When I think Cacaphony without the guild association I think a distinct whailing, a melody without a clear structure that stumbles about stunning all who hear it into listening. Like.. If you could see the interior of Morg's head and translate that chaos into people's ears.

Depending on how you define a guitar, guitars are really older than violins. But mandolins and lutes already cover that pretty well. Personally, I can get form "guitar" to "heavy metal" just about as easily as from "lute" to "heavy metal" -- that is, not very easily. If you can add the grinding power chord sound via magic rather than Fender amps to one, you can to the other just as well. But I understand why not everyone feels that way. Even so, the historicality of the instruments is not really germane. That ship sailed a long long time ago.

INTRIGUING.

Two aspects of transforming Cacophony into a distinctively metal guild:

1. Metal as a genre of music. It is flawed to think of metal as 'just' metal. If you are going to change your music to be metal, decide on what genre of metal. I mean, power metal is hilariously less Magnagoran than, say, symphonic (aristocratic) or black (Nil worship). The idea of using magic (or hey, clockwork/steampunk technology) to produce distorted chords makes perfect sense (lutes/mandolins are used in progressive metal, though without 'distortion'). Sprinkle in a set of merianskin drums and a mandolin-bass-thing to taste.

2. Metal as a movement. This is more interesting to consider (and more viable in regards to roleplay). This again requires you to better define what type of metal you want to establish yourself as. I think the against-the-grain aspect of metal could be well done, with the Cacophony being a counter to the traditional Magnagoran high society. If you are doing hair metal (least Lusternian of metals, I would argue), then you will want the wild, showy masks., for example. Then again, you could just do whatever you wanted and call it metal... and that's the problem with this, in my opinion. You aren't really creating a roleplay opportunity by making it 'metal'... it's more like a parody of RL than an actual, original roleplay. For example, consider that the Nekotai have some major emo undertones (Dreamer of Despairs, Cathedral of Blood and Tears), but that is just not enough material for interesting roleplay.

Having a metal atmosphere is one thing, and giving your guild a defining aspect is quite another.

I think i can get around some of the conceners with bringing in some of the metal vibes and chaoticness and refer to the music as brutal rather than 'metal' since specific references to music genres in a text game without them is pretty iffy.

Cacophony, the most musically brutal guild ever! It doesn't have quite the same feel but i think it's close enough. Maybe someday Metocolypse and Dethklock will make a cameo so that i can refer to things a being metal but until then i ill just have to suffer in silence, and perhaps do it in non public ways.

I think Metal and Rock can fit Magangora just fine. But you might be more interested in taking a pointer or two from these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism_(music)

As others said, you have geomancers (rock), and ur'guard (metal) and plenty of nihilists.

I counter with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeWTsbkw57E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhBAsYZNBg4

It's how I imagine the Cacophony's music, at any rate, particularly the first one, capable of being both harsh and awesome all within the same composition.

EDIT: Threnody! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdAJHuazlQI...feature=related I can totally imagine that playing while someone is nommed to death by spectral gears. On reflection, this one is more appropriate to the Cacophony than the above two, particularly around 2:25.

Cacophony from my perspective is more of... wailing screaming and mad/insane noises, oddly blending to form this eerie hair-raising tunes. I'd say look at your Nihilist-Necromancy roots, where the sounds of the tightening wires wound around tortured bodies resonate with their screams. The haunted call/chanting of the dead/undead involved in necromancy rituals. Rock music... sadly did not come to mind... Heavy percussion appear to match the "more savage/primitive" music of Shadowbeat. I've always imagined the solo violinist ambiance in Mag sounds haphazardly played almost screeching like some violins do, but in a way that is oddly catchy and eerily beautiful, even if it makes your head ache

I do heart me some Apocalyptica, but if you get the multichannel .wav for that and silence the electric guitar, it sounds Celtic new-agey.

As for the Caco, I'm abandoning that alt. With Eoin gone, I'm not sticking around. I don't really have faith in either you, Llandros, or your partner in crime, Narsrim, to run a guild in an enjoyable and reasonable manner. Some parting advice, though: when making changes, the steps are 1) describe what you have, 2) describe what you want, 3) describe the differences between the two, 4) decide which individuals will have to do something different to accomplish step 3, and 5) create motivations for them to do so.

This thread smells like fail. You know you want a change, you thought that a metal theme would be cool, so you thought that you might try it. You missed steps 1, 3, 4, and 5.

I thought it was electric cello. Doesn't sound guitar-y to me, particularly the third one I posted.

