Mood Music Explained.
Mood music is an innovation which I borrowed from the occasional practice of playing a musical backdrop during my tabletop roleplaying game sessions.  Through mood music I try to add another dimension to my email campaigns, granting the player a more aural feel for which mood I wish to evoke at the time.  Though I have my own collection of MP3's and CD's, players are most welcome to direct me to any worthy tunes which they believe can capably convey any certain mindset or emotion, not necessarily one relevant to the in-game moment at hand.  I have a premium Kazaa account and it's paid for, I assure you.  It was thirty dollars well spent.   I have already implemented Mood Music through my Unquiet Waters campaign and will continue to do so with The Cabal.  Expect the selections for each campaign to be quite different, however, as the two campaigns, by design, are polar opposites in regard to mood.  Unquiet Waters has more of an epic feel--of discovering the waking world and triumphing over the darkness--while The Cabal is intended more for the genre of Horror; The players do not triumph majestically over the darkness, instead merely resisting it for however long they can, or perhaps even surrendering to it and serving it. Unquiet Waters serves as the voice of hope, whereas The Cabal is the voice of despair.   Okay, enough of that babble.  Here's the skinny on the Mood Music blurbs:
The format for a standard Mood Music link is as follows:   [Mood Music:  "Title" -- Artist, Album or other source (if applicable)]    ...for example:   [Mood Music:  "Barbie Girl" -- Aqua, Aquarium]   So it goes.  But not every tune comes from a singer with an album.  In that case, you may see end tags such as these:   [LC]  =  The song came from a live concert.   [Mood Music:  "The Road Behind" -- GWAR, The Road Behind tour]  [LC]   [ST]  =  The song came from the soundtrack to a movie, TV show or other form of entertainment.   [Mood Music:  "Forsaken" -- David Draiman, Queen of the Damned]  [ST]   [C]  =  The song is classical and hence predates any modern media.   [Mood Music:  "Piano Sonata No.5 in C Minor" -- Ludwig van Beethoven]  [C]   [VG]  =  The song came from a video game.  If the song lacks an actual name, the stage of the game which features the song as its theme will be provided instead.   [Mood Music:  "Requiem for the Gods" -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]  [VG]   [Mood Music:  Theme, "Tower of Babel" stage (Episode 2, Map 8) -- Doom]  [VG]  [Loop]   Oh...speaking of the Devil:   [Loop]  =  Loopable.  You can play the song on your media player with the Loop setting set to ON and it won't sound stupid.  Video games don't have the market cornered on this; retreaded showtunes and overclocked techno songs found on the internet may boast this feature as well.   It is possible for a Mood Music tune to have multiple end tags, listed alphabetically.   [Mood Music:  "Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)" -- Guilty Gear X soundtrack]  [ST, VG]   In this example, I recorded "Holy Orders" from a CD soundtrack to the video game Guilty Gear X, as recording directly from the video game would be problematic.  Even video games are getting soundtracks these days...testament to the improving quality of their music, true?   Other designates will be added as I'm made aware of them and/or employ them.  Again, thank you for your suggestions.   Usually, the Mood Music selections will appear in MP3 format; I will only use MIDI when an MP3 version of the song isn't available.  I will never use WAV files as these files are hideously huge, easily 10 times the size of an MP3 recorded from the same track.  I should know.  I and my CD ripper accidentally ripped GWAR's "Immortal Corruptor" as a WAV and I checked the numbers myself.  Shocking.  All that extra memory consumed just so your copy of Windows can play it at boot-up.  Just...shocking.   But MP3's are superior to MIDI's in that MP3's can carry voices, more instruments, fades and crescendos, and other finer details to be found in music.  Not to mention that MIDI's are usually so loud and grating.  You don't believe me?  Well...here's one song, rendered in MIDI...   [Mood Music:  "Wishmaster" -- Nightwish, Wishmaster]   ...and the song's original version, rendered in MP3: [Mood Music:  "Wishmaster" -- Nightwish, Wishmaster]   "Wishmaster" is a great album, by the way.  Go out and buy it.  I command you!   At times, I may have the perfect song in mind yet may not have any files of that song handy.  In instances like this, I may just denote the song and leave it to you to find it or--failing that--remember it and hum it from memory.  There should be an apparent difference between Mood Music blurbs which are linked to a file and Mood Music blurbs which aren't.  Both Wishmaster blurbs immediately above are linked, and the rest of the blurbs aren't.  In the case of me and my Internet Explorer copy, the linked lines appear to be underscored...but browsers (and their apparent differences) may vary.   I hope that you found all of this helpful.  May our music tastes be equal and ensure good listening all around!   --Tritonius