Here’s the third of the atmospheric pieces I wrote for Green Ronin’s The Lost Citadel. This is your classic dungeon-exploration music: grim, unsettling, and suggestive of things in the dark.

(As you can tell, I’m a fan of cellos and basses playing in low octaves.)

Here’s the second of the atmospheric pieces I wrote for Green Ronin’s The Lost Citadel. (That is, a novel turned into a 5E D&D RPG module with music provided via the Syrinscape audio system. Whew; complex!)

Accompanying an abandoned portion of the eponymous city (where players will, naturally, dare to tread) this music is ambient, creepy, and just a bit desolate.

When I share game music, it’s typically something I’ve written for a computer game. This week’s selection, on the other hand, is score for a human-beings-IRL-rolling-dice role playing game, The Lost Citadel.

How does a tabletop RPG have a music accompaniment, you ask? There’s a neat system called Syrinscape that lets gamers add sound effects and music to their D&D or similar experiences. This week’s music is game-specific content for said system.

Music for live gaming is typically ambient, as it has to establish a sense of setting without disrupting the constant conversation between players. This selection is score for a bustling citadel in a post-apocalyptic medieval-ish world. There is some influence of Mideastern folk music, which reflects the adventure’s cultural backdrop.

If you’ve been following my excerpts from the nautically-themed score for Tales of the Dread-Naught Kid, you probably think that the title of this week’s music refers to the sea. Actually, this was the game’s splash page music. So, yes, bad pun. Sorry. Moving along.

Like most “welcome screen” cues, this is meant to give a preliminary sense of excitement, and a hint of the seafaring world of the game.

If the title of this week’s selection suggests more music from my score for Tales of the Dread-Naught Kid, then your powers of inference are well-honed! This music is a mellow paraphrase of the main theme, used for an interstitial moment in gameplay. As elsewhere in the score, you’ll hear a mix of traditional orchestration and Caribbean flavoring.

The next music selection in the series from Tales of the Dread-Naught Kid is this reggae instrumental, replete with steel drums and the somewhat less-traditional digital whistling.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of this blog! A decade ago I had the idea of sharing excerpts of my music for film, TV, and games that I thought that folks might enjoy, but which might be hard to discover. Thanks to everyone who has listened, commented, and otherwise shared the proverbial love.

Today’s music selection comes from Tales of the Dread-Naught Kid, and intermixes a bluesy undercurrent with the nautical mood that pervades the entire score.