In a strange meeting of the past and the future, last night I received the re-issue of Bob Catley’s “Legends“ (originally 1999) right in the middle of a session of Fellmyr. Putting aside the surreal experience of the CD being delivered at 9pm on a Saturday night, this morning’s airing of the music has revealed something long-forgotten.

The roots of fantasy are, for me, deeply embedded in the soil of rock music and classical illustration by the likes of Rodney Matthews and Frank Frazetta. As I lay upon the floor of the hobby room, basking in the sound of Catley’s second studio album, I was transported back to the origins of my most vivid imaginings.

For what seems like an inexpressible period of my life I have been reaching for that spark of fantasy that I experienced as a teenaged lad in the harrowed years of my youth. Had I but realised that the source of those yearnings would lie within the simple act of placing a compact disc in the player and pressing play, I would have spared myself much struggle.

It is through music and the artistry of illustration that I connect with the deepest apprehensions of my soul. It is not words that capture the fantasy, not exposition nor description. It is melody and the powerful weavings of emotion as expressed through song that draw forth the stirrings of the fantastic.

This is something that I need to connect back to my roleplaying in ways that I have yet to understand. No, not to play music at the table but something more inspirational and affective. I have, on occasion, noticed that when I sit to prepare for GMing it is music that can help me reach the flow state of inspiration and joy.

But listening – actively – to the music this morning has pulled forth an eruption of imagery and a yearning to enter in to the fantastic landscape suggested by the melody and harmony. That there is an evocation of wildness and hopefulness combined is exciting to me. I am minded of first hearing Magnum (Catley’s origin band) and the opening of Mykovnia (my first fantasy dreamscape).

Matthews’ cover art evokes the explicitly fantastic – that evil sorcerer casting a curse towards the strangely dark warrior who bears the helm of the dragon, even while the goblinoid minions of the mage surround him. I want to enter that realm and discover this mysterious hero’s identity.

I sense that I have for too long been trapped in the re-presentation of fantastic ideas through language and analysis, in mechanism and system, when really I felt the loss of the living flow of imagination and emotion. I sense that one needs to enter into the realm as-if one is truly there, that the tools of games are simple a means to ground the possibilities lest we lose ourselves altogether in the experience.

Perhaps this makes little sense to you, I cannot say. For me it has been revelation and sunlight bursting from the Heavens. Wonder has returned. Imagination unlocked. Fantasy has come again.

Game on!