Yazirian Warrior Bard & Mercenary Minstrel

It is believed that bard/minstrel of yazirian society dates back to Stone Hunter Age. The first bards may have been a clan outcast who made their way in yazirian society by musical talent. During this age trespassing in a clan's territory could have dire consequences. However, a yazirian who announced his presence in a clan's territory by music and song would, often as not, be invited to entertain and receive a share in the meat at a clan gathering.  Yazirians with skill in song, poetry and music became an important institution performing important functions.

While each clan had keepers of the clan wisdom, it was the traveling bards that kept alive racial wisdom. As they traveled and gathered poetry, stories and song form the width and breadth of their society passing it on orally they preserved a vast anthology of material that would have been lost long before the development of writing and printing. They also served as emissaries and diplomats, being able to pass the boundaries of clan territories almost at will.

As yazirian society matured and evolved into its Metal Hunting Age and beyond these bards and minstrels became so valued that a clan would adopt one, giving him a permanent home and treating him like a beloved clan elder. Usually this was an older, well travelled bard with great status. It may also have been that the older bards needed to settle down feeling the effects of old age. A clan could gain great status by landing a famous bard in this way. During these developments bards became the councilors, advisers and sages of yazirian society.

During the Stone and Metal Hunting Ages clan wars would be more properly described as clan feuds. The ancient mythic ballads suggest that it was a bard that brought about the first clan war. With rising populations and improvements in science clan war may have been inevitable but the female bard Callistra is universally credited with igniting the first true clan war.

Callistra, an unjustly disinherited yazirian, became a highly sought after bard even in her youth. Using both her feminine wiles and a prodigious talent to sing she discovered she could move and influence warriors and hunters with ease. She even discovered methods and techniques to bring out the battle rage that lay dormant in even the most placid of yazirian. For some reason, be it revenge, jealousy or spite, she stirred animosity for the clan of her youth amongst several neighboring clans. Eventually, at a clan gathering she whipped the hunters and warriors into a raging furry and ignited the first clan war. Other bards became involved and clans began to formally form alliances as distrust and suspicion spread. During this time several clans ceased to exist, including Callistra's. She became an outcast of outcasts; reviled universally but she still possessed the ability to beguile and influence. She spent the rest of her life traveling and stirring up war. After her death she was viewed as a demi-goddess of war, spite and revenge. Today she is a metaphor for viciousness, spite, envy and revenge.

During the centuries of clan war the yazirian bard evolved into the warrior bard or mercenary minstrel. Bards being travelers often had to rely on their own skill to eat and typically they were well skilled with a zamira or other weapons. Sometimes, in order to ingratiate themselves to a clan, they had to demonstrate their hunting skill. These bards came under pressure from clan leaders to stir the battle fury in the clan's hunters and warriors. What emerged from the clan wars was a bard that led in battle and could draw forth the battle fury of a clan's yazirians. Eventually, there evolved a class of mercenary minstrels known as "sell song", who would be hired for specific campaigns and battles but with little connection or loyalty to the hiring clan.

In some regions warrior bards morphed into priest and shaman with several religious sects emerging as well. Unsurprisingly, in these religious sects Callistra was portrayed as a semi-demonic temptress.