"When evil reared its ugly head Sir Robin turned his tail and fled. The brave brave brave Sir Robin" -Monty Python

In a largely pre-literate society bards are the keepers of lore. They're historians, news anchors, and rock stars in one. Something that is sadly largely forgotten these days.

The Faroese Islands have kept their bardic tradition alive up until now. The islands used to be extremely isolated and also poor, so both writing and instruments were rare. People dance in a simple circle continuously left and right. You either have a bard singing the verse, or all the participants if they knew the story, and then all sing the chorus. It is very lovely and hypnotic. The songs/stories can have 500 verses and often tell of important events in Faroese history. Like battles and heroes. The stories go back to Viking times when the islands were settled by them.

The reason music helps with memory is it employs a different part of the brain from storytelling/listening. The same is true with reading paired with writing, which is why taking notes on what you hear helps cement the memory, even if you never read the notes. Engaging different areas of the brain in a single pursuit helps memory get a better record.

A take I really liked when I was a kid was the Harpers (bards) of the Dragon Riders of Pern series where Harpers took on the role of educators; harpers were there to speak to current news and popular culture; but their most important role was basic (like K through 6grade) education of children even in really remote places.

The D&D Bard was largely based on the character "Silver" John, from the stories of the author Manly Wade Wellman. He had a guitar with silver strings, he had been in the Army where he learned how to fight if he had to, he knew all of the old songs, stories, and backwoods lore, and he knew a little white magic from a rare book he picked up once.

There’s one Canadian singer/storyteller that really epitomizes the definition of a bard, I would recommend the songs to anyone, Gordon Lightfoot.

I would go one step farther than that. The first known curse in Ireland was a traveling bard (whose name I forgot) was not given food nor hospitality when he asked for it (as was his due as a bard in ancient Ireland). So upon his departure the following morning he uttered the first recorded curse, causing King Bran to break out in blemishes, making him unfit to be king. Bars, to me, is not just a storyteller, but someone who is also an entertainer, capable of evoking things (emotional or physical) in the listener. And in that line, I dare say Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, might well be the last bard in the world. If you watch his live performances (circa 70s and early 80s).

Jess. Never stop making these videos! Also, as to music making things easier to memorize, I know exactly what you're talking about. I grew up memorizing most of my school work by putting it to music. Everything from history to math and geography. And to this day I still remember that William the Conqueror defeated King Herald in 1066 and that 14 × 15 = 210, all because I memorized it by singing. I don't know why it works so well but it does. (Wait. Did that mean I was a "bard" when I was in grade school?😄)

Bards were more true to their origins in early versions of D&D before "roll for seduction" became a cliche

For those wanting a more direct connection between LotR and 'bardic' history make sure you check out the Kalevala, a collection and retelling of Karelian and Finnish folklore. Printed a mere century before Tolkien published his own works it set out to put to pen that oral tradition, passed from storyteller to storyteller and in turn helped formalise the Finnish national identity, in the same way Tolkien wished to create a national mythology for England. In addition to Elvish having heavy Finnish leanings a number of tales in the Silmarillion are born from stories in the Kalevala too.

I feel like it should be noted that Jaskier does not really translate to Dandelion. That is what the translations for the English version of the novels chose to call him, but his name actually means "Buttercup."

Listening to you define a bard, i immediately thought of Thom and how spot on Robert Jordan wrote a bard. (Though Thom does accel in intrigue and knife skills in a DnD kind of way. Thank you for acknowledging this character in your video.

Class Role in Society: Bards serve as entertainers, teachers, and also sometimes as general troubleshooters. Some of the most important bards have had a deep and durable effect on society as a whole, not only in the songs but also in the legends and musical instruments, and many a bard we have to thank for certain words and writing systems. -from my MERPG (Middle-Earth Roleplaying Guide)

I liked the original D&D bard. Was such a hard class to achieve. A fighter, a thief, and a musician all rolled into one. Very much like a rocker of the day.

