The Bard's Tale Trilogy

The song I sing
Will tell the tale
of a cold and wintery day;
Of castle walls
And torchlit halls
And a price men had to pay.
When evil fled
And brave men bled
The Dark one came to stay,
'Til men of old
For blood and gold
Had rescued Skara Brae.

—Introductory song

The Bard's Tale Trilogy is a series of games developed by Interplay and published by Electronic Arts. It was a first-person game in the style of the Wizardry series, but with more impressive sounds and graphics, especially the Apple IIGS and Commodore Amiga versions. As the title of this page suggests, there were three games in the series:

• The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown (1985)-- The mad wizard Mangar has cast a spell of eternal winter over the city of Skara Brae. The heroes, who just happen to be stuck in the city, must stop him.
• The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight (1986) -- The evil wizard Lagoth Zanta has shattered the Destiny Wand into seven pieces and scattered them across seven cities. The heroes must reforge the Destiny Wand, and one amongst them must become the Destiny Knight.
• The Bard's Tale III: The Thief of Fate (1988) -- The mad god Tarjan has finally lost it, destroying Skara Brae and wreaking havoc across other dimensions. The heroes must stop him once and for all.

Tropes used in The Bard's Tale Trilogy include:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Sewers of Skara Brae in Tales of the Unknown are a three-level labyrinth accessed via the wine cellar of the tavern on Rakhir Street. Given the altar you find down there, the local spider cult may be to blame. Until you get the Master Key, they're also the only way to get to Mangar's Tower--directly on the opposite side of town.
• Achilles' Heel: The crystal sword for the crystal golem in Tales of the Unknown; the Nightspear for Tslotha Garnath in Thief of Fate.
• After the End: The main world of Thief of Fate is in this condition. Gelidia is no better off, and the Wasteland zone of Tarmitia is a nod to another Interplay game.
• Anti-Magic: Anti-magic zones don't just prevent you from casting spells (except the most basic of light spells), they also turn off all persistent spells except light spells. In The Destiny Knight, the entire Grey Crypt is a single massive anti-magic zone. Better bring a source of light that doesn't rely on spellcasting.
• Apocalyptic Log: In Thief of Fate the diaries of dead people, as well as old poems, can be found.
• Barbarian Hero: The portraits for some characters in some versions of the game are this.
• The Bard: Unsurprisingly, it has a few with the Magic Music power.
• Beef Gate: The gray dragon statue outside Harkyn's Castle in Tales of the Unknown can inflict a one-turn Total Party Kill on a tenth-level party with its breath weapon. Said party would probably be able to handle the Random Encounters inside, at least on the first level.
• Bigger Bad: Thief of Fate reveals that Mangar (Big Bad of Tales of the Unknown) was actually a high-ranking lieutenant of Tarjan's.
• Bonus Boss: At least one in each game.
• Broken Bridge: In Tales of the Unknown, the gate out of Skara Brae is permanently locked. Sinister Street, which appears to lead out of the town, is actually an infinitely-repeating corridor.
• Church Militant: The Paladin class is in the game series.
• Class and Level System: Of course. There's even a Prestige Class system of sorts. Sorcerors and wizards have always been this way; a sorceror needs you to have at least three spell levels in either conjuror or magician, and a wizard needs that for at least two classes. The archmage of The Destiny Knight was hinted at in the first game's manual, and in that game, you need at least three spell levels in all four other mage classes. In Thief of Fate, you have to turn an archmage into a chronomancer to get much of anywhere...which requires you to lose all your non-chronomancer spells in the bargain (the non-travel spells definitely make up for it though). A similar situation exists with the geomancer, except only a fighter class can promote to this, trading their special qualities (paladin saving throws, hunter critical hits, etc.) for the spell privilege.
• Copy Protection: Tales of the Unknown and The Destiny Knight required the player to look up four-letter codes in the manual in order to cast spells, at least on the originally supported platforms. Additionally, The Destiny Knight required hints in the manual to win the game, and Thief of Fate had a code wheel for travelling between the dimensions.
• Critical Hit: Of the One-Hit Kill variety. The Hunter does this with his normal attacks, the Rogue does this with sneak attacks, some monsters do it with their regular melee attack, and any player character wielding the Strifespear does it. This is required to be done by the Rogue to kill Tarjan.
• Crossover: In the initial game, you could import characters from Wizardry or Ultima III.
• Driven to Madness: Cyanis from Thief of Fate encountered some recent difficulties, to say the least.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Between Destiny Knight and Thief of Fate, almost all of the NPCs of Skara Brae were killed by Tarjan. Hawkslayer from Thief of Fate is utterly crushed and pulverized.