But alas, I'm off topic.

If you don't like the way i do things then you can 1) deal with it, 2) run for gm or 3) leave. Also, 4) bribes and compliments, to get me to change my behavior are a viable option. For the record though Iorden is spearheadding the project, i just wanted to get a feel for what language we could use and to get some initial feedback.

I'm guessing your alt hasn't been around lately or is pretty low level, otherwise you would have a better understanding of what we are actually working on and what our options are. Furthermore, you would know that Narsrim has virtually no involvement in guild operations. He mostly just pops on to grief, hand me my marching orders and secure my puppet strings.

Again: a metal theme will not give you the definition you seek. All it will do is give you something to chuckle about IRL. It is simply too simple (oh ho ho) to create interesting and sustained roleplay.

I think you are getting a bit ahead considering that so far, not a single change has been performed. I guess that you made your mind already, but if you have questions regarding the state of affairs and the reasons behind all of this (if only to satisify some morbid curiosity), I would prefer to actually discuss things IG.



He is just a couple of ranks too low, so he most likely missed the 'event' that settled in motion the whole thing.

I don't see why it won't give you the simple language and puns to tie together guild policy and make it more memorable.

I am going to be very upset if someone outed my alt to you, but I'm assuming this is a sort of process-of-elimination guess.

Not that hard to guess considering the amount of active people and for how long they have been around.

I'm sure this thread has far more interesting things to discuss than the past few posts.

I don't picture the Cacophony being a metal guild at all. I think the word "metal" in reference to music shouldn't exist in Lusternia. It's just like "french toast" for which I was docked RP points after uttering to someone in private, it just has no place in Lusty.

When I think of Bards I don't think of people with guitars and rock music, I think of a frilly dressed man with his medieval instrument of choice wandering about entertaining people with his music and tales. Specificially with the Cacophony I picture a grim people dressed in dark robes wielding violins or fiddles playing some kind of dark erie music.

Edit: God I love your sig Dag.

My impression of the Cacophony in Lusternia was always along the lines of disjointed, atonal, dissonant, macabre music. I can see the suggested link from Necroscream to metal but didn't think that a 'metal' guild was the route they wanted it to take.

Lendren (I think) mentioned Stravinsky's Rite of Spring but for Glomdoring. Personally, I'd disagree and would think that the Rite of Spring suits Magnagora better. For me, Glomdoring would be more along the lines of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, something a bit more subtle than the Rite of Spring and with an eerie, melancholic vibe. This particular example doesn't mesh with the Shadowbeat spec. that well though. More what I imagined as the 'background' music when walking through the wyrden forest.

Music along the lines of the Sacrificial Dance from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was exactly what I imagined for the Cacophony. I think it fits Magnagora's theme and could easily imagine walking into a twisted aristocratic mansion with everyone wearing Fain-esque masks and hearing something like that (like a weird Eyes Wide Shut scene). I think it conjures up the violent nature of Nil more than metal could. It's discordant, twisted and not something you would hear in the other communes/cities, Magnagora using what the others reject yadda, yadda...

If I knew more of Schoenberg's work I could probably find some good examples of his but at the minute the ones I can find don't seem apt.
Other work that I thought fitted the genre would be the beginning of Liszt's Totentanz or his Mephisto Waltz although both are for piano. Parts of Mozart's Requiem Mass (the Lacrimosa and Dies Irae) I thought would suit for ritualistic sermons/sacrifices.

Sacrificial Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiH3vA7q0jo
Totentanz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXiXGZVSkic...feature=related
Mephisto Waltz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Cgr0eZ0rk
Dies Irae: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_YSEbAWA0Y
Lacrimosa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPz5B-TA1w

Just my impressions of what the Cacophony were, hope it helps...

I always thought of the Cacophony, and the Harbingers too, as more Rite of Spring-like or Schoenberg-like (really any modernist classical music) than heavy metal. Somehow the idea of metal-like music doesn't fit with the way I imagine the bard guilds.

I gave Rite of Spring to Glomdoring because of it being dominated by erratic, arhythmic rhythms. But it could go either way. Afternoon of a Faun is far too tranquil for Glomdoring though, it's downright bucolic; in fact, it's too sweet and soft even for Serenwilde (even if Glomdoring's propaganda would say otherwise!). If you want to depict nature from Glomdoring's side, it should be frantic, overeager with growth, like kudzu trying to swallow buildings and trees and rocks. Debussy's not right for that.