I've spent the longest time HATING D&D bards because of how cringy they're often portrayed but it's ironically the idea of playing a more faithful to real life bard who writes and narrates his attacks and magic as a story and a performance inside the overarching story of an adventure has completely shifted my feelings and now Bard has become my most anticipated class to play the next time I get chance to be a player instead of a DM.

One of the best representations of bards I’ve seen is in John Gardner’s ‘Grendel’. Even the monster is moved to tears by the skald’s artistry, and appreciates his place as a shaper of culture

I don't know if this has been pointed out already (comments TLDR), but the D&D Bard was much closer to the historical Bard back in 2ed & 3ed. There were more skills/proficiencies back then and a Bard character could specialize in having access to lots of knowledge about the world, history, current events, legends and lore. One aspect you kind of glossed over, Jess, was the the gallic tradition of the Silver Branch which were the Celtic skalds. They were related to the Green Branch or Druids and the Red Branch warriors ( if I'm remembering my own research correctly from 20 years ago )

The best example I've read of a musician-as-fighter was in the Song of the Niebelungs, in which there is a scene where a minstrel engages in combat, using a sword, but also at times using his violin bow as a weapon, I think.

I have composition degrees, so I must also request some grains of salt, but the reason music therapy is so effective (used in such high-profile instances as the rehabilitation of Gabby Giffords), is that music distributes its components throughout the brain. For instance, though her speech centers were damaged by her gunshot wound, Rep. Giffords was able to communicate musically because its mechanics were diffused into different parts of the brain. There are documentary videos about this case specifically that go into more accurate detail than I can.

What about the celtic Bards? They gave the name to the modern interpretation of bards and this was the first step to become a druid. The image of a bard with a lute is based on the Troubadour of Occitan France.

You're quickly becoming my favorite Tolkien KZfaq channel

This was a refreshing breakdown and introspection of the term bard . As a seasoned D&D player who has played a non-suducing bard I appreciate it and would love to see other classes broken down too. May I suggest Barbarian as the next class. The games tend to lean on Conan as the archetype but as a class it's more, I think, about the "primitive" culture aspect.

There are only Seven stories...we just tell them in slightly different ways generation after generation. I LOVE the knowledge that Tolkien was in a way aware of this. 'Cauldron of stories'.... what a great way of visualizing that!

Druids would be a good topic for the next one

Felix has the best gig.. follows around a dwarf trying to die in valiant combat to record the epic feat, but the dwarf is protected by the gods, fate, and colossal plot armor.

For modern Bardic work, you may enjoy Robin Williamson, particularly " Five denials on Merlin's grave" or Fiona Davidson particularly "The language of birds" wonderful Storytelling and musicianship. Thanks for the content. Atb

I want to know about the druids! Of course! And then the wizard, sorceror, warlock, and maybe clerics and pallys. Druids are certainly a must, ive read about them somewhat and its a lot of info and hear say.

I'm SO glad I found your channel! I am loving your content so far and am devouring it. I'm obsessed with pencil and paper RPGs and it's my main hobby, and I've always felt Bards were misplaced.

Hi Jess, Firstly, if you're interested in the neurological side of music, Oliver Sacks has written a book called Musicophilia. I don't know if it is any good, but I have read other books of his ("Awakenings", "A Leg To Stand On", "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and "Anthropologist on Mars") and enjoyed all of them. A big problem with DnD is that it is essentially a combat system that has been stretched to cover other things. It originated in a tabletop wargame called Chainmail, and you'll see why it is a lot stronger dealing with a certain type of story than more modern systems. I enjoyed playing it for a while when I was younger, but would never play it now. I've realised that a lot of things I despise in games like Oblivion and Skyrim are things that ultimately trace back to DnD - characters having classes and levels, monsters having levels, random encounters linked to levels, hit points... The fist character I tried playing in Oblivion was a bard, but I had to abandon him as I could no longer travel outside of the city - as I had levelled up using his speech skill, and other social traits, the game levelled up the creatures I would fight which didn't account for the fact I had very weak combat skills. If they had wanted to talk I would have been fine. Instead they wanted to kill me and did so repeatedly... I feel like most fantasy/historical role play systems follow this combat heavy streak that DnD pioneered sadly. They're not easy to get hold of in physical form, but there was a series of Forgotten Realms novels written by Elaine Cunningham (The Songs & Swords series) and the second book 'Elfsong' featured a few different types of bard, though in the books they were closer to singers looking for chances to perform than the idea of them as a news source. I enjoyed the books I read in the series, but I think you may only be able to get them in electronic format these days. They have quite a bit of charm and humour in them, and don't go overboard in trying to present the DnD mechanics as part of the story Thanks for an interesting video

