Sob's music journey revisit

Newsboys and SCC were my parents’ CDs that I listened to a lot as a kid. There's a particular memory I have of a home video in 2000 dancing with my sister to Steven’s “Diving In” and my youngest sister could barely walk yet. I remained a big fan of Newsboys for many years, getting several of their later CDs as my own and saw them live twice. Peter Furler, the og lead singer, doing a drum battle with the drummer who was lifted up on a platform and played a solo while spinning on a sideways rotating platform was one of the coolest things I had ever seen at 13. Plus One was the Christian answer to N’Sync and I had this one on cassette. Probably the first album I owned that wasn’t kid music. Years later when I was a camp counselor we created a music video to one of these songs. I may or may not be willing to share the youtube link lmao. I also remember the day Backstreet Boys - Black & Blue came out and my neighbor and I had a dance party together.

Putting DJ Sammy - Heaven all the way back here for second grade may be a bit of a stretch. I was trying to remember what the roots of my love for electronic music go back to and I vaguely have memories of singing this song with my friend from Germany. I also remember previously said neighbor and I jamming to Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank. Was this around the time I first heard Blue (Da Ba Dee)? It was in Big Fat Liar in 2002 so I guess so. Whatever they played at Laser Tag birthday parties too.

David Crowder was a Christian artist who stayed with me well past when I had quit listening to CCM. He wrote really good music and heartfelt music that was easy for me to connect to. This is the earliest album I remember enjoying of his. Tobymac and Hawk Nelson were big youth group favorites. We’re getting to the age where I started going to music festivals and seeing a lot of these bands play live. Ya Darude Sandstorm was peak middle school and I won’t apologize. Also loved Basshunter, DDR, “Every Time We Touch.”

Relient K, Skillet, Green Day, and Linkin Park kinda all go together. Was also listening to a lot of Thousand Foot Krutch. Mmhmm was played at a lot of youth group events. My mom bought me the CD during a particularly bad bout of depression and the association made it hard for me to listen to much but that doesn’t change the fact that the album has a soft spot for me and I enjoyed revisiting it. Red is basically the Christian Linkin Park without the rapping. Their first three albums were all good and the second was my favorite. I think someone first showed me Metallica and Led Zeppelin on the bus. They played Enter Sandman a ton at the skate park we went to in middle school.

In high school I was listening to a lot of the follow up albums of these bands and related artists. My crush also gave me a burnt disc for my birthday that had stuff like Saosin, RHCP, Smashing Pumpkins, Hoobastank, The Almost, and Circa Survive. I’m surprised there wasn’t any MCR that I can recall because she and her friends were obsessed. When Mothership came out I bought it on itunes and burnt it to disc for my dad for Christmas. I ended up listening to it way more than he did. This is around the age guitar hero 2 and 3 came out and they heavily inspired my taste and desire to learn guitar. I started taking guitar lessons and a class freshman year of high school and was soon trying to play Metallica, Zeppelin, Sabbath, and Maiden songs. Rodrigo y Gabriella were also big guitar inspirations for me. Mexican brother and sister who started out playing Metallica covers flamenco style. I still play their track “Hanuman” from 11:11 whenever I’m feeling like I suck at guitar.

14 was probably around the age I started getting into heavier music with distortion and screamed vocals. Skillet opened the door with the scream on “Energy” but seeing local metalcore band Bringing Down Broadway at my church and Inhale Exhale at Ichthus’s Edge Tent intrigued me to look for more. The Devil Wears Prada, Becoming the Archetype, and August Burns Red were my favorites but I also listened to a lot of Demon Hunter. I think I started using Pandora in 2009. Idk if I was already listening to Daft Punk before that but I loved Alive around then. Metalcore stations also led me to melodeath and In Flames and Children of Bodom were my favorites. I never pirated back then but I had my buddy download both bands' whole discographies even including the shitty Inearthed demos. I really got into As I Lay Dying too, loving all their albums but especially listening to a lot of An Ocean Between Us while mowing the lawn.

By 2010ish I was a lot better at guitar and started playing in the youth group band with my friends. The band leader and drummer were friends from our high school marching band and huge music nerds. They love all sorts of classic rock, blues, jazz, and prog. The drummer has a crazy knowledge of musicians and specific live shows that inspired me to be more of a nerd about music. I got both my Zeppelin and Yes live DVDs from him. The whole band hung out a lot and we’d watch concert DVDs and comedies or go to the local Big Boy restaurant. I was always kinda into the blues but didn't have a specific album to point to until the band leader got me into all sorts of blues guitarists like Clapton. I got the Who Ultimate Collection inspired by my uncle who loves the Who. I had a Who shirt in high school and even dressed up as Townsend for 70s day during spirit week. My dad got me into XTC, Talking Heads, Pat Metheny, and Yes. Had a ton of friends into Yes and was also listening to Boston a fair deal around then. A lot of these groups I was trying to play on guitar. I remember not being allowed into the jazz band because the director said we already had too many guitars and he wanted me playing clarinet instead. But then one day he heard me playing the intro to “Heart of the Sunrise” in the bandroom office and told me I was hired but I’d already lost interest.

