Haruka Shimotsuki (NG female human, bard 5/doujin artist 3)

i like fantasy genre, a lot. fantasy itself can mean a lot of things, from those with prankful fairy (faeries?) and slumbering giants to those with deranged cultists and supracosmic horrors. however, i generally tend to the former than the latter. when i think of fantasy, i think of a world so virgin, where fantastic beings lurk the forest just outside the village, ancient dragons make lair in the distant mountain, powerful wizards experiments with arcane secrets in their forbidding tower, and so on. the majority of the world is unknown to the humans, and when you do strike out for the world, you'll find so many things beyond your wildest imaginations-- in many cases, being the first to discover it.

in addition to that, i like fantasy the most when the world is so full of vast expanse of meadow and the sky is almost always blue. when you run or ride or fly through the meadow under the blue sky and feel the breeze on your youthful face, you can scream "freedom!!!" (i'm not talking about Scotland, really) and know that while no one will hear you scream and you're so small compared to the world, *you* matters a lot. it's the "running freely in the wind" feeling that's so vivid about the fantasy world.

and fantasy music is just about that. it's about the story of a traveler, his exploits that makes for his story in the world, the story that's told through songs, the songs that bards will sing for ages after he's no longer in the world. kids who hear a bard singing at the festival will be inspired for life, and probably become traveler themselves. such is the power of fantasy music, it breaks you from the dull and grayscaled reality.

these days we have Google Maps, GPS, coordinated SAR teams, and so on, so the thought of traveling like in fantasy is a passing glamer at best. (what? you want to travel on Mars? AFAIK there's also a Google Mars, too) but, for men who like romance (or never really quite grow up from their childhood phase) always feel the strong resonance of himself and the characters portrayed in those songs.

there's this artist whose music is generally about fantasy world, Haruka Shimotsuki. recently i've taken a liking for her songs (and probably for her person, too). i especially like her performance in the PS2 game Ar Tonelico 2. i dont have PS2 so i dont play those, but the vocal compilations are really really worth it for the music alone. she's also a doujin artist, so expect a lot of albums that's full of "Shimotsuki-ness".

this post is supposed to describe her, but dang it man, i end up talking about my childish dreams. oh well, can't help it. i like it when it's about myself (LOL).

btw, do you like Dungeons and Dragons (DnD)? it's a fantasy roleplaying game in its traditional sense, and it's relatively OK, if you dont mind sitting with a bunch of nerds shouting battlecries, obsessed with rolling dices (dies?). i dont play it myself (DnD isn't a single player game), but i do like reading books that "enhance your dnd experience" (whatever that means), since they're really interesting as far as the fantasy is concerned. i think i'll do a thorough statme session to make a bard NPC out of Haruka Shimotsuki. i'll post it here when it's finished, so you can put it in your campaign.