Das Lied des Rabenkönigs – A Music Guide

May 5, 2026

# Das Lied des Rabenkönigs: A Complete Music Guide

*By Martin Schroer | d20sounds*

—

Two years ago, Jens called me.

Not with a finished brief. Not with a spreadsheet. Just an idea, and a feeling. He described what he was looking for: something between the *Hansel and Gretel* film soundtrack and *The Witcher* — the game, not the series. Raw. Medieval. Dark. Music that felt like it had been played in a world that didn’t quite follow the rules.

I said yes before he had finished talking.

I’d been drawn to the world of Hexxen 1733 for a long time. As a player, my favourite adventure was always the first Ravenloft module for D&D — travelling through that dark, fog-covered land, often barely a match for what lurked in the shadows. Hexxen felt like that. The same oppressive atmosphere. The same sense that the world is not on your side. The same feeling that even small victories cost something.

Writing music for that world wasn’t work. It was something I’d been waiting to do.

—

## The Sound of Hexxen

One of the things that makes this album different is the instrumentation. Jens mentioned early on that he wanted instruments with an imperfect tuning — historical instruments whose intonation doesn’t sit quite right by modern standards. A lute that’s slightly off. A hurdy-gurdy with a rough edge. A recorder that breathes.

That roughness is not a flaw. It’s the character. It makes the music feel alive and worn — like the world these hunters inhabit. No polished heroism here. Just people trying to survive something much larger than themselves.

We also brought in voices. The *Jägerlied* features three singers: Jens Ballerstädt, Mariano Skroce, and me. This wasn’t the first time we’d worked together this way — Mariano had already sung on *Come to Kaer Morhen*, a song I wrote for the d20sounds community that landed just as the Netflix Witcher series was airing. And both Jens and Mariano had been part of *Blutige Segel* and *Die Reise nach Ilvarandin*. By the time we got to Rabenkönig, we had a language together.

—

## The Highlights: 6 Tracks to Know

### 1. Der Rabenkönig — *The Sound of the World*

This is the title track, and it was the first one I wrote. Choirs, organ, hard guitars, archaic instruments — it was designed to say immediately: you are not in a safe place. Inspired by the *Hansel and Gretel* film score and the darker corners of *The Witcher* game soundtrack, it sets the tone for everything that follows. Use it to open a session, or for a moment when the full weight of the world becomes clear to the players.

### 2. Inquisition — *When an Idea Changes Everything*

This track surprised me. I was working on it when Mariano suggested something — I don’t even remember the exact words now, just the direction. And suddenly I had the idea for an electric guitar.

In the middle of a medieval RPG soundtrack. An electric guitar.

I love my electric guitars. I always have. But I don’t often get to use them in this kind of music. And when I tried it here — against the Latin choirs, against the darkness of the Inquisition’s world — it worked. It worked completely. The ambivalence of the Inquisition — necessary, brutal, morally complicated — needed something that cut. Something that didn’t resolve cleanly. An electric guitar in a choir does exactly that.

### 3. Das Jägerlied — *The Outsiders*

The hunters of Hexxen 1733 are not celebrated heroes. They are necessary problems — people who carry chaos with them wherever they go, doing work that no one else will do, for a world that would rather not think about what they face.

We wrote this track to honour that. Three voices — Jens, Mariano, and me — singing a song for people on the edge of the world. There’s something raw about recording vocals with friends. You can’t hide behind the arrangement. This track doesn’t try to.

### 4. Marsch der Jäger — *Into the Final Fight*

Sometimes you need music that simply says: we’re going. No more deliberation. No more fear. The hunters have made their decision and now they move.

This is that track. Use it for the approach to the final confrontation — not the fight itself, but the walk there. The moment when the characters stop planning and start doing.

### 5. In der Nähe des Schwarzwalds — *Beauty and Dread*

The Black Forest in Hexxen 1733 is a source of evil. But it’s also genuinely beautiful. That duality is something I find endlessly interesting as a composer — the way a landscape can be both peaceful and threatening depending on where you’re standing in it.

This track holds both. Floating strings, majestic horns, and deep dissonances that never quite resolve. Play it when the party is moving through somewhere that should feel safe but doesn’t.

### 6. Schneewanderung — *The Cold That Kills*

Snow covers things. That’s its nature. It makes the world look clean and quiet and still — and underneath, things bleed.

This track captures that. Crystal sounds, metallic percussion, high strings that feel almost too delicate. A beautiful snowstorm. A deadly one.

—

## The Complete Track Guide

### Opening & Atmosphere

### Travel & Exploration

### Combat

### Calm & Recovery

### Character & Emotion

—

## A Note on This World

Hexxen 1733 is not a world where the heroes win cleanly. It’s a world where the hunters do what must be done and pay a price for it. Where the Inquisition is both protector and threat. Where the forest is beautiful and the forest will kill you.

Writing music for that world required resisting the easy option — the triumphant swell, the resolved chord, the ending that feels like an ending. Most of these tracks don’t resolve. They shift. They hold tension without releasing it.

That, I think, is what this world sounds like.

—

The full album is available on **[Bandcamp](https://d20sounds.bandcamp.com)**. Individual tracks can be streamed free on **YouTube**.

If this music finds its way to your table — if it makes one session darker, stranger, more alive — then it did what it was made to do.

*Das Lied des Rabenkönigs* is the current Actual Play of **[Lurch und Lama](https://www.youtube.com/@LurchundLama)**. Go watch it. It deserves its soundtrack.

— Martin