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Returning 35 results for 'bad bards diffusing career relatively'.
Monsters
Acquisitions Incorporated
and earnest debate, he demonstrates an equal flair for planning and forethought, mad combat moves (involving leaping off high places whenever possible), and dark vengeance.
Viari's career as an
adventurer was nearly cut short during a battle of which the bards still sing. Unleashing a devastating attack with the aptly named Apocalypse Dagger, the rogue destroyed a giant single-handedly — and lost
Halfling
Legacy
This doesn't reflect the latest rules and lore.
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Species
Basic Rules (2014)
that, avoiding offense. Standing about 3 feet tall, they appear relatively harmless and so have managed to survive for centuries in the shadow of empires and on the edges of wars and political strife
wide and wonder-filled world. For them, adventuring is less a career than an opportunity or sometimes a necessity.
Halfling Names
A halfling has a given name, a family name, and possibly a nickname
Bard
Legacy
This doesn't reflect the latest rules and lore.
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Classes
Basic Rules (2014)
of song, speech, and the magic they contain. Bards say that the multiverse was spoken into existence, that the words of the gods gave it shape, and that echoes of these primordial Words of Creation
still resound throughout the cosmos. The music of bards is an attempt to snatch and harness those echoes, subtly woven into their spells and powers. The greatest strength of bards is their sheer
Urchin
Legacy
This doesn't reflect the latest rules and lore.
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Backgrounds
Player’s Handbook (2014)
recuperate. You’ve survived despite all odds, and did so through cunning, strength, speed, or some combination of each.
You begin your adventuring career with enough money to live modestly but
I eat like a pig and have bad manners.
6
I think anyone who’s nice to me is hiding evil intent.
7
I don’t like to bathe.
8
I bluntly say what other people are hinting at
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Player's Handbook (2014)
Learning from Experience True bards are not common in the world. Not every minstrel singing in a tavern or jester cavorting in a royal court is a bard. Discovering the magic hidden in music requires
hard study and some measure of natural talent that most troubadours and jongleurs lack. It can be hard to spot the difference between these performers and true bards, though. A bard’s life is spent
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Basic Rules (2014)
Learning from Experience True bards are not common in the world. Not every minstrel singing in a tavern or jester cavorting in a royal court is a bard. Discovering the magic hidden in music requires
hard study and some measure of natural talent that most troubadours and jongleurs lack. It can be hard to spot the difference between these performers and true bards, though. A bard’s life is spent
Backgrounds
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus
.
You begin your adventuring career with enough money to live modestly but securely for at least ten days. How did you come by that money? What allowed you to break free of your desperate
a pig and have bad manners.
6
I think anyone who’s nice to me is hiding evil intent.
7
I don’t like to bathe.
8
I bluntly say what other people are hinting at or hiding
Backgrounds
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
organization, but who serve as its hands, head, and heart.
As a prelude to your adventuring career (and in preparation for it), you served as an agent of a particular faction in Faerûn. You might have
knowledge, rather than brute force. Harper agents are often proficient in Investigation, enabling them to be adept at snooping and spying. They often seek aid from other Harpers, sympathetic bards and
Backgrounds
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus
No career criminal in Baldur’s Gate operates without being aware of the Guild. Some studiously keep a low profile, carrying just the occasional smuggled load in with legitimate merchandise, or
tail and run when things look bad.
6
An innocent person is in prison for a crime that I committed. I’m okay with that.
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
, the Talons are terrifying. Their numbers are relatively few, but they’re organized enough to oppress Lekar’s ragged survivors and enforce Drakov’s totalitarian laws. In the face of zombie hordes
executions serve the greater good and impose necessary order, but make it clear that zombies aren’t the realm’s only monsters. Only Bad Decisions. There is one simple truth in Falkovnia: the dead are
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Embarrassment Almost every bard has suffered at least one bad experience in front of an audience, and chances are you’re no exception. No one becomes famous right away, after all; perhaps you had a
few small difficulties early in your career, or maybe it took you a while to restore your reputation after one agonizing night when the fates conspired to bring about your theatrical ruin. The ways
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Basic Rules (2014)
agents include sophisticated bards, zealous paladins, talented mages, and grizzled warriors. They are chosen primarily for their loyalty and are experts in observation, stealth, innuendo, and combat
’ Alliance fights the things that the shopkeeper in his bed has never even heard of. We remove threats before the town mayor even knows about it. We make bad things go away. That’s what we’re good at.”
