Musical Inspiration Challenge Part 3: Inspiration

Our inspiration is listed down as A Sound of Thunder by well, A Sound of Thunder.

A Sound of Thunder, is a band. Specifically a metal band from the Washington DC area.

I discovered them initially through their music video for their song “Udoroth” on Youtube, but I’ve grown to really enjoy them over the years. I kickstarted their last album, and I’d do it again. If I was a rich guy I’d even have shelled out for the higher rewards to make them do some weird covers. I think they’d make them pretty good.

Now, we’ve ended up with this song randomly as the inspiration for our adventure.  Let’s take a look at the lyrics.

…

When the legacy began
We went forth swords in hand
To command the exultation
Of hell's greatest creation

We fought the battles
With the fury of the damned

Fighting demons and wizards
Through deserts oceans and blizzards
Dragon's blood burned the mountainside
The beasts had nowhere to hide

The battles won
We would dance upon their graves

We bow before the fury of the gods
Unbelievers torn asunder
Legendary tales, from hell's heart we hail
Bringing a sound of thunder

Upon the Sabbath men of war
To save the Maiden, this we swore
An endless violent endeavor
Blessed by the Priest we'll fight forever

We bow before the fury of the gods
Unbelievers torn asunder
Legendary tales, from hell's heart we hail
Bringing a sound of thunder

….

Pretty good stuff.  Also a fun reference to Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest in there. Now a lot of this ties into the rest of the A Sound of Thunder discography, but for our purposes, we’ve got a lot of useful inspiration. Warriors charging forth on a noble mission, although perhaps not of a noble quality themselves and perhaps not a good mission. The kind of tough hard asses you don’t want to mess with lightly. People who are driven, dedicated, and willing to go to any extent what-so-ever to accomplish their objective.

Noble. Dangerous. Possibly aligned with the powers of perdition.

Since we’re working with Pathfinder this gives us an ample starting point: Hellknights.

In the Pathfinder core, Hellknights are LE and LN fellows (and occasionally we’re told LG) who take the idea of the discipline of Hell as a guide point for their knightly order in service of their devil-worshipping country. Paizo apparently wants to make these guys as iconic as Runelords, and given that I have to explain it, I’m not really sure they’ve succeeded.  They tend to be the ones selected when the adventure calls for a ‘Noble Demon’ style of baddie, or for those players who want to act like the bad guy from a heavy metal album cover without disrupting the party with rampant jackbaggery.

Our adventure inspiration has led me to believe that we should focus on a group of Hellknights. Specifically dedicated ones, focused almost entirely on a specific goal. One they’ll pursue, come hell or high water. Whether they’ll be our opponents, allies, viewpoint PCs, our environment, or what, remains to be seen.

Let’s see how this will develop as we look at the other stuff, or if we’ll keep this or abandon it.

Musical Inspiration Challenge Part 2: Our Contestants

Well, let’s begin this poorly thought out challenge idea for an adventure.

I realize I should’ve thought of a way to determine level. Whoops.

Song 1: The Inspiration

A Sound of Thunder, by A Sound of Thunder, from the Album “Out of the Darkness”

This is going to be tricky.

Song 2: The Antagonist.

Never Be Mine by Kate Bush, from the album “Sensual World.”

..not making this easy, huh, iPod? Also yeah, I listen to Kate Bush. I’m old and she’s awesome.
 
Song 3: The aim of the conflict.

Computer Eyes, by Ayreon from the Actual Fantasy Album.

…oh boy. I probably shouldn’t have made this Pathfinder.

Song 4: Why should the players care?

Losing You, by Dream Evil from their Dragonslayer album.

This one should be easy. 


Song 5: The theme of the ‘dungeon.’

Pirate Song by Alestorm from the Black Sails at Midnight album.

Ok, I think I can work with this.. And getting an idea. Alestorm and Kate Bush, yeesh.

 
Song 6: The first complication.
Where is the Walrus? (Instrumental) by Alan Parson’s Project from Stereotomy.

An instrumental titled after walruses. Its ok, Spook, its ok. This is a dumb idea, but WE’LL POWER THROUGH! BWAHAHAHA!

Song 7: Encounter 1.  The first of our encounters.

With or Without You, by U2, from the Joshua Tree Album.

 Well, I’m certainly glad that in my iPod library, with all of the heavy metal I have, it chose the slow pop song by U2 for our encounter. Wouldn’t want to make this easy, would we?

Song 8: Encounter 2.

If I Could Change Your Mind by Alan Parson’s Project from The Definitive Collection. It’s certainly from a real album, but not on my iPod. Artwork on the video looks like its from the album Eve.

Ok, so two out of three of our encounters are now based on easy listening pop and progressive, and our antagonist is based on Kate Bush. I don’t think that this is going to be a barbarian overlord.

Song 9: The Climactic Encounter.

The final battle. THE CLIMAX. Of our opposition against our Kate Bush themed bad guy, and our other encounters involving U2 pop songs and soft 70s prog rock.. We get..

The Evolution of Circuitry by The Megas, from the Megatainment album.

And once again, hrm. Ideas!
Song 10: Reward.

Jonas Psalter by Styx, from Pieces of Eight.

That’s disturbing for its implications about rewards, but..

Song 11: Our Second Complication!

The First Man on Earth by Ayreon from The Universal Migrator.

Even weirder.

So, to summarize what I have to try to form a cohesive story and adventure from..

1.)    Inspiration: A Sound of Thunder by A Sound of Thunder.
2.)    Antagonist: Never Be Mine by Kate Bush
3.)    Conflict: Computer Eyes by Ayreon
4.)    Why should the players care?: Losing You by Dream Evil
5.)    Theme: Pirate Song by Alestorm
6.)    The First Complciation: Where is the Walrus by Alan Parson’s Project
7.)    Encounter 1: With or Without You, by U2
8.)    Encounter 2: If I could Change Your Mind by Alan Parson’s Project.
9.)    Climactic Encounter: The Evolution of Circuitry by The Megas
10.) Reward: Jonas Psalter by Styx
11.) The Second Complication:  The First Man on Earth by Ayreon

First impressions. Apple’s shuffle function is ass. Two Alan Parson’s Project songs and two Ayreon songs in a selection of 11 out of 2,704 musical tracks.

Second impressions. Pirates. Jonas Psalter and Pirate Song are both about piracy, pirates and privateering.

So at the moment, we’re looking at piracy as a potential thing. In our next post though, let’s start unpacking our candidates and see what we can do with them.