I love the idea of Homer being a collective identity. It makes the Iliad’s perspective shifts make so much more sense

The idea of a bard buckling some swash likely comes from Robin Hood's Alan-a-Dale.

Leslie Fish is a great living bard, back in the 8os & 9os she travelled performing songs & stories about practical knowledge from making medicines & treating basic illnesses to making explosives & alcohol to why we shouldn't dig up radioactive waste

I love that you bring up fan culture as part of the bardic tradition ❤

watching this entire video, I was thinking of how you're something of a bard yourself; and you sure have the charisma and knowledge of one.

Anaïs Mitchell is a folk singer and writer whose music eventually became the hit musical Hadestown, a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Definitely a true bard.

I know you were trying to get people to do more historically accurate bard roleplay, but you kinda convinced me to be a bard irl.

Thank you for this entertaining and educational presentation. I always knew bards were important; it was nice to hear the whole story tied together

I love the idea that fan communities do what bards do! Taking what they love and making it their own and giving it new twists to share with others.

First of all you are a great communicator and very charismatic! And yes it would be great to see more of these videos!

Thank you very much for this inspiring presentation into international history of bards, I enjoyed every minute of it. Today we have so many singers, musicians, writers, actors and other performers... but most of them focused on "entertainment" or entertainment business only and they are missing the point. We need more true bards to make this world a better place for everyone.

Re Thom Merrilin - Thom is an interesting example of a Bard, because he not only (as a career) repeats and retells old legends, he also (as a character) creates New Legends, which will (probably) be retold by Bards in "Ages still to come..."

Love this little detour into RPG. Keep it up the good work, Bards are great!

An argument can be made for online content creators such as yourself are bards, being oral storytellers. Granted I think Sturgeon's Law provides an overly generous estimate of quality when it comes to internet content, but this channel is definitely one of the good ones.

Historical origins and perspectives on all of the modern "meme-ified" out clichéd gaming classes would be VERY appreciated.

Another technique that made cultures with an oral tradition possible is the memory palace, a mnemonic / visualization method that allows you to remember thousands of years of tribal history with perfect recall. A recent person who is occasionally called by the Bard moniker is Terence McKenna. I have listened to hundreds of hours of his talks, the voice is comforting background noise and increasingly well informed by research and experience

You're essentially a Bard ... you telling the story of bards is like Bard-ception

"You don't really see too many bards running around today" she says, recounting a history in her own words for the sake of an audience

The reason the bard in D&D has a mix of druidic magic, sorcery, swordsmanship, and thieving skills is because the idea is that in collecting and sharing all these stories, he's picked up on how to do a little bit of all the things the other classes do.

"That really weird mushroom you ate last week..." 🤣🍄

There are numerous examples of music used to fix a message in someone's mind. The jingle is a fine example. I still remember the words to commercials from over 60 years ago sung to a jingle while completely forgetting the spoken words.