Late highschool going into early college I was not immune to the brostep and EDM craze. Sure Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites was huge and I listened to Timestretch first but Divergent Spectrum was the longest lasting for me out of all those albums. Klaypex, Excision, Flux Pavilion, Pendulum, Pretty Lights etc. Bassnectar and Deadmou5 (I Remember and Strobe) were the only ones that lasted from this phase. Into the Sun and Unlimited were huge albums for me and demonstrated Bassnectar was more than just festival fodder. You can even search me on this server defending him. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnd then he got metood for being a nonce… Him and Dagon are my two nickels on this chart. What ya gonna do.

I could write a whole love letter to The Avett Brothers. I don’t listen to a lot of that indie folk from 2010-2012 much anymore that was perfect for living in the college dorms but since Avetts were much older and purer than that movement they have remained one of my most cherished bands. Emotionalism and I And Love And You are perfect albums. Please see them live if you can. I regret skipping seeing them so many times in college bc I wasn’t yet comfortable going to shows alone. Thankfully I did see them in 2019 with Trampled By Turtles and it was wonderful. I think OMAM and Fleet Foxes still hold up but I don’t listen to them often. Also really really love MGMT. I don’t actually remember when I started listening to them. I have reconstructed memories of it being in high school but I think those are fake. I definitely listened in college and still do. Oracular Spectacular is probably my entry point for loving synth pop and weird psych pop.

One of the saxophone players in marching band lent me Blood Mountain in high school and I thought it sucked ass. It wasn’t until The Hunter came out that I fell in love with Mastodon and had listened to enough other music to be open to their older stuff. Ya people hate this album but it was a big moment for my taste.

I got into black metal freshman year of college. It started with the music video for “Call of the Wintermoon” which I thought was hilarious but slowly I realized I loved the music. These three albums aren’t that big a stretch to enjoy for someone who already loved Children of Bodom. Sometime around 2013ish I got to sublet my first apartment and first went through a list of essential old school death metal albums. Symbolic was my favorite but I also liked Obituary early on. Don’t Break the Oath was an album so good I no longer cared about satanic imagery keeping me away from extreme metal. Holy shit this album was and still is intoxicating.

When I first started getting into shoegaze it was branching out from post-rock and related indie rock. I went back and looked at my shoegaze Pandora station and almost none of it was shoegaze. So ya Idk which band I got into first but I probably thought Sonic Youth was shoegaze for a bit. These bands combined with Mastodon are probably why Boris has become one of my most listened to bands.
Darkthrone kult ETERNAL HAILS……

Portal was my entry to weirdo music but probably also my entry into Incantation and Immolation type bands which I later went heavy into. The Mantle is probably my entry to a lot of pagan and atmo metal. Early in my shreddit journey was the beginning and peak of Fallen Empire, Vrasubatlat, and Mystiskaos. I let Skaphe be my representation for all those releases as well as my love for Icelandic Black Metal. I was pretty deep in the sauce of TapeKvlt. Fell in love with Alcest when doing prep listening for Wacken 2016 which was a really fun europe trip to do with a buddy once I had some savings from my first job. I got to be front and center for their set. Inquisition, Manilla Road, Riot, Absu, Discharge, all shreddit darlings that opened me up to many albums of occult bm, epic and USPM, speed metal, and black thrash. Discovered Gizz from some of the radio singles off Nonagon playing on the college radio station. Really opened me up to modern hard psych and reinvigorated my love for 60s psychedelia too. I was into some punk before Discharge but oh boy did HNSNSN rock my world. Before I liked some Clash, Bad Brains, Hüsker Dü, Dead Kennedys, and Circle Jerks. I went off the deep end when I discovered dbeat and crust. Similarly I’d heard some hiphop albums over the years that I liked from the east coast and conscious styles but Scaring the Hoes last year really opened me up to exploring more underground and weirdo stuff. The Detroit scene is so good.

I didn’t include any goth in this list. I had Christian Death - Only Theatre of Pain which was my entry point courtesy of DOTS but I think going all the way back to my dad giving me XTC - Black Sea and Talking Heads - Fear of Music was my real entry to all forms of post-punk and related genres. Also not pictured are outlaw country that TVZ opened me up to. I’ve also listened to Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel over the years. There are quite a few times over the years where I may have argued that the Rolling Stones and The Kinks are better than the Beatles. Whatever, I like all three. Also forgot to mention anything about getting my first record player with my buddy freshman year in the dorms and convincing the shop owner to sell me Number of the Beast as my first record despite someone else having requested it set aside for them.

