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Cymbals of the Imperium

Spinward Scout

Spinward Scout

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When I saw the title of Spartan159's thread "Symbols of the Imperium", the first thing that came to mind was cymbals in an orchestra.

:)

What kind of music is in your game? I'm not talking just the music you play for your players, but what music do the characters encounter?

Do you have Space Opera in your Space Opera?

Does your Aslan play a didgeridoo?

Does your Llellewyoly stand on one foot and, with 4 arms, play an instrument ?

Does your Psion play a Mind Harp?

Do you have a Hiver band playing in your starport bar?

Is your K'kree music all about the outdoors?

I just want see what everyone has come up with.
 
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Hot & Spicy

I had, as Referee, our mercenary security, the Artemis Group escort and deliver a rock band around the Spinward Marches. I found the wiki entry for Hot & Spicy and modified it to My Traveller Universe. This group of Julian Humans and Julian (Irilitok) Vargr had travelled the Coreward border of the Third Imperium to spread a message of racial peace between the Vargr Extents and the Third Imperium through their tour.

Lead Vocals - Rock Salt, the male baritone framed by the ladies' chorus, the most quiet and reserved of Cinnamon's peace mission.

Lead Guitar - Pepper, the shredmaster and bad girl of the group off the stage, secretly insinuating Library Data at each TL8+ world to help Cinnamon's goals, but behind her back.

Bass Guitar - Cinnamon, a female Vargr from Asimikigir and songwriter for the group. One of her schtick gimmicks is to bite Human fans on the arm while onstage, leaving marks and pretending to infect them with a Terran legend of lycanthropy. Fans are medically treated and some elect to keep the scars like a signature from the famous songwriter and bassist.

Keyboards - Nutmeg, the gothic, quiet, weirdo with a pension for low berths shaped like coffins. Often a follower behind Ginger and Cinnamon.

Drums - Ginger, the face-girl of the band and panet to Cinnamon's brother, Khrragg. Often the most photogenic, mediagenic and socially friendly of the group. Most provocative of the Human band members. Posters often show her with Khrragg in scandalous subject matter and situations.

Backup Guitar - Khrragg, a male Vargr brother to Cinnamon sometimes called to cover for Pepper for a myriad of reasons. Panet to Ginger. The two show up on the band posters together to support Cinnamon's peace mission goals.

The band plays rock, hard rock, metal and acoustic albums. Their tours crowd the Startown, Downport, Highport and the surrounding countryside when the tour ships arrive in system. The band has trouble getting to their gigs because of fans crowding the region. Their agent along with their promoter, Sylk (another find on the wiki), has to hire the Artemis Group to secret them to their concert hotels and stages as the tour roadies play decoy.

However, not everyone in the Third Imperium, specifically in the time period of the Fifth Frontier War wants Hot & Spicy touring Regina, Aramis, Pretoria, Rhylanor, Lunion, Lanth and Gvurrdon Sector while things heat up. The PCs must meet the band's schedule, avoid civilian trouble, dodge haters, protect the band from themselves, help or run damage control on Pepper and Cinnamon's propaganda, and generally stay alive while factions try to silence the band and its mission.
 
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The Imperial Marines have their bagpipes.... probably with fittings so that they can be plumbed directly into their battledress's life-support to supply air.

Makes me wonder... are there military bands in the Imperium that have to deal with trace atmospheres and other complications? Maybe steel bands and percussion are more popular than fife and drum?

IMTU every grav tank and g-carrier has conformal surface speakers to blast out music in a Kelly's Heroes or psy-ops style.
 
Reban said:
The Imperial Marines have their bagpipes.... probably with fittings so that they can be plumbed directly into their battledress's life-support to supply air.

Makes me wonder... are there military bands in the Imperium that have to deal with trace atmospheres and other complications? Maybe steel bands and percussion are more popular than fife and drum?

IMTU every grav tank and g-carrier has conformal surface speakers to blast out music in a Kelly's Heroes or psy-ops style.
Click to expand...

