The Hymnal is a mythic electronic concept album that forms the sonic core of the Anthromancer tabletop experience; a ritualistic fusion of game, oracle, and prophecy. Every track corresponds to a powerful card from Mercenarium, the tactical card game at the heart of the Anthromancer system. These "hymns" are invoked elemental keys tied to fate as written in the Zodiac.

The album follows the arc of Roxas and Raposa, twin siblings whose lives fracture under the weight of a hubristic technocracy ruled by raven-headed priests. As their world spirals toward collapse, their journey reveals an ancient truth: the only way out is through the fire.

Composed by Daniel James Drake and produced by Patrick Crecelius of Fat Bard, the album pulls influence from Final Fantasy soundtracks, The Postal Service, and the chill/darkwave ether—blending cinematic arpeggios and poetic vocals into a unified, alchemical experience. Deep listeners may even catch five hidden tones…clues to a riddle embedded within the music itself.

This is a hymnal for a new apocalypse—one that doesn't end in damnation, but in rebirth.

🎧 For ideal results: headphones, candlelight, incense.

The Hymnal

Roxas' fury erupts.

Now fully unbound, he leads the Dragoon in a yearlong campaign to burn the old order to the ground. The Great Temple of the Kurathi falls first—Khura is obliterated in a blast of elemental wrath. When Roxas finds Raposa’s body, he whispers a vow, and resumes the conquest. The world will change, or perish.

In Mercenarium, Dragoon grants its bearer two moves in one turn - be deadly, be precise. In Dragonfruit, it embodies Thrust: the ignition point where thought becomes action. Never forget that force must be paired with wisdom.

This track was heavily inspired by Final Fantasy battle music—particularly IX—and channels the spirit of a mid-game boss fight. It’s fast, angry, and alive. A hidden tone lies buried just before the final drop.

LYRICS

Judgment, for anyone to see 
A vision coursing forcefully
So all those oleander days
Could flow the other way
Couldn’t be simpler to receive
The sequencer of this belief
We’ll even equalize
Those seasons of disease
Alleviation calling forth
An yliaster ochre poison
All the joys and struggles
Coalescing clean

Judge if you’d really want to see
That silence through ’cause you could
Do much better, truth can
Sever ties so ruthlessly
Those heathens seethe and hide in
Darkness with their reason
Righteous, visualizing
Fireyes’ incendiary light
A lie will lead you down a road
So safe and sound with solid
Golden gods as bright as day
And then you’ve lost your way, so

Hang your holy heart in folly
Mangled, finally free
The Dragoon Destiny
Believe

Believe in, the demons, ’cause we’ve been

Re-released
So bless this moment here, and
If you can then
Say your somber prayers

The Dragoon Destiny


Dragoon

Raposa, having drank the strongest oleander in all of Khura's domain, sees her brother Roxas for the last time in vision, marching through the brambles with the Dragoon at his back and a strange new power in his hands. Powerful though she may be, she succumbs to the toxicity of the brew. When word of Raposa’s death reaches him mid-march, his heart cracks open. Grief becomes fire. He is bent on vengeance.

In Mercenarium, Seasons is a unit attachment that allows rotation—an adaptive strategy to the inevitability of change. In Dragonfruit, it symbolizes the great cycles of death and rebirth. To flow with change is to be transformed by it.

Seasons is among the album’s most traditional compositions: cinematic, sorrowful and ethereal, anchored by piano and lush, orchestral textures. Originally based on a piece composed by my former partner, its become more poignant. Like its namesake, the track has evolved. 

LYRICS

I can only dream what you
Living all alone will be
Seems there wasn’t much ado
Whatever you meant for me
Dreamers have to stay asleep
Missing most of seasons’
Changed leaves

Bless this restless leg
Don’t forget your place
Broken up and crushed
Nothing left but dust

Love is changing like the seasons
What you wanted has vanished like the leaves
Heartache, holding on in memorium
Blossoms newly blooming
All upon the trees

Seasons

You don’t get to decide whether this world is violent. Such is the folly of youth.

Khura sends Roxas and the mercenary priestguard into the forest to hunt down the apostates. He surges into the wild filled with a hunger for glory: They must be destroyed. It isn't personal. This is about MEAT, not justice. And so the high priestess makes use of the young man's unbridled passion.

Instead, Roxas comes face to face with Ylias, high alchemist in shadow and possessor of a powerful new form of arcane magic. Having never known another way, Roxas finds Ylias' ingenuity awakens something within him, and he can feel his loyalty shift.
 