SoB retrospective journey through music

I grew up surrounded by Christian music and it was pretty much the only thing I had exposure to other than maybe jazz music. I went to my first summer music festival in 2005, Kingdom Bound, at Six Flags: Darien Lake with my youth group. It was there where I was introduced to Skillet, TFK, TobyMac, and Hawk Nelson among others. Linkin Park and Green Day were my first experiments with secular music in middle school. I thought I was rebelling by secretly listening to them but found out recently that my mom knew the whole time and approved of it. In 7th grade I got my first mp3 player and bought Grits - Ooh Aah, Skillet - Element, Linkin Park - Numb, Green Day - When September Ends. I think the fifth song was another Grits (maybe High). The scream on "Element" blew my young mind haha. I shared it in my English class as music that was important to me. The kid that would bully me played Cradle of Filth - Nymphetamine for that same project and it horrified me haha!

I remember being in Boy Scouts in middle school each taking turns trying to play the piano part from Numb. I put the Metallica black album bc Enter Sandman was a huge song for my friends and I when we would go to the skate park in 8th grade. When we got into guitar we were all trying to play their stuff. I felt so badass playing Master of Puppets in 9-10th grade and frankly I should practice it again. So fun to play! Storm the Gates of Hell was a big metal album for me transitioning into high school. Discovered them the summer before digging through CDs in the metal section of the merch tent at Ichthus 2007. Their early albums got a lot of rotation on my MySpace playlist. I later got to see them in 2012 play with In Flames in Flint (also Battlecross and As Blood Runs Black).

I'm not even sure when I started listening to Iron Maiden. I guess with Number of the Beast on Guitar Hero 3. That was another one of those early songs I learned to play on guitar. Played a lot of Zeppelin songs on guitar in those days too. I bought the Mothership on iTunes and burned it to CDs for my dad one Christmas. That got me into them heavily. Over the Hills and Far Away is still one of my favorite songs to play on guitar to this day -- especially if I get my hands on a 12 string. I have a DanElectro 56pro, and even though I didn't pick it out, the fact that Page played one occasionally live meant a lot to me.

I don't really remember how I discovered Becoming the Archetype. Maybe also in the Ichthus merch tent. Pretty hilarious that I was listening to a tech death album before I even knew what melodeath or death metal were years later. I don't remember what year it was but my uncle is super into The Who and would play their collection in the van when we were hunting in the UP. I got the Ultimate Collection for Christmas in 10th grade I think and fell in love. Two of my drummer friends were super into classic rock and blues fusion. One had an encyclopedic knowledge of musicians, bands, and classic live shows. We geeked out about that stuff all the time. He gave me my Yes Montreal live 2003 DVD because he had two for some reason. I also got a ton of music from my other friend and our group of friends would hangout and watch Eric Clapton concert DVDs for fun. Very influential on my guitar taste.

I was super into Christian metalcore and scenecore in high school. Not much else to say there. It was the gateway into the Gothenburg melodic death metal scene which really open me up to metal as a whole. I got a bunch of music from my cousin while on another hunting trip around that time. I fell in love with Avett Brothers and Emotionalism has long been a special album from that batch of music. Finally got to see them live last summer after skipping them 4 times previous in college. I've loved Bassnectar for a long time. During my brostep phase yes, with his Timestrech album, but Divergent Spectrum was when he really started to show, for me, that he was more than just EDM festcore (he was recently Cancelled, FUCK).

I first started exploring black metal freshman year of college. I'd been into melodeath for a couple years now and I guess COB was the closest thing that made me aware of black metal? Idk I discovered the video for Call of the Wintermoon and thought it was hilariously stupid. I appreciated that Immortal didn't use explicitly satanic themes as much so they were easier for me to enjoy than Mayhem and Darkthrone. In the Nightside Eclipse was an early favorite as well despite having a little more of that satanic imagery. I loved listening to Into the Infinity of Thoughts while walking through the snow on campus. I got Vampire Weekend from my friend on my dorm floor and ya that is just about the perfect place to discover them haha. I was really into the whole indie folk/rock scene for that brief glorious moment. So many of those bands turned to shit.... OMAM - My Head is An Animal transports me back to my sophomore dorm, no care in the world, beautiful summer/fall weather, and learning to play MTG with my roommate and our friend (still my best friends).

MGMT super important to me. Still love them to this day. I don't think I got into them until college but there was something about there sound that reminded my of my older friends' nihilistic hedonism from when I was a young teen watching them from a far. This is captured very well on "Time to Pretend." Since I was about 11 I've had the attitude of "fuck you, I won't be what you want me to be" and that is very much what that song is like for me but with a bit of a twist.

