Finding Great Background Music

Theodor Rombouts - The Lutte Player

 If you're anything like me, you can appreciate the ambiance and mood created by good background music. Music adds a layer to any adventure as it stimulates the imagination of the players and assists you as DM in conveying the emotions you want your setting to have. Despite it's crucial role, good background music is hard to find. Normally, when looking for background music I try to find music that satisfies as many of the following criteria as possible.  

1) It shouldn't be recognizable. Your Player Characters should not be able to recognize the music from a popular video game, movie or other. Not to say that this music isn't well done, but your PC will immediately picture the setting this music comes from.

2) Cannot be overpowering.  The music you use should be as ambient as possible. This will prevent the PCs from being distracted and drawn away from in game conversations and storytelling. It is background music after all.

3)Loopable. You want to find music that remains as constant and consistent in theme as possible to allow you to play the music on a loop.

4)Find music from many artist. Most artist tend to have the same "feel" to their music. This isn't always the case, but by using music from a wide array of sources (through out your campaign) you prevent the possibilities of style overlap. However, overlap can be used to your advantage. Keeping the same style of play can keep a kind of "theme" going throughout a quest or dungeon.


There could be other things, but for the time being this is all I can think of :)

Lastly I would like to show you all some music that I have been using in my campaigns. Some I just discovered and others I have loved for quite a while. In all honesty, it was these musicians who inspired me to write this post.

The first is Brandon Fiechter's . Despite his youtube page being a bit hard to navigate from theme to theme, his music definitely seems to score well in all the above mentioned categories. It is low key and covers a wide range of themes; Forest, cave, desert, city and village music. His brother (?) Derek is equally talented.

No epic battle would quite feel the same without music from Two Steps From Hell. Although I must say that their music can sometimes be a little too epic. I try playing their music only during large fight scenes, like epic castle storming or large scale combat.

Joshua Buck Music also presents really smooth ambient music that I find can be used on numerous occasions. There aren't as many songs to choose from here, but the few are gems in my opinion. 

Doug Beyer's: Half the Man

As I was searching for some interesting hook ideas, I came across Doug Beyer's Unusual Jobs article. His article talks about a few fun and unusual hooks that can easily be taken and used in any setting. Here is one of my favorites that he mentions: 

Half the Man

The PCs meet with a possible employer who has a "retrieval" mission for them. You can read aloud or paraphrase the following text:

"Thank you for meeting with me. I represent a wealthy entrepreneur who seeks recovery of a lost item. My client was exploring in the Vile Marsh area of the Shadow Marches when a creature known as a bulette surprised him and made off with the item in question. Your job is to hunt the creature and to recover the item. My client will pay handsomely for its return. Any questions?"

At this point, the PCs will probably ask about the item and other details. Use the following information to carry on the conversation:

"The item? The item to be recovered is my client's lower body. The bulette's bite severed him at the waist. The legs and pelvis should still be intact in its second stomach by now, but of course time is of the essence. Identifying characteristics for the item include the hair and muscle patterns of an adult male shifter, a curving scar on the left thigh, and a pair of dinosaur-leather riding boots with silver buckles. Should the boots be returned as well, you may expect an extra reward. Shall we discuss terms?"

If the PCs ask more questions, they receive nothing more than responses that time is of the essence and that other details concerning the client are not relevant to the task at hand.

For a few more interesting hooks, you are referred to Doug's article. It can be accessed by clicking on the article's name located just above.

Another Bulette by BenWootten

Crafting skill

After much debate, my group of Player Characters have decided they wanted to add some "crafting" like skills to their talents. After debating on which ones to take on, we opted with only adding three large categories. I've included my "hand" modified version of the official WoC 4th  Edition Character Sheet with these changes.

The first being Alchemy:
Now this set of the crafting includes all "magical" crafting. So potions, remedies, poisons all fall into this category. We can also include potential illusion like magic into this category as well as attempts to perform transmutations of elements. Even chemistry like things could fall into this category. 

