Do you use song lyrics as inspiration for adventures?

Rarely, but this one time we were playing a Ravenloft campaign and some of the plot eventually ran into the Nightmare Lands in some strange bastardized inspirational of the King/Straub book Black House.

We were very quietly listening to the an ambient black metal band whose name I forget. The point is, you couldn't understand any lyrics and I knew all the song names.

I wanted the scene to be surreal, so I started mining the song names and lines from the currently playing music to spark ideas in play as to what to present the players with and for strange metaphors being used by a crow.

It was all a very strange experience and worked really well.

Oh, and in another homebrew, there were the Blind Guardians, a traveling group of bards who seemed to be following the PCs wherever they went.

Talmun said:

I'm surprised no one has listed any ELO or Allen Parsons Project, once you get past the somewhat dated aspects of the music, the imagery is very evocative of fantasy gaming.

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Alan Parsons Project's "Pyramid", "Tales of Mystery and Imagination", and "I, Robot" are all great albums for gaming inspiration. Listen to "In the Lap of The Gods" from "Pyramid" and you have the perfect "intro" music to play as the PC's enter the ruins of a long dead city. And "Fall of the House of Usher" from "Tales" is also a great background piece to play if you want to create an air of suspense.

Yeah...I'm a headbanger first and foremost. Always have been. But take a listen to Blackmore's Night. For those who don't know, Ritchie Blackmore is the legendary guitarist formerly of Deep Purple and Rainbow. He now leads a mostly acoustic band whose songs can really evoke a contemporary, yet Renaissance mood.

I also like a lot of Moroccan, Iranian, and Indian music to help set the mood for exotic locales such as foreign ports.

So not all of my gaming music "goes to eleven". But I still get most of my inspiration from the metallic side of the tracks. At least to me, the fantasy and historical imagery presented by many metal bands just seems to lend itself to gaming.

I just skimmed the thread, but I didn't see anyone mention one of the greatest:

Led Zeppelin: the Battle of Evermore

Queen of light took her bow
And then she turned to go,
The prince of peace embraced the gloom
And walked the night alone.
Oh, dance in the dark of night,
Sing to the morn - ing light.
The dark lord rides in force tonight
And time will tell us all.
Oh, throw down your plow and hoe,
Rest not to lock your homes.
Side by side we wait the might
Of the darkest of them all.
I hear the horses’ thunder
Down in the valley blow,
I’m waiting for the angels of avalon,
Waiting for the eastern glow.
The apples of the valley hold,
The seas of happiness,
The ground is rich from tender care,
Repay, do not forget, no, no.
Oh,-------dance in the dark of night,
Sing to the morning light.
The apples turn to brown and black, the tyrant’s face is red.
Oh the war is common cry, pick up you swords and fly.
The sky is filled with good and bad
That mortals never know.
Oh, well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow,
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed
The woe of aftermath,
The drums will shake the castle wall,
The ring wraiths ride in black, ride on.
Sing as you raise your bow,
Shoot straighter than before.
No comfort has the fire at night
That lights the face so cold.
Oh dance in the dark of night,
Sing to the mornin’ light.
The magic runes are writ in gold
To bring the balance back, bring it back.
At last the sun is shining, the clouds of blue roll by,
With flames from the dragon of darkness
The sunlight blinds his eyes.

Beware the Dragon of Darkenss, baby

I based a whole campaign on that back in 2e with an advanced shadow dragon playing the part of the "Dragon of Darkness."

Black Sabbath's Supertzar, although an instrumental, has also inspired many games I wrote. It just sounds like the theme music for an army of demons.

Samothdm said:

Either the metalheads are just really vocal or there's a disproportionate amount of metal listeners on ENWorld. I'd love to hear some other non-metal choices.

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I don't think of myself as a metalhead, although I do listen to a fair amount of metal (had you asked me in highschool though, i would have been). It just seems that metal bands tend to get away with singing about swords, dragons, war, and stuff like that. Sure, there are other songs, but I think that a disproportunate amount of metal songs have fantastic imagery in them.

But for a different genre, Blues Traveler's album Travelers And Thieves has always reminded me of D&D, mainly because of the album cover.

Since this thread is thriving, another one that ive distantly had in mind but never got around to turining into a campaign is Helloween's "Keeper of the Seven Keys" Part 1 + 2. The first album contains the intro it seems in the final song "Follow the Sign", while the second album has the full song "Keeper of the Seven Keys". WAY too long to quote verbatim here (i think it was like a 14 minute song), but it basically describes traveling to many seas (one is Madness) and tossing in the proper key. At the final Sea Lucifer awaits. We could easily slip in Asmodeus here...

