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Abelard
Still here? Wow.
(3/20/03 12:31 am)
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Eerieness in the Temples
As my party has encountered various elemental temples - Air, Water, Fire - I've described eerie auditory and tactile side-effects of the altar/unhallow effect - mini-hallucinations. In the Air Temple, you hear rushing winds, distant thunder, feeling someone blowing in your ear or on your neck, etc. In Water: gurgles and splashes, cascades, water drips and drops that you hear/feel on your head, all the more eerie because they mix in with the real water sounds of the water in the room. In Fire: crackling, distant roaring, timber falling, muffled explosions, etc. - ditto on the real fire there! In Earth, I suppose it'll be sliding pebbles, creaking of the earth, the walls seeming to sway, maybe feeling like you're falling, etc.
Anyhow, this is just something I improvised, but it seems to work pretty well. It helped clue the party into the difference when the Air Temple altar was destroyed - which they did not do themselves, they didn't really think about it/realize that it would break the unhallow. Plus it just sets a creepy mood. (Now that I think about it, it'd be fun to have protection from evil spells cut off the hallucinations... almost as if they were giving you instructions...)
So I offer this as a suggestion and also to start a topic: what do you do to make the Temples seem evil and menacing? The CRM elemental temples, and/or the Fanes temples - what has seemed to work well?
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shidara
Here for a while
(3/20/03 10:15 am)
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Re: Eerieness in the Temples
My party has just entered the Outer Fane, and I wanted to do something to generate a little atmosphere.
In the CRM ,I just used plain vanilla grid maps to mark out areas. nothing special for atmosphere, though I wish I would have thought of your ideas while we were in there . . .
For the Outer Fane, I am using large, laminated sheets of black cardboard inscribed with a purple grid. I use a white grease pencil, as suggested here on this board, to mark out rooms and such. So far, the response from the party has been pretty good.
It also helps that they entered through the Air Door, and found the lack of resistance quite unnerving. So far they've only encountered the arrowhawks, and Naquent stumbled across a scouting barbarian but Ethereally Jaunted away to warn Hedrack.
Then the Tentacle Trap nearly killed the cleric . . .
All in all, I think my party is fairly creeped out . . .
Shidara
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 Infiniti2000
Still here? Wow.
(3/20/03 10:35 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Eerieness in the Temples
When my group gets into the Outer Fane, I'm going to replace all the light bulbs in the room with purple bulbs and play some whack music. If I could get the walls to undulate as if with tentacles, it would be even better.
Anyway, I have no additional descriptions to offer to make things eerier.
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The guy from Belgium
Here for a while
(3/20/03 1:48 pm)
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Re: Eerieness in the Temples
ok, new question (don't know if this has come up before, prolly has)
music!
what kind of eerie music is out there?
artist - title please
and just one remark, no heavy metal or stuff like that...
plain eerie music only
thanks in advance!
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Taxman66
Here for a while
(3/20/03 1:57 pm)
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Re: Eerieness in the Temples
The eerieist (sp?) music I can recall off the top of my head is the opening theme music from the movie 'The Bounty' (track 9). The artist is Vangelis and the name of the album is 'Themes'. Its very cool as it contains Blade Runner (end theme & love theme) and Chariots of Fire tracks among others.
Some Siouxsie & the Banshees and/or The Creatures stuff would work well too. For some reason I laugh whenever I think of treasure division done to 'Ornaments of Silver and Gold.'
Taxman
"It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things, Hobbes." - Calvin
Edited by: Taxman66 at: 3/21/03 9:59:36 pm
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 3ebb 
Looking around
(3/20/03 4:19 pm)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Eerieness in the Temples
Music Music Music! My old DM was the master of themed music and I plan on trying to do it as well. What a difference it made!!
I suggest the soundtrack to Interview with a Vampire. Totally awesome and perfect background music for the CRM.
Also, I use battle music and recurring themes, which help seperate and define the uniqueness of each location. There is a theme song for Hommlet, a theme song for Nulb, etc. For combat, I switch between about 8 different tracks depending on the battle. Everything from Conan to video game soundtracks work great.
Just avoid anything with an easily recognizable theme (Indiana Jones, etc). I don't recommend just playing music in the background. Carefully selecting tracks for each location always yields better results. After all, a movie without music doesn't convery emotion well. Also, playing the wrong music can be disastrous as well.