I think I would place the Troubadours of medieval Provence (circa1100-1270s) in the Bardic tradition. I've always considered the Bards an English and Viking phenomenon. Yes the horrific Albigensian crusade pretty much destroyed them, but they were spreaders of culture, including Catharism and the new concept of courtly love (what we now call 'romance love' as well as news carriers ) Bernart de Ventadorn is a perfect of example of that art. The Troubadours of northern France were called Troveres. "Can Vei Lauzeta Mover" Is a favorite of mine. There were many songs in my youth that could be called stories set to music. Horse with no name. America Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy Ghost riders in the sky - the Highway men The Highway man - also by the highway men - my favorite because I believe in reincarnation Hotel California The Eagles Oh, as someone else mentions "The Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gorden Lightfoot.

Jess! Sermons existed! In the middle ages priests & wandering preachers would use fables & stories & news to illustrate their sermons, expound on the biblical readings, & the moral lessons in both. It is also worth pointing out that bards is specific to celtic languages, and were alternately supressed and exalted (in shakespeare's time, fir example, it would have been derogatory, a centuryish later it would become romanticized and given to him as a posthumous epithet). The more general term in english would be a minstrel or a juggler

I play a bard in DnD. He's a Treant who came from another plane, so the stories he tells confuse people since they're believable and intricate but indescribably foreign. Of course he also comes from a culture where the highest honor a dead loved one can be given is being fashioned into a musical instrument (since you know, trees are wood) and he plays a lute made of the flesh of his dead human mentor and best friend.

Thanks, this was an awesome video. I'm a shamanic practitioner, and storytelling is a key aspect of my work. But I'd never considered myself (potentially) as part of the bardic tradition until watching your video. Very cool.

I really enjoyed the story of the Viking (think it was a Viking, could have been Saxon) who got his revenge on the lord that killed him. The lord tied his head to his horse and as it rode along the bard's teeth bit into his leg, infected him and eventually killed him. A long revenge but a good reason not to cross a bard!

This is the 2nd video of yours I've seen - and methinks I would enjoy seeing a similar class break down for other classes. I'm recomending this video for my players to help them understand the role of the bard in my FRPG world (homebrew with a lot of history).

D&D Bard became a Minstrel class in 2e AD&D, and stayed there.

Pete Seeger was a modern Bard, along with his inspiring figures and contemporaries such as Joe Hill, Woodie Guthrie, his sister Peggy, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and other folk singers.

One of the best takes on the Bard is, oddly enough, the Pern series with the Harpers...of course, the harp is also the symbol associated with a few bardic traditions

Love it in general. Also look beyond D&D, in Pathfinder 2e are bards that get to roll bardic lore to try to recall knowledge on any subject under the assumption they might have come across it in story or song on their travels.

This video was great! If you're still deciding on another character class to cover, how about the paladin?

I would like to comment on the notion of agricultural surpluses allowing for leisure time--this is a pretty widespread idea but modern archeology and sociology calls it into question. It seems that hunter gatherers spent far less time acquiring food than early farmers did so they had plenty of time for storytelling. And Indigenous peoples who were recently nomadic have rich oral traditions of storytelling and lore, and also shamans and elders who are knowledge keepers.

I'd love to hear the history-of-DnD-classes that you described: this one was a lot of fun!

I’m disappointed you didn’t mention Taliesin as a bard who wrote himself into history and legend. You should totally do Druids next

I find it so interesting that you mentioned fandom, because that is the first thing I thought of. Also, no one can tell me Hosier is not a bard.

Another great video. Doing more on the other D&D classes would be fun to see.It'd also be cool to see a collaboration with a channel like V.Birchwood or any other tangantly themed channel (the military viewpoint from your sister and brother-in-law in that one video added some a nice extra layer of insight).

As an old DM I give great leeway on 5e bards. I refer to them as a lump of all entertainers from the medieval era which mixes in the 1st edition character class of "Jester" from Dragon magazine #60 as well as the 1st edition Thief-Acrobat from Unearthed Arcana. Thus a "Bard" can be: an acrobat, a juggler, a minstrel/troubador, a thespian, a jester (joke-teller),or a story-teller. Essentially it allows flexibility in the class by offering a subclass specialty. Yes, it waters down the pure idea of a bard, but it gives a wider range of options for the player by thinking of bards more generally.

