sylverbard.
I've been accused of having a silver tongue when it comes to public speaking and selling people things but i've never been accused of just selling people crap or simply being a yes-man or simply saying what someone wants to hear. i'm honest to a fault.
I'm a heraldry student and have some formal training from the Scotland College of Heralds. I can wander through heraldic devices for hours looking at how many ways people found to say 'we's better than you yo!' and i carried that into a minor in art history with a focus on Inuit sculpture (arctic Canada specific) and propaganda artwork psychology.
As a fan of dungeons and dragons i have always played bards. or smart fighters. a wizard once. a cleric once. i helped write second edition and 3.0 and 3.5 and worked summers for the major players at Gencon and Origins and in January at a convention called Winter Fantasy in Fort Wayne.
I also like Shakespeare and wrote a soliloquy to a girl i liked once. it didn't win her over.
At the Interactive (costumed) events i coloured my Bard characters hair silver and had green contacts to go with the elven ears (half-aquatic elf bard) and introduced the writers of the Forgotten Realms to 10 000 gamers at midnight in Indianapolis at the opening of the new convention center. there are embarrassing pics online still i am certain.
All that said...i'm a Bard. also a druid but that's not involved. When someone sent me a note addressed to 'the sylver tongued bard' i shortened it because it seemed right.
All *that* said, i'm horribly shy, learned to read very late, am dyslexic when it comes to simply mathematics, served my country as a long distance shooter and medic, openly admit i have self esteem and depression issues especially the last few years...but i can hide all that behind the Sylverbard. And i'm going back to school at 46 to become a full Nurse.
Sorry to be verbose. And boring.
2020 update: jebus this thread has grown. No, didn't make it in the RN program... life turned upsideways , PTSD reactions to direct patient interventions sort of cut my clinicals off, so I will end up with a 4 year Arts -Interdisciplinary degree, and hopefully start a Masters of Aging Studies soon, with a goal of fixing how we (the people) prepare ourselves for the third act (growing old), plan our future care with regards to sudden unplanned need (dementia, accident, stroke) with no family or friends to give 100% answers, and desired level of continuing care, when we might not be able to speak for ourselves any longer. Also, fix the way government looks at "retirement", move consensus away from treating growing old as a commodity and stop licensing profit-shops to take care of us.