The Bard's Tale

"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.
  • The Chosen Zero: Not only is the Bard an unlikely hero (and has this pointed out to him), there are many other "Chosen Ones" (people who think the are, anyway ) who end up dead or worse. And after you come across them, some trow come out and sing about it!
  • The Chosen Many
• 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.
  • The Big Guy: The Brute.
  • The Chick: The Heroine.
  • The Dark Chick: The Rogue.
  • The Hero: The Bard, natch.
  • The Lancer: The Knight.
  • The Smart Guy: The Explorer and The Crone.
  • Team Pet: The Dog.
• 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!

• Here We Go Again: The Good Ending.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Hey, it's Carey Elwes. But, why does he sound like he's whispering into the microphone from across the room?
  • The Elder God is also the Narrator.
  • Zaeed Massani must have been a firbolg in a previous life.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Yes, 'The Bard' literally is his name.
• Howling to the Night: Averted, as the wolves howl to call for more wolves, not to tell time or set the mood.
• How We Got Here: The game starts outside Fionnach's tower and goes on to a flashback after the druids rush at The Bard's party of summons.
  • And when you get to that point in the game, the narrator tries to to tell the tale from the beginning, again. The Bard will have none of it.
• Impossible Item Drop: The Narrator expresses incredulity in the early game when a wolf drops a sword. He says he'll skip all such passages from now on, and the bard complains that its his primary source of income.
• Infinity+1 Sword: The Ego Sword, acquired by rescuing some firbolgs trapped behind a cave-in. It's not the most damaging weapon in the game, but you can summon creatures without unequipping it to draw your instrument, and it's got an oddly long reach.
• Insane Proprietor: Crazy Thorvald.
• Lethal Lava Land: Parodied with the Obligatory Lava Level.
• Lemony Narrator: Voiced by Tony Jay.
• Lost Forever: If you run away from a village that ambushes you, all you get is a snarky comment about your reputation preceding you and it is wiped from the map. This means you miss out on the whole viking segment, and all the treasure and new summons that go with it.
• Kick the Dog: Or stomp on it with a giant flying pterodactyl-like thing.
• Kill It with Fire: Higher-level bows shoot fire arrows. You also get to summon a fire elemental and a firey exploding triceratops skeleton.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: He's not stealing, he's performing a public service and cleaning the chests out so they won't be cluttered.
• Magic Pants: Caleigh's transformation into her real form shreds her dress but leaves her private bits covered. Fancy that.
• Male Gaze: The first scene after the introduction shows just the innkeeper's chest, and eventually works up to her face.
• Money Spider: Parodied. After one straight execution of this trope happens, the narrator says that he'll skip all such passages in the future. The Bard complains, since it was a major source of income.
• Multiple Endings: In the end of the game, you could either help Caleigh and fight Fionnaoch which lets the world be engulfed in evil while the Bard and demon queen Caleigh live Happily Ever After, help Fionnaoch and fight Caleigh which returns the world to normal and the Bard goes back to looking for coin and cleavage again or Take a Third Option and leave them to their squabbles and go party with the undead.
• Nakama: The Brute gets pretty protective of the Bard.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Finnstown. You learn what happened as a Noodle Incident with Horny Vikings. Also, the Nuckelavee. Really, the Bard's whole career is built on these, and a good portion of the sidequests involve either making new mistakes or fixing ones you made previously.
• Nightmare Fetishist: The Bard. He gets oddly aroused by Caleigh's real form.
  • "Is it just me, or is she still hot?"
• No Fourth Wall: The Bard frequently argues with the Narrator (who responds in kind), much to the confusion of anyone nearby.
• Ode to Intoxication: Beer, Beer, Beer'.
• One Steve Limit: Averted, you'll find five Bodbs. They're all siblings.
• Pet the Dog: The protagonist is an Anti-Hero Jerkass more interested in, as the game states, "coin and cleavage" than saving the world. He is a compulsive liar and cheat, swindling his way through life and seducing his way through women. However, not only does he pick up a dog companion early in the game, but he sheds a genuine tear and vows revenge when the dog is killed by a monstrous minion of the apparent Big Bad.
• The Power of Rock: The Shadow Axe is an axe, that has strings tightened on it that enables it to sound like an electric guitar when you summon someone.
• Precision F-Strike|Sound Effect Bleep: The Bard lets one loose after being told that some creature that died on his journey wants to see him.
• Reverse Grip: The dirk in the off-hand when dual-wielding.
• Reverse Shrapnel: Lugh's artifact power, the "Aura of War."
• Rule of Funny: The purpose of the snarky option's existence (sometimes being nice gives you better results, and sometimes being snarky does).
• Scenery Porn: It's based on the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance engine and looks quite nice for its time.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Neutral Ending.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Caleigh. Also, the Nuckelavee.
• Seen It All: The Bard. By the time you get to the last tower, he gets pretty tired of hearing idle threats. Also if you skip a scene, you'll sometimes hear the Bard give a dismissive "Next" or "Heard it already".
• Shield-Bash
• Shout-Out: Some of the wolves you kill will drop a red hood or a picnic basket.
  • If you choose to be snarky to the elder of Finnstown after defeating Silkbeard, he will say "May the queen of the Sith take you."
    • Except that when pronounced "shee", "sith" (alternately "sidhe") means The Fair Folk.
  • The description of one of the Tokens, The Boots of Quickening, says that they were once worn by "the great highland warrior Duncan MacClaidh", and that "there can be only one pair surviving to this day".
  • Many zombies drop brains, naturally. Some however, drop bottles of Chianti.
  • The scarecrows drop diplomas (possible The Wizard of Oz reference).
  • A group of strange little men come out to sing every time another Chosen falls. Seem familiar?
  • The vorpal rat is explicitly described like the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
    • It even has the rabbit's deadly pouncing attack.
• Sidequest: Mostly of the, "Let's poke around in this old ruin full of monsters and inexplicably well-maintained traps" variety.
• Strange Syntax Speaker: Fnarf had a tendency to speak with alliteration.

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.