Consider before electricity, people had to gather around the fire as soon as the sun went down. Listening to stories or songs was the only entertainment at night.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Celtic origin of the name “bard” as they relate to druids and ovates, nor one of the most famous bards, Taliesin.

This is quality content! Btw You would look EPIC with elf ears! :D

Really neat video. In Lord of the Rings Online, there is a Minstrel class. Rather than tradition "Hit Points", LotRO uses "Morale". A Minstrel can boost morale by playing songs and telling stories. They can also demoralize enemies using similar techniques. Not QUITE the spirit of the bard, but kinda, sorta, maybe like it.

Love the video. It digs into what tropes bards draw from, that they historically existed (still do!), and I'll use that to rant for a bit about the class. My issue with D&D bards is that they're kind of one-note for the fantasy role they open up. I know you can express different things through roleplay, but we're dealing with mechanical expression here, how the rules allow you to *competently* express what you are; and bards are tied to high charisma. I studied musicology and do music and poetry, so when I want to make a bard self-insert of myself, the bard is very much disconnected from what artistry entails. Remember that charisma as your attribute is part of your "basic" bodily expression, kind of your biology, in D&D. It's what you're good at even if you weren't the class you were playing. This is important. Barbarians smash things, so they benefit from high strength, rogues sneak and steal, so they benefit from high dexterity, druids listen to the world in a subtle way, so they benefit from high wisdom, wizards are self-taught magicians, spending ages pouring over tomes for research, so they benefit from high intelligence. Stuff like that. So why, exactly, does a bard have high charisma? Why are they often mechanically inclined as if they're travelling circus artists? Why does the background in performer give you acrobatics? *Why is the bard so roguish and innately extrovertedly charming?* Now, music and art is charming and draws you in. A lot of it makes sense being tied to charisma. But like your examples in the start of your video, D&D's portrayal of magical art is kind of schewed. The stereotypical D&D bard is a jovial, extroverted, charming traveler that rides the social environment as if it's just a merry-go-round. It kind of fits with the Greek poets, of course, but not with the village storyteller. The bard's role as a storyteller and history-keeper holds up, because that's truly something they could do and what they do in D&D. But in real life, bards are more stereotypically like sages or hermits. Poets aren't like bang bros, they hang out by their clay, papyrus, paper, typewriter, computer, whatever, and sit there for hours alone doing their craft. I've talked a lot with other artists that play D&D, and musical competence is not as much charisma as other things. Some music is very much charisma-based - like punk - but a lot of classical is highly mathematical, which would be intelligence, being a performer is somewhere between dexterity (demanding performances) and wisdom (kind of "sensing" what "sounds right"). Musicians can be and often are lovely people, of course, but they're most usually quite introverted and brooding about their craft. Even modern art that is often not technically demanding, like stacked bricks in minimalist sculpture, generally work not because they're innately charismatic, but because they make you think about the world; in D&D, rolling to get a hint for a puzzle is not charisma-based, it's intelligence based. It's just weird that D&D has tied bards to basically be Homeric rock musicians, instead of what most art entails, which is more akin to what the wizard stereotypically does in between adventures; slowly practicing, researching, figuring out what sounds right. I'm aware that D&D wants your character to be actively acting characters that change the world, and that's good, but it's weird that the avenue to magic-through-art is tied to being a social butterfly, not being tied to having a material, hard-to-acquire, hard-to-perfect, technical skill. Like, even being a Homeric storyteller is tied to memory, that would be intelligence, I believe; if not, it'd be wisdom; it would've definitely NOT been charisma. All D&D classes have some problem of linearity in this way (like how fighters are better because they're stronger, not smarter), but at least, like, the wizard is mechanically expressed as skilled because he researches and works a lot. It's the same for artists. Artists are not Han Solos. They're nerds. You bring up Tolkien as an example of a bard, and it's on point.

