Ok, the game goes like this: I pick the song, and you tell me how it could be done as an RPG game/setting.

Donovan- "Atlantis"

The continent of Atlantis was an island
which lay before the great flood
in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores
those beautiful sailors journeyed
to the South and the North Americas with ease,
in their ships with painted sails.

To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles.
The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were -
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new
Hail Atlantis!
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
I wanna see you some day
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
My antediluvian baby,
My antediluvian baby, I love you, girl,
Girl, I wanna see you some day.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah
I wanna see you some day, oh
My antediluvian baby.
My antediluvian baby, I wanna see you
My antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she gone
I wanna see you some day
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, oh yeah

RPGPundit

First what a terrible song.

Secondly I'd set it in Kult.  Atlantis is just one of the areas that have been lost to the masses.  But it's still part of the original city where dead gods and other nastiness still live haunting our dreams and tempting those that get to close to the veil.

Yeah, anyone who puts the word "baby" in his lyrics deserves a slap.  The only use of "Baby" should be when you forget the words and have drag something out a la Styxx or Foreigner or Rainbow:

"Since you been gone... gooo-ooo-ooooooooone Baaaaaaaay-hay-hay-buh..."

I like this bit...

QuoteOn board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.

It's like he got bored and couldn't be bothered to name the other seven. Nice how being a singer/songerwriter he made the Poet first among the gods.

So we need twelve gods of which five are already determined. I'm going to say the following

1. Poet
2. Physician
3. Farmer
4. Scientist
5. Magician
6. Jester
7. Builder
8. Warrior
9. Hunter
10. Teacher
11. Historian
12. Waste Management Consultant

I'ld make it a class based system with these being the only classes available as well.

Quote from: BagpussI like this bit...



It's like he got bored and couldn't be bothered to name the other seven. Nice how being a singer/songerwriter he made the Poet first among the gods.

So we need twelve gods of which five are already determined. I'm going to say the following

1. Poet
2. Physician
3. Farmer
4. Scientist
5. Magician
6. Jester
7. Builder
8. Warrior
9. Hunter
10. Teacher
11. Historian
12. Waste Management Consultant

I'ld make it a class based system with these being the only classes available as well.

Woah... All of a sudden I *really* want to play as a waste management consultant!

Quote from: kryystFirst what a terrible song.

Have you actually heard the song, or are you just basing that on the lyrics?

Donovan is actually pretty amazing, in an airy-fairy hippie sort of way. Pretentious as all fuck, but he sure makes pretty songs.

I love when this song is used in Futurama...
Bender: "The magician"?

RPGPundit

Quote from: BagpussI like this bit...



It's like he got bored and couldn't be bothered to name the other seven. Nice how being a singer/songerwriter he made the Poet first among the gods.

So we need twelve gods of which five are already determined. I'm going to say the following

1. Poet
2. Physician
3. Farmer
4. Scientist
5. Magician
6. Jester
7. Builder
8. Warrior
9. Hunter
10. Teacher
11. Historian
12. Waste Management Consultant

I'ld make it a class based system with these being the only classes available as well.

Except these weren't "classes"; these were individual ARCHETYPAL dudes; who were so significant that they were "Gods". To me, it would seem like they were meant to be the First of their kind in the world, who spread their particular archetype to all the world, so the Physician was the inspiration for Apollo, Asclepius, Quetzacoatl, basically every healing "deity" the primitive peoples the atlanteans found and influenced and taught ever had.

I mean, it seems to me this song is just crying out for either something Amber-esque, or a kind of "pre-history ancient civilization" campaign where it turns out the history our archeologists taught was wrong, and the wackos who think everything came from Atlantis were right

But the question is, would these atlantean exile "gods" be nice guys? Who seek to teach humanity? or would they be Tyrants, who would enslave these primitive races and mold their cultures to their liking to try to recreate some of the lost glory of atlantis for their own pleasures?

RPGPundit

I'm getting a mental picture of a series of twelve tombs...  perhaps scattered around the world...   containing the bodies of the twelve who escaped atlantis.. (or just the places where they lie waiting)  perhaps (as the city "knew her fate) there was a plan put in place to bring Atlantis back, but it would take millions of years. (stars aligning or artifact powering or somesuch) Each tomb holding a part of the artifact needed to bring atlantis back to the surface. (and even if the players can manage to survive the guardians of the tombs to claim the keys, there is the question of Atlantis itself, is it still deserted? or have others come to live there during the long years of sleep...)

Quote from: RPGPunditOk, the game goes like this: I pick the song, and you tell me how it could be done as an RPG game/setting.

Donovan- "Atlantis"

The continent of Atlantis was an island
which lay before the great flood
in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores

-SNIP-

My antediluvian baby, I wanna see you
My antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she gone
I wanna see you some day
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, oh yeah

RPGPundit

:forge:

Quote from: RPGPunditHave you actually heard the song, or are you just basing that on the lyrics?

