Comebacks and come back again

It just seems as though as soon as I try to get back into this blog, a healthy dose of life interferes.  I've not really had a chance to get it off the ground.  Hard to believe it's been about two years since I thought of doing it. And yet, I've not made it out of the hanger.  Much has happened since then.   The whole fantasy RPG world has changed quite a bit.  The release of edition 5, the continued changing of the digital world, the social and cultural changes that seem to happen on a daily bases - all of these make it feel as though it was a different world when I started.

All of that is to say I'll try to get back onto things.  My family and I are still going through my makeshift Greyhawk campaign.  My oldest is now 20, however, and getting together regularly is difficult. Right now, they've turned away from the original goal of exploring the monastic ruins, featuring the classic dungeon example from the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.  They're going through Ravenloft.  I threw that in, as I had always wanted to do, to play off the Halloween feel.  Since ghost stories and winter go hand in hand, they can durp around there for a while.

But hopefully, come spring when my next oldest will be wrapping up his Junior year, we'll get back to basics and finally crack that original goal.  First, we'll have to bring back the original party (which was rolled up under 3.5 rules).  They disbanded when the wizard (original: Magic User) was slain by  a random encounter with Hobgoblins.  Fortunately, he's also a wererat (from their original adventure in the Haunted Keep), and in my world, if lycanthropes aren't killed with silver they come back the next full moon.

Anyway, the goal is to bring them back and finish that before life and growing finally send them on their ways.  As we do, I'll post what happens, or what I notice, or what I think about.  The fabled 'Old School Renaissance' seems to have faded, so the topics that only a few years ago were ripe for the picking appear to have dwindled.  Nonetheless, whatever tickles my fancy will be posted.  And who knows?  I might actually be able to pick up a few readers by getting my blog's name out there.  We'll see. 

The Bard is not hard

OK, dispense with the giggles. My point is, the Bard class, much reviled for its complexity and convoluted presentation in the original AD&D, isn't really that difficult.  In fact, it's a precursor to the product sustaining concept of the Prestige Classes that dominated 3rd and later editions of the game.  No, you're not going to start out as a Bard.  By definition, you won't start out as a prestige class either.  You begin as a fighter, then a thief.  And then you get tutelage under a Druid, but really at that point become a Bard.  You have certain prerequisites, and then you gain certain benefits.

In my hodgepodge Greyhawk world, Bards are limited to the Duchy of Tenh, and are a unique class to that region.  I have Tenh as my resident Celtic world.  Though I've also dropped the Moonshaes into the world as well, I reserve them more for a later Medieval England/Ireland feel.  The Druidic world encompasses a rough arch starting with the Moonshaes (just off the map, northeast of the Sea Barons), and going through the Pale and Tenh (which I've labeled the Suthlans), and then across the middle regions down into Velnua, up to Perrenland, and those regions.  Druids can be other places, but they are most numerous there.

Tenh, however, occupies that particularly Celtic flavor, and so Bards, with their spiritual and mystical place in culture, find a natural hub there.  Most such advanced classes are, by default, the NPCs in my world.  Though Players can obtain them.  But since Bards are a prestige style class, don't expect them to be what anyone can start out with.  And given their high score requirements, the likelihood of rolling one is close to nil.

Still, as with all things in the early days of D&D, I appreciate at least some attempt to have the game mechanics reflect the literary, if not the somewhat watered down historical, basis for something.  In this case, remembering that Bards were never just musicians, but were men of power linked to that nature religion common in the ancient Celtic world.  And if you think about a Bard slipping into a similarly leveled party, they would  be nothing short of superstars.  Even with those from other Greyhawk cultures.  As well they should be.