Adventure Ideas from Songs

[Andrew D. Gable]

What songs' lyrics give you ideas for adventures, stories, whatever?

I've gotten a few from Widespread Panic:

Don't Tell the Band: sort of Ravenloftian, a more-or-less immortal musician who's present at several disasters and such. You can't go wrong with a song whose last verse is about the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and the Great Prophet Zarquon. This song's really probably more an NPC than anything, though.

Hatfield: a massive drought strikes some area. The people try everything to get rain to the parched soil, eventually calling on a druid or something. Of course, he's a toxic/twisted sort, and causes flooding. The PCs have to stop him. This song actually did inspire part of my homebrew, a cult of the rain god that believes the "filth of mankind must be washed away".

Henry Parsons Died: I can't quite come up with one, but there's gotta be another Ravenloft NPC in here.

Any from songs by other artists?

 

[Caspiar]

Being a lifelog Styx fan, i based a whole campaign and its sequal on a styx song (i've gotten over ten years out of it)

"Serpent is Rising"


"In the Abyss of space, at the center of time
A superman race moved the serpent to climb
The journy has lasted, seven ages or more
Life after life, must pass through the Door"

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

What songs' lyrics give you ideas for adventures, stories, whatever?

I'm an old school metal head, and some of the songs I've either used or played in adventures based upon them over the years include

"Black Wind, Fire and Steel"--Manowar
"Into Glory Ride"--Manowar
"Bridge of Death"--Manowar
"Dark Avenger"--Manowar (just about the best one shot game I ever played in)

"Lonely is the Word"--Black Sabbath
"Falling Off the Edge of the World"--Black Sabbath
"The Sign of the Southern Cross"--Black Sabbath

"Man on the Silver Mountain"--Blackmore's Rainbow
"Light in the Black"--Blackmore's Rainbow

"Sacred Heart"--Dio

"Guardians of the Flame"--Virgin Steele

If you're interested in the lyrics of these songs, sites like letssingit.com and sing365.com will likely have them. Many fan sites will have the lyrics, as well. I still dig up my old Iron Maiden, Saxon, Manowar, Dio LP's (just to name a few) and mine inspiration from them. Modern metal lacks the fantasy component IMHO for much inspiration. Exceptions to this are Scandinavian and Italian symphonic metal bands like Rhapsody, Nightwish, Falconer, Xandra, and Blind Guardian, just to name a few.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Being a lifelog Styx fan, i based a whole campaign and its sequal on a styx song (i've gotten over ten years out of it)

"Serpent is Rising"


"In the Abyss of space, at the center of time
A superman race moved the serpent to climb
The journy has lasted, seven ages or more
Life after life, must pass through the Door"

OMG....I have that album!!!!!!!! I have all four of Styx's first LP's on the original Wooden Nickel label! I didn't think ANYONE remembered those! "Man of Miracles" is a great song for gaming inspiration, as well!

 

[Caspiar]

OMG....I have that album!!!!!!!! I have all four of Styx's first LP's on the original Wooden Nickel label! I didn't think ANYONE remembered those! "Man of Miracles" is a great song for gaming inspiration, as well!

So are Witch Wolf and The Grove of Eglantine (A real place in my Greyhawk hybrid)

Born For Adventure on Equinox plays like a Bard's tale as well...

Gotta' love my band, Styx Forever

 

[Album Cover X]

I've drawn inspiration for songs too... nothing as much as a whole campaign or anything but rather just a "feeling" or a phrase I wanted to include...

Tool/A Perfect Circle is one band I know I've done that with...

 

[Phineas Crow]

Two Blue Öyster Cult songs which could be mined for ideas.

