Thulean Archives

I am Burzum, but I am also Mythic Fantasy Roleplaying Game. But what came first? Let's find out. You might think that you're looking at a Burzum album cover, but you're not. You're looking at an AD&D module called "The Temple of Elemental Evil". And as you can probably tell, this is the inspiration for the famous, or infamous, two first Burzum albums. A debut album and "Det som engang var". Here on the inside of the book we have a better image that will show you exactly what I'm talking about. While the question is rather stupid really, Burzum came first. But my interest in roleplaying games came before Burzum. And I did not start out as a metal music listener before I played roleplaying games. I started out playing roleplaying games, and then with time I also started to listen to some metal music. I say some metal music because I never really liked much metal music. I only liked a very few bands, or not even bands, but a very few albums, in fact not even albums, but a very few tracks by some metal bands. So I was never a metalhead, but I was a geek. Not a traditional geek,^[1] I was training in martial arts, I was known as Karate Kid in school, and I used to fight a lot and win. But still a geek, because I was having geekish hobbies like roleplaying games.^[2][3] The link between Burzum and roleplaying games is imagination. When I created the first Burzum album I wanted to create something sorceress, something that would create an alternative reality. Not in an insane manner, but as an experiment, to see if you could, if I could, will something through to make it real. You know, like in traditional sorcery, you make belief and it becomes real. You want something to become real, and it's real. You pretend something is real, and if you have sufficient will power, it becomes real. In theory, anyway. And that's what Burzum was really all about. I did not try to become a famous metal musician. As you can see on the image of me on the debut album, it doesn't look like me whatsoever and that was intentional.^[4] Because I wasn't supposed to be famous, the imagined character behind Burzum, the anonymous musician, was supposed to be famous. I kind of failed there^[5] though, really. I didn't quite manage to stay anonymous for very long, but that wasn't the intention. Quite often that's what happens. If you try to become famous, you fail. But if you try very hard not to become famous, you might well become famous. That's the laws of nature, the laws of man, the laws of the universe, and they are not fair.

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1. Although there were exceptions: The entire debut album of Iron Maiden and their "Killers" album are amazing from beginning to the end.
2. My teen hobbies: Martial Arts (in a club), Rifle Shooting (in a club), Role-playing Games (with friends), Driving Moped (with friends).
3. Oh, I forgot: Music was kind of a hobby too. Like 'Burzum'. Most of the metal Burzum music was made by teenage me.
4. The image kind of reminds me of the original "Ravenloft" module more that anything else.
5. "Count Grishnackh"