30 Entertainers

1-Very Funny

This Jester is the Jester that other Jesters wish they could be. He has a huge repertoire of jokes and riddles, and just as important, a great source of timing, seeming to read the mind of his audience mind and know exactly what is needed to make him, her or them laugh. He might occasionally perform a practical joke when he knows it will be funny, and because of his sense of timing, it always works. Other kings have asked the king who employs him to be allowed to buy his services, but the king will not hear of it because he enjoys his company too much.

2-Very Unfunny

This jester is not good at his job at all, and if he does not improve quickly he will be sacked. He has many jokes, but some just are not funny, others border on the obscene, and with others its just that he tells them badly. Without a good sense of timing, his practical jokes have been disastrous, as he played them at the wrong time and on the wrong people, and was lucky not to be beaten or thrown into the royal dungeon. However hard he tries, he just cannot make people laugh at all, and most people think that he is in the wrong profession.

3-Practical Joker

This jester is a master of practical jokes of all kinds, but is rather lacking in other kinds of jokes. However, he happens to serve a baron who loves practical jokes, as long as they are not played on him, his wife, or important castle guests. He has put things on the tops of doors, replaced the labels on hot and cold buckets of water, put things into beds, and put spiky things on peoples chairs, amongst other things. Not surprisingly, he his deeply disliked by many of the castle staff, but they know the baron will be furious if his jester is harmed or killed. Should the baron die, it is likely that his jester will not long survive him.

4-Secret Agent (for the King)

This jester travels widely and performs at other royal courts and baronial castles. He is funny, polite, popular and well known. What is not known to all but a few people is that he is a secret agent who smuggles out messages from other deep-cover agents, who can meet with him without arousing the suspicion of those who they are spying on. He is well paid for the work by the King personally, who has instilled in him the belief that he is greatly helping the country with his clandestine activities.

5-Assassin

What better cover for an assassin whose target is a well-guarded and powerful head of state, then the job of a jester? On the surface, this jester is one of the funniest people in the kingdom, but he has a secret life as one of The Candles of God His plan is that at the wedding of the kings daughter, which is a state occasion at which all the most powerful nobles of both the kingdom and the neighbouring kingdom will be present, he will detonate himself, slaughtering everybody nearby him, and plunging both kingdoms into turmoil and probable civil war as, with both the royal families exterminated, ambitious nobles fight for the vacant royal thrones.

6-Secret Agent (against the King)

This jester is also a secret agent, but in this case he betrays the king that he serves. He has discovered a few secrets by secretly listening with his ear pressed to the door. As the jester, he is one of a few with access granted at once to the kings private apartments. He has also been given messages by other traitors, which he passes on at the earliest possible opportunity. The kings spymaster suspects him and has told the king, but the king totally refuses to believe that his jester is a traitor and has told his spymaster to shut up.

7-Public Jester

The king who employs this jester has decided that he should not only entertain the royal court, but the people too. Partly this is because the economy of the kingdom is bad, and one of the ways to keep discontent amongst the ordinary people is to keep them happy. Also the king is a fun loving person and thinks that others should enjoy themselves as much as he does. He is doing as well with the crowds as he was with the king and has become wildly popular with the people.

8-Singer of Songs

Not all entertainment is of the funny kind that makes people roar with laughter. This man is a singer of the songs and the ballads of old, and he can make people feel that they are living the lives of those who he sings about. There are those who are jealous of him, and one or two would happily slip lye into his tea if they could. His food and drink are tasted by the royal food taster to prevent this happening.

9-On the Run

Andrew Wells used to be the royal jester, but was framed by his enemies and thrown into prison for life. To avoid being beaten or worse, he made the other inmates, amongst who were many members of The Regulators laugh as well. Then there was a prison breakout and he was amongst the prisoners who escaped. Now he wears the colours of the gang, keeps them amused, and against his will takes part in their criminal activities.

10-Satirist

This jester is a master of satire and delights in mocking the nobles, which for some reason the king finds very funny. The nobles on the other hand are far from amused and hate him with a passion, but they dare not attack him as he never goes all that far from the king. And to draw a sword (other then on a battlefield) in front of the king is high treason and could get the offenders hand chopped off or worse. He knows how much the nobles hate him and is wary and always expecting an attack.
11-Cheering a Mournful Queen

After the princess in the royal family that he serves died of a fast growing cancer, this jester is on duty almost 24/7 to try and keep the Queen happy, and the stress is getting to him. He has almost run out of jokes and ballads and acceptable practical jokes, and is not getting enough sleep. He fears the consequences when he can no longer to his job properly will be dire. Unknown to him, the king has secretly hired Dracia Eldren to persuade/force another girl to take on the role of the dead princess, which will enable him to finally rest.

12-Depressed

In public he is a barrel of laughs, as he should be, but the only time he ever smiles is when he is doing his job. Privately he is deeply depressed to the point where he has seriously considered committing suicide. He lives alone in his own room and when he is sure he is alone, he often breaks down in tears.

13-Sherazade

This jester was implicated and then convicted in a plot against the king that he serves. The sentence was beheading and the king himself decided to come and watch the execution. With only a short time before his death, the executioner managed to make the king laugh. In fact, he managed to make the king laugh so much that the king decided to put the execution off for a day. That was a thousand days ago.

