Caesar SaladWhat kind of music do you listen to when you play a game to set the mood? Or, if you don’t get to play much, what music makes you think of UA?
I can’t listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Blood Sugar Sex Magic” without thinking of Pornomancy rituals.
Blood sugar starfish in my dish,
How many pieces do you wish?
Step into a heaven where I keep it on a soul side.
Girl, please me, be my soul bride.
Every woman has a piece of Aphro-dite,
Copulate to create a state of sexual light.
Kissing her virginity, my affinity.
I mingle with the gods,
I mingle with divinity.
Insect KingTwo albums off the top of my head do very well for any occult-related creepy game. They are:
Souljacker by the Eels and Sleep No More by DJ Signify.
Cheers,
Chris.
lain“Great Songs Of Indifference : The Best Of Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats” is my favorite album for UA.
My Pornomancy song is “Hips, Lips, Tits, Power!” by Pigface
For Plutomancy its Spacehog’s “To be a millionaire.”
And for the avtar of the Merchant I like David Bowie’s “Man who sold the World.”
Stephen AlzisEnd of To Go: “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zepplin.
Statosphere fills up: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan.
CdSG gets himself Renounced somehow: “The End” by The Doors.
I second “Man who Sold the World” for the Merchant.
Unknown_VariableXCall me crazy — everyone else has — but I always thought U2’s “Electrical Storm” had a UA feel to it. A specific feel, really: Imagine an adept who has to choose between charging up and respecting his taboos, and trying to keep a wife or girlfriend happy. No matter what school you follow, there will be conflict at some point.
Well, except maybe Anagram Gematria.
Speaking of which, that school always makes me theink of Weird Al Yankovich’s song “Smells Like Nirvana” for some reason.
ShatterfreakHmmm…I have a tendency to run isolating, creepy, horror-filled games, so the music for all the Silent Hill games provides the perfect ambiance.
Simon FostonI personally like “Crack Hitler” on Faith No More’s Angel Dust album to kick off my UA games.
WrattsAmbients, soundtracks, and a broad mix of anything else from Indie Rock like The White Stripes all the way to Industrial like Nine Inch Nails, whatever happens to fit the current mood.
In fact, The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” was the “title song” to start off every game in a certain series of sessions I ran.
Stephen AlzisOk, major cabal theme song roll call:
TNI: “Goin’ out west” by Tom Waits
Order of Saint Cecil: “God’s gonna cut you down” by Johnny Cash
GLS: “Kill the world” by Motorhead
Sleepers: “The lost art of keeping a secret” by Queens of the Stone Age
More?
Stephen AlzisActualy, I was asking you for more, ’cause I honestly couldn’t think of any others.
Oh, one thing though: Silent Hill 1 soundtrack, track 38, “Killing Time”. If someone out of the blue made a UA tv show, that is what would be playing during the opening credits.
WrattsNine Inch Nails – At The Heart Of It All
When things get eery
Alex Cremers – (Shadowrun) – Cityscape
When you’re feeling something’s wrong with the city you’re in
Kenji Kawaii – (Ghost in the Shell) – Nightstalker
When you’re about to meet your maker
System of a Down – Prison Song
For a game I ran in which the player characters were prisoners and tangled in an action-packed gang fight
And I found a new title song for the current sessions at Global Level and nearing Cosmic Level:
Korn – Hollow Life
Is there ever any wonder
Why we look to the sky
Searching space
Asking why?
All alone
where is God?
Looking down
We don’t know
Hotel DetectiveEver since I’ve heard it, I’ve always wanted to begin a Mak Attax charge-dumping mission with the opening 30 seconds of They Might Be Giants’ “John Lee Supertaster.”
If you know the track, the result of the SpOrd is obvious.
The obscure TMBG Podcast track “Sketchy Galore” would be a pretty good song for a creepy-guy-next-door GMC.
And of course, Superconductor is a mix tape all of his own.
Dungeon MaestroSome character themes for my PCs:
An energetic, somewhat megalomaniacal avatar of the Trickster: Judas Priest – You’ve Got Another Thing Coming (“If you think I’ll sit around as the world goes by/You’re thinkin’ like a fool cause it’s a case of do or die/Out there is a fortune waitin’ to be had/You think I’ll let it go you’re mad/You’ve got another thing comin’.”)
A gritty, take-no-shit hard-boiled private eye with a dark past (avatar of the Masterless Man, can you tell?): Bon Jovi – Blaze of Glory (“I don’t know where I’m going/Only God knows where I’ve been
I’m a devil on the run/A six gun lover/A candle in the wind.”)
A lecherous, coked-out corporate rising star that’s burning fast: ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man (“Silk suit, black tie/I don’t need a reason why/They come runnin’ just as fast as they can/’Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.”)
Songs that remind me of UA:
Sneaker Pimps – Becoming X: Reminds me a lot of the world and the nature of paradox. (“You can keep breathing, I only fall when you are near me/Incomplete, I only talk when you can hear me, keep dreaming/Can’t wake up until I’m sleeping, lost on me, close to something I’ll never be.”)
