The Bard's Tale

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"A quest for coin and cleavage."

Take your standard Heroic Fantasy, except replace that hero with an Anti-Hero Jerkass, "a sardonic and opportunistic musician and adventurer, driven by carnal rather than noble pursuits". The Bard (who is never identified by a specific name) is not interested in saving the world, his humble motivations are strictly "coin and cleavage". Then have his quest narrated by a mocking, biased man who cannot stand him.

The Bard, after getting burned by and subsequently slaying a giant, fire-breathing rat, ends up being recruited by an old man to help free a princess named Caleigh. As a result of this, the Bard finds himself being attacked by an assortment of fanatics from a Druid-like cult, sent to dispatch him by a being called Fionnaoch. On the way to complete his quest, the not so valiant anti-hero will have to overcome the truly terrifying challenges of three monstrous guardians, break-dancing corpses, spontaneously melodious goblins and a giant, fire-breathing rat.

Has nothing to do with the games of The Bard's Tale Trilogy (the first game being titled The Bard's Tale [1985]), although it does have a few shout outs to it (and some editions include the earlier games as an extra).

Tropes used in The Bard's Tale include:
  • Alliteration: Fnarf loves to talk like this.
  • Affectionate Parody
  • All Men Are Perverts: How did Caleigh get the bard to go on the quest when lures of money and power weren't enough? She offered sex. Lots and lots of sex.
  • Anti-Hero: Deconstructed in the Evil ending. The Bard has no particular stake in saving the world, so siding with Caleigh really is the best choice for him.
    • Though the same could be said for the neutral ending, wherein the Bard leaves and gets drunk with some zombies. As it turns out, The Bard doesn't make to be any sort of hero or villain at all, and the undead apparently make great bar buddies. (and definitely good dancers, too)
  • Back From the Dead: The dog as a zombie.
  • Blatant Lies: The Narrator loves to engage in these, to the chagrin of The Bard.
  • Bottomless Magazines: No limit to those arrows!
  • Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Jacques and Jean, a pair of French guys, who give you the run around after offering a tune, will accept your challenge to a fight, then surrender as soon as you draw your weapons.
  • Chosen One - Parodied. Throughout your quest, you will encounter many other chosen ones, most of whom are either dead or arrested.
  • Continuity Nod: In a conversation early in the game the Bard proclaims that he's had enough adventures, involving, among other things, cities locked in eternal winter. This was the plot of the original 1985 Bard's Tale.
  • Crate Expectations: Parodied. When the bard smashes a barrel early in the game, the barrel maker comes out and chastises him for smashing his barrels. He then offers a deal: smash all other barrels the Bard sees so that the barrel-maker can sell more barrels.
    • Also, the game guide lists that the Bard's previous profession was as an assistant to the barrel maker, however he was fired for producing inferior barrels which "... shattered with a mere whack of a sword." And his mentor chased him out of town for such shoddy work, saying that "A key won't even be safe in these things."
  • The Dead Can Dance: "WHAT THE HELL??"
  • Deadpan Snarker: The Bard, whenever you go with the snarky option in conversations.
    • The Narrator gets in a few zings of his own as well.
  • Determinator: In the town of Houton, there is an old man who will demand an apology from you if you bump into him. If you refuse, he'll just keep insisting, even following you into a dungeon full of zombies to do so. Refuse enough times and he'll swear to chase you all the way into hell until you say you're sorry.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: The Rogue will use this, although it won't stop the bad guys from attacking, it will just stop them from attacking you.
  • Dual-Wielding: The Bard can learn to dual wield a sword with a dirk in the off-hand.
  • Evil Pays Better: Sometimes you're better off being mean. Also, the evil ending has what could be considered the happiest ending for The Bard.
  • Evil Tower of Ominousness: The boss towers.
  • Fetch Quest: Quite a few.
  • Five-Man Band: The Bard can get several types of band members throughout the game.
  • Follow the Bouncing Ball: Every single Crowd Song in the game.
  • Funny Foreigner: Anybody who doesn't speak with an English accent.
  • Genre Savvy: The Bard, mostly from his own past experiences (if you take the word of a self-serving liar and crook like him, anyway).
    • The Narrator acts like he has never seen a fantasy game before, given his shock at some standard tropes.
  • Glass Cannon: The Vorpal Rat. Highest damaging summon, but it only has 1 11 hit points and no armor.
  • Good Is Not Nice: It's not the Bard. It's Finnioch.
  • Groin Attack: If you're snarky to one of the women in Finnstown, The Bard will get a knee to the jewels for it, while the Narrator laughs.
  • Guide Dang It: Almost all the tokens are Missable, and you never know which conversation option will yield the plot.
  • Handsome Lech
  • He Knows About Timed Hits: Parodied once again. The Bard thinks the guy giving the tutorial is just plain crazy, but plays along, anyway.

Old Man: Ye've already proven that ye know how to move around and attack with your weapon. Let's talk a wee bit about jumping.
The Bard: 'Course I know how to walk around! And jumping? Heh, I know how to jump!
Old Man: Press the Triangle Button.
The Bard: Wha'? What're you on about? What button? You're completely insane, aren't you? Y'know, I ran into this other guy once; he kept talking about mice I couldn't see!

The Bard: "I've had just about enough of these atrocious alliterative announcements... Now I'm doing it!"

  • Summon Magic: A big part of gameplay. Several of the summon spells you get are plot-important.
    • First, you can summon various creatures and warriors to back you up in battle, spending energy out of your Mana Meter. They stay with you until they're killed or banished.
    • Second, you can use magical artifacts in combination with a limited supply of adderstones. These artifacts call Caleigh or one of threetower bosses to cause some instant or temporary effect on the field.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: Carsgair and the Shadow Axe.
  • Theme Naming: Many of the names and characters are influenced by Celtic mythology and the stories of the Orkney Islands.
  • Those Two Guys: Jacques and Jean.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: If you choose to be snarky to Gower in end of the mountain pass segment, the bard will give the sword to him.
  • Too Awesome to Use: The Adderstone powers can feel like this at times.
  • The Unintelligible: MacRath
  • Vendor Trash: All sorts of it, among it Wanted Posters of the Bard himself, but thankfully, it's all exchanged for silver as soon as it's acquired.
  • "The Villain Sucks" Song: The Tale of the Nukleavee and Here's To The Bard (Viking remix). Both about the Bard screwing stuff up. Every song but the one about beer, really.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Oh, plenty--
    • Watching the "Chosen Ones" (a small army of teenagers) get killed in stupid and hilarious ways is one of several running gags.
    • You can also kill chickens and push over cows in Houton. This serves no purpose (the chickens give you minimal experience, and only occasionally drop a nugget worth 1 piece of silver, and the cows getting tipped is only there for poops and giggles) and will get a very angry cow and chicken come after you if you do it enough times.
    • Count the number of times that you can arbitrarily swindle, abuse, or threaten people to get money or goods. Don't make a drinking game of it though; you'll make yourself very sick.
  • Violent Glaswegian: Averted. You'll run into a guy with a very thick Scottish accent, loves to go to Pubs, but doesn't ever once engage in an act of violence.
  • Wandering Minstrel: The Bard.
  • We Can Rule Together: You can screw together, anyway. The evil option is one sweet deal.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: The undead cows can be killed in one hit if attacked from the side. This is due to all the times The Bard tipped them over.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Happens in some of the towns. You cause them all through various blundering means.
  1. They actually are, but they just sucked.