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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7094125" data-attributes="member: 6801228">I can't believe I'm about to be that person. I hate that person. And yet, I'm going to do it. I'm going to reference the Dictionary.... I feel dirty doing this.Dictionary.comnoun1. (formerly) a person who composed and recited epic or heroic poems, often while playing the harp, lyre, or the like.2. one of an ancient Celtic order of composers and reciters of poetry.3. any poet.noun1. Armor. any of various pieces of defensive armor for a horse.2. Cookery. a thin slice of fat or bacon secured to a roast of meat or poultry to prevent its drying out while cooking.verb (used with object)3. Armor. to caparison with bards.4. Cookery. to secure thin slices of fat or bacon to (a roast of meat or poultry) before cooking.British Dictionary definitions for bardnoun1.    (formerly) one of an ancient Celtic order of poets who recited verses about the exploits, often legendary, of their tribes    (in modern times) a poet who wins a verse competition at a Welsh eisteddfod2. (archaic or literary) any poet, esp one who writes lyric or heroic verse or is of national importancenoun1. a piece of larding bacon or pork fat placed on game or lean meat during roasting to prevent drying out2. an ornamental caparison for a horseverb (transitive)3. to place a bard onOkay, so what do we see. Well, we ignore everything about armor and bacon, those are obviously not what we are going for (I included them because I had no idea bacon was related to the word bard)The Italics definition mentions music, the harp and the lyre specifically, and it is the first one. However, I don't think anyone has ever claimed that bards have zero connection to music. Of course there is a music connection, many old poems and sagas were set to music to make them easier to remember. All the bold definitions simplify this. Poet, Poetry, Poems, Sagas, Epics. It is the poetic nature of the bard that is more important. Music is only a part of this because old poems were often set to music. They were not songs though, they were poems. Music was simply the vehicle they used to enhance the poem which was the core point. So... yeah, Bards play instruments. They are trained in music, because many of the old poems and epics they would learn are put to music. Nothing about that means they are defined more by music than by the art form of the spoken word. That is the point here, the more vital component is the words, not the music. And if a Bard playing a lyre causes you to get upset, tell them to get a drum instead. Small drums hanging from your side are easy to play while fighting, looks a lot less "silly". But, at the end of the day, just like the Paladin is no longer the Knight of the Castle and the Barbarian is no longer from the Barbar tribes and the Druid isn't immediately a Celtic priest... Bard is just the DnDism name for the class. It includes the original content, but it expands upon it to make it more than it was before. That's just how it is. Oh, and the "Southern Summers" book could still be about cotton farming, racism, southern culture, farming in general, oil fields, railroads, ect ect ect. The weather is just the setting, not the focus. Music for the bard is a single avenue, not the only path you can take.</blockquote>

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