About to play World of Darkness: Mage. Steel Destiny returns!

And this time, I decided to play a character I could be familiar with again (there was a previous game of WoD: Mage I played, where he was a D&D / Ren Fair kind of guy so I had a connection there)… but this… this would be a connection to a previous WoD game… calling back to the World of Darkness: Hunter game… I’d played a character who was a singer of a (fictious) band called Steel Destiny.

I posted about it previously – the first post here, and a follow up here.

Steel Destiny Band Members:

• Sam Branor – Vocalist
• Christian Oliva – Guitarist, Brother to Jane Oliva, Steel Destiny’s drummer
• Jane Oliva – Drums, Older sister to Christian Oliva, Steel Destiny’s guitarist
• James Aldrich – Bass

The band members are references to actual musicians I like – Christian Oliva is a reference to the late guitarist Criss Oliva of Savatage; Jane Oliva is a reference to Jon Oliva, brother of Criss Oliva and vocalist of Savatage, and James Aldrich is a reference to Doug Aldrich a guitarist who has been in a number of bands (I knew him from Lion, but he went on to play for Dio, Whitesnake, and an assortment of other bands). Sam Branor, when I created him, was not a reference to anyone.

So here we are now – heading into Mage, and I decided to play the Bass Player for this game. Essentially he has abilities that allow him to influence the mood, minds, and dreams of people (which he usually uses during their concerts – to help people get into the music, or convey specific emotion; like ballads really tear people up when they’re at the concert).

One of the things, he can do is enter/influence dreams – and I called that power The Nightmask. This is based off the New Universe comic Nightmask, who was a character who had that same exact power.

Now in order for him to use the Nightmask ability he has to hum or sing a (fictional) song from Steel Destiny called “The Dream Thief” – which puts him into the mental state of entering the “Dream World.”

So naturally, I wrote the (fictional) song lyrics for the song…

“The Dream Thief” – Steel Destiny
Written by Sam Branor and James Aldrich

In the shadow, in the dark
There is no light, there is no spark
But I can sense, something there
A never ending nightmare

I can feel it feeding
As my dreams are bleeding
It’s thriving here
Living off of all my fear

Chorus:
And when I close my eyes
I fall into a real I despise
There’s no respite
In this land devoid of light

The Dream Thief awaits
To feed of my dreams
The Dream Thief tastes
The sound of my screams
The Dream Thief!

In the dark, in the shadow
There is no spark, there is no glow
But I can feel him out there
The never ending nightmare

Tonight, I made a stand
Tonight, I clench my hand
Tonight, I face my fears
Tonight, the Dream Thief dies here!

Chorus:
And when I close my eyes
I fall into a real I despise
There’s no respite
In this land devoid of light

The Dream Thief awaits
To feed of my dreams
The Dream Thief dies
As I open my eyes!

This naturally means I need to make a (fictional) CD/Single cover too, right? Yes. Yes, I do.

The art for this is by the amazing Ken Kelly.

And here it is with the lyrics…

The astound Ken Kelly art without my stuff…

And this is the first issue of Nightmask from Marvel, for which the power name comes from…