Rameel Jos
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
. What better way to think of the big bad monster at the center of a web of even bigger and badder plans than as the CEO of a megacorporation, using every resource to dominate the market? What is an
these hired helpers to prominence for their importance to the campaign story. And, of course, for comic effect. When the characters are relatively low level, an Acquisitions Incorporated style of play can
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Player's Handbook (2014)
townsfolk. Chaotic neutral (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else. Many rogues and bards are chaotic neutral. Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what
, Artemis is not an ideal adventurer. He began his career as a villain, and only cooperates with heroes when he must — and when it’s in his own best interests. In most games, evil adventurers cause
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
vengeance. Viari’s career as an adventurer was nearly cut short during a battle of which the bards still sing. Unleashing a devastating attack with the aptly named Apocalypse Dagger, the rogue destroyed a
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
balance, but hate the idea that “balance” means good and bad things can both happen to you. Good things happening to you and bad things happening to other people seems perfectly reasonable.
2 You
skulls as a child. Nobody ever told you there was a career in that sort of thing.
4 You watched someone close to you die, and were overcome by the feeling that you should be making money off it
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Player's Handbook (2014)
relatively harmless and so have managed to survive for centuries in the shadow of empires and on the edges of wars and political strife. They are inclined to be stout, weighing between 40 and 45 pounds
them, adventuring is less a career than an opportunity or sometimes a necessity. AFFABLE AND POSITIVE
Halflings try to get along with everyone else and are loath to make sweeping generalizations
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Player's Handbook (2014)
briny grave. Fear and bloodshed are no strangers to you, and you’ve garnered a somewhat unsavory reputation in many a port town. If you decide that your sailing career involved piracy, you can choose
the Bad Reputation feature (see sidebar) instead of the Ship’s Passage feature. Variant Feature: Bad Reputation
If your character has a sailor background, you may select this background feature
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Basic Rules (2014)
boastfulness and has a fear of heights resulting from a bad fall during her career as a thief. Artemis Entreri is always prepared for the worst and moves with a quick, precise confidence.
Consider their
townsfolk. Chaotic Neutral. (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else. Many rogues and bards are chaotic neutral. Lawful Evil. (LE) creatures methodically take
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
resemble relatively small frost or stone giants. They use armor and weapons similar to what other combatants on Ysgard use in the eternal battle. The transformation that created fensirs left them with an
seems like a transparently bad idea. What were those giants thinking?
—Bigby
And yet, can we fairly say that the existence of fensirs is “transparently bad”? Some might argue they are a
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
Scholars, wizards, druids, and bards of other races have different ideas about how halflings escape peril, suggesting that by virtue of something in their nature, they occupy a special place in the
off bad luck or to bring good fortune. Villages or even families might have superstitions observed by no one else, such as the following:
For a safe journey through a forest, leave a few seeds or a
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mythic Odysseys of Theros
or their family estates and go about the leisured life of aristocrats. Their households are run by a class of servants made up of lektoi who were unable or unwilling to undertake a military career
the vast majority of Akros’s population, the serfs largely reside outside the protection of the Kolophon, laboring to grow the staple crops that support Akros’s citizens and its trade. A relatively
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
, and the relatively small stature of present-day humans is a mark of their degeneracy. Others imagine remote realms—cloud castles or lost continents—where Brobdingnagian people dwell, set apart from
apprentice of Mordenkainen and creator of the spell Bigby’s hand. Though he began his career determined to use magic to dominate and control others, he eventually changed his ways and has worked hard
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Tomb of Annihilation
perfectly still and pose no threat as long as the tomb remains relatively quiet. If any character talks loudly, steps on a piece of broken pottery, or makes any other equivalent noise while in the tomb, read
heaped around Shagambi’s bones: 200 gp, five moonstones (50 gp each), the fine music box activated by the trap (250 gp), and an instrument of the bards (Canaith mandolin). The instrument turns to dust and
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Player's Handbook (2014)
bad fall during her career as a thief. Artemis Entreri is always prepared for the worst and moves with a quick, precise confidence.