Here are some more suggestions for soundtracks. This list has been carefully chosen to be useful for D&D games...
www.3rdedition.org/produc...sp?catid=3
Good luck!
I voted today for 3EBB at ENWorld.Edited by: 3ebb at: 3/20/03 4:20:50 pm
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ZansForCans 
Here for a while
(3/20/03 10:29 pm)
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Mood...
Sorry if this is starting to steer a bit off the original topic, but I occationally head to DigitalBlastphemy for some graphically inspiring ideas. This guy is simply an amazing digital artist. Long ago, a bunch of the stuff was free, but now it's his day job so it looks like a lot is only available via subscription. Anyway, I've pulled a few of the free things down for spicing up area descriptions or for use on campaign websites.
Just tonight I saw this though, which is o-so-appropos:
www.digitalblasphemy.com/...2x_2.shtml
Scroll down to the last picture. Remind you of anyone?  Check out the title in the right sidebar. Heh 
Group Editing & Authoring Support
flexible campaign management for the web
info :: demoEdited by: ZansForCans at: 3/20/03 10:29:56 pm
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Cordo Crowfoot
Here to stay
(3/22/03 2:39 am)
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Re: Mood...
The soundtrack from "The Cell", recommended by Monte, has some pretty eerie sounding stuff on it...
"They were immediately and absolutely recognizable as adventurers. They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever came... They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occasionally impressive exploits" China Mieville, Perdido Street Station |
Ulthwithian
Here for a while
(3/23/03 9:20 am)
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Mood Music...
The music from Conan the Barbarian is all good, but there's at least one track on there for the Snake cult that would work well for this purpose.
Personally, I tend to use overlooked tracks from anime/console game/movie soundtracks.
Ulthwithian
Gamer-at-large
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Belial
Here for a while
(3/24/03 8:49 pm)
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Re: Mood Music...
Some of the music that I am using is:
Interview with a vampire (already motioned).
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield (also the theme to exorcist).
Wav/MP3 files from the PC game Severence: Blade of vengeance.
The Conan soundtrack (already mentioned).
Some tracks from the Gladiator soundtrack.
Music from the PC game ARCANUM, can be downloaded from www.mp3.com/arcanum.
Arcana Cantar De Procella can be found at arcana.coldmeat.se/ (mp3’s can be downloaded). This band is well worth the look and my choice for the day.
Some MP3’s from the Icewind dale/Baldur’s gate CRPG’s.
These are just a few.
I’ve MP3’d the lot so I can use my laptop to play them. (And yes I own all the above).
There are an assorted number of MP3’s that can be downloaded (legally) and well worth the look.
If you only try one of the above Arcana is worth it .
Belial.
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geemarcus
Here for a while
(3/27/03 11:13 am)
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Re: Mood Music...
I've got a decent collection of 20th century classical music that I've been using. A lot of the russian composers work particularly well (Many Shostakovich string quartets, Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta www.amazon.com/exec/obido...=classical ).
Another piece I've used is Ginastera's Piano Concerto no. 1 ( www.amazon.com/exec/obido...79-8588137 ). When they go into battle I've switched over to "Tocatta" by Emerson Lake and Palmer, www.amazon.com/exec/obido...ce&s=music which is actually an adaptation of one of the movements from the concerto. Makes for a chaotic battle. (Useless tidbit: Anyone in who grew up on the Boston area during the 70's should recognize this as the theme from channel 56's "Creature Double Feature")
The soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula is awesome. Ahh, and one of my Favorite CD's for Halloween: Black Angels by Kronos Quartet. ( www.amazon.com/exec/obido...79-8588137 ) Really creepy. That CD also has an appropriate Shostakovich string quartet. (Useless tidbit #2: A sample from this quartet was used in a tune by Faith No More, which is why I bought it in the first place...)
I haven't tried all of these yet, I don't have a PC near where we play and running to the CD player every time I need to change the mood tends to break the flow of the game...
Geemarcus
______________________________________________________
"Stupidity is the basic building block of the Universe."
--Frank Zappa Edited by: geemarcus at: 3/27/03 11:17:15 am
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