One lute, three songs, and the serene confidence of somebody who has just persuaded two dragons that their real enemy is each other.
A bard doesn't fight. A bard arranges fights. Provocation persuades two monsters that they hate each other more than they hate you, and you stand back and watch a dragon kill a troll on your behalf. Peacemaking calms a creature — or a whole room — so it simply stops attacking. Discordance plays something so unpleasant that the target gets measurably weaker at everything.
Every song runs through Musicianship first: you must successfully play the instrument before the effect even attempts. That's why Musicianship is the first skill to max and why a bard's pack rattles with spare lutes and drums — instruments wear out, usually at the worst possible moment.
The bard is the most social profession on the shard and the best support character in a family party. Peacemaking saves a wipe. Discordance makes a boss meaningfully easier for everyone. And a Provocation bard, properly played, kills things far above their own weight class without ever taking a hit.
You get 700 skill points in total, which is seven skills at 100 (Grandmaster). Here is a sheet that works, and why each line is on it. You can load this exact spread on the hero sheet in the magazine and slide the numbers around.
| Skill | Points | Why it's here |
|---|---|---|
| Musicianship | 100 | The gate on all three songs. Max this first or nothing else works. |
| Provocation | 100 | Turn two monsters on each other. The bard's signature trick and main damage source. |
| Peacemaking | 100 | Calm a creature or a whole area. The single best panic button in a party. |
| Discordance | 100 | Weakens a target's skills and resistances. Makes the whole party hit harder. |
| Magery | 100 | Recall, Gate, heals. A bard has no travel or healing of their own. |
| Meditation | 100 | Mana for the Magery half. No metal armour. |
| Evaluating Intelligence | 100 | Spell damage, so you can finish off what your provoked monsters leave standing. |
| Total | 700 | of 700 |
Dropping Discordance frees 100 points for Resisting Spells, which a fragile bard will sometimes miss. Dropping Peacemaking is a mistake — it's the ability your family will thank you for.
Each creature has a difficulty rating, and your success chance is your skill versus that. This is why bards train on progressively nastier things rather than grinding one spot — you're climbing a difficulty ladder, not a time ladder.
Skills go up by using them, and they go up fastest on a task that is just barely hard for you. Climb the rungs in order — each one stops paying off, and that's your cue to move up.
NPC bards train Musicianship, and the Provocation/Peacemaking/Discordance trio to 30. Then just play your lute, over and over, anywhere. Musicianship trains on its own with no target needed — the easiest start of any profession.
Peacemaking trains by calming anything, including town animals — stand in Britain and calm the sheep. For Provocation you need two creatures: find a spot with a pair of weak monsters and set them on each other.
Move to tougher pairs — orcs, lizardmen, ratmen in Despise. Your songs succeed based on the creature's difficulty, so the trick is always to be working on things that are just at the edge of what you can charm.
This is where a bard gets strong. Provoke two serious monsters, let the winner emerge half-dead, finish it with a spell. Discordance trains well here too — apply it to everything, every fight, whether or not you strictly need to.
Destard. Two dragons fighting each other is the whole bard fantasy, and the loot is superb. Bring spare instruments; you will break them.
Cheap to start and cheap to run — no reagents for the songs themselves. The one thing to over-buy is instruments, because they break and a broken instrument mid-fight is genuinely dangerous.
| What | Where | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Several lutes or harps | Any provisioner or music shop | They wear out and break. Carry three minimum. This is the lesson every bard learns the hard way, once. |
| A drum or tambourine | Provisioner | Different instruments, same skill. Pick whichever sound you can stand hearing a thousand times. |
| A spellbook and reagents | Mage shop | For the Magery half: Recall, Gate, heals, and a finishing spell. |
| A runebook | Mage shop or tinker | Bards travel to wherever the interesting monsters are. Mark everything. |
| Cloth and leather, no metal | Tailor | Meditation again. Also, bards should look good. |
| Bandages | Tailor | When Peacemaking fails and something is suddenly very interested in you. |
The right room makes training three times faster. These are the spots worth a rune.
Provocation needs a pair. Learning to spot good pairs is most of the skill of playing a bard.
Musicianship and Peacemaking train fine on sheep, cows and chickens. No danger, no cost, and you can do it while chatting.
Reliable pairs of mid-tier monsters at the right difficulty for the 50-to-70 climb.
The bard's endgame. Set the dragons on each other and collect what's left.
Instruments break. A bard with no working instrument has no profession at all, and it always happens in the middle of something. Three in the pack, always.
When a fight is going wrong, an area Peacemaking stops everything attacking and buys the party time to heal or run. This one ability makes a bard welcome in every group forever.
You cannot provoke one monster into anything. If your Provocation "isn't working", check that you actually have a second creature in range — that's usually the whole problem.
It's a flat debuff on the target that helps everyone in the party. Takes one song. New bards forget it constantly and it's free value.
Britannia runs on favours. These are the people you want in your party and on your friends list.