A Role Playing Games Blog
Instant soundtrack for your Cthulhu campaign
For many years now, I have used background music in my roleplaying game sessions. Music is a prefect tool to help to set a certain mood. For my last Trail of Cthulhu game, which was set into the late 1930s, I used a mix of movie soundtracks (especially the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” soundtrack works great for any horror game) and 1930s jazz music. I didn’t own any 1930s music, so I had to lend a few CDs from a friend who’s a big fan of jazz music.
But now I found a free source of music from the early 20th century (thanks to the Propnomicon blog). Archive.org has thousands of recordings from 78 rpm records and even phonograph cylinders.
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The above song is 1920s big band music performed by Abe Lyman and his band.
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Our keeper always finds the creepiest music to flood our conciseness as we play Call of Cthulhu. It freaks me out no end!
.-= Misterecho´s last blog ..Kobold Quarterly: A magazine review from a newbie =-.
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I have emailed the keeper (stuart)
Hopefully he will reply here.
.-= Misterecho´s last blog ..Kobold Quarterly: A magazine review from a newbie =-. -
In our last session we were crossing the atlantic. As my character was looking at the storm outside, a soundtrack of creaking metal started up. Scarey stuff especially when the keeper asked me to roll cthulhu mythos…
I can't sleep at night, he's ruined my mind
.-= Misterecho´s last blog ..Kobold Quarterly: A magazine review from a newbie =-. -
#7 written by Stuart 2 years ago
I have not ruined your mind… yet, Misterecho.
Being the aforementioned keeper (Stuart), I can give you a quick run-down of the music I use. It's not terribly conventional, but:
1. Horror soundtracks (Alien 3 is a favourite of mine; bits of Dracula work well; and, oddly, Solaris; among others.)
2. Dark Ambient music (the slower and creepier the better–a lot of this is freely available through various websites. Give it a google.)
3. Classical (yes, good old classical; organ, voice and percussion seem to work best, but then Philip Glass works well too.)
4. Progressive rock (I don't use a lot of this, but sometimes there is a track that really works well).
5. Sound effects (again, I don't use much of this, but if I could find the right thing, I'd use it)
I have all these tracks in my iTunes and I've made a playlist called Cthulhiana which I stream to my HiFi while we're playing. Some of it is a bit freaky and has the desired effect on Misterecho and his companion. Hope this helps!
Stuart
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I can't praise The Midnight Syndicate highly enough for good horror ambiance music.
.-= Tim´s last blog ..New Character Race: Insectaur =-. -
This is fantastic!! Thank you for the link!
.-= David´s last blog ..D&D Default Setting =-. -
Cool – I love the music archive link!
As for Dark Ambient music, my players were recently impressed when I played some Lustmord, inspired by Gnombient's post:
http://gnombient.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/music-f…
.-= Alex Schröder´s last blog ..Comments on Playing With Kids =-. -
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That is awesome… I struggle with music sometimes. Love to have some playing on the background but finding the right one is always hard, and I have a pretty LARGE soundtrack collection. Even with iPods making managing them easier, setting them up is such a time consuming endeavour. Tanks for that info…