This crafting skill is based on wisdom. My logic behind this is that it takes more then just intelligence to build a magic syrup. Rather it would take magic know how and experience.

Next is Forging:
Now by forging, I mean blacksmithing. If it can be build with a hammer and anvil, then it falls under this category. Swords, Armor, Shields. We will also include equipment that would be crafted with hide/leather.

Now I was having a hard time picking between con and str for forging, but I opted for strength. I'm still not sure, but I figured if you hit hard you make good armor right? ;)

Lastly is engineering:

This is for when a player wants to build a canoe out of a log, or a torch out of a stick and leaves. Or perhaps add a room to his house? This is kind of like the Msc. crafting area.

I used intelligence for the modifier here as I figured it seemed to fit best. You need to be a smart cookie after all if you are trying to build using few tools.

But these three sections are not mutually exclusive. They're actually the complete opposite. They can be quite interesting if used together. If you wanted to build a enchanted sword you could combine alchemy with forging for instance.Or if you wanted to build a flying machine you could combine alchemy with engineering. What about a walking talking suit of armor? That could potentially be all three. The possibilities really are endless.


I've also added a profession section. This skill has no modifier. It is simply something that a character would have learned to do in their younger age as well a profession. Maybe their parents were fishermen, and thus they would be good at fishing. Or maybe they grew up in a rich district and know the ways of aristocratic life. Things like that.

NPC Character Sheet

My alternate form of the official 4th edition charather sheet by Wizards

Now I've been looking all over the internet for an NPC character sheet and none of them have what I'm looking for. Most of the ones I was able to find were much too bulky with lots of sections that I don't deem important enough for my campaign. The campaign I am currently running revolves around more "social puzzles" and has very little combat. Therefore I needed one where I could easily refer to the Skills and Defenses of my NPCs. Their common attacks didn’t really warrant a spot. Or if I needed to have them fight their bare necessities can still be found on the sheet and I would simply have to invent a "power" or attack that seemed relatively fair.

Therefore I decided to alter the official PC character sheet to make a cue card sized NPC Character sheet. They can easily be printed 4 times on one page, or more allowing you to avoid having to many large sheets of paper in your way.

I figured I couldn't have been the only person looking for a decent NPC character sheet, so here it is world!

Family Treasure Puzzle

Ivory Bucket by Five Gallon Ideas

As previously mentioned in my last post
The circular family crypt contained the family's heirloom that the player characters could potential obtain as a bonus item if they solved the puzzle.

When they enter the central part of the chamber they notice whispers coming from the corpses of the deceased.

"The first contains five,
The second contains three,
But only one will open the chest you see."

After the voices are done, three small buckets appear one by one. They are small metallic buckets, with very fancy carvings and details on them. In my case, I had the family crest carved on all of them as well as animals and clovers to represent the township the family came from.

The first of the buckets to appear is to the right of the chest. This is the largest of the three, scaling at exactly 5 cups of water. If inspected properly the base of the bucket has a "V" carved onto it. The second appears on the left side of the chest exactly opposite the first bucket. This bucket has similar features. This bucket contains 3 cups of water and has "III" carved into its base. These two buckets, when inspected are normal buckets that were enchanted with simple illusion magic, to seem invisible until the puzzle is triggered.


The third is a little more complicated though. The last bucket to appear is at the base of the chest. This one has the same carvings, but cannot be lifted from the floor. If inspected the bucket is connected to a mechanism that unlocks the chest. 

The way this puzzle is intended to work: The players need to fill the small bucket with exactly one unit of water. Once this is achieved the chest will click open. They will need to use the V and III buckets respectively to do so.

Fill III bucket
Empty it into the V bucket
Fill III bucket again
Empty it into the V bucket until full
Empty the remaining contents of the III bucket into the I bucket

If the small bucket doesn't have exactly 1 cup of water, the base opens up and the water drains. So if there is more, it drains immediately. If there is less, it will keep it there for a few seconds and then drain.