You have greatly underestimated the importance of story in the oldest human societies. Stories are how knowledge was passed down through the generations since time immemorial. People could not have survived without them.

humans are really good at pattern recognition, to the point where we have some people with pattern recognition so good it becomes a disability. music, rhythm, prose, rime, ectra are all really strong tools for taking a linear story and creating patterns with in it for us to memorize and build from. hence the use of music as a memorization tool. Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, for instance, is a powerful tool for creating rhythm in speech. which in turn makes memorizing lines and queues far easier. in the words of Adam Neely, repetition legitimizes. if you can repeat patterns as a tool for story telling you can further that story telling. we see this everywhere in art and music. Leitmotif is an excellent example of this principle. it is probably one of the strongest tools for raw musical storytelling in media simply because the pattern of a motif is memorable and thus the context of that pattern sticks with us, allowing for easy reference to the original context without spelling it out for the audience. Music in games like Undertale are almost entirely built on leitmotif. while games like kingdom hearts utilize it to connect their convoluted character relationships and communicate broader story beats, even using instrumentation to further communicate these beats. in films like Star Wars the motif of the imperial march can set tone and tell vast parts of a story all on it's own. music acts as a repeatable pattern our minds can latch on to, honestly that is one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience.

The last time I played a Bard in 5E I made a point of writing notes on everything that happened, with the intent being that my character then went on, after everything was done, travelling the world and spreading the stories of everything my party had went through. It's true a lot of the bardic abilities are there to help make them viable but I think a lot of it can be explained. For instance Bards will travel gaining many different kinds of experiences and learning about many things which lends into Jack of All Trades. Then of course there is the magic of music, it stands to reason that in a world with an abundance of magic that Bards would learn to incorporate this into their story telling, with a few extra bardic flairs like Vicious Mockery being able to cut someone with words. In short Bards in D&D are still like the Bards of real life, it's just not shown inherently with how the class plays. It's more for the people playing to help bring that out in their roleplaying.

Brilliant! Thank you! I loved this video and please do another on a gaming class. Personally, one class I've come back to on every rpg or mmorpg is Paladin. Obviously the magic side is ahistorical, but the warrior/priest combination has occurred in many cultures. Examples besides the Knights Templar and Warrior Monks of the far east include the Assyrian priestesses of Ishtar, who accompanied the armies on campaign and blessed them before battle. Their ceremonial gear on campaign was full battle gear with a bow, which they could use in battle if needed. Anyway, just a thought.

To your question/request about how music makes things easier to remember: Music very easily and conveniently ignites and prompts your left & right hemispheres to converse with one another. Your right hemisphere is largely oriented towards what's going in the present moment, and it tends to activate and respond to any given affair spontaneously and emotionally. Your left hemisphere is where language is mostly centered and you also have executive agency or free will; it's also where your sense of the past and the future are centered. Between the two hemispheres are multitudes of connections in the corpus callosum. It's often referred to as associative tissue. It moves signals back and forth between the two hemispheres so that your hands and ears/other senses progress in an intellectually significant way. Music stimulates that. Without it, your brain would be like a candle trying to light a cathedral. With it, it's like stringing up holiday lights from wall to wall. Good answer?

There is a role the bard assumes in rpg trope that i believe was overlooked and that is the role of military musicians to aid in coordination and communication across the chaos of battle. In the early age of gunpowder to the advent of modern communications, musicians served as part of the signal core as the horns and drums could be heard as distinct sounds Amidst the din of battle and there are many traditional instruments that took their form in connection to military service. Applied appropriately, this could account for the bards ability to buff the party and atleast through my understanding wield magic through performing arts.

