Ominous Tune for BBEG

[Inspectre]

Hey All! I've seen several of these threads crop up over the years, and they always seemed to be a font of good ideas for musical themes. I also didn't see a thread for "request a musical theme!", but if there is one please direct me there.

Anyway, I am looking for some theme music for my BBEG, a fledging god of Fear. The party hasn't met him yet, and likely won't for quite some time, but before they do I would like to leave evidence of his existence - reports from survivors of his atrocities, cults springing up to worship him, etc etc. I would like to have some ominous music to play in the background as they stumble across this evidence of his existence, ideally several similar but different musical themes to play, both to mix it up and to emphasize different aspects of his character while at the same time still making it clear that yes, this is all music tied into this one character.

A good theme that I have already found is this track from Chrono Cross's soundtrack. It's slow, ominous with the funeral bells chiming, and even has some good old-fashioned indecipherable chanting in the background. Perfect. But I'm curious to see if the boards can find me other tracks roughly similar to that which might be an even better fit (or even useful for related characters, like his lieutenants or something).

Additionally, some combat music for when they eventually do throw down with this monster would be nice, similar in that it has a dark, ominous tone to it, but somewhat faster paced. A good example would be this track from Shadow of the Colossus, a little faster paced that the first tune that I linked, but still containing ominous chanting and pipe organs.

So - any help you can offer Playground would be appreciated.

[Kol Korran]

Hmmmm... I don't use that sort of music a lot, but a couple of compositions may prove well:
1) Nox Arcana. All of their music is pretty much like this. This seems to be a fairly comprehensive playlist. take a look?
2) The "Ashes" album from Two Steps from Hell has a lot of creepy and disturbing music, though a bit more fast paced. Perhaps you can find something suitable there, perhaps for battle music?
3) If you want something that can disturb the players and get on their nerves, or just be weird and grating, I made a short playlist a long time ago that has a few pieces. The first piece gave them the bloody creeps! Here it is.
4) For battle music I often like something more fast paced, like rock with dark overtones. I really like Within Temptation's pieces, like Our Solemn hour or The Truth beneath the rose but... it depends if your players get distracted by the words or not.

Good luck!

[Angelalex242]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bahMeycMihw

If you're into the screams of the tormented and the dying for your BBEG, you can't do better then that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bahMeycMihw

But if you prefer more majestic BBEG, that'll do.

[janusmaxwell]

Videogame music is usually a good choice for atmosphere in my opinion. Recent example, sorcerer in our party has been very useful by summoning various flavors of monsters (Most recently a pair of Huge Undead Red Dragons) and we've decided this theme for the summonings is "Otherworld" from Final Fantasy X (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbLQhzsJG0A) as well as other music used for some battles/situations

I suggest trolling rpg JRPG libraries for boss music or similar themes. Is it "Original"? Probably not, but still could be awesome.

Sorceress Edea's battle theme from Final Fantasy 8, good for the confrontation but you could find other music related to her for the "Investigation" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaFzvQQFCrc)

[EDIT]
OHH! A theme for the Cultists Chanting! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyN7j1al37I)

[FLHerne]

Kevin Macleod has a site-full of his music (he writes mostly background music to games). It's searchable by feel, too!

(The $78 thing is for convenience, the tracks themselves are free)

[Slipperychicken]

god of Fear.

Never played the game, but this theme form Dark Souls is awesome.

A lot of stuff from the Soundtrack to Alien can also be good.

Nine Inch Nails can be good for this. I particularly like the work they did for the Quake soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bahMeycMihw

If you're into the screams of the tormented and the dying for your BBEG, you can't do better then that.

Is that so?

[dramatic flare]

Never played the game, but this theme form Dark Souls is awesome.

Dark Souls and Demon Souls make their magic happen with their incredible atmosphere, which is by rule always Grimdark and sparsely populated by anything that could be called an ally.
"hey! I dropped this thing helping a guy. Think you could take a look?" *waits for player to move near hole, then kicks them into it.*

Anyway, These few from Demon souls are excellent choices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16PAMzk9TI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSEt7ENKqdg

[Draken]

The soundtrack of Civilization V has a lot of good themes, if you want ominous, Catherine's War theme is pretty nice, as is William's.

[commander panda]

it might be a bit more fast paced than you're looking for, but this is creepy as all hell.

[FabulousFizban]

Take a look at Erdenstern's albums. They are color themed and have something for everyone. You should be able to find a BBEG theme there.

I suggest the into the dark album