Since then the jester has managed to keep the king amused so much that the execution keeps on being put off. When he ran out of funny jokes, he started a long and interesting story, which always reaches a really good bit just when the executioner shows up to behead him. Not wanting to leave the story unfinished the king always postpones the execution for yet another day.

14-Jester In Training

This jester is the son of the Very Funny who is teaching him the skills of timing, joking and how to make people laugh in general. He is ambitious and wants to be as funny as his illustrious father, although he still has a long way to go before he can be that good. He still fumbles things at times but then he is still learning his trade.

15-Truth Teller

With the kingdom ruled by a brutal and autocratic monarch who keeps the royal headsman busy, who is there who dares to tell him the truth when things are going wrong? The royal jester, because he is so popular with the king, and because he tells him the news when the king is in a very good mood. The king likes somebody who is not constantly flattering him all the time and can point out when something is a grossly bad idea. Without that he would be effectively blind to what is really going on in his kingdom. In fact, the regent is the true ruler of the kingdom and it is he who orders the executions.

16-Acrobat

This man has walked wires over hot pools in the Sorcery Springs Geyser Basin, between the towers of Castle Strelock and other such places where a fall would mean death. Whilst most of his acrobatics have the approval of the authorities, not all do and he has served at least one prison sentence for his aerial antics and his dedication to what he does.

17-Secret Bodyguard

This entertainer has secretly been expertly trained in both armed and unarmed combat and serves two jobs-jester and secret bodyguard. He can go where it would not be diplomatically right to take conventional bodyguards, such as to important peace talks where too many conventional bodyguards might not send a bad image. He has saved the life of his employer at least once and is well paid for his troubles.

18-Former Royal Pretender

This man dared to try and take over the throne of Vallermoore and was beaten in battle. Whilst his co-conspirators who were captured alive were executed by hanging, Queen Yocasta decided to humiliate him and made him first the scullion and then promoted him to jester, with a suspended death sentence in case he tries anything he shouldnt do. This once proud and haughty general now has to entertain the castle children.

19-Dwarf Jester

Many kings and nobles entertain dwarves as entertainers and this one is regarded as one of the best of them. Other dwarves have varied views of them, with some thinking he is letting the side down with his antics, and others thinking he has done very well for himself, and that it is a better job then sweating over a hot forge, serving in the army, chipping out jewels in a deep dark mine and other typically dwarfish occupations.

20-Average

Whilst he is not the funniest person around, nor is he the worst. He does his best and bumbles through well enough to earn his keep, with a few cheers and a few boos and his performances.

21-Agent Provocateur

This jester secretly urges people to commit treason and then reports them to the royal authorities so that they end up in The Grinder or worse. Whilst the king privately dislikes this behaviour, he lets it continue so as to weed out the discontented and disloyal ones before they really do start plotting against him.

22-Riddler

This girl is an expert at telling riddles, and finding out the riddles of others, both for fun, and in a riddle game as a form of gambling where the price may be high for the one who fails.

23-The Human Puppet

This entertainer is being secretly controlled as part of The String and has been used to entertain his captors and others as well as for darker purposes, to steal things or murder people. He longs to tell people what has happened to him but is unable to do that or to break free of the enchantment.

24-Puppeteer

The skill of this entertainer is with ornate puppets with which he tells the tales and legends of long ago. He is popular and on festival days often plays to large crowds of people.

25-Doctors Orders

This dedicated doctor and skilled surgeon also thinks that laughter can sometimes be the best medicine and often, when he has some free time, entertains his patients, thinking that by making them happy they will heal faster. Certainly many of his patients have indeed healed faster then normal, but perhaps this is because of his famed medical skills.

26-Jaded Jester

Secretly, this jester has grown bored of his position and despises his employers. What he really yearns to be, more then anything else, is a City Guard, chasing down criminals and patrolling the streets, but in his country, the laws are strict. Everybody from the Emperor at the top to the poorest employed person at the bottom, has to do the job that their father or mother did, as has been the way for centuries. And he happens to come from a long line of hereditary jesters. Since if he flees and is caught the punishments are fearsome, he feels he has no choice but to do a job he sees no point in.

27-The Noble Comedian

This nobleman lives in a country where it is possible to do different occupations to the one you are born into, and he has decided to make people laugh. His parents are furious with him and have threatened to disown and disinherit him if he does not give his, to them, vulgar, ways. But he finds it far more fun entertaining people then holding court as a noble. He wants people to like him, not fear him.

28-Imposter
The real jester has been kidnapped and bound and gagged, be it as part of an assassination plot, or an attempt to get an inside man into the castle to carry out a kidnapping or a daring robbery, and this man has taken his place. Unlike the Assassin, whose skills are genuine, he is both untrained and nervous, and fears that he will give himself away and end up facing the many Torture Devices and Techniques that the dungeon guards possess to gain information from the unwilling.

29-Fireworker

This man works with fireworks and has a special license to possess and, on the right days, set off, even the largest ones there are. He takes great pride in his work and has produced some fantastic spectacles. He has a darker side though, and is not above selling illegal fireworks to the public if they are willing to pay him enough. Eyes and hands have been lost as a result when inexperienced people lit fireworks wrongly or stupidly messed about with them.

30-Homeless Jester

Evicted from his house because he could not earn enough to pay the mortgage, now he has to entertain people in the street to get enough money to eat. Hassled both by the police, who keep on moving him on from town to town, and by criminals who prey on him and extort a percentage of his daily takings, he barely makes enough to get by and is always hungry.