New Releases for Sci-Fi & Fantasy TTRPG Inspiration

Black Sword Thunder Attack, BE/HOLD, & Augurium

This week I’m spotlighting three new releases to inspire your sci-fi & fantasy roleplaying games, covering the genres of epic heavy metal, synth music, and symphonic death metal.

Black Sword Thunder Attack

Epic metal band Black Sword Thunder Attack has recently released their self-titled debut album.

Here is the official lyric video for their song “The Black Sword”:

Sarah from BangerTV (and the lead singer of the amazing band Smoulder) is a metal musicologist and does a great job placing BSTA in context with other bands like Warlord and Lordian Guard in the following video:

Physical distribution of the album is through the label No Remorse Records. The album is streaming on Apple, Spotify, and Youtube now. The band plans to have the album on Bandcamp soon.

BE/HOLD Slugblaster Soundtrack

Your Brain On Portals is a new album from BE/HOLD that serves as a soundtrack to My First Dungeon: Slugblaster. Collin McClutchy is the sole mastermind behind BE/HOLD, which he describes as “Synth Music for Sworn Swords and Sorcerers.”

Here are details from the announcement email:

For those of you that don’t know, My First Dungeon is an actual play podcast in which a group of very talented actors play a new indie TTRPG each season. This season they are playing SLUGBLASTER, “A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.”! The podcast is an awesome mix of Rocket Power, 90’s skate videos, and Rick and Morty.

For this season I tried to combine all of my favorite glitchy electronic music with my punk and rock roots to capture that feeling of teen angst surrounded by all this sci-fi tech. What it turned into was 21 minutes of original music for you to enjoy!

Slugblaster is designed by Mikey Hamm, and you can order the core rules from Mythworks. Learn more about the My First Dungeon podcast here. Preview and purchase Your Brain on Portals from the BE/HOLD Bandcamp page:

Lastly, you can also order a physical cassette of the album as an add-on to the Slugblaster - Slime, Warp, and Solder expansion that is currently crowdfunding on Backerkit.

New Tolkien-Inspired Single from Augurium

Canadian symphonic death metal band Augurium has released a new song called “Faith & Death Pt. I.” Here is how guitarist Cejay Carnochan describes the track in a Metal-Rules article:

“‘Faith and Death Pt. I’ is themed around The Lord of the Rings. Part one speaks to the side of evil. This track was written from the perspective of Mordor’s legions. Moreover, it touches on the eternal struggle of light and dark and how both cannot survive without the other. A shadow cannot exist without the light. Death—the only thing certain for all mortals. If neither side can agree on which god to worship, which philosophy to follow, or what is right and wrong, one thing is undeniably and indiscriminately certain: death”

Check out song in the following video:

The album cover artwork is from Mark Erskine, who has done work for many other bands, as well as book covers and gaming concept art:

The digital track for “Faith & Death Pt. I” is available for purchase from the Augurium Bandcamp page.