Let's play a word association game. Don't worry, I'm not a psychiatrist,
and I'm not planning to predict your personality type based on your response.
I'm not a gnome, either, so you can be fairly sure that no weird inventions
will result if you just humor me. Ready? Don't think about your answer
at all; just say the first thing that pops into your mind. If I say "bard",
you say…

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Some of you probably answered "Shakespeare." After all, he's been
known as the Bard, with a capital B, since his writings became part of popular
culture and literature in the 19th century. I don't suppose the Bard of
Avon ever stood, invisible, at the feet of a pale dragon in the snowy peaks,
just for the thrill of tempting fate? I have.

Some of you may have replied "poet," "minstrel,"
"troubadour," or even "vagabond." Maybe you're a scholar
of all things Norse, in which case you could have answered "skald."
William Shakespeare was certainly a skilled poet and playwright, but even
he didn't fit the historical definition of a bard. In the first century
A.D., the Roman writer Lucan described bards as the national poets or
minstrels of Gaul and Britain. This was a crude definition of a diverse
occupation. Bards composed elegies and eulogies to honor heroes and ordinary
men alike. Bards were often granted diplomatic immunity in their travels.
In later years, after Christianity came to Britain, bards were retained
by monasteries as historians and genealogists. Still, I would imagine
that the bards of history never stood on top of a hill, in a city full
of enemies, waiting for the Orc Trainer to appear.

Did
you associate a bard with "epic," "Ireland," "Wales,"
or "Britain"? By the 6th century, it was customary for the kings,
chieftains, and princes of the British Isles to retain bards in their
service, and to honor the bards with gifts. Bards were seen as wise and
skilled, often considered to have the standing of officials in the king's
household. The most famous of these bards were Taliesin and Aneurin, both
of whom have been referred to in Arthurian legend. Taliesin is famous
for boasting of his own exploits in his songs, such as the last lines
of The First Address of Taliesin from The Red Book of Hergest
XXIII: "And such as have heard my bardic books, They shall obtain
the region of heaven, the best of all abodes." Despite Taliesin's
immense ego, I would hazard a guess that few bards, if any, ever stood
in the path of a dragon made of bone, arisen from the grave.

Did
the words "harp," "lute," "song," or "instrument" come to mind? Celtic
bards have been credited with the establishment of music as a popular
form of entertainment, as opposed to the music used to worship the ancient
gods. In the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, the word bard was used to
describe the popular poets and singers who wrote and performed outside
of the Soviet establishment. On the other hand, bards have been associated
with skills aside from music and poetry. The
Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD) is a modern spiritual group
dedicated to the practice of Druidry. In the case of OBOD, a Bard is the
first of three grades of the druid tradition. I don't suppose any of the
members of OBOD have been been transformed into wolf form while waiting
to attack an ogre?

The
variety of words that can be associated with bard offers proof that both
the factual and fictional concepts of a bard are broadly defined. In some
ways, those of us who love to play the bard class are fortunate that the
image of the historical bard is so dynamic. The traditional pen-and-paper
RPG archetype of a spontaneous, shifty, non-lawful bard was not translated
into MMORPGs such as EverQuest
and Dark Age
of Camelot. Instead, designers reached into history and conceptualized
bards as being able to metamorphose into a variety of roles. It seems
that Vanguard's designers are aware of the adaptability of the bard. Senior
Game Designer Talisker, also known as Darrin
McPherson, provided reassuring comments about his personal gaming
experiences and designing the bard class on the official
Vanguard forums. "Where you saw skill, where good bards were easily
identified, was in the non-traditional group, with no enchanter, no monk.
Or in the raid where several of the bard's songs were needed, but at different
times. The bard's ability to multi-task was where you saw skill. This
was different than the other EQ classes. Filling all the required roles
at the right times and timing them in nice 18 second increments." Talisker,
May 2005.

There
is something wonderful about stepping into the persona of a bard that
reaches beyond the mechanics of a game. As a storyteller, I find that
I'm awed, and sometimes frightened, by the prospect of epic adventure,
whether in a virtual world or in my own life. To quote the bard Aneurin,
from The Lay of Adebon, "Be thy mansion large, thou wert a hero
in the day of conflict. As long as there will be things to seek for thee
there will be seekers."

So it came to pass that a young bard, or minstrel, or troubadour, or
vagabond stood on the deck of an immense ship and raised her arms to the
wind, and knew that whatever lay ahead, there would be stories to be written
and songs to be sung.