was four hundred↵↵thousand,” said Alfric. “That’s from a truly exceptional dungeon. But that’s↵↵also how much Verity is going to make from a single concert.”↵↵“The gross,” said Hannah. “Her actual cut of that will be quite a bit↵↵smaller.”↵↵“Four hundred thousand?” asked Isra. “To hear her songs?”↵↵“Two hundred rings times two thousand seats,” said Hannah. - Chapter 98: Deals
4. ↑ He wanted to go up and speak with her, but she’d said to wait until the next day, and he would abide by that, as much as he wanted to get things moving. He didn’t really understand why she would have wanted to put it off. Bards were supposed to take joy in other people, never wanting a quiet moment to themselves, but it seemed that Verity hadn’t been cast from the same mold. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 “Probably not,” said Alfric. “Bards exclusively work with what’s already there. If you’re blind, no bard is going to make you see. If you have no sense of taste, then they have nothing to work with, nothing to enhance. Even in a more mild case, a weak person is going to gain less strength than someone who’s already strong to start with. It’s a compounding effect.”

“Multiplying,” said Verity. “Compounding would mean — ah, lost it.”

Alfric felt the effect slowly fade away, leaving him feeling weak, though he knew from experience that it was only a matter of his body needing to adapt back to baseline.

“Compounding would mean that it was building on itself,” said Verity. “Progressive melodies are a bit beyond me. I’ll start up a song again once we’re at the portal itself, and probably continue playing and singing throughout, which will help to keep the tune going.” - Chapter 4: Three Raccoons
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Verity strummed her lute once, then began in on a brief song with two verses and a chorus. It took a minute and a half, all told, as it was a short song about two children playing in the forest, but when it was over, Alfric felt a warm glow within himself. He unsheathed his sword, dampening the magical effect to err on the side of safety, and twirled it once, feeling the perfect balance of it, and spun again, practicing his forms. There was strength and speed, but something else laced in with it, and when he’d sheathed his sword, he dragged a nail across the flesh of his forearm.

“You added something?” he asked.

Verity shrugged. “Just testing the strings.”

“I can see better,” said Mizuki, using her fingers to spread her eyelids and look around. “That’s you?” She stared at Verity with her eyes held open by her fingers.

“Shush,” said Verity. She tapped her head. “I’m holding that tune.”

Mizuki let go of her eyes and frowned. “So she’s just out of commission for the rest of the day then?”

“No,” said Verity. “Just hard to talk.”

“We don’t need it now, if you’d rather drop it,” said Alfric.

“I can hear better too,” said Hannah. “That’s five effects?”

Verity shook her head, swishing her hair side to side, and held up her fingers, indicating six.

“I’d rather it be stable and weak than unstable and powerful,” said Alfric, looking at Verity. She was very clearly intensely concentrating on the task at hand, her musical magic weaving together their personal qualities and giving boosts to them.

“It’s fine,” said Verity. “Good practice. Easier when I’m playing. Saving that for later.”

“Oh,” said Mizuki. “Is the sixth magic? I think I can see it a bit better.” - Chapter 4: Three Raccoons
7. ↑ “Verity,” Alfric said. “She’s an extremely skilled bard, for being second elevation.” - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
8. ↑ “And what kind of songs would you like, if you’ve given it thought?” asked Verity.

“Strength and speed,” said Alfric. “I’ll be up front, sword in hand, and with your proficiency, you should be able to give me a boost of some thirty to forty percent. Enhanced vision and hearing would be great, if you can add that in, and endurance would be a bonus as well, but with a healer on board that’s less of a concern.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy