Do songs give you inspirations for your characters?

[zdanboy]

Hello!

Down to the point: Did you ever base your character off a song? Or did a song give you inspiration to do a particular type of character?

In my case, I made a very cool and well-rembered character based on Manowar's song "Defender". Look for it! It is damn good inspiration for a knight/paladin type char.

The songs that I may recommend for character (or DM) inspiration:

Defender (as mentioned above) - Manowar
Dark Elf - Blind Guardian
Oath - Manowar
Four Horsemen - Mettalica
Assailant - Iron Savior
Children of the Wasteland - Iron Savior
Trooper - Iron Maiden
Hallowed be thy name - Cradle of Filth cover

 

[Cake Mage]

well I thought of a really cool evil npc after listening to a song called Possum Kingdom by the Toadies

Its basicly a song about a ceriel (seriel/cerial/serial?)(sp?) killer that goes and suduces girls ad then kills them.

So I made a bard that suduces girls, kills them, then sings about them in the bars and such and every body loves his music, but no body knows what the songs are really about.

 

[Terwox]

I had a Euthanatos whom I vaguely drew reference from the Garbage song "A Stroke of Luck." Never got to play him though. Oh well.

 

[eXodus]

not a song,

but i have been inspired to play an aasimar bard that has the looks, personality, and musical abilities of david bowie.

the short-cropped red-haired bowie with the flowing coats of the 90's. that is the incarnation that i think of.

 

[barsoomcore]

Oh sure! Songs that have inspired characters for me include:

Vacation -- The Go-Go's

The Rain in Spain -- My Fair Lady

Just a Gigolo -- Louis Prima

Concerto in C -- Tchaikovsky

 

[BluWolf]

Back in the early 80s when we were teenagers and really geeky we used to pick theme songs for our characters.

I had a realy munchy character named Groman Lathea and his theme song was "veteran of a thousand psychic wars" off the Heavy Metal sound track. I think it was Blue Oyster Cult that played that one??? Its been awhile.

I will usually start associating some song with any character I play for an extended period of time. The song may not necessarily be about that character. Sometimes its just a mood.

My last character Ashe I always associated Metallica's "Four Leaf Clover" with. The musicwas just so quietly menacing too me. It felt like Ashe.

My old character Teg was Judas Priest's "Hero, Hero" or "Last Rose of Summer".

Cabal was Guns N Roses "Welcome ot the Jungle".

 

[Privateer]

I'm going to be basing characters off of ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man and Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer (a well dressed rogue and a married, hammer-weilding barbarian, respectively).

 

[Synicism]

Yeah, I do soundtracks all the time. I tend to do at least two songs per character, one an action song that sort of represents the way that they would fight and the other a character theme that helps identify them. I just started a new character, a human weretiger monk.

Fight Theme: O Fortuna, Excalibur Remix (Apotheosis)

Character Theme: Thoughtless (Korn)

I must say that the soundtrack for The Matrix has some great themes too.

 

[reapersaurus]

Ya, I've got an idea for a Frenzied Berserker that came to mind after hearing Disturbed's, "Down With the Sickness".

 

[Poltergeist]

I think most of my characters in my adult life have been secretly (or not so secretly...) inspired by songs by the likes of Stevie Nicks and Kate Bush.

With Stevie you have all the witchy women you could wish for, inspired by songs like:

"Rhiannon"
"Gypsy"
"Sisters of the Moon"
"Sorcerer"
"Storms"

With Kate you get more internal conflict songs, and in particular I can remember a female bard I played who was convoluted, complicated, self destructive, and in desperate need of a really good therapist inspired nearly completely by the song "Wuthering Heights" (although I did fall short of actually naming her "Cathy.")

The specific verse on which much of Arella, the bard, was based went:

"You're anger, like my jealousy
Too hard, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to
Posses you
I hated you, I loved you, too..."