Saturday, April 5, 2014

Metal... gods?

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what I mean when I make reference to the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign. What, at its heart, does that term "Metal Gods" even mean? Some correspondence with +Daniel Bishop got that idea rolling around my tiny, hollow noggin (again), and I've finally got a bit of time to write about it. I've written about stuff like this, before, but it's been a while, and I think I might be able to explain it better than I did before.

Who are the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad

First, I must make clear that the so-called "Metal Gods" are not me, +Adam Muszkiewicz+Wayne Snyder, and the other guys in our campaign. We are merely conduits for Their glory. Nor are the Metal Gods the actual band members of whatever musical acts from which we draw inspiration. However, those acts are a good starting place to talk about the Metal Gods, in much the same way talking about the avatars of a particular god is a good starting place to talk about divine power. However, I am only one of the cult of the Metal Gods; my household deities may not be yours, and that is right and proper.

In this, as in most things, I must begin with Lemmy.

They call him Lemm the Killmaster, in Ur-Hadad

You know what? I don't need to write a fucking essay to make this make sense. Let's try lyrics instead. I know you can't hear the song, but just sort of imagine it as a Motorhead song.

In the midst of the din and the mist in the night
Axes will fall.
Axes will fall

Our elven oppressors will feel iron's bite
Killing them all
Killing them all

The sons of Men are riding
Our swords shine in the sun
Elven spires stab the heart of the sky
Like the points of our lances
Driving forward, all as one

With steel we take vengeance
In iron we shall trust
Drive them from the Golden City
Onward to the First City of Men
It's Ur-Hadad or bust.

The Lost Hymns are playing
A chorus heard by all
The hammers are pounding
The swords, they are ringing
Drowning out elven battle calls

Take one step forward and bash them with our shields
We will not break
We will not kneel

I've got wounds the priest can never heal
But I won't be broken
I am still standing

Caught in the web of the Mistress of Spiders
The secret one, Atraz A'zul
The silent one, she has a plan
For Ur-Hadad she'll make a stand
And She has made us Her tools

Once, I was an urchin starving in the street
Begging for a crust of bread
Now I'm in the Divine Order
A veteran of slaughter
Got silk sheets on my bed
---------

So, yeah, it's a bit more like that. "Metal Gods" means taking this crazy DCC RPG thing and turning it up to 13. There's palace intrigue, and violent unrest, dungeon crawls, trips to other planets, and visits to other planes of existence. We've got a goat-hooved wizard, and a cleric with chaos runes carved in his arms. We've got a halfling haberdasher to pimp our wardrobes, and a chapter house of our own. We've got veterans in the ranks, and a stable of replacements for when they all go down or retire. We have no home but the Order, no family but our brothers and sisters. We don't take shit from anybody.

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