Bards

To describe the power within Bards as mere musicians is perhaps the most criminal of underestimations. Individuals who truly tap into this latent power go by many names across many cultures, bards, minstrel, skalds, trouvère, but also are likened to specialize, with spiritists, spies, and loremasters all falling under the bard umbrella. At its heart, the World was formed from the Music of Creation, an enigmatic creation myth that can also be interpreted as the Creation of the Arcanum, or Weave in some circles. The structure of this creation is most likened to the World itself breaking into the most beautiful of melodies, a throughline between everything in existence in one great orchestra. Whereas every other magic user interprets magic differently, the Bard is unique in its direct tapping into the Music of Creation itself. The Great Song is heard differently by a druid as they sink into the song of the natural world, a wizard intimately studies the music and learns to emulate it. A sorcerer is a wrinkle in it, a strange composer all their own separate but complimenting the Great Song. Most, however, are deaf to any of the music, unless such a magic user brings it to the limelight. If you ever feel moved by a song, a play, a story, or other artistic expression, it is because this Music is in movement, and it forms a wake that washes over the audience, for they are also a part of the Music.
Bards develop their talents and magic capabilities from their force of personality, able to take pieces of the Great Song and carry them forth into the open world in the form of spells. Their universal capability to inspire is tugging on the Music that dances and weaves through the very molecules of the subject, driving them higher as a result. To be a bard is to be born with a certain natural talent, and whereas a sorcerer's power grows as they develop, a bard must be studious and understand the power that they are tapping into for it to have any remote effect. As such there are various different directions these studies have taken, and at a certain mass a group of bards establishes themselves as a "College" based on how they wield their Song. Every bard is something of a prodigy, with talents in several different skillsets on top of their capability of manipulating the Music.
The Colleges are not hard and fast institutes, but broad categories that individuals who study a certain route prefer. They are:
College of Creation. This is one of the rarest colleges for a Bard to come into, but it is the closest to the purist form of the Music of Creation. Members of this college have full understanding of the reality of existence, knowing that the music was what awoke the first dawn, the sun and the moon are star actors on its stage. The stones and trees and waves of the sea are alive and joined in the Great Song with voices of their own. Thus, a Creation Bard knows that even inanimate objects are able to become living players in the Great Song, with the capability of making objects out of nothingness. Most potently is their capability of Potential, where a Creation Bard can add a note into the Great Song itself, changing the tune permanently in the smallest of ways.
College of Eloquence. Eloquence is the power of the spoken word, and bards have mastered the use of their words to a fine art, or an even finer weapon. The way they are able to bend the Music within an entity is powerful, able to alter the mind of those who bear witness to their silvered tongue. At their best, Eloquence bards will uplift those around them, bringing an audience to tears with the beauty of their oratory. On the other side, they may also wield their tongue as a whip, bringing down those unfortunates to draw the ire of an eloquent master.
College of Glamour. Bards of this college are known as Dreamers, as they draw their power from The Dreamings. Being among the few special individuals that are always lucid dreamers, the power they have when they sleep to learn from the Twilight or the Dark Dreams cannot be understated. It is here they learn their abilities to make themselves look spectacular in the waking world, able to alter their form into the inspirational and seductive. A Glamour Bard can come off as an anomaly, because the Dreamings are entirely different compositions from the normal World, and this unnatural difference can become discomforting. At their best a Dreamer will uplift those they come across, making their dreams come true. At their worst, they will take advantage of this knowledge and swindle those caught in their majesty.
College of Lore. To be a bard requires some amount of study. Where a wizard taps into manmade magics, the Lore bard studies the Music Theories, and as such is usually more bookish than other bards. It is the cleanest of the colleges, with their focus tapping into their own mundane skills while learning the Music in a way not dissimilar to other classes. As such, Lore bards are able to tap into the lores of druids, clerics, and wizards far quicker than any other bard, becoming as much of a Jack of all Trades as anyone. This is the only College that actually form a literal college on a university. The most prestigious institute is the Imperial University and its College of Arcane Lore, in Hlammach, Impiltur.
College of Spirits. Also known as spiritists, or mediums, or shamans in some cultures. A Spirits Bard draws its learning from the past, from heroic myths, histories, and even communion with the dead. They typically come out of being self-taught, or at most having a master teach them. Differing from the Valor Bard, a spiritist will have a collection of tales of long departed heroes and villains, wielding the Music of their tales to perform their magic. Their trappings are tapping into the occult, with divination and necromancy as their bread and butter, with the best of them using their knowledge of histories to inform the future positively, where the worst dive headfirst into the Black Arts. The most infamous Spirits Bard was the Lich Tzaarkignul of Varaskien.
College of Swords. Also called Blades, Fencers, even Swashbucklers, these are the bards that take the Music of Creation the least into their line of work. Having become a Bard regardless, they are talented in that right, but only scratch the surface, using this power to boost their physical capabilities. To study swordplay is a discipline all its own, and Blades take that into an artform, able to stand side by side with the best of fighters. Fencers favor light, dexterous weaponry such as rapiers and scimitars, although it is not necessarily universal.
College of Tragedy. Poets of doom, a Bard of the College of Tragedy, also known as a Portent or Oracle, has spent their days studying the great playwrights and storytellers across the land learning of every great fall of a hero, the doom of a civilization, and the great dramas of time. Their Music is one of emotion, and they may get a bad rap as nihilists, but they have spent their time understanding that sorrow and joy walk hand in hand, and to pursue happiness with no regard to sadness and loss is wrong. Most Tragedy Bards are playwrights, lacing their magic of emotion into their scripts. Those that take up the call to adventure typically have a cause that they wish to bring doom upon, and will use their control of the Music to bring down this calamity.
College of Valor. In a similar vein to the College of Swords, a skald is a warrior first, a bard second. However, they have an awareness of the Music that taps into the greatest heroes and warriors of the past, and draw upon their spirits or memory to inspire the next generation of heroism. A valor bard typically doesn't show up outside of the more fringe civilizations, with Kvasir having the highest concentration of them, where every sizable warband has at least one skald. Study from this college is solely oratory, and is passed down from one generation to the next by a Master of Valor.
College of Whispers. A Whispers bard is the best kept secret of many a royal court, seedy underworld, or other organization that has need for a spy and assassin. Also known as a Shadowdancer, a Whispers bard's skills are honed for infiltration, intelligence gathering, and assassinations. However, the skills are only the beginning as a Whispers bard develops the means of taping into the Music, wielding the shadows themselves. The most potent Shadowdancers are able to capture and individual's shadow, ripping away a key part of their very being, and taking it as their own, also using their dark powers to inspire horror and fear into their enemies. A Whispers bard will be seldom loved, but will always have stable employment. A high ranking Shadowdancer is known as a Darkmask.