Description
Soundtrack for a JRPG, each track being different moments of the game.

Message from the artist
🌙 One Summer Night
Every thirty years, on a single summer night, the God of Darkness stirs from its slumber. To keep the world safe, the faithful perform a sacred pilgrimage: the Solar Priests and their guardians travel across the land, gathering primordial energy from ancient shrines. When the god awakens, the offering is made, and peace is restored. It is said that if this ritual is not performed, the world will forever be engulfed in darkness, ending life as we know it.

But for the people, a few days before, it is a night of celebration, as it's The Festival of Nightfall. Lanterns are lit, prayers are sung, and the chosen priests are sent off as saviors who will return in glory.

This cycle has endured for centuries.

On this cycle’s eve, an outsider named Ren is mysteriously pulled into the world. Lost and confused, he is swept into the pilgrimage of Selia, one of many Solar Priests, and her loyal guardians, Kaelen and Mira looking to harvest primordial energy from temples all around the world. Against all tradition, Ren vows to protect Selia and see her safely through her fate.

Shadowing their journey is Eryndor, a brilliant and beloved high priest. To the crowds he is inspiring, larger-than-life, adored as a chosen leader. But in secret, he seeks to shatter the cycle not with sacrifice, but by claiming the power of the God of Darkness, which to him is the only way to end the cycle and protect the world forever if he's able to control that power. He hunts down other pilgrim groups, harvesting their primordial energy, and dreams of absorbing the God of Darkness itself to become the “true savior.”

When the pilgrimage nears its end, the truth of the sacrifice that is the cost to pay to finish the ritual is revealed to the group. Selia and her friends, once faithful, are shaken to their core. On the following fated night, Eryndor unleashes his ambition, fusing with the god and twisting into a monstrous demigod bent on remaking the world in his image.

In this moment of despair, love becomes the light. Ren, bound to Selia by their shared love, awakens Helios, the long-dormant God of Light, shaped by the love for Selia and the world he got to know. By embracing the primordial energy through love rather than ambition, he becomes Selia's conduit for primordial energy and a weapon capable of ending the cycle of darkness once and for all.

The final battle is fought between Light and Darkness, between Ren-Helios and the twisted Eryndor. At dawn, the cycle is broken. The God of Darkness is destroyed. Selia and her guardians live.

But on that faithful one summer night, Ren is gone, fading with the sunrise, his sacrifice ensuring that the world and his beloved will never again fear the endless night.

Tracklist

https://soundcloud.com/indiekev-official/sets/one-summer-night-ost-jam-08?si=522...



Postmortem:
So coming in here I had a vague idea that I really wanted to do a JRPG, and I wanted to go from Studio One into learning to actually write music in Dorico. I am a SUCKER for most of them, as well as Souls Games. So I guess I wanted to do a mix in a way. I already had the main motif in my head while in total silence in the car. This is what you mainly can hear on the title theme. What I tried to do is make that track barebones so I could later do a track that's missing here unfortunately, but I also wanted to make sure I'd use it as a leitmotiv, but trying hard no to make it TOO obvious.

After the title theme I started to work on the battle theme.

This was easy enough to start off, as what's currently at the end of the track was the first section I wrote. I did have a bit of a harder time getting into the middle sections but stumbled upon some things I liked and developed both ideas as I went. And one thing I tried to do was to make sure was that it wasn't too overly serious, feel like it could work on most environments, and also add a bit of whimsical.

The track is supposed to just loop, but with time lacking and Dorico seemingly crashing every 5 minutes as well as NotePerformer, I just ended it abruptly but you get the gist.

Now the 3rd track is where the headaches began....

I had an idea that I wanted the earlier battle theme but with choirs, organ and other epic instruments, but one try wasn't conclusive, it just didn't work for some reason. So I decided to start from scratch and I had the start of the track kind of formed. Even though I say that, there were MANY iterations that didn't look or sound like much. I wanted somethiong very regal and dramatic for the first parts of the track, it took A LOT of time to figure out where I was headed, until at some point everything started fitting more seemlessly.

At first I wanted to have multiple phases for that final showdown against Eryndor, but I had so many issues that week that it seemed like it would not be feasible, so somewhere along the line, I just started considering the track more and more like a Meydley, each section being kind of their own team and moment in battle, the hard thing was to fit them seemlessly.

There are some notable passages for me, so here's a breakdown:

Section A
The initial section is the God of Darkness awakening, plain and simple. Organ is really loud, choir is omnipresent, it has all the marks of an omen coming to pass. I wanted the very slow ending to the section as a way to really hammer what the group has in front of them. And that's also the section where Eryndor attempts to control the God of Darkness, being just a little bit early to the party.

Section B (0:31)
It feels regal and godlike, Eryndor is starting to ascend after having absorbed the God of Darkness power, but in the end ends up being the one losing himself to madness. I think it works especially with the super dissonant organ finish with the Tenor singing alone, it felt like it was Eryndor lost his soul to the God of Darkness. Of course the Organ will the main characteristic of Eryndor in his ascension, but slowly something else will take its place when he's lost to the darkness.

Section C (0:49)
This is a long drawn out couple of sections, stretching pretty much 3 sections. It's the start of the combat with Eryndor as a twisted godform. It's dramatic, you face casualties. We hear a solo Viola, which is pretty much the instrument of Eryndor's darkness.

Section C BIS(1:16)
Some more tension and building up for section D. Here the Solo violin joins which is Ren, seeing how many of the people he's loved being lost into the darkness. It's pure despair for him, until he starts finding the resolve with Selias alone.

Section D (1:41)
This section made me shiver literally when I was making it, not as much the end but the start of it was haunting me for days and I'm so happy with it. Now Ren is trying is best to defeat Eryndor but to no avail, Selias is hurt in the process as well as his companions while Eryndor lays waste to the world. We hear the choir, organ, brass, strings and winds swell up as the pressure mounts.

Section E (1:41)
Ren decides to give his all and the real fight really begins as he's able to awaken the primordial energy as the vessel for Selias, until...

Section F(2:08)
We have some parts of the battle theme here with Eryndor's low growl in the background. The choirs are here to make it feel more powerful too.

Section G (2:40)
Ren awakens Helios godform as Selias holds him, and Eryndor cowers in disgust to the blinding light.

Section H (2:52)
Now both are at the same power level starts dishing out proper damage now to Eryndor, we now hear the proper battle theme in a lower darker key and it works beautifully (for me).

Section F BIS (3:16)
Now this is extended here because it's where the end of the fight would loop pretty much.

Section G (3:50)
The end pretty much spells the end of Eryndor and the God of Darkness.



Addendum
Now there would be so much more I'd like to do, the kissing scene, the post final fight, some additional tracks, maybe I'll get to do it soon. This was insanely complex for me to do and at some point Dorico just completely refused to export the third track and had to record my audio output with OBS from Dorico and extract that audio to have the final file...

This is pretty much the third musical project I created since I started music from scratch last year for OST Jam 07. I don't know if people will like it, but it's not often that I am proud of something I've done, but here I am. This jam was incredibly exciting, I went WAY above my skill level and I'm happy as it pushed me to try new things.

I hope you guys will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it.

Thank you LoneRabbit for awakening such a deep passion for me <3

Theme

How does it fit the theme?
It's a JRPG that has a specific event happening every 30 years on One Summer Night

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/indiekev-official/sets/one-summer-night-ost-jam-08

Number of tracks
3

Genre

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY)

Any project