Consider their ideals. Tika Waylan is innocent, almost childlike
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
, skimming from the coffers of either temple, running illegal gambling at the Sleeping Giant — any of these activities could net a nice profit with relatively limited risk. Staying on the Good Side If
-work miners. Doing so makes acquiring ongoing concessions or information from townsfolk much easier, but puts the characters in the bad graces of Sharna Quirstiron at the Miner’s Exchange. Leads to the
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Volo's Guide to Monsters
receive relatively cordial treatment from those other hags instead. Every hag has a particular status relative to others of her kind and to hags of all sorts, based on age, abilities, influence
on rare magic to the hag’s daughter. THE RULE OF THREE
They say that things come in threes. Good things. Bad things. Strange things. Hags and purveyors of witchcraft embrace the Rule of Three, as it
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
Battle Balloon Through the winter clouds that surround the castle on this desolate hill, you see a shape emerge. Something so gigantic, you can’t believe it can actually fly. Airships are relatively
franchises. The versatility of an airship allows for the rapid shipping of goods, mercenaries, and loot. Such a vessel also allows a quick escape from sticky developments and deals gone bad. Battle
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
, since no one in Mirabar wishes to see the surface city wiped out. It would simply be bad for business. Mirabar spares no expense in defending its wealth, and hires as many mages and adventurers as
dust. Still, despite the city’s overall wealth, there are rich and (relatively) poor Mirabarrans. Not everyone shares in the coin the city’s sales bring in, and wage workers whose income is
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Acquisitions Incorporated
can challenge Captain Athgar. The (mostly) good members of the crew can handle the bad apples backing Athgar. Certainly, with such aid, the adventurers can handle the captain and his priest! Belle
job or a last-resort career. This is remarkably shortsighted, as the gig has a startling number of upsides. For example, it’s a job that allows you to wear a lot of scarves and sashes. That’s rare
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
. Although some of the dancing is wanton and performed for show, large-scale ring dances in the street for all ages are also popular. All the dancing ends at dusk, after which bards and minstrels perform at
, on his statue in the City of the Dead, and atop the altars of the House of Wonder. Bards perform songs in honor of the wizard all over the city. The Open Lord visits taverns and inns throughout
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse->Sigil and the Outlands
animosity. They have bad blood with the Harmonium, who view the Fated as wrongheaded and dangerous, and Factol Darkwood and Factol Montgomery of the Society of Sensation are bitter rivals. Fraternity of
state of superior being. Factol Saladryn (neutral, elf archmage) guides the relatively young faction. She rarely sojourns beyond Sigil anymore, sacrificing her own journey of personal discovery to lead
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus
patriars, traveling nobles, famed bards, and socially ambitious Lower City residents hoping to rub shoulders with the elite. The inn is unfussy, but conducts its service with flawless technique and the
companies — a career that began in rebellion against her stodgy family. Realizing that her family needed a long term source of financial support, Yvandre opened a sword-wielding school in a guest
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer
patriars, traveling nobles, famed bards, and socially ambitious Lower City residents hoping to rub shoulders with the elite. The inn is unfussy, but conducts its service with flawless technique and the
Flaming Fist and other mercenary companies — a career that began in rebellion against her stodgy family. Realizing that her family needed a long term source of financial support, Yvandre opened a sword
Compendium
- Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk
Cragmaw band that waylaid Sildar. The goblin gave Sildar a bad feeling, but the Cragmaws didn’t seem to know the creature. The goblin whispered “you’re not what Ruxithid wants” to Sildar before leaving the
”) and his mangy pet wolf, Ripper. The bugbear is filled with delusions of grandeur and views himself as a mighty king just beginning his career of conquest. He refers to himself in the third person