Going into my junior year I worked in the lab in the summer and got to sublease my first apartment. It was during this time that I discovered a top 100 OSDM albums of all time on either RYM or another list aggregate cite. Death and Obituary were my biggest favorites from that time. I also went to Mayhem Fest '13 earlier that year and that was a big moment for me. First mosh pit was Job for a Cowboy. Finally got to see COB and the pit for "Silent Night, Bodom Night" is still one of the most insane I've ever been in. Also my first time seeing Mastodon and they sucked haha. Lifelessly played without saying a word. It was a pretty miserable day though and they had the 3rd slot on the main stage so it was everyone's down time in a way. One of my friend's did comment that it was interesting they avoided playing their main singles (he was our college radio metal hour DJ).

I used Pandora to discover a lot of stuff over the years. It's what helped me get into melodeath (while doing my independent study of Chinese in the school library). Summer of '14, when I was working as a sub contractor, was when I discovered trance, shoegaze, post-rock, Sonic Youth, and really got into Darkthrone. Important summer of music.

These were around the years I started actively using Spotify too. Mercyful Fate/King Diamond were so good I couldn't let the Satanism keep me away. A real gateway to the madness there. I discovered WITTR and Agalloch shortly before joining the sub. They captured so perfectly for me what it is like to sit in the woods all day and just exist. That is spiritually very important to me and to my family history/dynamic.

I joined r/metal in summer of 2015 bc I was depressed and working a shitty internship with nothing to do. I chose to pick Summoning as my first shreddit discovery as I loved discussing them with Pesti and CBE at the time. CBE was my first friend I connected with outside of Reddit. To this day we still maintain a group chat along with Majesticscarfripple (victorysongs/elitistposer). I got into Manilla Road and Slough Feg heavily bc of the sub. It wasn't Marco but HC actually who had a heavy influence there. Same with his caverndeath primer since that was a style I was already seeking out. Misterming and Abyssal were two major dissonant albums I got into that first year and made my 2015 list and HM. Them and Portal were very representative of that fringe of music that I have continued to press into and explore. Uskumgallu fits that bill the next year with me getting into underground black metal and really lo-fi and weird stuff. The TKcore if you will. Thank you Kap for getting me into Vrasubatlat! Fallen Empire and I, Voidhanger were other favorites of that time (and still).

Purity Ring and King Gizz I got into from my college radio station since I still lived in the same area during my first job. Hearing People Vultures on the radio BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. I love Alcest. Got into them in 2016 bc they played Wacken and I was listening up on the bands there. Seeing them front row, center stage (right in front of Neige) is still one of my absolute favorite concert memories. Then Kodama came out and I've forever been in love. My best friend is recently falling in love with them too and it makes me so happy!

Last three are some metal bullshit whatever ;). Absu - Tara a pivotal moment for black/thrash discovery, Agent Steel for speed, and Incantation for that beautiful style of OSDM that has made a resurgence.

Blashyrkh Campaign

These campaign notes are very loose and open to interpretation and expansion. I'll do my best to organize them in a reasonable order but I don't feel like putting much effort into it for the time being.

Setting:

Realm of Blashyrkh

• grim, dark, stormy
• Small map, mostly mountains and forest with a small lake
• frozen ocean coast land on one side of kingdom or have it as an isolated valley
• long nights, snowy
• large fields of battle carnage
• skeletons of men, humanoids, orcs, horses, weaponry, banners
• Always full moon* "The Sun No Longer Rises"
• *Full moon actually a portal to a demonic realm
• "eye of demon king looking in"
• blood red
•  "A Perfect Vision of the Rising Northland"
• fire burns blue because world is so cold
• "Millennium black bells of eternal frost - chain lightning"
• ice blue lightning = sound of deep bells chiming
• Death angels (?)
• Potentially low magic setting
• can be re-flavored to be powers of will but only certain schools
• gone bc demons are gone
• Illusion magic still present. Leaks out through portal

• "Winds of Torment"
• cause necrotic and freezing damage
• this is either a wilderness feature or an idea that eventually became the 7 winds of hate

• Rain blood at some point (Inquisition/Slayer)

• Castle in the Mountains of Madness
• looks like the cover of At the Heart of Winter

• party serves the king
• king sends them out on missions that slowly seem morally wrong/grey
• set up king as big bad but actually he is the key in preventing the entry of a demonic horde and demon king

Lore

 There are no religions in Blashyrkh. The gods have been forgotten because 2000 years ago demons invaded the land and waged war. The gods sealed the demon horde into a planar prison behind the moon which is a portal/gateway separating the prison from the land. The king was set in place to guard the realm and acts as the key/seal to the portal/gateway. The gods faded from memory after their power diminished from creating the prison. The demons are now just myth/fairy tales. Only a few remember the reality

The king's life is tied to the prison remaining locked. He has lived so long that he has forgotten about the gods. He remembers his purpose but only vaguely as madness has consumed him in his old age.