• Dungeon Bypass: In Tarmitia, you can bypass the dungeon circle and go straight to Werra's place if you already know the password.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Cast Trap Zap all you like, you're NOT going to escape setting off those two tripwires in Oscon's Fortress that force you to rehearse Outrun the Fireball for a corridor.
• Fantastic Nuke: Played With, there is a spell in Thief of Fate whose codename is "NUKE" but its full name is Goetterdammerung.
• Flunky Boss: Many of the bosses are this. This is also an important part of the fights against Lagoth Zanta and Tarjan.
• Game Favored Gender: In the first two games, all characters are male. This has the incidental side-effect of meaning that only male characters in the third game can benefit from the Old Save Bonus class, which is only accessible by importing a character from an old game. This isn't reflected in the official guides, whose casts included female characters through all three games.
• Game Maker: The trilogy was followed up with The Bard's Tale Construction Set - an extremely limited tool which couldn't even accurately reproduce the first game's plot, let alone the second or third.
• Ghost Town: The vast majority of town buildings are either empty or populated by random encounters.
• A God Am I: Tarjan used to be mortal. Not anymore...
• Good Old Fisticuffs: The Monk class is most-effective without any weapons at higher levels.
• Guest Star Party Member: Numerous summonable creatures, many different ones in The Destiny Knight, and Hawkslayer in Thief of Fate.
• Guide Dang It: Almost literally, some puzzles can only be solved by following some esoteric instructions in the manual.
• Joke Item: The most distinctive one may be the Dork Ring.
• Late Arrival Spoiler: The Mad God's name is Tarjan. This was a password in the original game, but is freely referenced in later games (and given to you directly by the Old Man in 3).
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Lagoth Zanta thinks he has manipulated the party to this effect, not realizing the true nature of the MacGuffin.
• Made of Iron: The Monk class naturally gets good armor class without needing to wear anything.
• Mad God: One of Tarjan's titles is the Mad God.
• Magic Music: This is what makes bards so important. If they have an instrument, they can sing a song that either lasts for the rest of combat, or lasts for a good chunk of city/dungeon exploration. As long as the song lasts, you get a particular boon (e.g. easier saving throws, regeneration, improved armor class, can always flee). The trick is that the bard's voice dries out after a singing a number of songs equal to their character level. You can "recharge" this by getting them a drink.
• Meaningful Name: Sinister Street is not an ordinary street, that's for sure.
  • The alternate dimensions to which you travel in Thief of Fate have names reflecting their natures (e.g. Arboria is a woodland, Tenebrosia is a place of shadows and illusions, Malefia is the dimension of evil).
  • The four-letter code for the "Youth" spell (which removes the "withered" status effect) is "OLAY".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kylearan...WHY couldn't you have noticed the heroes before they reunited Tarjan's eye with his petrified form, thus restoring him? Sure, you thought he was slain by them shortly thereafter, but look at what happened after the Lagoth Zanta incident...
• Nigh Invulnerable: The Destiny Knight, of whom it is said "Of wounds this man can never die", cannot be killed by hit point damage.
• Nintendo Hard: It makes Wizardry look like Half Minute Hero.
• The Obi-Wan: The Old Man at the Review Board, who perishes near the end of Thief of Fate
• Old Save Bonus: Enforced fully, to the point of being able to carry over unique and powerful weapons such as the Spectre Snare.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Tarjan's ultimate plan is to destroy all dimensions except Malefia.
• One-Hit Kill: Critical hits and stoning attacks, and the Deathstrike and Far Death spells.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: The most famous one in Tales of the Unknown is 99 berserkers, 99 berserkers, 99 berserkers, and 99 berserkers. You remembered to bring a sorceror with Mangar's Mind Blade, right? RIGHT? Or you can take the sane option, and wear robes so they think you're part of the staff.
  • In The Destiny Knight, the Dream Mages who appear as random encounters in the Maze of Dread do nothing but raise illusionary monsters. Three points cause this to be a Metal Menagerie-grade XP farm: Summons (including illusions) can't act until the turn after they appear, a high-level party will reliably disbelieve every single illusion the Dream Mages raise, and disbelieving an illusionary monster counts as killing it for XP gain purposes. Just remember to kill off the mages after a while, as there's a cap on the XP and gold gain from each individual encounter (65280 per player character on the Commodore 64).
• People Puppets: Anyone hit with possession will start going after you, until you dispossess them.
