Music (art form)

Bards who choose music as an art form are not required to actually play or compose music, just as a fighter is not expected to come to a campaign with a sword that is beaten on the table every time a die is rolled. As such, the rules for a bard employing music as an art form need to take into account that the player may have absolutely no experience whatsoever where music is concerned.

The first problem should be what sort of musician the player wants to be. From anecdotal experience, I know that most musicians who have traditional training are expected to perform at a minimal degree in every form of instrument, as well as the human voice, but that naturally a given musician will have exemplary skills in some instruments and not in others. It is best to think of musical instruments (including the voice) as a set of "proficiencies." Like a fighter that is able to employ all weapons but only a few at a level of quality, the bard musician should possess a set of instruments that can be played with proficiency while all others can, at least, be made to sound as though music were being produced. No instrument is entirely beyond a bard's ken ~ but some will be played dramatically better than others.

The bard should, therefore, choose two instruments with which they have a proficiency. This can then be increased by one instrument each time a bard increases upwards from amateur through authority, expert and sage in a particular study. Thus, a musician might be proficient with an instrument as a conceptual artist but not as a performer, until the requisite level of knowledge is acquired.

Because my world exists in the mid-17th century, there are many instruments that have not been invented by that time, though in some cases the antecedent for a more complex instrument does exist in simplified form. An obvious example is the piano, which was invented around 1700, too late for my world. However, the harpsichord had been invented sometime in the late Middle Ages and had been advanced by the late 16th century. Therefore, the harpsichord exists in my world but not the piano.

As there are hundreds and hundreds of particular instruments, a list of what is available at a world's given time would be exhaustive and time consuming to create. As such, I would ask a player to advance an instrument for proficiency after a specific search was made to confirm that instrument existed at the time of my world.

The following is a list of Musical studies within the field of Artistry:

• Conceptualism
• Creativity
• Performance
• Pragmatism

See Bard Sage Abilities