So, I've got a fun idea for my next game (PF2e) - a gunslinging swashbuckling outlaw game with intrigue and betrayals.
I have an idea for who the main villain needs to be - namely they need to be a very potent, very evil bard.
To that end, I realized that I've run into hardly any villainous bards in my decade-plus of running and playing TTRPGS...do any of you have suggestions or good examples I might look at for inspiration?

Right now the only thing I'm sure of is wanting to have at least a little Devil Went Down to Georgia / Johnny Cash flair to the whole scenario.

>>95897682 (OP)
I've ran the whole devil at a crossroads/robert johnsan thing before. Can be fun, you'll have to sell it with your narration.

>>95897682 (OP)
The Harpers. I know it’s a meme, but take that meme, take it seriously, and run a worldwide glowie conspiracy hidden behind warm smiles and cheerful banter. Those who control the stories that people tell can shape the world to be whatever they want.

>>95897747
Narration and NPCs are some of my strengths so that's encouraging.
>>95897766
This is such a fun idea...I already have it so that the local Bard Guild is influential enough to have a seat in government in the setting I'm running this in...it would be neat to have:
>Average retard on the street peddles in conspiracy theories about the Bards, maybe have an Alex Jones type shilling snake oil on the matter
>Everyone in polite society assumes this is a load of crap
>Party discovers that there is 100% a shadow cabal of bards trying (with increasing success) to puppeteer the government
>Now they need to stop the BIG SINISTER THING, either on their own or somehow by convincing allies of the truth, before it's too late
Sort of Pied Piper energy.

Something to consider, the story of The Devil's Trill by Tartini:
>One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul.
>Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. >Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play.
>How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy.
>I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke.
>I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream.
>In vain!
>The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.
Absolutely nuts that this guy literally heard a nightmare song in his dream and proceeded to publish and grow fabulously wealthy from it. That's some straight Faust / Lovecraft shit.

Huh. I don't think I know of any villainous bards in any media I've watched lately. Closest would be Dethklok from Metalocalypse, because their music causes carnage around them, but they kinda save the world from being destroyed by Salacia. There's also Drosselmyer from Princess Tutu, who is obsessed with controlling reality through storytelling. Maybe look at the examples on this tvtrope's page for some inspiration:
>https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MusicalAssassin
In any case, the Bard keeps and tells stories. Usually, to sing praise of how the heroes have helped the world. But what if this Bard Villain believes that these stories have become a cage in which the powerful gets to control everyone? And then he forms a cabal of performers to spread rumors, to create blackmail networks, and to assassinate anyone who tells a subversive story. And with magic involve, maybe this Villain and his lieutenants can use "Modify Memory" to control their audiences. I can already see how fucked things can get with a villain who can change how people are able to remember things.
Some other ideas floating about in my head:
>Villain's name is a Half-Elf named Maestro Callis Refrayne
>a magical revolver that fires harsh noise at enemies and causes them to fall under the effects of the "Confusion" spell
>Has "Symphony of Ruin", a legendary performance action that destabilizes any political figure's reputation in real time.
>A unique ability where Maestro Refrayne can physically change the environment if he can manipulate enough people to believe it to change. Essentially Sigil, but on a more localized level
>Cabal Name: Chorus Obscurus

>>95897682 (OP)

>>95897682 (OP)
Bard has to be one of the most dissapointing class concepts.

You have the literal language of angels and devils and elementals supposedly formed from bits and pieces of the words of creation and the best you can come up with is power word: X?

Also, pic related looks like its singing so there you go.

>>95901090
This is a very cool take anon, and exactly what my friend and I were discussing - there's hardly any examples.
But it makes perfect sense for the villanous Bard be all about manipulating reality through manipulating consensus - to rewrite the story as it's being written.
>>95901821
Baller.
>>95901892
I tend to agree. Bards have so many cool directions to go and yet they seem to consistently end up being the same boring shit. Even worse than Rogues.

>>95897682 (OP)
>Proud arm in the pantheon of misfit gods.
>Her cacophonous playing offended all but her own misshapen taste.
>Mutilated, hanged twice, and wrists nailed to tree trunk by the other gods whose ears bled.
>On she played as she begat a daughter never meant to tread the earth, and slain before birth.

>>95897947
>Average retard on the street peddles in conspiracy theories about the Bards, maybe have an Alex Jones type shilling snake oil on the matter

Be sure to make it so that each time the PCs speak to the Alex Jones ripoff, that he info dumps about a different conspiracy each time. That way the PCs will assume "oh this is a meme character. nothing he says matters, because there's no way all 4 of his contradictory Conspiracy theories are true." then when they start to notice the truth, they will wonder what else is true.
>>95897682 (OP)
It would be interesting to see multiple bards using their bardic skills to influence and control different kinds of enemies. like a Pide Piper but he has a hoard of orcs at his disposal and he can brainwash them into staging false flag operations as the bardic cabal sees fit, or a team of 5 bards all dedicated to buffing a vampire to the max.

>>95903397
>make it so that each time the PCs speak to the Alex Jones ripoff, that he info dumps about a different conspiracy each time.
>That way the PCs will assume "oh this is a meme character nothing he says matters, because there's no way all 4 of his contradictory Conspiracy theories are true" then when they start to notice the truth, they will wonder what else is true.
Exactly!
Currently I'm thinking three dangerous Bards within the conspiracy are trying to take over the conspiracy, leading to an underground civil war. That's perfect with stuff you mention like weaponizing monsters to attack their rivals.
And this Bardic Gang War is starting to slowly cause cracks in the masquerade... that's why the party even has room to discover the conspiracy at all.