I like the video, but i like the way d&d made the bard. It is important to look at the value that music, history, and entertainment brings to people. In d&d, they give inspiration, raise morale, and tell jokes. But they also mock, whisper horrors, and tell bad omens. With a little bit of magic woven in and passed down throughout the magical history of the d&d world, there is endless potential of how they could be portrayed. It was pretty well thought out, but it also left a lot to interpretation. That way, you can really make the character yours.

definitely finish wheel of time you will love Tom's full arc

I'm currently playing a tiefling bard who's main reason for performing is to try to make his race more accepted by society in general and not shunned or stoned on sight. I'm also having fun putting new lyrics to songs so they fit into the game genre. The first one I did for my bard was to turn Born to be Wild into Born to be Reviled which is a generalised version of how a tiefling came to be.

This is my favorite channel

The Harpers Hall in the Dragon Riders of Pern series (Dragon singer and dragon song in particular are focused on the harpers) are a great model for the idea.

Cool information. Thanks for studying it and passing it on.

Very nice video, but you missed the Welsh prophetic bards like Taliesin and Myrddin, who directly inspired more druidic characters like Merlin and Gandalf.

I'm playing a Bard in a D&D campaign. While he definitely has some elements of a rock star (I sing a snippet of a modern pop song to trigger each of my spells), I also made sure that he has a high score in wisdom, intelligence, and arcana to show that he's a keeper of knowledge and stories.

A story will always resonate so long as it contains some element of truth.

thank you for a thoughtful and interesting video. I do think that the tradition of bards in England should have had an honorary mention, especially due to the role of Merlin/Tailasin in bringing Arthur up. would love to see a video about guilds and how they actually worked in the different classes. and by the way... Bob Dylan I think is a great example for a bard, both in the storytelling and in the affect he had on society.

Sort of related story: There was a battle during the Peninsula war, the British were attempting to relieve a French siege on a Spanish city, but things didn’t quite go to plan so they tried to return to the city. On the march back they were surprised by the French and the British pulled off one of the luckiest and most impressive victories in military history, which unfortunately was of absolutely zero strategic significance in the end, but that’s another story. During this battle there was a hill on the right flank of the British position that they needed to hold to prevent the French from being able to get behind their main line and surround them. Losing the hill would have lost the battle. Unfortunately the British only had 500 men to hold the hill with, and the French sent 5,000 men to take it, so naturally they retreated down the hill. They were met at the bottom by one of the General staff with compliments and we’re ever so sorry but you need to retake the hill. Obviously this was not possible, but there was no other choice. So the Major in charge formed his men up in skirmish order at the bottom of the hill, began singing “Hearts of Oak”, and led the way back up the hill to certain death. Those 500 men got nearly to the summit of the hill, and not only held their position, but actually managed to repulse an attack by multiple French companies. By the time British reinforcements arrived they had been reduced to less than half their number, but they still held. Reportedly the Major continued singing to his troops for the entire duration, having nothing else better to do than angrily shake his sword at the French and call them names between songs. When a second full regiment of British infantry arrived, by some miracle they succeeded in driving the French back off the hill, securing the flank and ensuring that the main line in the field below could accomplish the task of defeating the French centre unhindered, a task which they performed admirably. Unfortunately the French army, though temporarily defeated, still outnumbered the British forces, and once it reformed was able to reinvest the siege, meaning the entire battle accomplished absolutely nothing. As usual during the Peninsula war, this was thanks to Spanish ineptitude, who in this instance took the day off and refused to either aid the British during the battle, or pursue the defeated French army, because it was a Sunday, and God wouldn’t like it.

I think a history of the origin of Paladins would be interesting, from the Paladins of Charlemange's court to the book Three Hearts and Three Lions

The Vadic teachings are one of the oldest verbally transmitted scriptures we have now. It has not changed science it inception due to the specific training of the monks who learned these. These monks learned the hundreds of passages perfectly, even down the the inflection a specific word in a specific passage must have. They must do all this with no mistakes to be able to complete their training.