There are 4 Germanic/Nordic gods that can be rediscovered by the party by locating their hidden shrines. It will be difficult for the party to find these shrines before the demon hordes are released. The gods could be part of gaining power to defeat the demons.

NPCs

• The King
• The gods
• Heimdalr
• foreknowledge, sight & hearing

• Skaði
• bowhunting, skiing, winter, mountains
• jötuhn
• wolves
• shrine: an inscribed ski on a forgotten mountain top

• Mímir
• wisdom, well of knowledge (Mímisbrunnr)
• Hoddmímis holt (a forest)
• shrine is the well hidden in the forest
• can gain wis/int increase by sacrificing eye to well
• results in disadvantage on perception, investigation, nonmagic attacks
• needs balancing

• Freyja
• love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr (magic), war, death
• sometimes takes the form of Gullveig the witch
• last god to be found, the key to restoring life to Blashyrkh
• seiðr involves destiny magic/shamanism

• The Trickster
• similar to Loki but look to other trickster gods for inspiration 
• CN with hidden motive
• master of illusion magic
• genderless
• sometimes helps party, sometimes doesn't
• not quite a god but nature unknown
• still present but rarely seen

•  Völva named Gyða
• Appearance shifts from old hag to deformed but beautiful woman dpending on the light and perspective
• hard to focus on her and brain always unsure if taking in her appearance correctly or not 
• Inspired by the seer from Vikings (History Channel)
• Eyes gone/scarred over, black chapped lips, bite out of right ear, otherwise beautifull
• wearing a similar rough, woven, black cloak
• wearing lots of bone and rune fetishes
• lives in an isolated wilderness cottage
• Sometimes itinerant 
• exalted, feared, longed for, propitiated, celebrated, scorned

• Demon Lord/General
• similar to Baphomet maybe?

Locations

• Mountains of Madness
• Dwarven underground city - like Norse dwarves (Svartalfheim)
•  2 villages. One is the hamlet outside the the castle, the other one is hidden in the mountains
• forts for other factions

Races/Monsters

• Elves (weakened bc of absence of gods and magic)
• Dwarves (dark, like dead humans, similar to elves)(combo of Drow and Duargar) 
• Men
• Orcs
• Half Orc
• Tiefling
• Half Elves (innate magic from spawn of elves)
• Goliath
• no halfings, gnomes, dragonborn

• trolls, frost giants, blue dragons 

• A lot of ravens
• wise, can speak, messengers
• don't willingly let on that they can speak

•  Horned Goatmen
• wander countryside in herds
• passive, communal
• will retaliate but won't instigate
• look like cover of "Show No Mercy"

• "Blizzard Beasts"
• Yeti with frost powers 

Factions

•  The Mad King
• Party belongs to his task force

• The Black Wizards
• Secret cult seeking to kill the king and unleash the demon horde from their prison bringing magic back to the land

• Tiefling Resistance
• organized in forts throughout the kingdom
• see the evils of the king and want to free the common people from his oppressive rule
• don't know about the demon prison and the kings role in protecting the realm
• Will ally with party if party wants to overthrow king

• Elves
• Nomadic forest wanderers
• mostly neutral

• Dwarves
• Live in Svartalfheim underground
• Primary influence should be Norse dwarfs not Tolkien dwarves
• Can take societal ideas from Drow and Duergar without the evil aspects
• Other inspiration from Orzammar from Dragon Age: Origins

Items

Seven Winds of Hate

• Trying to be harnessed by the black wizards to release the demon lord and restore magic
• Cold
• Blood
• Darkness/Madness
• Plague/Disease
• Smoke/Fog
• Heat/Dessicating
• Ravens

Seven Legendary Weapons

• Can absorb the winds to stop and control them

•  Bloodwind Blade
• Sacrificial Dagger
• take 1d10 damage and add that to damage of attack 
• Umbra arrow (dark/madness) 
• deals Int damage
• controlled by mind and returnable (like Yondu's Yaka arrow)

• Necro scythe (necrotic damage)
• Spear of cold
• icicle
• found in Svartalfheim

• Ancient White Raven
• magical creature that controls the wind of ravens

• Pipe of smoke
• Hammerhate
• controls heat wind

• Dwarfs have the spear, Elves have arrow, Tiefling have hammer
• Scythe, bloodwind blade, and pipe are lost
• King's pipe is the pipe
• Trickster has the scythe
• blade is lost in wilderness