(insert obligatory instant memory of Ride of the Valkyries here)
 
What kind of music is in your game?
Click to expand...

well in my recovery story I wound up portraying opera music as an attempt to maintain a cultural identity against other aggressive cultures and against the sheer vastness of space and other humanity. didn't really think about it, it just seemed natural.

and I once portrayed vargr music in the Pack Call, sort of their national anthem. had multiple teams of singers, with female singers setting a context.

but as for players ... they don't care. they want action.
 
My character in a Drinax campaign knows (and has sung one on screen) shanties about the Drinax of old, and the Sindalian Empire before it. She may be picking up Art (Performer) at some point: she wants to persuade nearby worlds to join the reborn Kingdom of Drinax, and art is one of the tools of diplomacy. I would not be surprised if a poetry slam with a professional aslan epic poet is in her future. (I have come up with setting-appropriate songs for my character to sing in certain prior campaigns.)
 
Read a really funny post on Reddit Traveller, where it's an Exit Visa adventure in which the planet has dropped all physical or online forms and in order to retain and deliver your admin information, you have to sing it in a standardized format.
 
The Pakkrat said:
Ginger, the face-girl of the band and panet to Cinnamon's brother, Khrragg.

Khrragg, a male Vargr brother to Cinnamon sometimes called to cover for Pepper for a myriad of reasons. Panet to Ginger.
Click to expand...

OK - I've never heard the word "panet" before, and a check for a definition only showed up a bunch of dissimilar meanings in a number of Terran languages.

And an urban dictionary entry with the following:
adj ridiculous, stupid, absurd, preposterous, laughable, pathetic, lame, lacking dignity

verb revealing stupidity and ignorance
Click to expand...
Which doesn't seem to fit with the way you are using the word.

So, what meaning are you assigning to the word?
 
I am not sure that human musical instruments are going to be a lot different, but Vargr and Aslan instruments probably will be.

Remember a couple of things. One, Vargr and Aslan are going to have a wider range of hearing than humans, covering both higher and lower tones. The music that a dog or a cat hears on Earth is not the same that we hear.

Second, their hearing is going to be more sensitive to volume, as their hearing is more sensitive to loudness. Their music is apt to be much softer, without the load crashing crescendos of much of our music. Very loud music is quite simply going to hurt their ears.

If a human attends a concert of Vargr or Aslan musicians, we might be surprised at how soft the music is, and at times when we hear nothing, the non-human audience is in rapt attention.
 
Aslan are not descended from cats so there is no reason for their hearing to match a cat's frequency range. That said the Alien module does say:
They also have slightly superior hearing and night vision.
Click to expand...
No mention of what superior means though :(

Vargr on the other hand are descended from bioengineered wolves, but their hearing may have changed in the 300,000 years of evolution since their uplift. They can hear well above the human frequency range but can not hear as well as humans at low frequency:
Hearing is excellent, but again slightly out of phase with human standards. Sounds which are generally too high-pitched for human ears can be detected, but the lower ranges are often inaudible or only vaguely sensed, rather than heard.
Click to expand...
 
mike wightman said:
Aslan are not descended from cats so there is no reason for their hearing to match a cat's frequency range. That said the Alien module does say:

They also have slightly superior hearing and night vision.
Click to expand...

No mention of what superior means though :(
Click to expand...

What about multiple-redundancy within their cochlea, ensuring that they are less likely to suffer form tinnitus, age-related hearing loss, and the risk of industrial deafness. That doesn't give them extra-human hearing abilities but it does make it superior.
 
Ulsyus said:
What about multiple-redundancy within their cochlea, ensuring that they are less likely to suffer form tinnitus, age-related hearing loss, and the risk of industrial deafness. That doesn't give them extra-human hearing abilities but it does make it superior.
Click to expand...

As this is My Traveller Universe, the Aslan are modified Terran Lions, so are felines.
 
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