>>95897682 (OP)
>suggestions or good examples I might look at for inspiration?
Go read The Stand, and look at Randall Flagg - at his unassuming everyman persona (seriously, the guy sounds like he just walked out of a Bruce Springsteen gig) and how he persuades people to come to his cause.

Then read Needful Things, and look at how the shopkeeper tricks townspeople by giving them what they think is their heart's desire, and how he manipulates them into betraying their neighbours.

Then look at any successful political orator who you disagree with, but who visibly wins people over, and think about what he is appealing to in those people.

Somewhere in the confluence of those three is your villainous bard - charismatic, a trickster, a manipulator, misdirecting people to bring them under his thrall and do his bidding, whether that's following their baser instincts or going against their better judgement.

>>95902706
Keith Thompson needs to un-abandon his art blog.

>>95897682 (OP)
I'm a 'Make pact with the devil to become the narcissist bard-king who spins tales and lies to shape reality around him' kind of guy myself.

>>95904762
This is exactly the sort of advice I'm after, thank you. I was recommended Blood Meridian as well.
The Charisma Villain. Scary, once you think about it.
>>95904774
Yes he does. Desperately.
>>95904998
Like a bizarre fiendish Fisher-King. Good shit.

At this point the way forward I think is to use the campaign to explore all the different ways that creativity, self expression, art, sensation, entertainment, inspiration, etc. can become twisted to evil. So the BBEG is the very bottom of this funnel of heinous shit that's gradually causing more and more damage to society and maybe even reality if left unchecked.
For just one example, an inverse of motivation / encouragement might progress from:
>A lie powerful enough to hurt yourself and change you for the worse
>A lie powerful enough to hurt others and change them for the worse
>A lie powerful enough to hurt society and change it for the worse
>A lie powerful enough to hurt reality itself and change it for the worse

>>95897682 (OP)
El Mariachi but Evil. Which I guess is just Azul, but fuck it, guitar case full of guns.

>>95897682 (OP)
In D&D 3.5 at least bards tie themselves to a type of performance, not an instrument, and IRL many court jesters learned to play some instruments. The archetype of the mad, magical clown you sometimes see in media is a 100% valid way to play a bard.

>>95897682 (OP)
A sad clown where his audience is forced to live the stories he narrates.

>>95912217 (cont.)
As for why we don’t see more mad magical clowns in D&D, I suspect the reasons are a general lack of awareness of this option which isn’t really in the D&D zeitgeist, and that there aren’t many magic items for jester bards though that can be easily fixed even with simple reflavoring.

If you’re going for a more wild west themed game, I know a couple things which might be inspirational for you. The Aztec deities Huehuecoyotl and Xolotl are both associated with jesters to varying degrees. Huehuecoyotl was a mischievous trickster god associated with music and dance who had the ability to shapeshift. His name, Huehuecoyotl, means Old Old Coyote, and coyotes are very frequently regarded as tricksters in American folklore. Xolotl was a dog-like deity and god of fire who guided people through the underworld. He was the god of “monstrosities”, which included deformities. He was often depicted as a skeletal jester with dwarfism, I assume because clownery was a common occupation for people with dwarfism (not just in the Aztec empire) and dwarfism was considered by the Aztecs to be monstrous. Like Huehuecoyotl, he had the ability to shapeshift and may have been even better at it.

I believe the Hopi Amerindians traditionally believe laughter and joy to be essential to healing and because of that their healers are also clowns, though I could be getting them mixed up with another group.

>>95897682 (OP)
Best example of an evil bard that comes to mind if Drosselmeyer, from Princess Tutu.
He is, essentially, a writer who can make what he writes down become reality that has taken an entire town hostage, warping them into different versions of characters from the stories he has written. None of them are aware of this, or even that they are unable to leave. He just makes them act out the storylines that he has scripted, and then when he gets bored smashes the pieces together to have characters from the wrong stories be in places they shouldn't be to cause chaos. Basically like a dungeon master that wants the players to do things they didn't expect, but still ultimately has an ending he's willing to railroad them into.
The problem, of course, being that Drosselmeyer's stories were largely unpopular because they are *all tragedies*. So once you realize you are in one of his stories, you know this is going to end very poorly.

An evil bard could have a similar gimmick, perhaps focusing not on written prose but instead on things like plays, but with a similar focus on Tragedy. He sets up and causes tragedies, which means that you can use to to be the prime mover behind everything from as grand as the fall of a kingdom as the king descends into paranoia and madness, or something as small as a man being driven to suicide by his own poor choices ruining his life. The suffering is the point. The fact that they *could* have chosen a better path, but didn't, is what makes the bad end tragic... and the punishment justified.

I'm doing something similar for my next big campaign. An evil swashbuckler/bard driving towns mad, fucking his way into places of power and manipulating major political figures to instigate conflicts-- not because of anything he believes in, he's just a manwhore and he thrives in times of chaos.

>>95897682 (OP)
>evil bard
Troupes of musicians are appearing in towns and cities and inciting racial problems between humans and elves and dwarves. Their music is catchy enough that even people who don't agree with the message end up enjoying it. These groups are not technically breaking the law, but they are the root of rising racial tensions. Eventually they can be traced to an evil bard who is writing their lyrics and music for them, and his connexions to a shadowy network of evil groups who want to use the chaos of war to grab power for themselves. If that evil bard is destroyed, it is discovered a more powerful bard was his master, and has been working directly on the current leaders of the realm while his apprentice was rousing the rabble. The master evil bard hides behind his powerful supporters, so the players have to expose and destroy their support network to isolate them. Finally, the REAL boss is a necromancer who wants to coopt the war they're trying to start to raise all the battle slain into an unholy chorus that will sing the song that allows the mad god or whatever to physically enter the world and establish hell in earth or something.