What music do you all listen to when writing adventures, background and other work for DH? And so forth....

For me, lately its been a lot of Iced Earth (Framing Armageddon and Crucible of Man mostly), with a little Black majesty, Bolt Thrower and Blind Guardian thrown in for good measure.

Still finding ManOWar a pleasant top up when I feel my testosterone levels getting low.

After hearing Damnatus Soundtrack, I also found and often listen to Summoning, Atargatis and Dargaard, some of theirs songs have realy wonderful "WH40kish" atmosphere. But in general I prefer classic as Nightwish and of course, Apocalyptica. Quite recently I´m in Sabaton and I also consider pursuing something from Epica...

I prefer more soundtrack-like music both when working on material (whether my freelance rpg work, or for my own games), and when running a game, as I feel they better help establish mood and visualisation than songs with lyrics (which can distract and run counter to this). To this end, the three primary albums I use for DH are:

* Chronicles of Riddick soundtrack (might as well call it the 40k soundtrack to be honest)

* Dawn of War soundtrack (for obvious reasons)

* Dead Space soundtrack

cheers!

Colin

**** it. Me and Dezmund like Man o War. I did a video for them in Afghanistan a few years back. Well it was for the General in charge of CJTF-76 during OEF6, but they liked the copy I sent them.

Did I mention Hammerfall?

I think Gods of War my Man O War is a better 40Kish feel.

Midnight Syndicate caught my attention a few months back, and is good for when I'm hammering out some terrifying moment for my players (or refining them as is the case with the end of Illumination). Other than that I often have some 40k related music playing, Damnatus being a recent edition, and the Chaos Gate soundtrack also featuring. I also managed to acqurie an entire album of Gregorian chants off of my uncle, which is also good. Metal doesn't feature too much, since bands I like often don't make music conductive to in-depth thinking. That which does make the cut is often instrumental (vocals have always been overrated, anyway), the Damnatus soundtrack being an exception. Besides that there's also a spattering of DnB and various breeds of techno, both slow and fast. Stephan Bodzin gets a special mention, being of a fairly minimalist style which conjures up thoughts of the archeotech filled depths of an underhive or one of the quieter districts of the forge world.

Suicide Commando is good, as is Rammstein. A lot of the Russian composers, pre and post revolution, can have a 40k feel.

And yes, the Dead Space sound track works. But the whole **** game is just plain groovy. And it's a style that would work well for a non-SM or Inquisition video game.

I don't listen to any music in particular when I plan my scenarios, but I do play music when I'm running the game to set the mood. Two particular favorites are the sound tracks for Lexx and Silent Hill: Homecoming.

This just came out and has a very modern-cinematic feel to it:

www.fixtstore.com/product/1441/Celldweller---Soundtrack-For-The-Voices-In-My-Head-Vol.-01-(CD)

Some games OST:

• Gears of Wars
• Mass Effect
• Max Payne
• Republic Commando
• System Shock 2

EBM / Industrial:

• Haujobb
• E-Kraft
• Front Line Assembly
• T. Raumschmiere
• Skinny Puppy

Movie OST

• Equilibrium
• In the Mouth of Madness
• Aliens VS Predator
• The Ninth Gate

I have a long list of soundtracks that I use for Dark Heresy. Often I try to form seperate playlists for each major scene or setting and take songs from many of the following. These where the ones I could remember without going over my playlists again.

All the different Dawn of War soundtracks
Chronicles of Riddick
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butchers Bay
Children of Dune
Clive Barkers Jericho
Chaos Gate
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Doom 3
Homeworld
Kingdom of Heaven
Equilibrium
Starship Troopers
Plunkett & MacLeane
Some of the more mechanicly sounding songs from the Silent Hill series, although i try avoiding those since I use alot of Silent Hill music for my Kult sessions and I dont want the feeling of those chronicles to get to mixed.

I really enjoy putting together custom playlists for my adventures and I find that music allways helps me concentrate and focus when GM´ing

Starship Troopers?

TorogTarkdacil said:

The Klendathu Drop music is an old favourite of mine.

Personaly I love this one, if you are not listing carefuly or when you ignore "federation" and "citizenship", it could be nicely used as propagation song for Imperial Guard (and it´s sang by supreme commander! Try to imagine Macharius, Macaroth, Ursakar E. Creed or Yarrick singing *****, I don´t like smileys on this site, they are ******* ugly*)

Lustmord.

This group produces dark ambient music. I usually run it in the background when I DM and find that it fits the mood of the game perfectly. I highly recommend them for anyone wanting nice ambient music that doesn't suddenly break out into full orchestra just because it's from a fast-paced scene of a movie.

King of Sand said:

+1

I went to iTunes and filled up my ipod with his music just for DH.

- Deus EX game soundtrack
- Wumpscut
- Combichrist
- KMFDM
- Tactical Sekt
- Angelspit
- Ayria
- Deathstars
- Fear Factory
- Nine Inch Nails (yes I'm a ninny sue me)
- Rachmaninov
- Wagner
- Mendelssohn

I personally listen to anything except for rap, R&B and popular music and whilst writing for DH I prefer something that reminds me of the setting because of the lyrics or general feeling of the music.

epsilon4 said:

Definitely Haujobb. Specifically Vertical Theory and Solutions for a Small Planet . Velvet Acid Christ and Wumpscut are two of my favorites, too. At least for Hive City adventures, or some similar technology level. I think it really depends on your setting. Dead Can Dance tends to be good for more "medieval," tribal, or other backwater planets.

lately it's been non stop Static-X, with some Chimera and Machine Head, I think I'm about half deaf at the moment because of it

Snidesworth said:

Here here, that song has inspired many a good drop pod scenes for my game.

I actually watch films while I am writing, usually films connected to the subject at hand...

So for Episode one of my campaign, Event Horizon, Alien, and Day of the Dead were on there.

I agree - I watch movies when I write. It's handy since I have a second monitor, so I don't even have to turn around to see the screen. I tend to lean to the more esoteric. For my last adventure I watched Fritz Lang's Metropolis over and over again. But I also like Dark City, Total Recall, Delecatessen and City of Lost Children for mood.

As far as music goes I run my game at my FLGS (the owner is a player) and with all the background distractions I think music would just add to the cacophony. If I could listen to music while running I'd go with E Nomine, the 300 Soundtrack, Dead Can Dance, and Ramstein.

Our group listens to music to fit the present situation; a lot of classical and violin (schindler's list theme is one of the best songs), the soundtrack of "Ravenous".

Some of the more mainstream metal for club and downhive scenes (Cannibal corpse, Behemoth, Cradle of filth etc.)

A lot of big band and DCI show music whenever we have military scenes.

Gregorian chants and choir music for cathredral or ecclesiarch scenes.

Oddly enough Frank Sinatra music whenever we talk to our inquisitor