The 13th Hour. Spooky, right?

Wraith: The Oblivion, one of White Wolf's first attempts to establish the Something: The Something Else line of RPGs, was (and evidently still is) one of my favorite role-playing systems and settings. I've actually gone as far as owning more than 20 Wraith books, but that's a sad story I won't be sharing with you, oh most compassionate readers, right now.

White Wolf used to describe Wraith (before it was dumped like an unwanted halfling) as a dark, gothic-punk setting. As a desperate world, where passionate undead lingered in despair and clung to a pointless existence, the same way I cling to a glorious video gaming past that never really existed. It was a world of decay, despair, death, fear, lost loves and ... er ... more fear.

Only problem was that playing Wraith didn't always invoke the mood to wet a goth's panty proper. Last time I tried playing the bloody thing, with a suitably depressed Storyteller mind you (the man was indeed recovering from a car crash) and perhaps with a bit to much female company, I (we, actually) laughed so hard, it felt like watching Fawlty Towers for the first time. We did of course have an otherwise terrific time, and made repeated attempts at serious gaming, but never truly managed to strangle our silly-laughing-parodying mood. We even tried listening to Diamanda Gallas. To no avail...

Introduction, over.

Enter Midnight Syndicate, the people whose logo you can see at the top of this post, and whose specialty is creating gothic nightmare soundtracks, that are so good that won them an Origins Award. Really! The 13th Hour (Midnight Syndicate's latest CD - playtime 55 minutes approx./25 tracks) won the 2005 Origins award for Game Accessory of the Year. And, let me tell you, if we had this shiny little CD back then, we wouldn't have had such a good time! Brilliant! A mood breaker indeed, The 13th Hour features something like Victorian-esque horror mood-music, that definitely helps build up tension and can be easily sampled here. Add some candles, splash a bit of red to the walls and your RPG experiences will forever change. Oh, while at it, buy a true Hi-Fi CD player, for this is a top quality recording.

A minor footnote: The 13th Hour is 100% compatible with Call of Cthulhu, Chill, World of Darkness and your local Torture Parlor (but unfortunately d20 untested). And there's a fan site too!

A major footnote: If you are more interested in settings like Shadowrun, then do try RPGing while listening to the Lola rennt! OST.

Related Gnome's Lair posts: White Dwarf issue 1 PDF, the Cthulhu gaming feature, True Dungeon Delight


Related Tags: CD, Music, RPG, Horror, Midnight, Syndicate, 13th hour, Wraith, Gothic, OST, Soundtrack, RPGs, Storyteller