The Soundtrack of 2020 – in praise of BATTLE BROTHERS
I think the favorite music I listened to in all of 2020 was the soundtrack for BATTLE BROTHERS.
BATTLE BROTHERS, if you aren’t familiar with it, describes itself as a “tactical RPG set in a low-power fantasy world.” Basically, it’s like Glen Cook’s THE BLACK COMPANY, and your mercenary company travels around the world map fulfilling contracts and fighting bandits, monsters, orcs, and the occasional necromancer. I bought the game a while back and still play it regularly, and I also bought the soundtrack and added it to my iTunes library.
I always remember WRAITHSHARD as the series I wrote entirely during during the pandemic, and the main theme of Battle Brothers was how I often got into the mood when starting a writing session on one of the five books of WRAITHSHARD. The main theme, in particular, makes me think of Lucan Mandragon – it starts of weary and melancholy, but there’s more resolve towards the end, though the melancholy never quite goes away.
And, of course, Adrenaline Rush from the game would have to be the unofficial theme of the Tervingi barbarians in the DEMONSOULED series, and I listened to that quite a bit while writing the final battle at the end of WRAITHSHARD: SIEGE & STORM.
Finally, I think the favorite sequence I wrote in all of 2020 was the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill in DRAGONTIARNA: DEFENDERS, since it was such a massive train wreck as Ridmark’s, Merovech’s, the Theophract’s, and Third’s plans all crash into one another at high speed. According to my iTunes library, I listened to the “Rise & Fall Of House Kaltenborn” like 250 times while I was writing that sequence.
It seems like 2020 actually started in March, and it’s been a year now, which I confess has put me in an uncharacteristically reflective mood. But whatever the future brings, I will always remember WRAITHSHARD as the series I wrote during the pandemic, and BATTLE BROTHERS as the soundtrack to the year.
Naturally, I think you should try the game, and enjoy its soundtrack.
-JM