Far from the warm fireside and jovial humor found around your usual bard, another sort entirely puts the same skills to a different use. Instead of telling comedic tales of fictitious heroes, these bards learn the tales of the past. Heroics, still, are the focus – all the same, few happily ever afters are to be found.

 

Read on below for more on the College of Mourning!

-Bard- College of Mourning v1

You can also find the PDF version here.

 

A bard of the College of Mourning, sometimes called a dirge-singer, is someone who is dedicated to memorializing the past. By remembering and passing down the stories of the heroes of old, their spirits live on. Quite literally in some cases – for those who truly remember, a request for aid is another chance for everlasting glory.

 

FEATURES:

• Call upon the spirits of dead heroes!
• Help your friends celebrate their legendary deeds, tolling the bells of death for your enemies!
• But who fights alone? Why have one ancient hero when you could have two?

 

DESIGN NOTES:

• Some time ago, I drew up a little collection of bard ideas – all based around thinking of every conceivable way you could use Bardic Inspiration dice. The first tangible result of this was the College of Hymns bard, which uses Bardic Inspiration as temporary hit points. Another idea I had was to turn Bardic Inspiration dice into minions, and thus make a minion bard.
• Early on, I decided this should be necromantic. It was the easiest way to rationalize where the minions came from, and why they would be (potentially) so weak – zombies always are. To keep closer to a theme, however, I changed it to be the spirits of past heroes.
• Currently, my biggest concern is the central concept of the subclass itself. Is Dirges and Tributes even usable? I worry that it’s too weak, too strong, too simple, too complex – I can’t make heads or tails of it now. So I decided to put it up despite that central weakness, and see what people think.
• Otherwise, I’m fairly happy. I like the fluff feature at 1st level and the crit-dependent feature at 6th. I also like the capstone, though obviously that depends on Dirges and Tributes working as intended. All in all, I think this is a promising idea… its all just a matter of getting everything to play nice together.

 

Thanks for reading!