You can also listen to this track on Bandcamp as part of the album TONE!
You know the drill. Bandcamp and Soundcloud have character limits in their descriptions, so I’m making a post here to write out my thoughts about this theme.
Character Notes:
Ah, Obsidian. Our live and let live, live free and die free, shoot up an entire casino and set fire to it so no one finds out you massacred a bunch of innocent people, big sis, lesbian gunslinger. How could I forget you?
In her player’s own words:
“Obsidian, or “Obi” to her friends, is a brash, short-tempered aggressive nihilist, however she does have some redeeming qualities; a keen sense for danger and handling herself in tense situations, confidence in and care for her team, and an unconventional sense of humor.
“She wields twin handguns, which she had custom made, engraved with a sword and cutlass and a skull and crossbones respectively.”
Honestly, she’s the embodiment of chaotic neutral (really loves her firearms and explosives), but it’s a lot of fun playing with her in the team. I swear she smokes like a pack a day, though she did get a few specialty smokes that saved her soul when we were traveling to the Shadow Realm ™. No, I’m not going to elaborate.
Obi is also in a relationship with Erina and it’s way cuter than it has any right to be. How cavity inducing? Enough to make my DM create a meme about it mid-session:
Keep in mind this particular moment was right after Teal and Nova just got into a huge fight. To summarize the moment from my DM’s perspective:
My players: Heart Felt amazing characterization
Also My players: Gay in the snow
Me: makes memes about gay in the snow
So yeah, Obi’s cool. Yeah, she’s chaotic but she has her moments sticking up for the others in inner party conflict and surprisingly the chaos isn’t that disruptive (except for that one time when she killed 18+ people in that casino and then set fire to it).
Also, her player occasionally makes art depicting scenes in our campaign. This is one that happened right after the party (sans Teal) decided to knock out our school appointed truck driver and run off on our own agenda.
Man, those were rough days for Teal (he still doesn’t about the casino)…
Music Notes:
Well, would you look at that (almost) all Touhou! Seriously though, I think this track is almost entirely stitched together from ZUN’s work. So really, a return to form for me (w).
Okay, so a few years back I was playing D&D with another group and also composed a track with a similar beginning to this one. It was for an entirely different kind of character, but I really wanted to revisit that idea, so here we are.
This time, I wanted a more cohesive and maybe more original piece and I think I managed to do that. I tried to mirror that kind of chaotic energy that Obi has and also put in a drum solo since her player requested that too. If I’m being honest, this is probably my favorite piece in the album, though it’s not the one I find myself humming usually. I guess it’s just not as catchy as the others, but I think I’m the most proud of this one.
If I had to single out one thing that I’m not really satisfied with this track though, it’s gotta be the drum solo. I kept revising and revising it, and I still think it’s a little repetitive, but I wanted to have it be a significant chunk of the piece. It’s also not as intense as I would have liked it to be. I really wanted to evoke gunfire or a shoot out, but it’s kind of one note…
I also hate working with drums in LMMS because you have to add each instrument individually and click each scene to check whether your notes line up if you don’t use the beat track, and I really don’t like the beat track for whatever reason.
I know the inspiration list pretty much just lists ZUN, but it actually draws inspiration from throughout all of his career, right from the very first Touhou game to Touhou 16, over twenty years later. Most of it’s still from the PC-98 era though. I guess I just like that time period (w). It helps that I was using FM synth quite a bit and that’s the kind of instrumentation going on with those games.
Inspired by:
The World Revolving (Toby Fox)
Bad Apple!! (ZUN)
Oriental Magician (ZUN)
秘神マターラ ～ Hidden Star in All Seasons (ZUN)
夢消失 ～ Lost Dream (ZUN)
Sailor of Time (ZUN)
MuZeTrigger Studios 