Secondary option: The chest can be picked. It would however be an extremely hard lock to pick. So choose a score that seems appropriate for the level of the PCs

Once the chest is opened, the contents can be whatever you’d like.
I used the Silvertongue Inkwell created by LS over at Papers and Pencils.



     
 

Family Treasure

 Before you is a dimly lit 50 foot corridor. It is filled with stale air and old but up-kept portraits that hang on either wall spaced out evenly. All the men in these photographs seem vaguely similar to one another, but they are clearly distinct people. The portraits' frames are glowing slightly (causing the light in the room) almost as if to allow viewers to properly enjoy their content. Below each photograph is a indent in the wall housing a stone coffin. When you reach to end of the hall you find yourself in a dark circular room with the sound of rustling water.  The center of the room has six pillars forming a hexagon in which the two middle pillars have unlit torches hanging from them.

Upon lighting the torches the players will notice a small man made stream that connects with all the pillars forming a circular formation in the floor. On the opposite side of the room (from the hallway) there is a raised stone slab and from either side of the slab there is water exiting the wall, feeding the stream. This water flows on either side of the slab and connects with the stream. The stream is carved into the stone floor. It is two inches deep and two inches wide.

 This room is a underground family crypt that can easily be added to the basement of any rich family's home or can be inserted into an ancient tomb or where ever you so fit really. I had this room connected to a large house via secret passage in my campaign.


resting on the stone slab of the circular room will be the family treasure available for your players. In my case I had them solve a puzzle to obtain it.

I will have the puzzle in the next post!

Mason and Gavin Lightfellow : Rogue Town Guards

Laurel and Hardy by Kennon9

Mason and Gavin Lightfellow are two members of the town guard and have been for a handful of years.  One could say that they've remained low ranked because they don't exactly do their job as ambassadors of the town law. Instead, these two guards prefer to bargain with people they catch. Providing those they capture with task in exchange for freedom. The tasks they propose can range from goofy to completely illegal (this usually depends on the severity of the crime they catch you doing)

But before I get to much into this, lets first describe them.

Mason is the elder, he is roughly in his late twenties and seems to be of a nervous personality. He is tall and skinny, and fumbles his words at times. When he speaks he normally touches his face with his hands and looks around often with shifty eyes to make sure the coast is clear.

Gavin is the younger brother by what seems to be about 5 years, maybe something closer to 10 even. Gavin is relatively new to the town guard, and upon his joining he was quickly able to bully his brother into his schemes.Gavin is a little more portly and has evident scars scattered through his body. He is loud and direct and spits after saying hello or greeting someone almost 100% of the time.

The two brothers at first glance seem to be polar opposites, but deep down they are twisted and corrupt men who will abuse their privileges at every possible occasion. One could even go so far as to call them sadistic, but then again that could be a little much. You can however easily turn them into humorous or dark characters by varying the "tasks" they give.

The two men once lived in the richer district of town, being the sons of the royal blacksmith they grew up without knowing the hardships of life. They were accepted into the town guard as a favor to their father and take little pride in their relatively sought after career.

Now regarding the "deals" they make, here is a list of a few possible requests they can send your PCs way:

1-
Gavin : So there's this guy, he stole my seat at the bar last night. D'you remember him Mason?
Mason: yeah... yeah I do, the one with the pocket watch?
Gavin: A real nice pocket watch. I think I'd like a pocket watch like that. Why don't you go and fetch it for me scum.
Mason: You her her her, were you listening! Go and get it

2-
G: So my brother here fancies miss (insertnamehere) but her father seems against the whole idea. I need you to help convince Mr (insertnamehere) that Mason is a standup guy.
M: *blushes*

3-
M: There's a large celebration going on tomorrow night at the docks, for the Elisabeth. 
G: That big fancy ship! Ha! Wouldn't it be funny if the ship didn't even make it out of the port? 

4-
G: My feet sure are sore from walking all day. 
M: I agree. A massage would be na, na, na, would be ideal. 
G: Why not have one right now! *takes off his boots and wiggles his stumpy toes.*