Glumdark

📼 About the Dungeon Synth Album 📼
over 1 year ago – Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 03:11:48 PM

The Dungeon Synth Album

The Inspiration

Today I want to write a bit about the Dungeon Synth record which is going to accompany the Glumdark book release. The record is something I'm calling... Vol. 4.

I've been listening to a ton of Dungeon Synth both while DM'ing and working on other stuff. There are so many cool DS producers out there, and I really wanted to try my hand at the genre. Here's an unfinished demo of one of the upcoming songs to listen to while reading this probably lengthy update:

The Other Music I've Made

In the past, I've typically made music that's really personal to me, where I want to say exactly what I mean and be painstakingly true to myself sonically. Like, say, this record from my past band Bells Rang:

This means that I almost never use sample packs or presets and that I usually build percussion as well as melodic components from analog synthesis. And I try to stick to samples that I've personally recorded, as well as instruments that I have played or my friends have played and I've recorded.

On the Bells Rang record, for example, that meant recording all the drums with a live drummer and then resampling all of them. Because with electronic music, everything works better with the right amount of precision. 

This is an incredibly painstaking but rewarding process. It's time-consuming and difficult and usually has me questioning my self-worth and sanity by the end. And of course then I'm always thinking, "hey this song is kind of cool. Does that mean I'm ripping off Radiohead or does it mean I'm ripping off Nine Inch Nails?" 

But anyway, more recently, I've been trying my hand at remixes and things that feel lower stakes. Like this one for my friend's band CHEW:

This stuff is just fun to make and doesn't necessitate all the self-worth-questioning that comes with recording more personal music.

Enter The Dungeon

So when I started working on Vol. 4, I wanted to give myself some artistic constraints. I'd never tried to make genre music before (and I probably still haven't successfully done that), but it felt easier to achieve with a pre-defined sonic palette.

So I bought a sample pack of cinematic timpani percussion and grabbed some Kontakt instruments for choirs, hudry gurdy, organ, and orchestral strings. Then I developed a couple of patches for the Arturia Retrologue and a Prophet 5 clone which nailed the gritty 80s synth vibe I wanted. Finally I grabbed my electric guitar and plugged it directly into the sound card. 

For now, this was all I needed.

Demos, Demos, Demos

I have found that one of the mistakes I've made consistently in the past when it came to music was falling in love with an idea and chasing it to the ends of the earth. I can think of many times with previous bands where I wanted to keep practicing and hacking at a song that, in retrospect, was never going to be good. 

Sorry, Ben.

So for Vol. 4, I decided to generate ~40 different song sketches. These were little pieces of songs, around one to three minutes in length. I'd usually just start with a bass line, add some drums and some melodic synths and then try to write a part B to the tune. Usually I'd start the sketch at night and then "finish" it in the morning.

At the end, I ended up with about 35 of these sketches, and tossed out 13 right off the bat for being terrible. This left me with 22 potential songs for the record. I took these 22 sketches and sent them to our Patreon backers as well as my close friends. I just wanted to know what felt cool and what fell flat.

Based on their feedback, I chose 11 songs to continue working on for the record. I think all of these 11 are going to be released. 

Working this way was an absolute joy. When I was making the sketches, I didn't worry about them being any good. And then once I'd selected them, I knew the DNA of them was already good. So I wasn't trying to fix them or get them to work, I was just expanding on what already seemed to be working for me.

I hope to forever work this way in the future.

Reinforcements and an Expanded Sound

Once I had those 11 songs, I was able to send them to some friends of mine who are also musicians to see whether they would want to contribute. 

Now, I feel like I might jinx anything by putting into ink what is not already set to tape, but there's a very good chance that this record is going to have some incredible live strings and voices. Stay tuned for future updates where I might discuss these human upgrades.

And of course now I'm running the guitar through stomp-boxes and an amp and using analog synthesis to replace the digital replicas. Because you just can't beat the sound of a Moog.

So, after trying to build this thing from a kit, I'm back to forming it more painstakingly. Go figure. But, regardless, making this record has been a joy. And I hope you like it.

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

PS: If you have any questions about gear or more synth-nerdy stuff, feel free to ask in the comments. I'd love to chat about it. 