• Plot Coupon: Numerous.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: In the first game, the crystal sword is a better weapon than you'd be able to find as a random drop at that point. In the second game, each segment of the Destiny Wand has a special power. In the third game, you have to collect the gods' personal equipment, and can then use it during your assault on Malefia (there's also the Nightspear, in Arboria, which performs much the same plot role as the crystal sword).
• The Power of the Sun: Spellcasters slowly regenerate SP when outside during daytime. Outside nighttime, or inside anytime? Hope you have a Mage Staff...
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Some of the tracks come from real Renaissance-era songs.
• Random Encounters: It's a 1980s CRPG series.
• Remake: The first two games were remade for the Apple IIGS and Amiga, and the third game was remade for the Amiga and PC.
• Sequence Breaking: Possible to an extent in the first two games; impossible (apart from skipping the two dungeons under Skara Brae) in the third, because the Old Man won't teach your chronomancer the travel spells for one dimension until you've recovered the artifacts from the previous dimension.
• Siblings in Crime: In Oscon's Fortress in The Destiny Knight, one message refers to Mangar's brother now being your nemesis. It doesn't make clear whether it's referring to Oscon or Lagoth, though.
• Single Biome Planet: The different dimensions of Thief of Fate.
• Snowed In: In Tales of the Unknown, Skara Brae has been cut off from the rest of the world by an unnatural cold; going to the city gates reveals them to be covered in snow.
• Spoony Bard: Totally inverted, the Bard is the most important class in the whole game series...in case the name of the game didn't clue you in.
• Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. The spellcasting classes' armour options are highly restricted (robes and various magical accessories only, except for the Geomancer in Thief of Fate who wears armour like a warrior), but because of the way character advancement and class changes work, they will have much better saving throws and noticeably better hit points.
• Taken for Granite: Several monsters can inflict this with their melee attacks. You can return the favour with the Stone Touch (in Tales of the Unknown) or Petrify (in Thief of Fate) spells.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The Sword of Zar in The Destiny Knight can be thrown to a range of 80', and always returns after being thrown. Aram's Knife can go to 90', but can't do as much damage as a melee weapon (so you give it to the hunter because his One-Hit Kill ability makes melee weapon damage not matter much).
• Time Travel: It is implied in Thief of Fate that each of the dimensions exists in a different time, thus Hawkslayer has a different age each time he is encountered.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The main (shown-in-game, at least) religion of Skara Brae, worship of Tarjan, turns out to be rather malicious. This is hinted at in Tales of the Unknown (unlike the other temples, they want nothing to do with you unless you know Tarjan's name) and comes to fruition in Thief of Fate.
• Treacherous Advisor: Lagoth Zanta
• Unwinnable By Mistake: In Tales of the Unknown, this can crop up in Kylearan's Tower. There's an unavoidable fight with the Crystal Golem, and you must have the Crystal Sword in your inventory, or else it will reassemble and start the fight anew. If for some reason you don't have the Sword (you didn't find it in Harkyn's Castle, or you decided to sell it), you'd likely just go back for it (items sold to Garth's don't disappear). Except... the entirety of the Tower is teleport-proof, and there's no path back to the stairs in the Golem's segment. At least when you get wiped out, you can just make a few new characters to drag your crew's corpses to the local temple.
• Useless Useful Spell: Sorry, but the first game's spells for inflicting withering, poison, and insanity have no effect on the enemy goons (ditto any such brands on your weapons, such as the poison brand on Kael's Axe). The bad news is that the enemy has those spells, and when you're the target, they do work.
• Vendor Trash: Brooms and other mundane things can sometimes be gotten as loot.
  • Not that mundane; the Broom casts Greater Levitation.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Attack your allies and they'll turn on you.
• What Could Have Been: Tales of the Unknown was actually going to be the name of the trilogy. The Bard's Tale was originally the title of just the first game. Games two and three were planned to be The Archmage's Tale and The Thief's Tale, respectively. This was changed to the above titles when the public took far more readily to the first game's subtitle than its title.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: The theory behind the sorceror's illusion spells. As long as the enemy believes that you conjured up a genuine red dragon or storm giant (they haven't read the manual, so they don't know that spells to call up said genuine red dragons and storm giants don't exist), they'll believe that they have indeed been mortally wounded by them, and will proceed to die. Of course, the reverse is true when they call up their own illusions. Hope you have your Disbelieve spell ready...