Ambient music for upcoming Curse of Strahd campaign

[Torgairon]

I'm starting CoS with my group tomorrow and am looking for suggestions on some good and creepy gothic horror-type music to play ominously in the background. I already have a proper wrestling intro-style song for strahd whenever he shows up, but other than that I'm pretty low on inspiration for the rest. it's easier for me to score epic fantasy campaigns with all the video game soundtracks I know, but horror is proving a tricky genre for me so far.

[Legendairy]

Google-fu, pipe organs, creepy violin music, gypsy campfire music for the vistani. Also, look for specific things like witch’s chanting for the hags house or horror asylum music for the bishop guy with all his....cures? Don’t forget background rain and storm effects, wind, lightning(especially lightning).

[Lord8Ball]

Here are some of my recommendations. Enjoy.
1.Dark Lullaby Music - Mooncave
2.The Battle for Wesnoth Soundtrack - Into the Shadows
3.Battle for Wesnoth music- Underground
Note: Derek Fiecher has a lot of ambient fantasy music.
Also, I recommend you browse the Wesnoth soundtrack. You won't regret it.

[DarkKnightJin]

I'm starting a CoS game tomorrow as a player.
If Strahd has a wrestling intro, I'll know the DM frequents these boards too.

[Specter]

1) Silent Hill 1 (PSX) Soundtrack
Many gems here that definitely will make your playrs jumpy. Speaking from experience here ("please turn that music off, I can't think").

2) Resident Evil Remake (Gamecube) Soundtrack
Also solid gold. The intro song in particular is amazing.

I have also used other music, like Bach's Dracula organ, in CoS, but that's too specific to mention too much.
Good luck.

[the_brazenburn]

Enya: Tempus Vernum. Yes, I know, I, know, it doesn't sound very creepy, but it's always worked for me.

And my party has an obnoxious habit of playing Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song during every fight scene. Including the one where Strahd decimated them in five rounds.

[Requilac]

Interesting that you brought this up, because I actually have made a gothic horror playlist for D&D and have experience with this kind of thing.

I would reccomned looking at a band called “midnight syndicate”. They specialize in making gothic ambience horror music, and their work is undeniably influenced by fantasy too, a while ago they actually made the D&D soundtrack. The D&D soundtrack is not the best one to work with though as it sounds a little too epic. Probably one of the best parts about them too is that their songs typically are not very distracting at all and can easily fade into the background (which some ambience music authors have trouble with). Some of their songs have obnoxious sound effects though so you might have to weed those songs out. Sometimes they make some pretty ridiculous albums too though so try to be careful of those (I like to believe that the soundtrack to “the wrath of Paul Bunyan” does not actually exist). Here are some of the albums I recommend
•out of the darkness
•the 13th hour
•vampyre: symphonies from the crypt (suitable for obvious reasons)
•monsters of legend, though half of this soundtrack is loaded with an irrelevant amount of sound effects so you will have to heavily edit it to use it. (Just overlook the absolutely disappointing cover art please)

If you wanted a good over-view of what they sound like, here is also a list of some of their specific songs which I think best represent their work best or would work great in your campaign.
•prisoner of time from the out of the darkness soundtrack. It is utterly haunting and melodious, up to the point of being phantasmagorical.
•serenade from raven’s hollow. This one is rather haunting too and just gives an over-all feel of eeriness and suspense.
•cold embrace from the 13th hour. This probably is the most dreadful thing you can play for them, and it conveys the atmosphere of ravenloft rather well.
•harvest of deceit from the 13th hour is good for many occasions represented throughout the campaign. This is great at conveying suspence and will definitely set your players on edge.
•ravages of time from vampyre. This is a unique mix between melodious and imposing, and would probably be good for some of the social encounters with Strahd.
•undead hunters from vampyre. It is not quite as gothic as the other persons, but it is great to use in combat situations, especially against undead.

What I might also suggest is looking at some stuff from another band called “Nox Arcana”. Really, they are not my favorite band to represent a feeling of gothic horror, but several of their stuff work well. They actually made a dracula-themed album called “transylvania” that is suitable for obvious reasons. Keep in mind that some of their stuff actually has lyrics though so you will have to watch out for those.

Hope I helped!

[Asmotherion]

Theater of Tragedy - A rose for the Dead
Sirenia - The end of it All
Type O Negative - Black No.1

You can have a shuffle playlist playing in the backround from various Gothic Bands, and when a Character whose Theme Song enders the scene (and it's not giving too much metagame information) you play to song tied to the Character 1/4 higher volume for emphasis.

[Spiritchaser]

Peter gabriel’s Passion, music from the last temptation of christ could work

[Waterdeep Merch]

One of my players had the soundtrack to 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' playing during most of our sessions. It sets the mood great, with a single exception-

There's a love song in there. It's weird, and will be very abrupt if you don't take it out of the queue. My player didn't, but it became beloved/feared for a different reason.

It became our equivalent of the "Rains of Castamere". It somehow always played when something absolutely horrible was happening, either to the players, an NPC, or even a monster or villain.

While it didn't play during the final fight with Strahd, it did play when Rahadin lost his mind in the aftermath and attacked. The players intentionally dragged out that fight, they really hated Rahadin after getting to know Kasamir in Amber Temple.

[GalvinCuthbert]

Where can I find this track?

[CrazyCarppy]

Black aria by Glen Danzig.

[Unoriginal]

The musics from all three Dark Soul games, as well as from Bloodborne (and maybe Demon's Souls) would work.

They're the right mix of fear, discomfort and bombast.