I'd just like to say that you might want enjoy the take - and breadth of variations - of the older editions on the Bard for D&D. While obviously the combat capability and spellcasting were still there (which, to be fair, I'd say is not completely out of touch with Bards being wordly travellers with a lot of practical experience and knowledge under their belts - pretty much every single class in D&D gets some level of fighting prowess and for a good reason, given the setting), the old edition bards focused far more on the music and lore aspect, down to being pretty much the only ones capable of identifying magical items without the need to resort to spells; Bardic Knowledge in 3.5 was a class-exclusive skill that granted greater insight into any sort of lore pertaining to places, people, history and items than the general "knowledge" skill checks did; bardic performances were capable of providing a variety of effects that affected all who listened (currently getting ready to use it myself in the middle of a siege to boost soldier morale, combine it with an item that boosts the range of your voice and it becomes a true rallying boon!). Being skilled as a performer was directly tied to whether you were successful in using your music to a specific effect. Then there are lots of offshoot classes for specific types of bard, including ones that use speech over music, or ones that have tapped into their search and spread of knowledge as their primary focus... One of my biggest pet peeve with how modern generations of players tend to interpret the Bard though is that the 5e version has handwaved any of the importance of music to the point where I know more people playing "bards" who are just dancers or painters or "insert any artsy activity here" and use their preferred artistic medium to achieve magical effects. And while I appreciate the creativity of it, it's.... it's not a bard. It misses every point of what a bard is at its core. If the intent was just to have a general artist, they would have named the class something less specific dammit; if you are a bard, it comes with as specific of a territory as being tied to nature as a druid. It irks me to a ridiculous degree, to be honest.

The Ranger class would make the most sense as the next video in the series since you can relate it back to Tolkien pretty clearly.

😊really good stuff! I can’t believe I feel like I learned something timeless about history from a KZfaq Vid! Having said that, I would definitely be In for more Classes of characters breakdowns. Also, you should definitely finish Wheel of Time. Review and reaction videos demanded. The books of course, not the TV show. 😂

Stompin' Tom Conners fits the word. A bard of Canada.

TBF D&D is a high-fantasy superhero game, so pure medieval bard would just ... not work. So when I rolled my new bard for this campaign, the only really bard-y thing was that he had, prior to his adventuring life, worked as a traveling musician. But overall the D&D bard as a fantasy hero is still best understood as deriving its magic from spoken word OR music, art, dance, or just expression, and I lean into the spoken word and gesture/expression. Think of Gandalf dispelling the magic Grima* wrought against Theoden and Edoras, not by studying from a book like a wizard (although he does love books and tomes of lore), or just innate exposure to some source of magic like a sorcerer, or from a call to the divine or to nature like a druid or cleric, but through sheer persuasion and presence and inspiration to Theoden to succeed on his wisdom save against Grima's spells. I don't do horny bard. So most of my magic is enchantment or illusion or divination based (it's a big party so we've got a Cleric, Wizard, and Artificer to do blasty/damagy if necessary), all aimed at getting the info we need or convincing our enemies to do the wrong thing. Which... the one thing that sucks about Eloquence bard is that you don't have spell attacks because you're mostly making them do saving throws, and it's almost impossible to fail a Persuasion or Deception check (min 21 or 18) so about the only ability checks I make that have much chance of rolling badly on are initiative rolls. So I've had an inspiration point for three sessions now and not been able to use it. But the RP options are endless, at least as long as you talk to your DM and make sure that you're not going to spend weeks crawling through Tomb of Annihilation or something, because building your bard as a party face becomes really useless if you don't meet any sentient creatures. Learned that the hard way. *clearly a warlock, with Saruman as his patron, but at this point is Saruman a Celestial, or a Fiend, or a Great Old One who's just super not un-fathomable?

Whether D&D can make a bard class makes sense or not, the characters that arise from that particular class are amazing. And, in my experience as a Critter and a Dropout, the fandoms they've spawned are FULL of bards and artists of all kinds. 🙂

What will you be celebrating? Yes, why not? (The fantasy trope characters.) Always nice to hear your voice, and contemplate your grace. Cheers. o/

I highly recommend watching Tiger and Dragon dorama. It's about a yakuza who wants to learn rakugo, its 12 episodes long and pretty funny overall.