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit: Surreal enough to suit any strange situation, but energetic and driven enough to be an anthem. Makes me think of a tight-knit cabal of young adepts. (“I’m worst at what I do best/And for this gift I feel blessed/Our little group has always been/And always will until the end…”)
F.A.R.I have to say, I’m a fan of background music. I don’t usually want it to steal the stage, but to set it. Boards of Canada is what I plan to be playing during my next game. If you’ve never heard their music, check it out. They make analog electronica, playing with magnetic tape and things. It’s a perfect urban horror soundtrack: empty streets, haunting echoes . . .
– F.A.R. out
Dungeon MaestroI think Boards of Canada sounds like science.
My roommate thinks they sound like the end of the world.
“Roygbiv” on “Music Has the Right to Children” is amazing. And for creepy value, most of what’s on “Geogaddi” is pretty weird. Consider the track “You Could Feel the Sky”; the beat is made up of a sample of a bone snapping.
Insect KingI only have Geodaggi. Maybe that’s why. I can also recommend Techno Animal.
C.
F.A.R.I’m surprised to find people who actually know BoC, but I guess I should expect it here more than anywhere else. I own Music Has the Right to Children and Twoism, plus a handful of others, which I love. One of my old friends had every track, even down to the old tapes. If only I knew where she got them . . .
Dungeon MaestroMike Patton’s latest project, Peeping Tom, feels like it belongs in Unknown Armies. It’s somewhat surreal, gritty, dark, and energetic. Here’s a quick rundown of how it might fit into the world of UA:
1. “Five Seconds”: If there was an overture to Unknown Armies, this might be it. “I’m as naked as I can be in this life/…Emptiness of heaven in your ears and my eyes.”
2. “Mojo”: I think this is a great anthem for Narco-Alchemists, or a junkie duke. (“It’s my party, but I’m waiting for someone to start it/It’s my party, there’s no one but me in the corner/Gotta get my mojo runnin’, engine hummin’, don’t I?”)
3. “Don’t Even Trip”: Practically screams “Sleepers”. A foreboding track with whispered and overt implied threats and warnings.
4. “Getaway”: What might be playing while a group of dukes is being chased or followed by something nasty that they can’t see.
5. “Your Neighborhood Spaceman”: A quintessential anthem for the local duke completely drunk on power. (“When no one is looking/I swallow thunder clouds, I kiss the hollowed ground/When no one is looking,I eat the desert sand and drink the Rio Grande/When no one is looking/I’m crying raindrops and chewing mountain tops.”)
6. “Kill the DJ”: A musically-inclined adept might enjoy this track. Dark ambiance blended with heavy guitar riffs. Themes of control.
7. “Caipirnha”: When you find you’ve gotten in WAY over your head with the occult underground, and you start to go a little crazy, this ought to start looping in your head. (“I wish I was there. Far away/having fun, beneath the sun, my feet in the sand/But here I am/freezing cold, shoveling snow”)
8. “Celebrity Death Match”: All the lyrics involve references to pop culture, like actors, TV shows, etc. with a lot of sexual imagery. Reminds me of what might happen if you got a Videomancer and a Pornomancy to try and work together.
9. “How U Feelin’?”: This sounds like what one might play when it’s very clear that the Clergy is almost full and everything’s going to shit. Whoever this song is attached to, though, is clearly not too worried; seems like they’re almost reveling in it: “Won’t you come in and let’s get started/This angel’s fallen, so heed my calling/Don’t you stop rolling, the tension’s growing/So jump high reverend, walk into heaven”
10. “Sucker”: Norah Jones should never allowed to curse, or sing in this sinister way that she does on this song. But it adds to its disturbing elements. It’s a good song for particularly nasty Pornomancers: “What makes you think you’re my only lover:/the truth kinda hurts don’t it, motherfucker?”
11. “We’re Not Alone”: This would make a good song to play after a group of characters discover that the occult underground is terrifyingly real. (“We’re not alone in this psychrodrome, but I know that I don’t want to lose ya/afraid of the walls behind closed doors well I’m just a baby in your arms”)
AntagonishAbsolutely every single thing by Aarni, but Transcend Humanity in particular is The Underground in a nutshell.
“Abandon dualism and Indoeuropean ways
The world isn’t black and white, only shades of grey.
Recognize the herd mentality in your thought processes
Deaden those drives stemming from biology.
Reality is a lie maintained by the Enemy who has written history to its liking.
You’ve been surrounded by propaganda
Signs of the decline of Western culture.
The revolting cult of the Nailed God is still alive and sick,
fitting for the necrotic human rats flaunting their deformities.
The Enemy has by its actions wilfully become subhuman
You’ll purge society by abolishing it.
Storm the Enemy’s offices and paint the walls with its blood.
Its teeth and veins make for nice necklaces and its intestines delicious sausages.
Familiarize yourself with different weapon systems
Both physical and psychic, exoteric and esoteric.
The unexpected strike is the most devastating one.
Remember to maintain secrecy in everything you do.
We exist in a reality which we can explain rationally yet cannot understand;
Into this world we are thrown.
Don’t follow any rules, including these”
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