Rites to Ruin D&D Song & Unusual Michael Whelan Album Cover
Plus Runehammer Ozzy Event & Diogo Nogueira Connecting the Worlds of Music & TTRPGs
The band Rites to Ruin released their album Daughter of Hatred on the 30th of June, and it includes a D&D-inspired song. In this Metal Talk article, Rites To Ruin vocalist Krissie Kirby explains the concept behind the band’s song “For The Love Of Gold”:
“It’s balls out Dungeons and Dragons,” Krissie says. “Its working title was cheesy D&D.
“I said to the boys, I wanna write a cheesy fucking song that’s around Dungeons and Dragons, so we did”.
Here is a description of the band from their website:
Rites to Ruin are traditional heavy metal at its finest with a distinctly modern twist.
Fronted by vocal powerhouse Krissie Kirby (Triaxis), Rites to Ruin are a five piece heavy metal band based in South Wales and West of England.
With Matt Chambers (Triaxis, In the Absence of Light) & Lee Cartner on guitar, Paul Boschen (Burn thy Enemy) on bass and Zak Skane currently on loan on drums, Rites to Ruin offers a distinct slice of NWOBHM promising a loud sound that will have you head banging in seconds.
You can check out the song “Sorrow” from the album with the following official lyric video:
Daughter of Hatred is available on CD from the Rites to Ruin Bandcamp page.
Michael Whelan - Jacksons Album Cover
When I think of album covers by fantasy/sci-fi/horror artist Michael Whelan, the first ones that come to mind are his masterpiece paintings that adorn the covers of albums by bands like Cirth Ungol, Sepultura, and Smoulder:
But did you know that he also provided the artwork for the Victory album by the Jacksons?
You can read all about it in the fascinating article from Michael Whelan’s own newsletter:
Special Ozzy Viking Death Squad Event
Runehammer is hosting an in-person “Bark at the Moon” TTRPG event in tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. The following description sounds amazing:
The Prince of darkness may have found rest, but will forever be in our hearts. Join Brandon for a free community session honoring the dark prince himself with a one-shot playing Runehammer's very own Viking Death Squad.
I covered Viking Death Squad in a previous newsletter, and the game was appropriately inspired by Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” This event will take place at the Runehammer store in Philadelphia and will be hosted by the game’s creator. You can reserve free tickets for this community event from the Runhammer website.
Connecting the Worlds of Music and TTRPGs
Boy, could I relate to the following quote from Diogo Nogueira on his Weird Games and Weirder People podcast:
“I have this thing. I like punk rock and I like roleplaying games. So when I go to a gaming convention I wear punk rock stuff, but when I go to a punk rock show I wear RPG shirts. Let’s connect these worlds.”
Diogo Nogueira
It came up during his entertaining conversation with John “Hambone” McGuire. In my case, I expand the punk rock wardrobe to also include shirts from metal and other rock bands. You can listen to the whole interview here:
Both of them are creative TTRPG designers and passionate music lovers, so the whole conversation was great.
On the Rites to Ruin song - I’m also a giant nerd with an enviable dice collection who loves TTRPGs. Of course I’d ask the boys if we could write a cheesy D&D number 😁
Thank you for giving us a shout out. Appreciate it 🙏🏻