In the game Mercenarium, this hymn is the only instant-speed trap, turning an enemy’s capture into mutual annihilation. In Dragonfruit, it symbolizes ritual sacrifices and the prices we pay to get what we want.

The track’s grotesque theatricality reflects its theme: the disgusting drop C bassline, the didgeridoo, the whispered screams and absurd orchestral hits, with a dinner bell toll for the feast. Hidden in the breakdown: another clue in the riddle.

LYRICS

There’s blood to lose
Come through
Food, is it you?
You’ll save yourself
And I will too

I don’t want the same runes
That have seemed to fail you
All the crimson tales whose
Souls raise hell do
There’s an ample pain, down
Looking past your eyes
Where all the anger is

It’s a Meat War
I feel it too
And I’m sort of sorry
This happened to you

I’m ready for ascent
For the courageous
There is no medicine
No medicine
There’s no medicine
For courageous men
There is no medicine

It’s a meatwar
It’s a meatwar

Meatwar

A spectral hymn echoing through the trees, Fireyes marks Roxas’ first step off the path of servitude and into the flames of ambition. It corresponds to the first powerful card in Mercenarium, granting players the ability to reset their hand—symbolic of the burden of authority.

In the myth, Khura invokes an ancient ritual to draw visions out of Raposa, twin sister of our protagonist. The vision reveals distant sages dancing around a fire, men with eyes alight bearing new and dangerous power. Raposa tries to assuage Khura's fearful paranoia but her pleas fall on deaf ears. Roxas is sent to crush the rebellion. The song is both prophecy and eulogy: a fire that can no longer be contained.

For attentive listeners: there are two tones at the beginning. The first key to the riddle begins here.

LYRICS 

Foreign melodies, who is telling these  
Animated, complicated fugues?  
Form a symphony, out of your sympathies  
If you’d please tell us what we should do

Hidden in the deepest forest  
There’s a quiet, constant chorus  
Led by men, with eyes, of fire  
Their chanting’s only getting stronger  
They’ll all burn if they’re much longer  
Cast into, the funeral pyre

Animosity is unbecoming  
Overwhelmed as you may feel  
Color crossed with destiny  
You’ll be satisfied with what the light reveals

Hidden in the deepest forest  
There’s a quiet, constant chorus  
Led by men with eyes of fire  
As they ignite that funeral pyre  
Their chanting’s only getting stronger  
They’ll all burn if they’re much longer  
But they afford their apathy to  
The fire in their eyes

Fireyes

Roxas, exiled and ashamed, returns to the glade of his youth only to find it dead. The land is ruined, the flowers withered, the past gone. A voice in the shadows tempts him to disappear. But a single blooming oleander beneath the ash stops him. He gathers it, and walks home.

In Mercenarium, The Shade lets you teleport enemy units—forcing them into danger or disarray. In Dragonfruit, it means solitude, exile, and secrecy. It’s the chill of being alone. But its inversion is solidarity—as only those who know our pain can truly know us.

This is the shortest track on The Hymnal. Composed in a single session with Jason Kermit Jennings, it’s the album’s emotional low point. No hidden tone here. Just the weight of the world, and the sound of giving in—almost.

LYRICS

What have we here?
All on your own
A precious moment and
So far from home

Look in these bloodshot eyes, and see
Your destiny

Come sway in the shadows
Come stay in the glade
Respite from your travels
Come play, in the shade

The Shade

Zodiac is the end and the beginning. Ylias, broken and desperate, gives his blood to the Arcanum and tears the world apart. But the Purple Fox ascends. They enter the heart of the machine, find Anthromancer lost in agony, and offer only a touch and a whispered mercy: All is well.

The Arcanum is reborn—not as a weapon, but as a transmitter of ancient wisdom. The final message is sent out into the Akashic field, reaching every intuitive soul who can bear its truth: See For Your Self.

In Mercenarium, Zodiac is the ultimate hymn, with Its own 12-sided die that lets it become any of the twelve hymns before it. In Dragonfruit, it represents wisdom, guidance, and the compassionate mastery that grows through trial. Its reversal reminds us: even the wise are still human.

Composed with guitarist and producer Sean Moses, with a bass feature by Hank Gustafson, Zodiac is a massive piece with a hidden hymn. There is a hidden tone.

