The Engines of Aether - Music + Collaboration with Borough Bound

"The city was a marvel of engineering, a miracle of gears and cables and pistons and dampers and regulators and gauges. Every part was crucial, without exception. The slightest lurch or judder, and the city would fall. And so it was that every last one of the citizens pulled together, and fell together, and rose together. They worked through the night and through the days, fixing what was broken, tuning what was ragged, replacing what was worn."

Hey folks!

I'm very excited to share today's track with you, which forms part of a HUGE collaboration with my good friends over at Borough Bound (see below for more details). 

This track is certainty one of my more unusual ones. It combines the booming sounds of mechanisms with a descending orchestral motif which speeds up the lower it gets, emulating a city falling out of the sky, only to be sent up high once more each time.

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Alternate Tracks

2 alternate versions for Bard tier supporters to enjoy:

• No Gears: No more clanking!
• Orchestral Ambience: Very different vibe here, softer and more mysterious

Previews of these versions are attached to this post.

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Borough Bound - Staying Afloat

The folks over at Borough Bound have set themselves an incredible task - to create entire fantasy cities for players to explore. As part of this collaboration they have kindly shared a region of the city of Gruuk Jit’Jit, a floating city kept aloft by a team of quirky volunteers known as the GJ Improvement Guild!

There's loads of awesome stuff in this collab, so I'll let the folks from Borough Bound do the talking:

Our interior map shows the inside of The Waxen Independence, the massive airship. This ship has been mostly disassembled by the guild, but its mysterious engine still sits dormant in the bottom floor.

We have five additional maps contributed by our collaborators included as well, so even if you’re just here for the maps, make sure to keep reading to find out about all of the goodies contained within.

Music

Our track this week has a sort of tinkering vibe. “In the Skunkworks” is perfect for scoring kooky engineers, magical factory floors, and cheery steampunk environs. There’s something just a little off about this music… which is pretty par for the course for these sorts of wacky scientist vibes you’re looking for. Our variant track (“Casual Rock”) has a more gritty texture that focuses on guitar and percussion, better for dirty mechanics and the hard work of actually crafting this machinery.

The Crystal Veil | Collaboration with Cze and Peku

We always love it when BB team members Cze and Peku can contribute one of their maps for a release of ours. They’ve contributed a starry crystalline ship for this collab, perfect for Spelljammer Gruuk Jit’Jit adventures. As always, Cze and Peku have an absolutely insane number of variants available for this map on their Patreon.

Spark of the Woken Bones | Collaboration with Venatus Maps

Our buddy Venatus Maps has put together a very strange map for us indeed this time around: a dragon / hot air balloon / glider hybrid sort of thing. This airship is crazy, perfect for dark fantasy campaigns filled with sword and sorcery. Venatus Maps also made a sick side view that really helps bring this map to life. Please check out Venatus Maps on Patreon for a huge range of battle maps, region maps, map assets, tokens, and more.

The Juggernaut | Collaboration with Limithron

The BB team has a simple rule: if we’re doing a collab that involves ships, we have to get help from Limithron. He’s the king of naval cartography, with an unrivaled collection of boats, airships, islands, and ocean maps. His airship for us today is an over-the-top pirate ship created in collaboration with Swordfish Islands for their Kickstarter Marlo’s Mire and Hot Spring Island.If you need any naval content for your RPG campaigns, please do check out Limithron on Patreon!

Mutagenic Dire Bugs | Collaboration with Zach Moeller

Zach has created two new “airship” maps for us today: a cicada ship and a ladybug ship. Zach has been in this game for years now, making rad battlemaps. I know he’s particularly a fan of Spelljammer, so if you need way more quirky airships / space vessels for your campaigns, go check out his recent slew of maps! He’s been churning out rad space maps for the past couple months now. Go see all Zach’s work on Patreon!

Okay, back to me now. Wow! What an offering! You can grab all of this stuff in the Collab Content -> Borough Bound, or the folder of August 2022 stuff. And most importantly, be sure to check out all of the above creators + Borough Bound themselves.

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Download Archive

Minstrel Tier - the track

Troubadour Tier - the track with looping and 1 hour versions

Bard Tier - the track and alternate versions of the track with looping and 1 hour versions, plus uncompressed .wav versions of the track