[Bards] Insignia--retraction.

[Cisco Cividanes]

>1) Bards start having extra goodies appearing on their sash/favor/ 
>banner/whatever, which are uniform in appearance. Outsiders will  
>almost certainly mistake these to mean some kind of rank. Over time,  
>I assure you that they will come to *mean* rank. The bard with the  
>most merit badges wins. We've been there and done that. Let's not do  
>that again.


Hum....

Well, first of all, i was kind of hoping for a maximum of three or four 'sub-bagdes'; Story, song, poem and other, the classic breakdown, at least up hear.

But anyway, with those I was simply aiming for a slightly more specific in out heraldric statements, and I like being specific :)

However, in light of the above...the idea that this would turn into a merit badge system, and consiquently might serve as a 'ranking' system, even if we dont want it to, I totally retract that part of my idea. I can totally see where you are coming from, and frankly I should have seen that myself. I still Like my idea, but knowing Ansteorra, you're absolutely right and Im in no hurry to even accidentally slap a ranking system onto bards within the kindgom. 

I would love to be recognized some day as a story telling bard, but that venue already exists, its called A&S awards,  so I need to get off my lazy butt and work harder so I get a thistle in story telling or historical story telling or whatnot...

Thank you, Michael,  for pointing that out, experience is always the best temper for brainstorming, wouldn't you say. 


Okay, flip my name to the Nay column on this one, NO specalized insignia for bards. 

Ivo Blackhawk