As a jester, court jester, buffoon, clown, harlequin or a fool, you are a performer that entertains with a wide variety of skills: principal ones included songs, music, and storytelling; additional ones included acrobatics, dancing, juggling, telling jokes, and magic tricks.
Much of your type of entertainment is performed in a comic style as well as making contemporary jokes in word or song about people or events well known to their audiences.
Jesters tend to wear brightly colored motley pattern clothes or costumes with eccentric hats and garish makeup or face paint, etc.
- Skill Proficiencies: Performance, Slight of Hand, Athletics, and Acrobatics.
- Tool Proficiencies: Musical Instrument
You can often find work as a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain him and his guests. You can also secure employment as an itinerant performer who entertains common folk at fairs, a circus, markets, inns, taverns, and theaters. At such a place, you receive free lodging and food of a modest or comfortable standard (depending on the quality of the establishment), as long as you perform each night. In addition, your performance makes you something of a local figure. When strangers recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you.
Suggested Characteristics
Jesters tend towards being rather free-spirited, carefree, highly creative and mischievous. Some jesters may act a tad off and exhibit eccentric or erratic demeanor both on and off the stage. Such behaviors may or may not be a part of their act or shtick contrived and done deliberately, but perhaps not sincerely as a part of their stage persona. Then there those who are truly touched in the head or completely mad as a march hare...
| d6 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I’m oblivious to etiquette and social expectations. |
| 2 | I eat like a pig and have bad manners. |
| 3 | I hide scraps of food and trinkets away in my pockets. |
| 4 | I know a story relevant to almost every situation. |
| 5 | Whenever I come to a new place, I collect local rumors and spread gossip. |
| 6 | I change my mood or my mind as quickly as I change key in a song. |
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | I like seeing the smiles on people’s faces when I perform. That’s all that matters. |
| 2 | When I perform, I make the world better than it was. |
| 3 | The world is in need of new ideas and bold action. |
| 4 | I try to help those in need, no matter what the personal cost. |
| 5 | The voices speak to me and usually, they forget to tell me about the rules. |
| 6 | My gifts are meant to be shared with all, not used for my own benefit. |
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | My instrument is my most treasured possession, and it reminds me of someone I love. |
| 2 | I want to be famous, whatever it takes. |
| 3 | I would do anything for the other members of my old troupe. |
| 4 | It is difficult to get anyone to take me seriously. |
| 5 | I would sacrifice my life and my soul to protect the innocent. |
| 6 | I suffer awful visions of a coming disaster and will do anything to prevent it. |
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I talk to spirits that no one else can see. |
| 2 | I say whatever comes to my mind. |
| 3 | I have an addiction, or several. |
| 4 | A scandal prevents me from ever going home again. That kind of trouble seems to follow me around. |
| 5 | I once satirized a noble who still wants my head. It was a mistake that I will likely repeat. |
| 6 | I’ll do anything to win fame and renown. |