This week’s cue is another faction theme from the game Hex: Shards of Fate. This music is for the nefarious Vennen, an orc-spider hybrid race that’s an all-male religious cult to boot. I felt the music needed to be somewhat disquieting and have vaguely mystical overtones, and chose the bass viol (sometimes known as by its more glamorous name, the viola de gamba) as the principal melodic voice. Cymbal scrapes, high violin clusters, and low woodwind trills contribute to the spidery- and/or cult-y mood.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	The Vennen

From the the film Home Room, a moody piece accompanying a dissolve between two film’s two protagonists (played by Erika Christensen and Busy Phillips, respectively) highlighting the parallels between them. Echoing the visuals, the score is timed so that one melodic statement plays over each character’s respective closeup.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Two Girls

This week’s selection is an otherworldly choir of voices for one of the races in Hex: Shards of Fate – in this case, an undead hive mind. (This isn’t one of those cues that you can sing in the shower.)

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	The Necrotic

This dramatic cue from the film Home Room features strings, piano, and one of the signature solo instruments of that score, bass flute.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Breakdown

Many fantasy-themed games lovingly pilfer from Tolkien and add orcs to their indigenous species. In Hex: Shards of Fate the orcs are a comparatively benevolent race. (Think new school Klingons rather than old school.) In writing their theme I was careful to balance the sense of martial culture with a heroic undercurrent.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Advance of the Orcs