Traits List
Combat: Duel, Feint, Flair for the Dramatic, Inspire, Steal the Spotlight, Swashbuckler
Exploration: According to Legend, A Song on the Road, Comedy and Tragedy, Dramatic Entry
Interaction: A Night to Forget, Boost Morale, Cameo, Fame and Infamy, First Impressions, Gambit Roulette, Honeyed Words, Lucky, Rumors, Small World, Wingman
Related Themes: Heritage, Tracking, Thievery
Suggested Signature Resource: Reputation
Combat
Duel
[ Bardic Lore, Combat, Interaction, Taunt ]
As a neutral tale, you can spend a point of your signature resource and challenge someone to a duel. They’re compelled to accept.
NPCs won’t interfere with your duel. If any of your allies interrupt, you both lose face and your reputations take a hit. Each of you take a relevant social condition: “shamed”, “dishonorable”, “coward”, “cheater”, etc. The conditions can only be cleared once you’ve taken steps to fix your reputation, possibly via another interaction challenge.
Describe: A slap in the face. Challenging their honor. Telling them “prepare to die”, challenging them, clashing swords and grinning at each other.
Feint
[ Bardic Lore, Combat, Reaction, Resource, Dodge ]
You can make someone hesitate, flinch, or suffer a moment of doubt.
When you get a bad tale in combat, you may spend a point of your signature resource to reroll the dice (before you spend your good tale). You must take the results of your second roll.
Describe: Surprising them with impressive swordplay, insulting their mother, upstaging them, mocking them
Flair for the Dramatic
[ Bardic Lore, Combat, Resource, Bolster ]
You have a new resource, Panache [ ].
Whenever things take a turn for the worse and you’re in serious danger, as a neutral tale, mark Panache to receive an immediate bolster.
Spend a good tale to restore your Panache.
Describe: Spitting out blood and laughing, showing your fighting spirit, improvising, a last-ditch effort.Serious Danger: Some of your allies have been defeated, you’re falling to your doom, you’re surrounded.
See Also: “Time, Rest, Recovery, Healing”
Inspire
[ Bardic Lore, Combat, Passive, Support, Bolster ]
When you bolster allies to fight, you may spend a point of your signature resource to choose a longer duration or area of effect:
- lingering effect: your bolster lasts for the next three related actions
- group effect: you bolster all allies within earshot
Describe: Giving a riveting speech, encouraging others, performing, singing a tune, playing an instrument.
Related Traits: Arcane.Metamagic
Swashbuckler
[ Bardic Lore, Combat, Environment, Bolster ]
Each time you enter a sufficiently complex combat environment, describe two or three interesting features of the location and give it the resource: dramatic features [ ] [ ] [ ].
As a neutral tale, mark one dramatic feature and describe how you utilize the feature for a cinematic stunt. Increase your next roll.
Describe: Swinging from the chandelier, using a tearing curtain to soften your descent, kicking over barrels
Related Traits: Bardic Lore.Dramatic Entry, Warfare.Orchestrate
Exploration
According to Legend
[ Bardic Lore, Exploration, Narrative Authority, Discovery ]
When you start a quest or enter a new region, tell the GM that according to legend, something powerful exists in the area. The GM will give you a cryptic clue about where to find it. If you find the source of the clue, you locate the legendary power.
Clue: Where two trees intertwine, the deepest and darkest part of the cave, surrounded by a thousand corpses.
Describe: Sharing a story you heard, mentioning a rumor, putting together clues from history books.
Power: Lost treasure, magic shrine, portal to another world, underground dungeon, unhatched dragon eggs.
A Song on the Road
[ Bardic Lore, Exploration, Recover ]
Sometimes the road is just a little bit too long. That’s when you need a song. Once per long journey, you can spend a point of your signature resource to motivate those around you, restoring their energy. Everyone who hears your song, including you, restores two points of Endurance.
Collaborate: How long does the trip have to be?
Backfire: The song attracts unwanted attention, the party feasts a bit too much.
Comedy and Tragedy
[ Bardic Lore, Exploration, Narrative Authority ]
Show your gaming group a “Comedy and Tragedy” token. At any point, give it to the GM to tell a free Good Tale; take it from the GM to have the GM tell a free Bad Tale. Start each challenge with the token in your possession.
Describe: How your fortune turns, an exciting plot twist, a shift in tone, poetic justice, how fate intervenes.