Free Thank You Book Upgrades!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Feb 06, 2025 at 11:08:53 AM

Now that we're over 2,000 backers, we talked a lot internally about adding some additional stretch goals. Ultimately, the things for which we'd have to raise more money would also have delayed the project. Adding more content to the book means more writing, editing, design and illustration time. And we'd prefer to deliver this thing on time--or earlier.

Ultimately, we decided to just go ahead and toss in the stretch goals that didn't require any extra time--for free! This is our way of saying thank you for all the support you've given us.

The book will now have graphic endpapers instead of solid red pages. And we will increase the number to three bookmark ribbons (black, red, and white). After all, this is a resource that we imagine keeping with you at the gaming table and using for multiple things per session.

The Standard Edition book will have red endpapers with black printing and the Limited Edition book will have gold metallic endpapers with black printing. 

We are exploring possibly having one of the ribbons be gold in the Limited Edition since we want to make sure there's a satisfying color match between the gold on the cover and the endpapers and ribbon. We are awaiting confirmation from the printer that this will not affect the price too much and will let you all know when we hear back! If we can pull it off, we think it's really going to pop.

We'll have more progress updates soon!

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

💀 Chapter Art Production Update! 💀
over 1 year ago – Sat, Feb 01, 2025 at 03:40:44 PM

One of our first Stretch Goals, way back at $50k, was to unlock customized chapter images. Which is something that's a little tough to explain with words and way easier to see with your eyeballs. So get out your eyeballs and let's take a look.

Here's an example of a spread before we added customized chapter images:

And here's what they look like after:

As you can see, what we're going for is a bit like buying a painting at a thrift store and drawing a dinosaur in the background. Except instead of a cute dinosaur it's a flaming mithral sword and a decapitated spider head.

I'm even more excited about the next one:

☝️ This becomes this 👇

I had originally expected much of the art in the Glumdark book to be sourced from public domain images. There's so much amazing artwork out there from the woodcut era, and it's really common to see it repurposed in design work in books and zines produced for the world of grimdark TTRPGs. 

I'm very grateful that we get to do this in a way that feels fresh to me and which leverages Vil's talents. And that's all possible because of the backers of this campaign. So, honestly, thanks.

Folks have been asking about the potential for additional stretch goals, as something both exciting and a little frightening. We've been discussing the pros and cons internally and will have a cool update about it early next week.

Until then, cheers!
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

💀 FINAL stretch goal unlocked! The bestiary will live! 💀
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 10:26:36 AM

A dream come true! We have reached the final stretch goal. Glumdark will have every bell and whistle and every page of expanded content we had hoped to cram in. I can't thank this community enough for their support and positivity. Now it's on us to deliver the absolute coolest book that we can.

I'm going to follow up in a day or two with some more information about the chapter header art. I want to give a more concrete idea of what exactly this will look like. But for now, I just want to say thanks.

Thank you again, a million times. 

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

The Bestiary Will Live
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 11:12:57 AM

We've done it! Now that we're past $95,000 (!!!), we're going to be able to add the bestiary to Glumdark. This is something that I've been tinkering on for the past few weeks and I'm unreasonably excited that we're going to be able to produce it.

This section of the book will contain full page descriptions of 10 different creatures or characters. Each one will come with a background, hints for what they might be like to tackle in combat, as well as a brief account of a first person encounter. In typical Glumdark fashion, the encounter-er is probably gonna die in the process.

Two of these creatures that I'm particularly excited to add to the book are the Dicky Docky Boku Lacha and the Horseless Headman. The first of which is a creature whose backstory is intertwined with their presence on the Glumdark soundtrack--a tie-in which I can't wait for everyone to experience. And the latter of which is just so dumb that I couldn't help but laugh as we talked through his backstory and appearance.

We're getting close to hitting six figures, and we might even get there today. Which is mind boggling. The only further stretch goal is to get these 10 creatures illustrated. This would really be the icing on the cake, as each creature would get a full page A5 illustration by Vil. I really do want this more than anything. I love browsing illustrations in fantasy books for inspiration for characters and combatants in the campaigns I run and I really want to be able to provide that experience to readers of Glumdark.

V gratefully,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral