tabletopaudio

New Ambience: Petrified Forest

Added 2025-05-14 16:38:48 +0000 UTC

Greetings Patrons,

A barren landscape is always a great backdrop for adventure. But a once thriving landscape that has turned - wrong - is even better. A desert might always have been a desert, but a petrified forest begs the question: "what happened, and why?"

Here's an ambience of stone trees, stone leaves and branches scattered on the ground, a distant structure, also in ruin. Is this the domain of a single malevolent entity, or have a bunch of strange creatures moved in and called it home? Wind howls, twists, and distorts amid the inflexible branches. Bits of petrified wood crack and clatter on the ground. Serpents warm themselves in the daytime sun. I rounded out the wildlife with vultures, some insects and a large beast of indiscriminate nature (you never see it). This could be a gorgon's lair, or the domain of an ornery basilisk.

Musically, this began with an affected cimbalom (orchestral dulcimer). I then created 2 tracks of hard panned tagelharpa drone. Fujara flutes, tortured strings and analog synths bend around the landscape to create a vibe that's eerie and slightly threatening.

As this track is in Patreon sneak-peek mode, I've included the mixed version (live on the site next week), as well as music-only, and ambience-only versions of the track. Additionally, I created two 'no fauna' versions that remove the wildlife leaving just the pure ambience. I hope you find these useful additions.

Thank you all, as always, for your continuing support.

Best,

Tim

https://tabletopaudio.com