Dramatic Entry
[ Bardic Lore, Exploration, Interaction, Bolster, Recovery ]
When you make a dramatic, flashy, or dangerous entrance you’re “bolstered” to do anything. If the entrance had a large audience, you also restore one point in your Signature Resource.
Describe: Swinging in on a rope, walking out of an explosion, riding in on a unicorn, kicking down the doors.
Related Traits: Bardic Lore.Swashbuckler
Interaction
A Night to Forget
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, Narrative Authority ]
Whenever you engage in drunken revelry, you can announce it’s a night to forget. The GM tells you where and when you wake up. Give yourself the resource: fuzzy memories [ ] [ ] [ ]. Mark one to suddenly remember what you did that night, and how your actions that night somehow benefit your current situation. You may tell two of the fuzzy memories, the GM tells one.
Describe: Buying drinks for everyone, going bar hopping, visiting the brothel, throwing a wild party. Benefits: You’ve been here before, you seduced the evil villain, there’s a magic item in your pocket.
Related Traits: Alchemy.All-cohol, Bardic Lore.Breakfast of Champions, Martial Arts.Drunken Master
Boost Morale
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, Recovery, Time ]
You may undergo a CL3 challenge to allow you and each of your present allies to replenish their endurance or wits, completely.
Describe: Exaggerating the day’s adventures, cracking jokes, playing tunes, telling a story, keeping spirits high.
See: Time, Rest, Recovery, Healing
Cameo
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, Summon, Minion ]
When you earn an NPC’s respect and goodwill, write their name on your character sheet. As a neutral tale, spend one point of your signature resource to have them show up sometime in the next hour or two. If you need them “right now”, you may spend a good tale to accelerate their arrival.
Describe: Bumping into them randomly, them saving you in the knick of time, spotting them in a crowd.
Fame and Infamy
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, ]
Collaborate on a reputation for yourself (it doesn’t have to be true). Whenever you like, others know your reputation, believe at least part of it, and act accordingly.
Describe: Showing a signature scar or tattoo, giving your full name, saying “Don’t you know who I am?” Reputations: Assassin who never fails, magically cursed, the land’s greatest duelist, a legend in the bedroom.
First Impressions
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, Consider ]
When you first meet someone, the GM must answer 1 question about them.
Describe: Reading their body language, going with your instincts, getting a general vibe, noticing a detail.
Related traits: Warfare:Cold Read, Psionics.Telepathy
Gambit Roulette
Spend a point of your signature resource to place metaphysical bets. Write down the outcome of an event that’s out of your control and largely up to chance. Seal it in a document with a code name on it and give it (max 1) to the GM. When the event happens, tell the GM to open the document and read it. If the GM agrees that you predicted the event, receive 3 free bolsters to turn the odds in your favor.
Describe: How the hell could you have known that?
Related Traits: Artifice.Crazy Enough To Work, Command.Just as Planned
Honeyed Words
You are incredibly charming and convincing. When you spend a good tale while sweet-talking someone into doing what you want, mark an extra box on the challenge track.
You may also spend a good tale and a point of your signature resource to give someone the condition “Captivated”
Describe: Giving an impassioned speech, calling in a favor, subtly manipulating someone, being charming.
Lucky
[ Bardic Lore, Interaction, Exploration, Deception, Narrative Authority ]
Spend a good tale to explain how a seemingly innocuous action causes an exceedingly unlikely chain of events and ends with something fortunate for you.
If this causes harm or disadvantage to an NPC, they might blame you for it, but they’ll have no rational way to fault you for it. Surely it wasn’t intentional.
Describe: First: Pet a dog, give a beggar a gold coin, drop a nail, fire an arrow randomly into the distance. Then: Help arrives, something explodes, someone gets hurt, a building collapses, a fight starts.
Related Traits: Bardic Lore.Comedy and Tragedy
Rumors
At any point, you can have the GM tell you 2 facts and 1 lie about whatever you’re investigating.
Describe: Overhearing gossip, trading for information, remembering rumors you heard while in town.
Small World
You can recognize an NPC as an old acquaintance. Explain how you know each other and how they feel about you.
Describe: Recognizing your old stomping grounds, looking up an address, hearing so-and-so is in town. Old Acquaintances: Drinking buddy, cousin, former adventuring partner, old flame, business partner.
Wingman
As a neutral tale, you may spend a point of your signature resource to bolster an ally for socializing, persuading, or impressing someone.
Describe: Chatting up your friend, telling them what to say, lightening the mood, making introductions
Smooth RPG 