Example: Charlie Morningstar (Hazbin Hotel)
Where They Come From: The Road of Good Intentions
Lifebound have a tendency towards ignoring the wishes of others, and bards are often foolish or naive, so the Bard of Life-to-be is someone with a savior complex. They want to help, but their attempts to help often backfire on them.
Combining an absurdly sheltered upbringing, an inflated sense of self-esteem, and a misguided sense of noblesse oblige, they have a specific idea of how to help people, and by god, they are gonna stick to it. For the example, Charlie idolized her mother, Lilith, who she believes tried to redeem Hell, and she inherited her father, Lucifer's, sense of misguided Pride. So Charlie is going to redeem one Sinner at a time, whether they like it or not.
When the Bard of Life does encounter success, when their Story starts to come true, it can drive them to the brink of insanity because it'll never happen in the way they think it should. They have no idea what they did right, and will only push harder trying to figure it out.
When You Need Them: Welcome To Hell
A Bard of Life is needed when everyone in the session sucks. Not sucks as in "is bad at Sburb" but sucks as in "is a terrible person." When all the other players are cut throats, murderers, desperadoes, bushwhackers, thugs, vipers, con men, etc, you need one person to be the cheerful ball of sunshine who treats the session like an after school special, if only for the comedic contrast. In actuality, their role is to throw a wet blanket on everything. If the players' motivations are bad, you need someone to de-motivate them and make them feel bad for existing.
Eventually, though, their positivity, good cheer, and limitless capacity for forgiveness will eventually win out. Once it does, the other players will somehow actually start to become better people. Not so much because of the Bard of Life's advice but because they kinda... want to be? Their negative motivations gradually replaced by more positive ones, if only by attrition.
What They Do: Everyone Play Nice
Going off my previous posts, a Bard of Life could be seen as allowing Life to be destroyed or inviting destruction through Life. As Life also represents intrinsic motivation and character growth, the Bard can suppress the desire to act on negative impulses in the session.
It Starts With Sorry: Allow destruction of Life. Life can be wealth, power, growth, or motivation. The Bard of Life specializes in allowing destruction of motivation by constantly harping on how to be a better person. People who are inclined towards violence or debauchery find it just isn't as much fun with the Bard around. It just feels weird, you know? The Bard themself isn't destroying it, but they invite people to look inside themselves and destroy their own motivations.
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work: Invite destruction through Life. Of course, once those around the Bard start to act less evil, they can actually start being... good? They find themselves coming together to defeat bigger threats when they would naturally be inclined to infighting. Everyone's motivated to work together, to fight for each other, to care about those around them. It might only last a few minutes before everyone goes back to their old ways, but it can make all the difference.
Who They Are: Need to be Needed
Bards of Life are born into privilege and feel the emptiness of that station. They know that people are suffering and want to make things better, but while they are deeply sympathetic, they vastly overestimate their abilities and end up doing harm out of their desire to help. They can be overbearing, or take on too much, often lacking the skills or competence to bring about the positive change they desire.
If a Bard of Life actually wants to help, they need to let go of their ego and actually listen to the people they're trying to help. Developing the necessary skills (and having a realistic assessment of said skills) is also necessary if they don't want to fuck it up. You can't just Dunning-Kruger your way into success by sheer force of entitlement, after all. Only through humility and personal growth can a Bard of Life become the savior they believe themselves to be.
