Bard/Trivia

General

 * Bard is the first champion released in 2015.
 * Curiously enough, is the antithesis of, going so far as to both having a portal-opening ability ( and ) as well as an enemy-destructible object-placing one ( and )
 * Bard is one of a handful of champions that can theoretically scale infinitely the others being         and
 * He is the first champion to be able to disable both and  (thanks to 's stasis) as well as the second to have only one damaging ability  the second being
 * 'Bard: Mountain' was animated in Korea by StudioMIR (responsible for, , and even the Season 3 World Championship video Road to the Cup) and directed by , as well as written and artistically guided by Riot employees (with Riot Jino as the visual effects consultant)
 * The village sage from 'Bard: Mountain' resembles the elderly Summoner on the default profile banner in the game's client.
 * Bard will not intervene in battles unless the combatants themselves are the ones that could change the world for the worse. In 'Bard: Mountain' his focus was not the Noxian assault but rather the artifact being misused, which is why he didn't help the villagers.

Development

 * Bard is Luke 'Rabid Llama' Rinard's first champion. He used to be part of Riot's Engineering team buy later switched over to Design.
 * Bard was first extracted from the filenames of in-game icons and subsequently from promotional images.
 * s are usually poets or musicians dedicated to storytelling who either travel on their own or are hired by patrons and are dedicated to singing heroic tales or events past. This is why they often dress mostly in cloth or light leather and have a musical instrument handy for storytelling/singing in a light-hearted fashion.
 * Despite the name, Bard's theme was changed halfway from 'musical bard' (he even had an instrument) to 'cosmic being'.
 * The remnants of his musical theme can be seen on his flute-like weapon.
 * In V5.3 five copies of Bard's mask were hidden across Summoner's Rift but have since been removed.
 * The first time they were encountered by a champion, they would glow and make a sound.
 * In Spectator Mode, they would light up when the camera focused on them.

Lore
is a Celestial Being that has created a corporeal form in order to interact with the physical world, which means his current body, in a sense, isn't his original form.
 * This is noticeable while looking at Bard's makeshift body, as his legs are wooden pegs, his mask serves as a face, and there are stitches or bands on his arms, seemingly holding them together.
 * This also explains why in Bard's death animation, his spirit ebbs out of his body as it crumples into a limp, lifeless shape.
 * Bard however, is not omnipotent. Despite being immortal as a spirit, he can be banished. Powerful magics could potentially imprison him, and a force of equal or superior power could possibly end him.
 * Bard influences Runeterran history in very different manner than the . Where Darkin directly influence key events in history through conflict and bloodshed, the Celestial passively pushes the world back to balance during its most desperate hours.
 * Bard is not concerned by the mundane actions of mortals, he only acts when larger dangers of cosmic significance threaten Runeterra. His mission is to keep things in order and balanced. This conflicts with his fellow Celestial,, who instead is focused in the care of living beings and peace.
 * For example, if Bard intervenes it's to influence something in another dimension 10000 years ago. Bard is not there actually to save you, he is saving you because one of your descendants might have an important part in the future, meaning that your life must be secured (at least to a certain point) for that to happen.
 * The green ball that sits in Bard's horn is a harmonic key that splits layers of reality and taps directly into the magical friction that all worlds emit.
 * Meeps.png Meeps are attracted to Bard's energy. While the Meeps are separate entities, they've traveled with Bard for so long, they had become part of him. Also the relationship is mutually beneficial.
 * Bard "speaks" the way he does because, to ordinary beings or beings simply not worthy and cannot understand what Bard is saying because it might risk the future. The best way describing it is that Bard actually speaks the language the people of Runeterra are using, but his voice will sound distorted to other beings because they're not meant to understand him.

Quotes

 * Bard is the second champion to have a voice-over with no actual spoken words, the first being.
 * Bard is also the second champion to have a music-themed voice-over, the first being.
 * Bard has a unique voice-over system that plays certain kinds of lines based on how many meeps he currently have spawned at your side. There are specific lines for zero, one, two, and three meeps. Bard's voice-over is controlled entirely by the cyclical meep ammo system.
 * early voice-over prototypes used, , and.
 * The final version of his voice-over has 4 parts:, , verbed out tone clusters and strings, and a synthesizer called Zebra that was programmed to cycle through the harmonic series, or overtone series. The combination is meant to give Bard a sense of other-worldliness.
 * Other instruments recorded for Bard are:
 * Tibetan Singing bowls (various shapes and sizes)
 * Tibetan chimes (various shapes and sizes)
 * Tibetan Gong
 * Tibetan Cymbal
 * Trombone (performed)
 * Trombone mouth piece
 * Trombone mouth piece buzzed through a garden hose
 * Bowed Cymbals
 * Various ethnic flutes and reed instruments
 * His type of communication is similar to how from "" communicates, by melody.
 * He also creates melodies similar to calls.

Skins

 * appearance is heavily inspired by characters from 's works: "" and "".
 * Example of such characters are the (木霊), tree spirits that share the same facial features with Bard. They appearance has also inspired Bard's Meeps.png Meeps.
 * His character was also inspired by from the "" franchise.
 * His character was also inspired by from the "" franchise.


 * His appearance was slightly inspired by from "".
 * , commonly known as "elder tree" (deriving from, the name of a Scandinavian matriarchal tree spirit), was thought of as being a protective tree and has strong associations with Fairy and Goddess-centered mythology.
 * He shares this theme with, and.
 * He shares this theme with, and.


 * The skin was released during the Snowdown Showdown of 2015.
 * He shares this theme with, , , , and.
 * He shares this theme with, , , , and.

Relations

 * As a Celestial Being, he has some relations with.
 * Even though Bard shares some Celestial natures with her, he's not restricted only to Soraka's plane of origin. He exists and journeys across many realms and planes.
 * Bard might be concerned over the effects of Ekko messing with the time-stream with his device, along with Zilean.
 * Each of the following events are marked as failed attempts of mortals trying to obtain or to use celestial powers for their own selfish ideals and goals:
 * does not have ties with The Ruined King,, and the Frozen Watchers, despite them unleashing utter chaos in the world of Runeterra, Lissandra trying to help the Watchers create an endless winter in the world, Xerath trying to obtain Celestial-like powers of Ascension through corrupt means, and The Ruined King trying to obtain immortality through necromancy apparently doesn't matter to him, as those events might not have direct, large cosmic consequences. While he was a witness to those events, he did not intervene in any of them, at least not directly.
 * In the battle of Bard Mountain in Ionia, the village sage, from whom had taken away the Celestial artifact, had said: "We'll die without it".
 * The elder thought the villages would have died without use of the artifact as a weapon. The dangerous magical amplifying powers of the egg could have definitely turned the tide of the battle, as seen with its use by the sage against his would-be killer (by this action alone, the sage had failed in his duties). The destruction of an entire mountain peak prompted Bard, for fear of its misuse, to take away the artifact from the mortal planes. In the end, the survivors of the villages' assaults have survived without it. This is known by the fact that the child, who was carried out of the flames of the conflict, grows up to become the old storyteller from The Wonder Above.
 * It's possible that the artifact is linked to, a powerful Celestial dragon being, whom Bard may or may not have prevented from being summoned. Bard might have some relations Aurelion Sol in the near future.