College of Satire 2024

Bards of the College of Satire are called jesters. They use lowbrow stories, daring acrobatics, exaggerated parodies, and cutting jokes to entertain audiences, ranging from the Drunken crowds of in a rundown dockside pub to the nobles of a king’s royal court. Where other bards seek forgotten lore or tales of epic bravery, jesters ferret out embarrassing and hilarious stories of all kinds. Whether telling the ribald tale of a brawny stable hand’s affair with an aged duchess or a mocking satire of a paladin of Helm’s cloying innocence, a jester never lets taste, social decorum, or shame get in the way of a good laugh. The purpose of satire a more serious pursuit than it seems: Taking the objects of outrage and holding a fun house mirror to them, both exaggerating the horror, and mocking them all at once. 

While jesters are masters of puns, jokes, and verbal barbs, they are much more than just comic relief. They are expected to mock and provoke, taking advantage of how even the most powerful folk are expected by tradition to endure a jester’s barbs with good humor. This expectation allows a jester to serve as a critic or a voice of reason when others are too intimidated to speak the truth.

For the duchess with a taste for strapping young laborers, such tales might serve to warn the targets of her affections and force her to change her ways for lack of willing partners. Striking back at the jester only ruins her already damaged reputation, and might provide the best evidence that the jester’s satires have hit their mark. But if she is kind and generous to her conquests, the jokes and stories cast her as a kind of folk hero, while drawing even more potential partners to her.t

Jesters are loyal to only one cause: the pursuit and propagation of the truth. They use their comedy and innocuous appearance to break down social barriers and expose corruption, incompetence, and stupidity among the rich and powerful directly to thier faces. Whether revealing a con artist’s treachery or exposing a baron’s plans for war as driven by greed and bloodlust, a jester serves as the conscience of a realm. 

Jesters venture to safeguard the common folk and to undermine the plans of the rich, powerful, and arrogant. Their magic bolsters allies’ spirits while casting doubt into foes’ minds. Among bards, jesters are unmatched acrobats, and their ability to tumble, dodge, leap, and duck makes them slippery opponents in battle as they continue to verbally hash thier enemies. 

Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of Satire at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Insight and Acrobatics and one additional skill of your choice. If you are already proficient with Insight or Acrobatics, choose another skill proficiency for each proficiency you already have.

Jester's Mockery

You automatically gain the vicious mockery spell at level 3. This counts as a bard cantrip for you, but doesn't count against the amount of cantrips you know. The damage dice of this cantrip become d6s instead of d4s.

If you already know vicious mockery, you may choose another cantrip.

Tumbling Fool

At 3rd level, you master a variety of acrobatic techniques that allow you to evade danger. As a bonus action, you can tumble. When you tumble, you gain the following benefits for the rest of your turn:

You gain the benefits of taking the Dash and Disengage actions. 

You take half damage from falling.

Masterful Insight

At 3rd level, your ability to notice when people are spinning falsehoods, especially to themselves, gains a supernatural edge. You gain expertise in insight, doubling the proficiency. 

Bitter Truths

At 6th level, you hone your sharp wit to further emotinally damage your foes; when you cast a bard spell that deals psychic damage, you can add your Charisma modifier to the damage roll.

Fool's Luck

At reaching 6th level, Upon making any failed ability check, saving throw, or attack roll, you may spend one bardic inspiration die to reroll, and add the bardic inspiration die total to the new roll. You must keep that result. 

Heckle

Your ability to manipulate emotions reaches its peak at 14th level as you may spend one bardic inspiration die to heckle an enemy within 30 feet with taunts and verbal abuse. The target must make a save vs wisdom with the total on the bardic inspiration die as a penalty to thier roll. 

If the roll fails, the target will become infuriated with their heckler and will spend the next 3 rounds hyper-focused on causing them physical harm with whatever they manage to grab (attacking with a weapon or throwing random nearby objects etc). During this time, the heckler will gain advantage on all saving throws from that target. The effect ends early if the target takes any damage or if they successfully hit the heckler.

The target need not understand you if they can see, especially if you are able to use physical gestures