Bard Guild
Several weeks ago I told Paul Kwinn I would tell more about a recent unexpected roleplaying group I've gotten involved with. Over in 
bardling 's board earlier tonight katyhh expressed an interest in the Bard Guild I mentioned over there. Since they are both one and the same, it seems a good day to talk about it more.
As I've mentioned before, I learned back in August there is going to be a large Tolkien convention happening in Toronto at the end of 2003. While surfing around their website I followed a link to a quilting/cross-stitch group and offered to help them with some cross-stitch. Their thread was part of the message boards for TolkienOnline.com and branching out from their thread I found a lively, very busy series of guilds and alliances attached to this website, each group focusing on a common interest or connection. It reminded me a lot of filk boards, where people are brought together by filk, but then proceed to talk about whatever is on their mind that day. These boards draw in Tolkien fans who then move into individual threads to discuss everything else under the sun. Before long beyond just the Quilters Guild, I was also chatting in the Canadian Guild, the Eldars Guild (for fans over 30) and the Bard's Guild. Most of these boards were discussion boards and anyone interested can chime in, but the Bard's Guild proved to be different.
In the Bard's Guild one must earn the right to become a bard by showing your ability to write poems or songs. One auditions to become an "apprentice" by writing an ABC poem. An ABC poem is your interpretation of a poem using each letter of the alphabet in a line of poetry. It can be as simple as "A is for apprentice, B is for bard, C is for carols, this isn't very hard..." or something very elaborate and creative. The Bard's Guild has a whole thread of ABC poems written by newcomers interested in the guild. Once you post your ABC poem, the Master Bard welcomes you into the guild. Well, I was intrigued by the challenge, so I wrote my ABC poem and became part of the guild.
There is a Bard thread where people can just get together and chat, but the true lifeblood of the TORC Bard Guild are their "Bard Festivals", virtual events where the bards gather together to meet, party, present songs and poetry and role-play. Through the Bard Festivals you can earn respect and honours from your fellow bards by posting songs and poems. Posting songs allows you to to earn special rankings within the group- Apprentice, Journeyman Bard, Exemplar Bard, Master Bard. At the end of each festival there is a ceremony where any bard who has presented a song during the festival moves up one rank within the guild.
Struck me as kind of a neat idea and maybe a good way to motivate my sleeping songwriting Muse. The catch for me was that all members attend the Bard Festivals in persona, creating a bard character to fit within the Tolkien world. Songwriting, I had some experience at, role-playing, I did not. To be honest, I was more interested in the camaraderie of fellow songwriters/poets and the chance to talk music and write songs than to create a character and role-play with her.
Apprehensive, I decided to give it a shot, anyway. Turns out once my ABC poem was accepted I discovered the bards were in the middle of a September Shire festival (Frodo and Bilbo's birthdays, you know). I was told that if I showed up in the thread and presented a poem within the next two days I could be inducted as a Journeyman Bard by the end of the festival.
It was a challenge I couldn't resist. I had no bard character and no song, but I had two days, luckily weekend days. First of all I grabbed an abandoned half-finished Tolkien lyric from my files determined to modify it to make it suitable to post on-line. I was rather stunned and pleased to realize the modifications actually allowed me to finish a song I was happy with, making my foray into the Bard's Guild already worth the effort. I was already using the name "Shaal" as a handle on the TORC boards, so I gave the slightest of parameters to my bard character, Shaal- brown hair, grey eyes, a love of history, plays the lute, is the daughter of a Ranger. Good enough and Shaal was off to her first Bard Festival.
Sigh, role-playing on-line is hard! I introduced my character into the festival thread, but then I was shy about integrating her into other things going on, shy about introducing her to other characters (hmmm, not so different to my reaction to new situations in real life). Still, Shaal did sing her song and at the end of the festival she/I was inducted as a Journeyman Bard and received a virtual silver bard pin for her/my efforts. It surprised me just how happy I was about that, I felt a sense of accomplishment.
After the festival I posted a few songs over in the Bard Guild thread (including a song about "Tuck Everlasting" I was inspired to write to remain active in the guild), but being a bard is time-consuming! You're expected to prepare a history, image and character sheet for your bard to put on the bard website, post poems or songs when you can and write and perform new songs at Bard Festivals 4-5 times a year (on a specified theme) to be an active member. I'm still feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but still encouraged enough to not want to pull out altogether. Shaal still doesn't have much of a character, nor a profile on the Bard site (yet) and report cards have kept me from writing a song for the latest festival (love songs were requested, it's a wedding) or even attending it, but I can't bring myself to give up on being a continuing part of this project. I like the people, I like the motivation to write songs and I imagine I can adjust to the occasional role-playing festival :). I also like the idea of getting to know some of the people who will be attending the Tolkien convention here next year.
