Bards of the College of Lore know something about most things, collecting bits of knowledge from sources as diverse as scholarly tomes and peasant tales. Whether singing folk ballads in taverns or elaborate compositions in royal courts, these bards use their gifts to hold audiences spellbound. When the applause dies down, the audience members might find themselves questioning everything they held to be true, from their faith in the priesthood of the local temple to their loyalty to the king.
The loyalty of these bards lies in the pursuit of beauty and truth, not in fealty to a monarch or following the tenets of a deity. A noble who keeps such a bard as a herald or advisor knows that the bard would rather be honest than politic.
The college's members gather in libraries and sometimes in actual colleges, complete with classrooms and dormitories, to share their lore with one another. They also meet at festivals or affairs of state, where they can expose corruption, unravel lies, and poke fun at self-important figures of authority.
You gain proficiency with three skills of your choice.
At 3rd level, you learn how to use your wit to supernaturally distract, confuse, and otherwise sap the confidence and competence of others. When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll or ability check, you can use your reaction to spend a bardic inspiration die to subtract the number rolled from the attack roll or ability check.
If you use this on an attack roll and it doesn't cause the attack roll to miss, you instead reduce the damage of the attack by the number rolled.
At 6th level, you can pick another spell list to add to your collection of bard spells, either Arcane, Divine, or Primal. You also pick two spells from your bard spells to always have prepared. These do not count against the number of spells you can have prepared.
At 14th level, whenever you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you can expend a use of your bardic inspiration to add it to your roll. If you still fail the check, your use of the bardic inspiration is not expended.