Here is the 2nd stanza:
"Put on your armour
ragged after fights
hold up your sword
you're leaving the light
make yourself ready
for the lords of the dark
they'll watch your way
so be cautious, quiet and hark"

www.darklyrics.com is THE source on the web for looking up metal lyrics btw.

I think Suzanne Vega's "The QUeen and the Soldier" would make a great solo campaign:


The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door
He said, "I am not fighting for you any more"
The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before
And slowly she let him inside.

He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill
And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill
But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will
Only first I am asking you why."

Down in the long narrow hall he was led
Into her rooms with her tapestries red
And she never once took the crown from her head
She asked him there to sit down.

He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young
But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won
And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun
And now will you tell me why?"

The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try"
But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry
But she closed herself up like a fan.

And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"
He laid his hand then on top of her head
And he bowed her down to the ground.

"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel
As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed
But I won't march again on your battlefield"
And he took her to the window to see.

And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray
And she wanted more than she ever could say
But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away
And would not look at his face again.

And he said, "I want to live as an honest man
To get all I deserve and to give all I can
And to love a young woman who I don't understand
Your highness, your ways are very strange."

But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break
And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached
She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait
She would only be a moment inside.

Out in the distance her order was heard
And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word
And while the queen went on strangeling in the solitude she preferred
The battle continued on

Oh yeah!

I'm about to start a pirate campaign. So here's a little Stan Rogers for all you Canadians out there....

Barrett's Privateers

Oh, the year was 1778, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
A letter of marque came from the king,
To the scummiest vessel I'd ever seen,

CHORUS:
God damn them all!
I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold
We'd fire no guns-shed no tears
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett's Privateers.

Oh, Elcid Barrett cried the town, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
For twenty brave men all fishermen who
would make for him the Antelope's crew

[CHORUS]

The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight,HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
She'd a list to the port and her sails in rags
And the cook in scuppers with the staggers and the jags

[CHORUS]

On the King's birthday we put to sea, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
We were 91 days to Montego Bay
Pumping like madmen all the way

[CHORUS]

On the 96th day we sailed again, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
When a bloody great Yankee hove in sight
With our cracked four pounders we made to fight

[CHORUS]

The Yankee lay low down with gold, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
She was broad and fat and loose in the stays
But to catch her took the Antelope two whole days

[CHORUS]

Then at length we stood two cables away, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
Our cracked four pounders made an awful din
But with one fat ball the Yank stove us in

[CHORUS]

The Antelope shook and pitched on her side, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
Barrett was smashed like a bowl of eggs
And the Maintruck carried off both me legs

[CHORUS]

So here I lay in my 23rd year, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW!
It's been 6 years since we sailed away
And I just made Halifax yesterday

[CHORUS]

Lord Judas said:

Since this thread is thriving, another one that ive distantly had in mind but never got around to turining into a campaign is Helloween's "Keeper of the Seven Keys" Part 1 + 2. The first album contains the intro it seems in the final song "Follow the Sign", while the second album has the full song "Keeper of the Seven Keys". WAY too long to quote verbatim here (i think it was like a 14 minute song), but it basically describes traveling to many seas (one is Madness) and tossing in the proper key. At the final Sea Lucifer awaits. We could easily slip in Asmodeus here...

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I had forgotten all about Helloween. I used to really like them alot, until Kai Hanson quit, the band put out some very bizarre albums, and then disappeared. But Keeper Parts 1 & 2 were great albums. 2 was a bit overblown, but hey, it was late 80s heavy metal. what the hell did we expect?

Definitely lyrics can be good starters. Here's one that worked for me:

A living secret, in silent darkness: abominations
As soft and discreet as Uranium
Your silver voice called us to action, the parts we play
Are illusions that seem like we really are.
If we were different some other time we don't remember
But there is one thing we know -
There is nothing in explanation, and we can see
You and I hand in hand on the Shining Path

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Shriekback, Big Night Music, "Shining Path"

Cthulhu's Librarian said:

I had forgotten all about Helloween. I used to really like them alot, until Kai Hanson quit, the band put out some very bizarre albums, and then disappeared. But Keeper Parts 1 & 2 were great albums. 2 was a bit overblown, but hey, it was late 80s heavy metal. what the hell did we expect?

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True... "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" pretty much killed them for me.

Love the Metal Smilies!