Donovan is actually pretty amazing, in an airy-fairy hippie sort of way. Pretentious as all fuck, but he sure makes pretty songs.

I love when this song is used in Futurama...
Bender: "The magician"?

RPGPundit

I was basing it strictly on the lyrics.  But now that I know what Donovan is I'll extend it to the style of music also.  Pretty songs should only be used to lul babies to sleep.

Quote from: kryystPretty songs should only be used to lul babies to sleep.

"'Tillinpau, Tillinpau', cries the church bell,
'Come here, little child, here sleep many others,
safely tucked in, safely tucked in,
covered with black earth...'"

That's from a traditional Finnish lullaby. Cheerful, I know.

Quote from: GrimGent"'Tillinpau, Tillinpau', cries the church bell,
'Come here, little child, here sleep many others,
safely tucked in, safely tucked in,
covered with black earth...'"

That's from a traditional Finnish lullaby. Cheerful, I know.

There are alot of baby killing lullabyes... and Christmas carols too. I remember there being a French one with a butcher... and St. Nicholas. It was freaking creepy.

Here's a song from Cuba's greatest Folksinger, Silvio Rodriguez:

Cancion Del Elegido
Siempre que se hace una historia                
se habla de un viejo, de un niño o de se sí,                                                                                          
pero mi historia es difícil:
no voy a hablarles de un hombre común.
Haré la historia de un ser de otro mundo,
de un animal de galaxia.
Es una historia que tiene que ver
con el curso de la Vía Láctea.
Es una historia enterrada.
Es sobre un ser de la nada.

Nació de una tormenta
en el sol de una noche,
el penúltimo mes.
Fue de planeta en planeta
buscando agua potable,
quizás buscando la vida
o buscando la muerte
eso nunca se sabe.

Quizás buscando siluetas
o algo semejante
que fuera adorable,
o por lo menos querible,
besable, amable.

El descubrió que las minas
del rey Salomón
se hallaban en el cielo
y no en el África ardiente,
como pensaba la gente.
Pero las piedras son frías
y le interesaban calor y alegrías.
Las joyas no tenían alma,
sólo eran espejos, colores brillantes.
y al fin bajo hacia la guerra...
¡perdón! quise decir a la tierra.

Supo la historia de un golpe,
sintió en su cabeza cristales molidos
y comprendió que la guerra
era la paz del futuro:
lo más terrible se aprende enseguida
y lo hermoso nos cuesta la vida.
La última vez lo vi irse
entre humo y metralla,
contento y desnudo:
iba matando canallas
con su cañón de futuro.

----

Translation:

Song of the Chosen One

Whenever they tell a story
they speak of an old man a child or so on,
but my story isn't easy:
I'm not going to tell you about a common man.
I'll make a story of a man from another world,
a galactic animal.
Its a story that has to do
with the course of the Milky Way.
Its a buried story.
Its about a being from nowhere.

He was born from a storm
in the sun of a night,
on the second-last month.
He went from planet to planet
looking for potable water,
maybe looking for life
or looking for death
you can never know.

Perhaps looking for shadows
or some thing similar
which could be adorable,
or at least likeable,
kissable, loveable.

He discovered that the mines
of King Solomon
were found in the heavens
and not in fiery Africa,
like people used to think.
But the rocks are all cold
and he was interested in warmth and in joys.
The jewels had no soul,
they were only mirrors of brilliant colours.
So finally he went down to the war...
Sorry! I meant to say to the Earth.

He learnt the story of a coup,
he felt grinding crystals in his head,
and he understood that war
was the peace of the future:
The most terrible things you learn right away
and the most beautiful will cost you your life.

The last time I saw him he was leaving
amidst smoke and gunfire,
contented and naked:
he was killing miscreants
with his canon of the future.


RPGPundit

I don't like your songs. Are we allowed to suggest our own?

Back when I was a teenager some friends and I went to a benefit concert, it was for a county in Latin America though I now forget which one.  I liked the girl who invited us, which is why I went, though nothing ever came of it.

Anyway, that Proustian element aside, each of the songs sung was beautiful, haunting and evocative but of course in Spanish.  So, after each song there would be a short explanation of what it was about.

The one I best remember was, after a ballad of great sweetness and beauty and a kind of sadness, she said "and that was a song commemorating the attempted assassination of our president on a mountain roadside" the implication being it was a song of sadness that it hadn't succeeded.

Anyway, leaving aside our sudden realisation that we were inadvertently at a benefit gig the benefits of which were highly questionable that's the kind of song we need for this thread.

To add a moral, if you're going to benefits gigs, it is worth spending a couple of minutes finding out what the hell you might be supporting...