Encounters

Session 1

• The goal of this encounter is to show the party in action serving the king. They need a reason to trust him and see that they have a history of comaraderie with him. Tweak as you see fit. It will be a challenge to make their relationship with the king confusing. You want them to be loyal to the king but eventually question him as they start to see his corruption. It should be a difficult choice on whether to unite with a faction against him or save him from the black wizards.
• In medias res
• Party in the thick of battle with the king against some kind of undead horde
• end maybe with the king being super awesome and saving everybody. Need a reason for the players to love their king.
• skeleton horde led by a wraith. Wraith supplied by dying soldiers with a vanguard of spectres
• fight is at night inside the castle grounds (its always night here idk why I included a note about avoiding sunlight sensitivity of the creatures)
• after fight ends, King sends group on mission to stop 2 druids who are starting the summoning process of the winds. Also have a minotaur (CR 3) (probably need to scale down)
• have some minor creatures for action economy
• druids wear goat masks
• write up some dialogue to point towards the winds coming but be vague

 Goat Men

• Goat men mission from king.
• Go kill the goatmen who are surrounding the hamlet outside the castle walls
• Make sure to describe them in a nasty degrading way.
• filthy, half-breeds assaulting the innocent, hard working villagers 

• Free the town from these assailants
• "Show No Mercy", slay the goatmen
• Don't be deceived by them, they are demon-spawn and we must defend teh land form the demons
• Have an encounter on the way to the village
• maybe a thief attempt caught or an attempt on the king that they thwart
• a villager trying to kill the king?
• disguised as a servant? Just a kid. Need perception check to notice they are a kid before killing them.

• Go to town. Villagers locked in their homes frightened of the party and the kings wrath but make it seem like it is the goatmen they fear.
• Despatch goatmen and have some hunters come to their defense. 2 or 3.
• make goatmen one-shottable or low hp
• have party report back to king and talk about confusion
• king reassures them that they did the right thing. goatmen are spawn of demons and not to be trusted

"Unholy Forces of Evil"

• Use early on for foreshadowing during wilderness exploration
• bloody river flowing down a mountain to a black forest
• follow the river through the forest to a clearing
• "as you all walk through the woods the forest seems to expand outward. What looks like a short distance stretches out further than seems physically possible."
• complete silence in clearing, anti-magic, anti-sound field
• circle of thorns in center of clearing
• sound of burning goat and bleating come in
• dark clouds gather and condense at center as party approaches
• in the center of the thorns is a burning pentagram
• black souls and demons seen in the flames
• very dark in center near the flame
• as center is approached a wind picks up and blows the fires stronger and then it goes out
• a black wind blows away towards the north star
• the clearing is empty, everything is normal, the river is gone

Gyða

• Party sent to her by king to learn more about winds after he starts being plagued by them
• Put her hut somewhere remote in the mountains
• "Listen closely for I will only say this once. Ancient secrets must not fall into the minds of the dark ones."
• "The winds of change, Change is ever blowing what was into something new. You have already witnessed [insert wind]."
• Cryptic descriptions of the legendary weapons
• Energy slows, the will comes to a halt in a frozen spike
• Intense fire makes malleable the resistant. Striking hard is the only way to tame the flame.
• Eroding decay. Time is the enemy that slices through all chaff.
• Absence of light. pierces the mind leaving only madness.
• Plant to air. The instrument is not far from the wind itself.
• The alpha soars between the peaks inseparable from bright wasteland
• The companion of assassins pays the ultimate price

• Offer clue for finding the white raven
• Do not wander far to seek your pale friend. She roosts near

• She offers out her hand after telling a fortune or riddle. She expects it to be licked. She will drop or ignore anything else. If proper payment is no give, she will not divulge more. It is a sign of humility she requires. 

• They have seen the king with the pipe
• they have seen the elves with the floating arrow
• king doesn't know what he has, elves do
• Dwarfs hold their iceycle spear secret
• Tieflings only share hammer if party agrees to attack king
• trickster may give party the weapon disguised as something else depending on when they meet him
• otherwise if they seek him outright for the scythe they can't find him. 
• If they learn of the scythe before receiving something form him, he will only give it if they make a pact with him

Blood Wind Blade Encounter table and Perception check DC

• Roll percentile dice to determine wear the dagger is. This can be done whenever the party is in an area it could possibly be or done once and then the location is set. Maybe have a 5% chance on a D20 that the dagger is present in the current wilderness location
• 20% stuck in a log DC 15
• 15% in a brooke DC 20
• 10% in a rock DC 17
• 5% on a bandit DC 13
• 50% on a bloodied battlefield DC 25

• This can be done however the DM wants. The party could even discover the dagger early on and not know its significance

White Raven

• Walk at least 1 hr from Gyða
• Roll perception 50% chance its there
• DC 15 to hear call
• DC 20 to hear flying 50% chance it is flying
• DC 22 to see

• If fail keep walking 30 min 
• Can adjust percentages and DC but remember this is an ancient white raven in a white wilderness

  
Events/Quests/Session Timeline 

1. Goatmen (1 session)
2. Defeat elven highwaymen (similar to scoia'tael from Witcher)

• actually just a nomadic group, not brigends

3. Go spy on the dwarfs, learn what they are planning (1-3 sessions)

• by this point should suspect king
• need a way to meet Tieflings
• can ally with Tieflings or dwarves to kill king
• or fight wizards to save king

4. king likely attacked by 1st wind while party vising dwarfs. send party to Gyða
4.5-5. Gyða sends party deep into the mountains to find white raven
6. Party seeks out weapons
7. king dies or party confronts wizards
8. Demon Horde Released

• magic returns
• rumors of gods?