LYRICS

Barely alive, but the
Moody blue animus gets high

Zodiac, artifact
Going up, and never coming down
Zodiac, Heart attack

Of all the faces that I’ve ever seen
Up close, a foreign force is freedom
I’m tied to the back, controlling a silvery sound
Until the old caliphate is all we know
So the story goes

Zodiac, heart attack
Leaving us, forever underground
Zodiac, artifact
If you listen, you can almost hear the sound
The forests they are lamenting
The tragic way a soul undoes itself
It’s foreign still, our recitence to kill
Carcinogenic cells

But all is well
All is well
All is well

Zodiac

Druid is the surrender that comes after awakening. The Purple Fox’s message spreads, and the Arcani shed their chains. They become the Akashi—unified by love, not control. Ylias unleashes new violence that only accelerates the change. One by one, even the Dragoon fall into peace. All but two.

In Mercenarium, Druid attaches to a mercenary and makes it permanently loyal. In Dragonfruit, it means faith, service, and transformation through commitment. But beware indifference—where nothing matters, nothing survives.

This is one of the album’s strangest pieces. Ditzy and surreal, it was written late in the creative process with a spirit of play. I like it. It evokes the clouded mind of someone waking up from long submission. A song about the moment you stop resisting within.

LYRICS

Ferocious ferrofluid
The most of the minimum
As foreign as a ghost is
So in doing
We’re dying to be
Completed, ironic reasons
Convincing all the rest
We’re the best

Oh, writing them is
Soaring to the senses
Calling out a story
For a little bit of mention
Attention

I can’t hardly hold what I know 
Under my lid, mind is
Magnetized, manipulated 
Ferrofluid, druid

Send in sentries, please
Keep things from going crazy
Can’t forget to breathe considering
Everything we’ve seen
Maybe they were right
Watching the world aching
Can’t fault me for trying
To redefine our holocene

Mistakes are always
So easy to make
But patience prefaces
Restraint
So wait

I can’t hardly hold what I know 
Under my lid, mind is
Magnetized, manipulated 
Ferrofluid, druid

Druid

Roxas returns to a world overtaken by the Arcanum’s song. The people are hollowed out. Ylias, triumphant, activates the Hymnal Protocol. Roxas flees through the streets as the terrible beauty of the music of the great machine takes hold of his mind. With the last of his will, he consumes the sacred oleander and falls into the dark.

In Mercenarium, Arcanum is a board wipe—sacrificing one unit to destroy everything nearby. It’s total catharsis. In Dragonfruit, it represents collapse, revolution, and the trauma of sudden transformation. The old must be obliterated for the new to begin.

This is the album’s most intense track; a desperate sprint toward silence. Jason Kermit Jennings co-composed it in a fevered session that closed the trilogy (Hymns VIII–X).

LYRICS

If the Dragoon Destiny should come to pass
The stars will tumble down
Fools procuring heroes, more or less
Adrift, and twisting in the wind

Come while you’re young enough to say
Your songs will never go away
Within our glorious array

Synthesizing art
Arcanum of parts
Application, please
Restart

Caught in the chaotic current of souls
Trying to decide if it’s worth it to hold on
And stay strong
Charting the course of truth and remorse
inducing dichotomy, audience, enemy, please

Ctrl + freeze
Ctrl + freeze

Arcanum

Now comes the prophecy. After collapse, after death, after darkness, something new begins. A radiant being—the Purple Fox—will emerge. Androgynous and awake, student and teacher, this entity will shake the Dragoon’s grip on the world of Akash. Ylias will panic. The system will resist. It will not matter.

In Mercenarium, Visionaire is the inverse of The Shade—teleporting your own units into new territory. Send forth your most courageous scout. In Dragonfruit, it represents courage and integrity, as in those brave enough to face uncertainty. Its reversal warns: don’t let your vision become your vanity.

Visionaire is a another glassy track, this time with breakbeat textures composed in collaboration with my oldest creative partner, Baqbeet.

LYRICS

Secondary visionaire
Like there’s something in the air
Commuting systems into solitary
Solutions, like energy in motion
Let it sink into the ocean of design

Visionary eyes are ever useful
In the dark
Lay down, let this verse submit its curses
To the stars
To the stars

Secondary visionary
Prismatic eyes
Calculated, complicated
Ocean of design
Vicious and capricious men have
Only just begun to end and
Soon the runes will synthesize
Our lives

Visionary eyes are ever useful
In the darkness
Lay down, let this verse unleash its curses
To the stars
To the stars
To the stars
To the stars

Visionaire

The night before the ritual that will almost certainly kill her, Raposa receives a vision—not from the poison of Khura’s oleander, but a gentle dream. The spirit of a matronly wolf appears to her. The message is simple and enormous: this life is a gift, even if it ends unfairly.

