Where does "Bardic Knowledge" Come From?

[hong]

Hyp is juiced up on adrenalin! Curse Bless you, bestone!!!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hyp is juiced up on adrenalin! Curse Bless you, bestone!!!

... dictionary.com?

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It wouldn't work generally, but in my last campaign all elves were bards, and all bards were elves. And their 'bardic knowledge' represented the fact that they'd all been around at least a hundred years before they started 'adventuring' properly. BK reflected the fact that they had been around the block many times before that humans grandfather was born...

 

[Sound of Azure]

In my "Dreamer's World" game, bardic knowledge came from such character's connection to the books that the "Dreamer" had read (and the original source or all events in said world).

Bards were innately connected to the magic of words both spoken and written, and were able to sometimes parse the unformed thoughts of the "Dreamer" into useful information.

 

[William drake]

The SRD states:


But I want some flavor text to give my players, such as:

1. You remember a line in a ballad....
2. You read it in a scroll....
3. As you recall, it was in the ruined library of Kynoszia that you found the tome within which these words were scribed....
4. Among the hundreds, if not thousands, of tedious and boring lectures your mentor gave at college, he told the tale of....

What are some more sources of Bardic Knowledge?

bards are bookworms with a little more flavor, their means of gathering knowledge, which is made up of lore, myth, and legend *and each are differnt from the other* come to them in countless ways.

I would assume the others would be:
Off hand knowledge you picked up from people while moving across the world seeking your own knowledg.
Finding out the other side of stories towhich you already know.
Seeking out the various versions of a tale which has spread across differnt coutries.
Reading...lots and lots and lots and lots of read.
Note taking...lots and lots and lost and lost of note taking.


I would also say that sometimes bards might deal in more facts then Wizards and Clerics.
Clerics would more than likely put a religious spin on their side
Wizards a more arcane, or abstract form...if they told you all seeing as they might feel that you wouldn't "get it"
Bards on the other hand, I think, would be more inclined to take in the most WIDE view of the subect, and even use fatual history...they would be more likely to search out the truth of their myths, maybe never to tell of them, but just to know the effects that stories, and the how the "gossip mill" has on the shape of the reality, or concept of TRUTH around him.

Yes, I love bards, and wish they were done better in D&D

 

[Henry]

To pick up your motif...

5. You remember overhearing two mercenaries swapping stories in the Stag and Boar in Waterdeep. One was telling the other about an expedition he returned from in a ruined keep in the east where he saw inscriptions saying....

6. You remember stealing a glance in a tome for sale in a curio shop in Sharn. It told of...

7. The Hobgoblin you killed a year ago in the Gnarley Forest had markings like these on his old scavenged armor. It was from the empire of...

8. You were running... er, an old friend was running a confidence game on some merchants from Amn. He researched the old Empire of Tashluta and he found out that...

9. A grubby treasure-hunter once sold you a scroll for a gold coin. This scroll was a map from the....

 

[Slife]

10. You know a guy, who knows a guy, who said that...

11. When you trying to find a loophole in a law for "a friend", you happened upon the information that...

 

[Imperialus]

Not to mention needing to reach at least 5th level as a fighter and 6th level as a thief before entering druidic tutelage?

-Hyp.

No but you do have to have a BAB of +5, + 6 in 3 different knowlage skills, and the ability to cast 2nd level spells from 1 of the 3 different schools of magic recognized by bards Arcane, Divine or Druidic.

 

[Remathilis]

12. According to the legend of X... But that could just be legend.

13. The elves once sang a song of... but little else is known why.

14. Jorinicus, famous druid of the realm, once recalled that...

15. You don't WANT to know how I know, but...

16. As a wee child, I was told by my grandma that...

17. Ever heard an orc seven tankards in? He told me (shortly after claiming I was his long lost blood-brother) that...

18. They say the dwarves never lie about wealth, so if that is true...

19. According to the Book of Armorments, the holiest book of [deity]...

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Don't worry Smurfy, some of us oldtimers appreciate your sense of humor.