Vampire: The Masquerade - Songs for a Gothic-Punk World

Plus John Darnielle on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality

In Christian Lindke’s Weekly Geekly Rundown for August 9, 2024, he discusses post-punk music and refers to Joy Division’s inclusion in “the role playing game Vampire the Masquerade’s musical Appendix N.” I have never played Vampire, but last year I bought a used copy of the 1991 first edition core book. I appreciated how it has music quotes sprinkled throughout the book, such as the following gems:

He don’t give a hoot of warning
Wrapped in black cat cloak.
He don’t go in the light of morning.
He’s split, the time the cock’rel crows.
- The Rolling Stones, Midnight Rambler

And the game never ends when your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card.
- The Alan Parsons Project, Turn of a Friendly Card

Confusion will be my epitaph,
As I cross the cracked and broken path,
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,
But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying
- King Crimson, Epitaph

It’s an infection
It’s a disease
But no reflection
It’s gonna make your blood freeze
Oh you know how I feel when you set me free
Like a nightmare.
- Motorhead, Like a Nightmare

I was unaware, however, of a published full list of influential and inspirational music for the game. After a little research, I learned that the Vampire Storytellers Handbook included an article called “The Sound of Music: Songs for a Gothic-Punk World” by Rob Hatch. The article starts with a quote from the amazing “Turkish Song of the Damned” by the Pogues, and then Rob provides commentary on the following songs that Vampire storytellers may find “useful as background music and inspiration” when playing the game:

• She's Lost Control (Joy Division)

• Bela Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus)

• She's In Parties (Bauhaus)

• Inside the Termite Mound (Killing Joke)

• Blood & Family (Liers in Wait)

• I Remember Nothing (Joy Division)

• Vacancy (Scratch Acid)

• Police Truck (Dead Kennedys)

• Lucretia My Reflection (Sisters of Mercy)

• Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)

• Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (Holst)

• A Forest (The Cure)

• Three Imaginary Boys (The Cure)

• Fight Fire with Fire (Metallica)

• Three Days (Jane's Addiction)

• The Last Beat of My Heart (Siouxsie & the Banshees)

• Kerosene (Big Black)

• Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens)

• Cracked (Jesus & Mary Chain)

• Shadowplay (Joy Division)

• The Three Shadows (Part 2) (Bauhaus)

• I Don't Want to Push It (Sonic Youth)

• Body Count (Ice-T)

• Trapped Under Ice (Metallica)

• Day of the Lords (Joy Division)

• Headhunter (Front 242)

• Paranoid (Black Sabbath)

• Tin Omen (Skinny Puppy)

• Will We Survive? (Swans)

• Marian (Sisters of Mercy)

• The Drowning Man (The Cure)

That’s a wicked song list for any purposes, and I also discovered that Chris W. McCubbin expanded on the article in White Wolf Magazine 41 and Inphobia 55. Apparently, the White Wolf article includes Roky Erickson, which is more than alright by me.

Thanks to Christian for sending me down this music for Vampire path. I highly recommend his Geekerati Newsletter, Geekerati Radio podcast, and YouTube channel.

John Darnielle on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality

Last week I visited So & So Books in Raleigh, NC, who had a large display of the 33 1/3 music book series published by Bloomsbury. Each book focuses on a single, acclaimed album. These relatively small books are not your typical critical overviews, however, as each album “occupies such a specific place in music history, so each book-length treatment is different.” In a cool cross-collaboration with a local record store, several of the books were even paired with vinyl versions of the corresponding albums.

Many of my favorite albums were represented (Marquee Moon, Double Nickels on the Dime, The Velvet Underground and Nico, Murmur, Pink Moon, Kick out the Jams, Sign of the Times, and Aja to name a few), but when I saw that John Darnielle had written about Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, I knew which one I had to buy immediately.

Black Sabbath likely requires no introduction to Critical Hit Parader readers, but nonetheless here are a couple of my quotes about the band from the Critical Hit Parader zine:

Black Sabbath has been the catalyst for DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) adventures by Brandon LaSalle that are named after the band’s songs (e.g., “Hole in the Sky” and “Neon Knights”). Black Sabbath played a similar part in the origin of the Viking Death Squad RPG by Runehammer Games, which was inspired by the Sabbath song “War Pigs.”

Black Sabbath - Perhaps no other band has had as big of an influence on RPGs. As Brandon LaSalle has said, Tony Iommi’s guitar creates landscapes “where you would find demons, evil cults, and yes, dragons and their ilk.”

John Darnielle is the mastermind behind The Mountain Goats, who I have covered previously in Critical Hit Parader due to John’s connections with D&D. He is also an accomplished author, and I have read and enjoyed his Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester novels. John has previously shown his interest in Black Sabbath by including lyrical references to Ozzy Osbourne in The Mountain Goats album In League with Dragons.

I don’t have Master of Reality on vinyl so I went with We Sold Our Soul…

This book is written in the form of a fictional diary of a teen locked in a psychiatric center, starting in 1985. John Darnielle creates a compelling, emotional narrative while accurately portraying why Master of Reality mattered to the main character. Through this troubled adolescent’s words, this book explains why any particular album matters so much to the kinds of people for whom albums matter. And does it in a far more effective and accurate way than any traditional album review has done for me. The following quote resonated deeply:

I didn’t get to spend as much of that time with Mike as I wanted to, talking to him about albums. Because he really liked talking about that stuff. It’s hard to find people who want to just talk about an album for an hour: how it works , what it feels like, the different ways you can think of it. And I am a person who can really find happiness talking about that kind of thing. Only I think there’s more to it than that. I don’t know. But when I think about whether “Embryo” is the intro to “Children of the Grave” or not, and what song “Orchid” belongs with, it’s like I am leaning hard against the door of some secret place and I can hear the noises from in there.

This reflects how I feel about both music and role playing games. Playing them, making them, and talking about them are critical parts of my life. I’m thankful that I have found so many people who share this with me: the readers of this newsletter, my colleagues on The Contrarians, and my dear friends with whom I have spent much longer than an hour talking about a single album.