9. Demon Lord comes

Black wizards are sending winds against the king during steps 4-7.

Timetable for actions of Black Wizards

Need 4 out of 7 winds for victory

1. Every session roll percentage on finding wind, then roll on table

• 0-25%: No wind
• 26-95%: wind
• 96-100%: 2 winds

2. Three sessions to capture first wind (roll percentile for which wind)

•  01-14% Dark
• 15-28% Blood
• 29-42% Cold
• 43-56% Heat
• 57-70% Smoke
• 71-84% Disease
• 85-98% Ravens
• 99-100% reroll 

Unless they have all 7, party can find weapons and attack group harnassing the wind to steal it from them

or

Send winds one at a time to plague king. First one is how party learns of the winds. King explains lore and says there are 7 winds. Someone is attempting to harness them to kill them. He then sends them to Gyða in the mountains. She speaks of the weapons.

Death - Symbolic

I figured starting with one of my favorite albums as well as a classic would be good. Chuck’s social commentary and philosophy is fairly poignant and should provide me quite a bit of fodder for now. I’ll break down Symbolic, Zero Tolerance, 1000 Eyes, Crystal Mountain and address how they add to an overall theme of the album. Maybe touch on how they all relate to the title of “Symbolic.”

Lyrics: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Death/Symbolic/616

Interview with Chuck discussing the lyrics: http://www.emptywords.org/SparkMagazine07-95part2.htm

1. Symbolic

Loss of Innocence. A major theme in literature, it describes the inevitable “ruin” of our childish joy and carefree nature. Having written many discussions of this theme for various English classes, to the point of the phrase being an inside joke, catch all answer for “What themes are present in this story?,” I find it very fitting to begin my analysis with this title track.

Relive the gift of precious memories

In need of a fix called innocence

How easy is it to catch yourself wishing for a better time, lost in nostalgia? We “don’t mean to dwell” but “can’t help [ourselves].” If fortunate, many of our childhoods offered a freedom from worry and responsibility. Fun and imagination were how we passed the time. Even young adulthood can have that fearless, almost indestructible, feeling of life couldn’t be more perfect, those “time[s] in life when years [seem] to stand still.” But there is always something that comes along and crushes us. Chuck says the change is “undetectable” and questions “When did it begin?” For me, being engaged, which should have been one of the best times of my life, was that change. Life was perfect until I experienced my first true betrayal and disappointment - a failure that had nothing to do with the amount of dedication and determination I put in. I imagine Chuck experienced a lot of that with the difficulties he had always seeking to push himself musically even if a lot of the disagreements were due to his perfectionism. In the interview I linked, Chuck states that this song is indeed about growing up and the loss of the simplicity of childhood.

The secondary theme here is that the best things in life are those that you don’t have to think about to enjoy. Childhood memories hold those “symbolic acts” that are simultaneously “vivid” and “invisible.” Chuck states in the interview that his parents were among the “heroes” of his childhood. The “symbolic acts” are those acts of love and care that we receive growing up that we don’t appreciate at the time but cherish when we are older. When we are young the more complicated things that go into making a simple life possible are invisible to us. It is only with the weight of age that those “precious memories” become vivid.

Not a very complicated meaning hear but the exploration of the topic is something familiar to all of us. I wonder if those of you who didn’t have an innocent childhood still have those “vivid” “precious memories” that you cherish and provide that “fix called innocence” that all of us need to get through the hard times.

2. Zero Tolerance

This is one of many songs I think of in relation to religious hypocrisy but Chuck says it is more about people in general who twist things into something other than reality for the sake of their own agenda. I hear “In the dark of night...  Abusing a portion of light” and “A serpent spews out fantasy - Unjustified blasphemy” specifically as the passages of religious hypocrisy. These are the people who take something good, “a portion of light,” and contort it into something evil. The abuse of a philosophy that is meant to bring peace to people in order to manipulate them for your own gain is completely worthy of an angry death metal song about “unjustified blasphemy.”

The declaration in the chorus that “There will be zero tolerance” for those who twist things just to harm others is a powerful testament of resolution. Leaving “Fate” as the “deciding God” is an excellent way to say ‘you people aren’t worth my time and I’m not wasting any of my energy on the garbage you are spewing about me.’ The explosion of the rhythm section and tempo shift after this chorus at the two minute market exemplifies the punishing force of this “Zero Tolerance” policy. The half-time feel of the solo over this part reflects the approaching judgement of “Fate” for those on whom “Karma comes crashing down.