MAGNA OF ILLUSION

Cornwall and the harbor
Where witches went mad more than once and
Until this day
In dreams at least
The lighthouse at Lost Christabel
Squat and hugely tilts
Upon the strand where Grandad's house was built
And having stood the test of time
The starry gale the bloody tide
Grandad's house though gaped with hooks
And filled with books
Could stand no more until
A certain prophecy
Once read - now stood
Before the world fulfilled

Now of these books in Grandad's keep
Some of them were new but mostly they were old
And the oldest was a scroll
A prophecy that read
When the riddle begins
The story will end

August the First 1892
And in the guise of destiny
Grandad quit Cornwall
"I'm a captain of a ship
My ship is charmed, and called Plutonia."

Stories on land, storms at sea
'Tween 1892 and '93
When Grandad sailed for Mexico

Ships charmed and ordinary
Sailed the glidepath to the sun
And when the sun proved false
As it always does
Some of them would be lost
And some would sail back home
It was no star
But a magna of illusion
I mean by that
The mirror found
In the chamber of jade grown like a seed
Deep within the ground
The mirror found
By one man
So on and off again
He sailed the Europe's rim
On and off, off and on
Until his time had come

Through tears and smiles
The last domain
The rods of broken crystal
On and off, and off again
Until his time had come
Late to the story that had been
But early to the riddle not yet begun

August the First 1893
The charmed ship Plutonia
Sailed like a ray into Cornwall
And none too soon it seems

That night the Captain's granddaughter
Would celebrate her birthday
"I've come a long way," said the Captain
"From Lost Christabel this night
Accompanied by my dog familiar
To blast your rafters with my surprise!
Granddaughter, it's a foreign mirror
Taken from the jungle by crime!"

Stories on land, storms at sea
'Tween 1892 and '93
When Grandad sailed for Mexico

When tables collapse
And floors have filled
And the party's over, it's all over
Sea-dogs and rockers will dwell on doom
I've warped the stuff of ground
What seems to be is not
Behind closed eyes
Realize your sight
Mine, granddaughter, proves a surprise
More light than sun
More dark than night then
More a snare than lust



VETERAN OF THE PSYCHIC WARS

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar
And I'm young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure if there's anything left of me

Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
It's time we had some leave
We've been living in the flames
We've been eating up our brains
Oh, please don't let theses shakes go on

You ask me why I'm weary, why I can't speak to you
You blame me for my silence
Say it's time I changed and grew
But the war's still going on dear
And there's no end that I know
And I can't say if we're ever...
I can't say if we're ever gonna to be free

Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
It's time we had some leave
We've been living in the flames
We've been eating out our brains
Oh, please don't let theses shakes go on

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
My energy's spent at last
And my armor is destroyed
I have used up all my weapons and I'm helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I'm made of
Did I hear you say that this is victory?

Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
Send me to the rear
Where the tides of madness swell
And been sliding into hell
Oh, please don't let shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on

 

[janta]

To tell the truth, the campaign I'm running right now is based on "Smuggler's Blues" by Glenn Frey. The really scary part is that I've thought about a setting based on this song since it first came out.

I've also tried writing up an adventure based on "Temple of Love" by the Sisters of Mercy, but I have yet to finish it. Someday....

Finally, the song "The World is Not Enough" by Garbage always suggests either a character or an adventure to me. And on review, I realize that my musical tastes are going to come across as very odd indeed....

--Janta

p.s. -- hooray to Phineas Crow for mentioning BOC!

 

[Dogbrain]

"Hotel California"
"Locomotive Breath" (Lovecraft reference noted)
"Aqualung"
"Town without Pity"
"Hail! Knight of the Woeful Countenance"

 

[ironmani]

"End of all Hope" By Nightwish.
Heres the chorus:

"It is the end of all hope
To lose the child, the faith
To end all the innocence
To be someone like me
This is the birth of all hope
To have what I once had
This life unforgiven
It will end with a birth"

The PCs are charges with protecting a woman by the church who will give birth to, in thier belief, the next messiah. Of course there are elements trying to kill her before she gives birth. And there maybe signs pointing to the fact that it might not be in the PCs best intrest to let the child be born h could be the herald of destruction on a global scale!
Just my two cents......