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Music for different settings.


Azdeus

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Hey people, I'm hoping to use the vast experience of people here to ask for some help to find some music specifically for a DnD game I'm running, but also hoping to help people in general find some nice background music for their own games.

 

At the moment, I'm sending my players to the Abyss, and I was hoping for people here having knowledge of any fitting soundtracks for that. I don't watch a whole lot of movies or tv shows, so I have'nt stumbled across anything that might fit this. But earlier in my campaign the players ended up in desert landscapes, and I used this as background music wich worked awesome for the feel of that part.

 

Music more fitting to the Abyss though has been harder for me, anyone that's got any ideas for me?

 

Edit; Fixed the broken link for example music.

Edited by Azdeus

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for here. Low-key ambient music you can play in the background? Specific cues tied to specific scenes? How do you imagine the gameplay aspect of the characters running around in the Abyss? Is it going to involve lots of demon-slaying in front of heavy metal album cover-looking landscapes, or will it be more about trying to hide from the monsters and survive in a fundamentally hostile environment?

"Lulz is not the highest aspiration of art and mankind, no matter what the Encyclopedia Dramatica says."

 

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It's going to be more of an investigative slow burn(With some survival elements to it), I hope that they won't decide to try and take on the infinite Abyss. I'm hoping for something similar to the music I linked, background music that is sort of eerie and ominous.

Edit; If I have to turn to the heavy metal soundtracks we've got, they've pretty much failed that part. The Hordes of the Abyss is going to be too much for them, considering that the Sorcerer only has cold and fire spells and that the Cleric of Helm faces -7 Caster levels in the Abyss.

Edited by Azdeus

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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Just search "dark ambient playlist" on youtube, and you'll probably find something suitable. I used this during our last session in Dark Heresy; personally, I haven't found it to be very noticeable but some of my players said it greatly enhanced the mood. Other, individual tracks I've used to great effect include Twisted Foetus by Atrium Carceri, whatever this unholy monstrosity is, Consummation from the Gone Girl soundtrack, Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten and my personal favorite, Alien from the Sunless Sea soundtrack, which once actually prompted a player to immediately leave a dungeon and get backup ASAP.

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"Lulz is not the highest aspiration of art and mankind, no matter what the Encyclopedia Dramatica says."

 

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I think that Cthulu theme really nails it, so does some of the other Cryo Chamber productions. The Alien theme might work aswell, going to try and throw it in and see how they react to it! :)
 

I was afraid I was going to have to resort to the Diablo music, though I doubt my players would've reacted well to it considering they love the games and have played them to death. Their reaction probably would have been more aggressive than pensive to the entire situation...

 

Cheers!

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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Holst's Planet suite springs to mind, with Mars for the combat scenarios etcetera. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition has quite a few dour tracks, and obviously Night on Bald Mountain. Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights, Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet. The obvious Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. A smattering of Wagners grimmer works perhaps. Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, and especially Dream of a Witches Sabbath of course. Saint Saen's Danse Macabre. Perhaps some of the more moody parts of Verdi's Requiem.

 

The old ARPG Revenant has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack with some of the later tunes especially evocative of a weird hellscape, intentionally so

Edited by Nonek

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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I really liked the Revenant soundtrack, it is'nt as demanding of ones attention as classical songs.

 

And thanks for making me feel like a true pleb! :D

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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Thinking about it you could also try the Strangler's Waltz in Black, very weird and gets weirder as the music perpetuates.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ynd2A91cXA

 

I suspect the chaps may have been sampling a little "Golden Bown" during the creation of this...thing.

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Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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Look up Midnight Syndicate, they do a lot of good ambient/instrumental pieces with some of that gothic sound effects.  If you want things a bit more grander in scale, Two Steps From Hell have a good mix of sweeping themes.

 

 

Edit: Also, other thought would be check out the Planescape Torment soundtrack?

Edited by Raithe

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

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Some pieces from PST worked, and I used them, together with the Cthulhu theme and the Revenant soundtrack, worked excellent. Thanks for the recommendations! :)

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Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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For the Abyss, I feel a possible choice is Suspended Memories' Forgotten Gods. Here it is in what is apparently a retitled remaster:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E28dpiPn7wQ

 

Also, though it could be more desolate than chaotic, Brian Eno's On Land:

 

 

Some Lustmord could do the trick too...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm5N_D2eys4

 

My Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/alephg

Currently playing: Roadwarden

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In terms of classical music and so on, there's plenty of 20th century composers who worked with the horrors of war as concepts and they can offer some very hellish and disturbing/depressing work, which might very well fit the Abyss. Cases such as Toru Takemitsu's "Requiem for strings"...

 

 

...or Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima".

 

 

Same for Luigi Nono's "Epitaffios" (based on poems of the likes of Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca) or "Como una ola de fuerza y luz":

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YV6FP28-FM

 

Also some of the work by the likes of Gyorgi Ligeti, Alberto Posadas, Iannis Xenakis and so on may work on an unsettling and eerie mood fitting for the atmosphere you're looking for. Case in point:

 

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My Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/alephg

Currently playing: Roadwarden

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yul_AGm-7G

 

 

I think the Stalker one (and Stalker in general) works the best out of the three, though. Diablo is maybe a little too high energy, while the Off song is probably using too weird of an instrument to truly sound "hell"-like.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

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