5. 1,000 Eyes

Yeeeeeeeees! Big Brother is watching. Another song that is straightforward in meaning but packs a heavy punch both musically and lyrically.

Privacy and intimacy as we know it

Will be a memory

Among many to be passed down

To those who never knew

Written in the mid-90s this idea has only gotten worse with the explosion of social media and smartphones. It’s not hard for the government to track us nowadays with our internet presence and meta-data collection. So many people post their lives publicly that secret surveillance isn’t even necessary. Private life and serenity are disappearing simply in a cultural sense and in a lot of ways is spurred on by intentional, personalized marketing, that in a way can control you simply by observing what you show interest in on the internet. This is why I am still a major advocate of unplugging every once in awhile and getting out in nature. I love atmo-black/folk nature worship like Agalloch and Panopticon for this very reason. Blogpost aside, this song correctly predicted how our culture is now inundated with “out of sight [...] advanced observeillance” in which “all the mistakes and secrets cannot be erased.” It is all out there in the open for many to find. Seriously make sure you know what is publicly viewable on your social media accounts.

The best part of this song is always the fiery chant of “We are enslaved now…” amongst the whirlwind of Gene’s drums.

7. Crystal Mountain

Oh ya… this is the one about religious hypocrisy. As a Christian, I completely agree with Chuck that America is full of bigoted, narrow-minded people, who use their religion to hurt people. I won’t get preachy but I do want to apologize that many Christians don’t follow or seem to know Jesus’ love. Alright, I didn’t focus much on the lyrics in 1,000 eyes so let’s see if I can dig deeper here. I think this one might have some actual symbolism in it and I’d like to take a crack at identifying the “Crystal Mountain.”

I think the crux of the message is here:

Twisting your eyes to perceive

All that you want

To assume from ignorance

Inflicting wounds with your

Cross-turned dagger

The only way I can understand the hate that comes from at least Christianity, is that these people are “twisting [their] eyes to perceive.” Their messages of intolerance and judgement don’t sound anything like the faith I was raised on so I can only assume that “from ignorance” they take whatever preconceived idea they want and twist scripture into their “cross-turned dagger” to attack people different from them and impose their self-delusional superiority. It is a disgusting practice and very fitting for a death metal song.

So the chorus is:

Inside crystal mountain

Evil takes its form

Inside crystal mountain

Commandments are reborn

The quatrain has an interesting parallel to the poetry structure in Psalms, in that the 1st and 3rd line are the same and the two couplets are really just reiterations of the same idea. Repetition is one of the most effective literary tools to emphasize a message and theme and was heavily used by Hebrew writers. The surface level meaning of “crystal mountain” is physical church buildings. These are places where evil takes form when scripture (“commandments”) is twisted and reborn into something grotesque and damaging. To me the crystal reminds me of stained glass windows. Going deeper “crystal” could refer to the supposed purity of the church. The church is supposed to represent the goodness of God and his will on earth. A common idiom used in at least the states is “crystal clear.” Yet, the majority of crystals I can think of in life aren’t actually clear. Quartz is often fairly opaque and muddy looking because of the way it refracts light. Very few crystals I made in my organic chemistry labs were clear. Think of how amazed people were at the clarity of Walter Whites’ ice in Breaking Bad. It is rare to actually see clear crystals. So the supposed purity and clarity of the church body of believers is actually pretty muddy because of our sin and in ability to perfectly reflect the light of Christ. The idea of a mountain referring to the church can also be connected to the idea that Simon, the disciple, was renamed Peter by jesus, meaning rock, and was the foundation of the early church by being the first church leader and eventually recognized as the first pope. So the magnitude to which the church has grown today makes it a mountain and in many ways, that mountain is as overbearing and imposing an obstacle as the Himalayas.

Overall Album:

Based off these four songs I’m actually surprised at how little symbolism there actually is here. Yes, the title track refers to moments of innocence that are taken for granted in youth as “Symbolic Acts” but that doesn’t really contain any literary symbolism in the lyrics themselves. I’d say the meaning of the words “Crystal Mountain” is the only symbolism I found. There are 5 other great tracks here that I didn’t touch on so feel free to call me out there because I didn’t look into those any deeper than I have during my many listens to this amazing record.

I’d say the overall lyrical theme that ties this album together is the things in life that make life hard to live. There are many forces fighting against us that seek to cause the loss of innocence addressed in the opening title track. The first sentence of a short story or chapter of a novel often set the scene for the entire work so the first song presents the theme of innocence lost and the following 8 tracks reveal the different aggressors that cause the hardening of our souls and awakening to the real world.