I was curious if there are plans for varying bard songs based on alignment and such? It seems rather poor form for an Imperial bard to be singing Galadriel, so the Lady of Light may shower blessings upon him/her.

It would also be interesting to have variations in bards based on perceived role...

For example: (use any name you prefer, just titling them for ease)

Battle Bard: Plays no instrument, but chants works involoved with combat, including some healing, increased morale, and so on. Increase ability with weapons.

Harper: Many songs, more in the category of support, perhaps songs that demoralize as well as inspire/enlighten, and such. Increased healing, thievery.

Bard: the big boy who gets all the top songs.

These are just off the top. It would still be nice to have darker songs for the darker bards.

Bards have been a class we've been looking at, but the challenge is to get unique, non-copyrighted songs that are also good. And then having multiple songs for each effect you want a bard to be able to make becomes very difficult indeed.

We've had song contests in the past with limited success. A handful of songs are appropriate, and then there's always the lurking suspicion that some of them might be plagiarized. We've had people submit other people's works to try to win contests before.

We are thinking about what we can do differently. Bards just have some unique challenges that slow down the process of changing them.

Yanoreth