It's an adventure. I'm going to see if I can have Shaal better prepared for whatever bard festival is likely to be held during Yule or the Winter Solstice. On-line role-playing is a bewildering thing.
bardling 's board earlier tonight katyhh expressed an interest in the Bard Guild I mentioned over there. Since they are both one and the same, it seems a good day to talk about it more.As I've mentioned before, I learned back in August there is going to be a large Tolkien convention happening in Toronto at the end of 2003. While surfing around their website I followed a link to a quilting/cross-stitch group and offered to help them with some cross-stitch. Their thread was part of the message boards for TolkienOnline.com and branching out from their thread I found a lively, very busy series of guilds and alliances attached to this website, each group focusing on a common interest or connection. It reminded me a lot of filk boards, where people are brought together by filk, but then proceed to talk about whatever is on their mind that day. These boards draw in Tolkien fans who then move into individual threads to discuss everything else under the sun. Before long beyond just the Quilters Guild, I was also chatting in the Canadian Guild, the Eldars Guild (for fans over 30) and the Bard's Guild. Most of these boards were discussion boards and anyone interested can chime in, but the Bard's Guild proved to be different.
In the Bard's Guild one must earn the right to become a bard by showing your ability to write poems or songs. One auditions to become an "apprentice" by writing an ABC poem. An ABC poem is your interpretation of a poem using each letter of the alphabet in a line of poetry. It can be as simple as "A is for apprentice, B is for bard, C is for carols, this isn't very hard..." or something very elaborate and creative. The Bard's Guild has a whole thread of ABC poems written by newcomers interested in the guild. Once you post your ABC poem, the Master Bard welcomes you into the guild. Well, I was intrigued by the challenge, so I wrote my ABC poem and became part of the guild.
There is a Bard thread where people can just get together and chat, but the true lifeblood of the TORC Bard Guild are their "Bard Festivals", virtual events where the bards gather together to meet, party, present songs and poetry and role-play. Through the Bard Festivals you can earn respect and honours from your fellow bards by posting songs and poems. Posting songs allows you to to earn special rankings within the group- Apprentice, Journeyman Bard, Exemplar Bard, Master Bard. At the end of each festival there is a ceremony where any bard who has presented a song during the festival moves up one rank within the guild.
Struck me as kind of a neat idea and maybe a good way to motivate my sleeping songwriting Muse. The catch for me was that all members attend the Bard Festivals in persona, creating a bard character to fit within the Tolkien world. Songwriting, I had some experience at, role-playing, I did not. To be honest, I was more interested in the camaraderie of fellow songwriters/poets and the chance to talk music and write songs than to create a character and role-play with her.
Apprehensive, I decided to give it a shot, anyway. Turns out once my ABC poem was accepted I discovered the bards were in the middle of a September Shire festival (Frodo and Bilbo's birthdays, you know). I was told that if I showed up in the thread and presented a poem within the next two days I could be inducted as a Journeyman Bard by the end of the festival.
It was a challenge I couldn't resist. I had no bard character and no song, but I had two days, luckily weekend days. First of all I grabbed an abandoned half-finished Tolkien lyric from my files determined to modify it to make it suitable to post on-line. I was rather stunned and pleased to realize the modifications actually allowed me to finish a song I was happy with, making my foray into the Bard's Guild already worth the effort. I was already using the name "Shaal" as a handle on the TORC boards, so I gave the slightest of parameters to my bard character, Shaal- brown hair, grey eyes, a love of history, plays the lute, is the daughter of a Ranger. Good enough and Shaal was off to her first Bard Festival.
Sigh, role-playing on-line is hard! I introduced my character into the festival thread, but then I was shy about integrating her into other things going on, shy about introducing her to other characters (hmmm, not so different to my reaction to new situations in real life). Still, Shaal did sing her song and at the end of the festival she/I was inducted as a Journeyman Bard and received a virtual silver bard pin for her/my efforts. It surprised me just how happy I was about that, I felt a sense of accomplishment.
After the festival I posted a few songs over in the Bard Guild thread (including a song about "Tuck Everlasting" I was inspired to write to remain active in the guild), but being a bard is time-consuming! You're expected to prepare a history, image and character sheet for your bard to put on the bard website, post poems or songs when you can and write and perform new songs at Bard Festivals 4-5 times a year (on a specified theme) to be an active member. I'm still feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but still encouraged enough to not want to pull out altogether. Shaal still doesn't have much of a character, nor a profile on the Bard site (yet) and report cards have kept me from writing a song for the latest festival (love songs were requested, it's a wedding) or even attending it, but I can't bring myself to give up on being a continuing part of this project. I like the people, I like the motivation to write songs and I imagine I can adjust to the occasional role-playing festival :). I also like the idea of getting to know some of the people who will be attending the Tolkien convention here next year.
It's an adventure. I'm going to see if I can have Shaal better prepared for whatever bard festival is likely to be held during Yule or the Winter Solstice. On-line role-playing is a bewildering thing.