| Blood of the Dragon | ||||
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| Studio album by Nox Arcana | ||||
| Released | November 27, 2006 | |||
| Genre | Dark ambient, Neoclassical dark wave, New-age, Gothic, Celtic rock | |||
| Label | Monolith Graphics | |||
| Nox Arcana chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Paizo Games |  |
| Prognaut | |
| Side-line | |
Blood of the Dragon is the seventh album by Nox Arcana, incorporating an interactive puzzle. The music is mainly instrumental, with a classical, symphonic, and at times tribal Celtic sound. The music is interspersed with brief narrations and sound effects that relate a tale of high fantasy.
Nox Arcana is an American neoclassical dark wave, dark ambient musical duo of Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski, formed in 2003. Their name in Latin translates to "mysteries of the night." All of Nox Arcana's music is released independently on the Monolith Graphics label, a publishing company owned by Joseph Vargo.
Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical (religious) and secular music. While a more precise term is also used to refer to the period from 1750 to 1820, this article is about the broad span of time from before the 6th century AD to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period. The major time divisions of Western art music are as follows:
Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerably to include everything from "trad" (traditional) music to a wide range of hybrids.
Contents
The overall theme is laden with elements popularized in sword and sorcery stories and games, such as wizards, warriors, dragons, elves, witches, dwarves and trolls. These and other dark fantasy archetypes are represented visually in the artwork that accompanies the disc, and are also strongly suggested by the musical compositions. [4]
Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus mainly on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy.
A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior class or caste.
In Germanic mythology, a dwarf is a human-shaped entity that dwells in mountains and in the earth, and is variously associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting. Dwarfs are sometimes described as short and ugly, although some scholars have questioned whether this is a later development stemming from comical portrayals of the beings. Dwarfs continue to be depicted in modern popular culture in a variety of media.
The instrumentation includes heavy-sounding drums, gong, bagpipe, harp, acoustic guitar and fiddle, and features appropriate sound effects such as war horns, deeply reverberating chants, swords clashing, chainmail clanking and the war cries and stamping feet of what sounds like thousands of men heading into battle. The album begins and ends with some brief narration in the manner of furthering the story.
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a percussion mallet, to produce sound. There is usually a resonance head on the underside of the drum, typically tuned to a slightly lower pitch than the top drumhead. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
A gong is an East and Southeast Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat, circular metal disc which is hit with a mallet. The gong traces its roots back to the Bronze Age around 3500 BC. The term 'gong' traces its origins in Java and scientific and archaeological research has established that Burma, China, Java and Annam were the four main gong manufacturing centres of the ancient world. The gong later found its way into the Western World in the 18th century when it was also used in the percussion section of a Western-style symphony orchestra. A form of bronze cauldron gong known as a resting bell was widely used in ancient Greece and Rome, for instance in the famous Oracle of Dodona, where disc gongs were also used.
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and Europe, dating back at least as early as 3500 BC. The instrument had great popularity in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it evolved into a wide range of variants with new technologies, and was disseminated to Europe's colonies, finding particular popularity in Latin America. Although some ancient members of the harp family died out in the Near East and South Asia, descendants of early harps are still played in Myanmar and parts of Africa, and other defunct variants in Europe and Asia have been utilized by musicians in the modern era.
Nox Arcana took their concepts of musical storytelling even further with Blood of the Dragon by incorporating an actual quest into their music and CD packaging. The booklet features artwork and puzzle designs by Joseph Vargo. The songs provide hints to set the listener/player upon their quest. [5] [6]
A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of every nation and ethnic culture. In literature, the object of a quest requires great exertion on the part of the hero, who must overcome many obstacles, typically including much travel. The aspect of travel allows the storyteller to showcase exotic locations and cultures. The object of a quest may also have supernatural properties, often leading the protagonist into other worlds and dimensions. The moral of a quest tale often centers on the changed character of the hero.
The consensus from reviewers and fans of the Dungeons & Dragons games is that Blood of the Dragon is "one of the best Dungeons & Dragons style soundtracks" and exceeds the listener's expectations. The music has been recommended as an alternative or complementary soundtrack for movies like Conan The Barbarian , The 13th Warrior , and The Lord of the Rings . [7] [8] [9]
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. It was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997. It was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry.
Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 American fantasy adventure film directed and co-written by John Milius. It is based on stories by Robert E. Howard, a pulp-fiction writer of the 1930s, about the adventures of the eponymous character in a fictional prehistoric world of dark magic and savagery. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones, and tells the story of a young barbarian (Schwarzenegger), who seeks vengeance for the death of his parents at the hands of Thulsa Doom (Jones), the leader of a snake cult. Buzz Feitshans and Raffaella De Laurentiis produced the film for her father Dino De Laurentiis, with Edward R. Pressman as an executive producer. Basil Poledouris composed the music.
The 13th Warrior is a 1999 American historical fiction action film based on Michael Crichton's novel Eaters of the Dead, which is a loose retelling of the tale of Beowulf combined with Ahmad ibn Fadlan's historical account of the Volga Vikings. It stars Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan, as well as Diane Venora and Omar Sharif. It was directed by John McTiernan. Crichton directed some reshoots uncredited. The film was produced by McTiernan, Crichton, and Ned Dowd, with Andrew G. Vajna, James Biggam and Ethan Dubrow as executive producers.
