Do you use song lyrics as inspiration for adventures?

[John Q. Mayhem]

A good non-metal option I was reminded of recently: Some of the tracks on the Prince of Egypt soundtrack. Playing with the Big Boys Now and Thus Saith the Lord. The latter gives me the shivers, it's so good. Makes me want to play a paladin of Menoth.

 

[CarlZog]

I used Tom Waits´s: "Little Drop Of Poison" for an assassin adventure.

Good call.
I could run a campaign from his "Heartattack and Vine" album! d20 Modern, mind you.

 

[Heathen72]

More Sting/Police.
From Sting's Soul Cages Album, both Soul Cages and Wild Wild Sea. You could just about base a campaign on the lyrics of the former:

The Soul Cages
The boy child is locked in the fisherman's yard
There's a bloodless moon where the oceans die
A shoal of nightstars hang fire in the nets
And the chaos of cages where the crayfish lie

Where is the fisherman where is the goat?
Where is the keeper in his carrion coat?
Eclipse on the moon when the dark bird flies
Where is the child with his father's eyes?

These are the soul cages
These are the soul cages

He's the king of the ninth world
The twisted son of the fog bells toll
In each and every lobster cage
A tortured human soul

These are the souls of the broken factories
The subject slaves of the broken crown
The dead accounting of old guilty promises
These are the souls of the broken town

I much more a Bowie fan, but The Soul cages is such a wonderful image laden album that it has inspired many a session.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

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

Garnett's Homemade Beer is also good for that...

I used Barret's Privateers too, and also Roger's Nortwest Passage as background music when running Pagan Publishing's Walker in the Waste.

Ah, for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea

Westward from the Davis Strait, 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain

And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking West
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts, and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea

How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them I left a settled life, I threw it all away
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again

I have based so many scenarios on folk songs that I have lost count.

Reynardine.
Witch's Reel
Murder Bull,
Laidly Worm
Ghost Riders in the Sky
Old Fid
Days of '49
Rare Auld Times
Tam Lin
True Thomas
Unquiet Grave
Rolling of the Stone
High Barbary
Yarrow
Wife of Usher's Well (for a Christmas with Cthulhu game...)
Greezly Bride

These are just the ones I can think of off hand. All are worth looking up.

The Auld Grump

 

[Testament]

Cradle of Filth: Her Ghost in the Fog - This track could be the basis of a great Gothic ghoststory. A woman, accused of witchcraft, is raped by three priests. She then tells her boyfriend to kill her. That he does and he then proceeds to burn down the church the priests are in.

Just heard that song, saw the lyrics.

All I can say is SOLD!

You've just created a Cradle fan, and I'm so running something based on that song some time in the near future. Everything about that song, heck, everything about that band is wonderfully Gothic. I'm already seeing a WoD/Dark Ages or Ravenloft game running with that story.

 

[yennico]

The lyrics of Clannad´s: Skellig inspired me to an adventure.

Skellig Lyrics

Like mighty ships that sail atlantic foam
The skellig isles parade the kerry coast
It's a strange place
With a needle's eye
Where shipwrecks lie

Chorus
Where the king of the world
Rested for a while
And a place for the pilgrim
A sanctuary of time
Fourteen steps to nowhere
Out of solid stone
Don't lead us to the heavens
Or lead us to the sea

The vikings came to plunder and destroy
But to this day the holy relics stand
In a blind mans cove
Where the wailing woman sighs
And the seagulls cry

Chorus

A journey to these islands so rare
The sound of screaming souls that fill the air
A thousand wings
Against the sky
And grey seal's disguised

Chorus

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Dr. John - I Walk on Guilded Splinters
Some people think they jive me, but I know they must be crazy
Don't see their misfortune, I guess they're just too lazy
Je suis le grand zombi, my yellow belt of choisen
Ain't afraid of no tomcat, fill my brains with poison

Walk through the fire, fly through the smoke
See my enemy at the end of their rope
Walk on pins and needles, see what they can do
Walk on guilded splinters with the king of the Zulu

Walk to me, get it, come, come
Walk on guilded splinters
'Till I burn up.

I roll out my coffin, drink poison in my chalice
Pride begins to fade, and you all feel my malice
Put gris-gris on your doorstep and soon you be in the gutter
Melt your heart like butter, an-an-and I can make you stutter

Walk to me, get it, come, come
Walk on guilded splinters....

The theme song of a bokor if ever there was one. Probably one who derives his power from fire and poison.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

From Type-O-Negative

A swollen sun melting in the horizon
Between the sheets where I wait for her to come
A living flame, impossible to resist
Burning me deep with every bite, kiss and lick

I'm haunted
I'm haunted
I'm haunted (by her)

Invades my sleep with tumescent intentions
Hades I'm sure must be missing a demon

From the panes a green mist swirls
Is it a shadow or reflection?
This apparition in moon beams bathed
A voice like wind through trees beckons
Cool rain on hot summer stone
The odor fills my presence
Of freshly dug grave and death and night
These things are her essence
Nocturnal mistress,spirit lover
Your mouth of wine and woodsmoke taste
My goddess of the violet twilight
You are lust incarnate
In the sweat of my bed
The eastern sky hints of dawning
Alone and awake but exhausted I lie
Oh how I hate the morning

I hate the morning (light)
I hate the morning (light)

I'm haunted


I use this when I want to throw in a succubus or a vampire, I think it works for either.

 

[Desdichado]

And are you inspired from songs to write adventures?

"Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne. "She-bop" by Cyndi Lauper. "Cold-hearted Snake" by Paula Abdul. "Juke Box Hero" by Foreigner.

All the basis of wonderful sessions of D&D.

OK, not really...