There has been much complaint that bards are useless and annoying and this is unfortunately very often true of young aspiring musicians. This code of ethics aims to set a standard that all bards must adhere to as respected members of the guild, and validates their purpose and legitimacy on the Mordhau battlefield.

• PRACTICE AT HOME
  Don't test your fresh MIDIs with LuteBot in the heat of battle. Nobody wants to hear your mangled notes as you try and figure out a new song in the middle of a fight. Practice offline and get your MIDIs right, then bring only your best performance to the battlefront.
  
• PLAY ON POINT
  Your job as a battlefield musician is to bring attention to where the action should be going on. If you are playing to an audience at the spawn, you are doing it wrong. Survey the battlefield, see where the team needs to be, and stage your performance there.
  
• CARRY A MEDKIT FFS
  You absolutely should throw out a medkit before starting your performance on the point. If you are playing on point as you should be, it will absolutely be a benefit to the team. The lute only takes ONE point to carry, leaving you plenty of opportunities to be useful to the team in other ways with the rest of your loadout too (smoke bomb, fire bomb, bear trap, toolbox).
  
• DEFEND YOURSELF
  Your job is to position yourself near the point and draw attention to the objective, and provide inspiration through the power of music! While that is not always easily quantifiable on the scoreboard, your objective definitely is not to drain your own team's tickets through either allowing yourself to be teamkilled or feeding easy kills to the enemy team while you continue to play on. Position yourself strategically, and when it comes time to fight, cease playing and defend yourself!

Being a member of the Bards Guild comes with a number of benefits for lute players in Mordhau:

+1 Respect
Membership in the Bards Guild is recognized with a measure of respect or at least tolerance on the battlefield, and your membership status may just prolong your life - as long as you are adhering to The Bards Guild Code of Battlefield Conduct and respectfully representing the Guild's good name at all times!

MIDI Archive Access
LuteBot does not make you instantly good at the lute. The Mordhau lute has a very limited range and most MIDI files not edited carefully and specifically for the purpose of playing on it will sound absolutely terrible. As a member of the guild you will gain access to a growing library of MIDI files edited specifically to sound amazing on the Mordhau lute. Members are encouraged to submit some of their best MIDIs back to the guild to help grow this library.

MIDI Smithing Services
I will also for a limited time provide my services to aspiring bards to edit the MIDI files for their own favorite songs and help guild members optimize them for play on the Mordhau lute. As other Guild members are developing their own MIDI smithing skills I am hopeful they will pick up the mantle and continue on with these services for the Guild.

Access to BardLord LuteMaster's Lute Master Class
Realizing how far superior my Mordhau lute skills really are now, I have shifted my perspective from challenging other bards to offering mentorship instead. I am uploading fewer new lute covers and am now focusing on creating some tutorial content on how to be a better bard, which will be made available to guild members. Some of the things I will cover in this soon to be released series:

• How to edit MIDI files with free software to eliminate extra tracks and isolate the melody for the lute
  
• Tips and tricks to create MIDIs for your favorite songs, and sources for MIDI tracks
  
• Understand what keys sound best on the lute, and how to transpose all or part of a song to fit within the lute's limited range

Join our Steam Group and our official Discord, and post video or screenshots of you acting in accordance with The Bards Guild Code of Battlefield Conduct as a well intentioned prospective member. That's it, you're in! You will then be added to the Guild roster and given access to guild resources to improve your bardic skills. The purpose of the Guild is to help bards as a whole improve and become a respected or at least tolerated class in Mordhau, our objective is not be an elitist club.

BARDS GUILD STEAM GROUP: https://steamproxy.com/groups/bards_guild

BARDS GUILD OFFICIAL DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/DFZfWud

The Bards Guild offers a Standard by which to hold lute players accountable, so you can feel justified killing or kicking a lute boi not following The Guild's order, and refer them here to learn how to be useful if they insist on playing music on the battlefield.