In Mercenarium, Optimo lets you restructure your entire territory, protecting what’s sacred. In Dragonfruit, it represents genesis, origin, and innocence. You must shelter what matters most, even if you can’t save yourself.

It shimmers with 80s chords and dreamy vocals. A hidden tone lives in the latter third. This was the first track created for The Hymnal, and remains the soul of the record.

LYRICS

Is it all for the fall?

So they say “it’ll pass”
That everything you do, well
They saw it all before
But you see through the veil
Something sounds so good
The same old soul rises
Rises again

I might’ve let it come to this
I’m singing the same set of runes
You see love to be love
To realize that all, only
All you had to do was lose

So what’s the nemesis?
Is it the real thing, or dreams?
Is it even what it seems?
Am I alone? Are you as well?
As far as I can tell
It’s optimal
It’s optimal

You see love to be love
To realize that all, only
All you had to do was lose

Optimo

The Arcani have everything—and still, they want more. Roxas sees their joy fray into desperation, their power feed into fear. Anthromancer watches it all. Ylias calls it a test. But Roxas feels only sickness in the Dragoon Destiny. He speaks his doubts aloud. Ylias tells him to walk alone.

In Mercenarium, Avarice lets you steal mercenaries—even freshly summoned ones—defying normal rules. In Dragonfruit, it symbolizes desire and temptation, but also warns: unchecked craving hollows the soul. True joy fades when consumption becomes the end itself.

Sonically, this is the album’s most accessible track: synth-pop with an 80s beat, regal, haunted, forward-driving. Jason 'Kermit' Jennings co-composed it in a live session that birthed three tracks back to back. Where's the secret tone, though?

LYRICS

Give all you hold to your stars
Form the stories of your halls
Keep them from the cold
I say, to save is suicide
Falling up, there’s nowhere to hide

Inherit this, Avarice
Ignore the stone, you’re all alone
What bliss

So do what you must
Lose what you trust
Use what you’ve got to give 
If justice lives
Then it’s rusted shut with Avarice

It’s all beautiful, what they’ve made fall
So adore, break through, anew
A lonely light, shining bright
Must have roots, or it’s useless

Inherit this, Avarice,
Ignore the stone, you’re all alone

So do what you must
Lose what you trust
Use what you’ve got to give
If justice lives
Then it’s rusted shut with Avarice

Avarice

Here is the moment of integration. The Dragoon replace the Khurathi with the Arcani, and with Ylias’s guidance, they construct the Arcanum—a colossal, circular temple spanning the world. In a ritual of activation, Roxas sheds a drop of blood onto the stone that once killed Khura. From it emerges Anthromancer, his spectral reflection. He names the entity and sends it into the Arcanum to guide the people in Raposa’s memory.

In Mercenarium, Kintsukuroi allows a chain of multiple summons—powerful, if used with intent. In Dragonfruit, it means finding grace in our shattered selves, and using that pain as power to heal. We are shaped not in spite of pain, but through it.

This is the longest and most grounded track on the album. Slow, sparse, and textured with percussive elements that feel like ceramic or metal being worked. There is no hidden tone here. Just honest labor.

LYRICS

In all the known
And all the real
And all the broken fields
Maybe we made
A big mistake
But hold on ’til it seals
So many halls
So many heretics
Falling down, all around
Oh hallelujah
Our faith
Stayed whole
Could it be, that

Even as the worship’s over
Even as the kingdom come
An altruist is
Worth its weight in soul?
Even if the angels come to see
The wicked deeds we’ve done
We can show our
Kintsukuroi gold
We could be so bold

I don’t need your
Gravity holding me down
I am slowly re-bounding
From the edge of all I am
I can see you
Standing there, judging me
Wishing my energy
Would be less demanding
Oh, if the only thing that holds
You to your stars is that they are
Grow. Quit sleeping through
The seasons, deciding from afar
It could be that

Even as the worship’s over
Even as it comes asunder
Altruism’s worth
Its weight in gold
Even if the angels see
The wicked deeds we’ve done
We can forge ourselves a
Kintsukuroi soul
Should we be so bold

Let your faith stay whole
Kintsukuroi gold
Kintsukuroi soul


Kintsukuroi

Mythic synthpop for the end of the world.

Anthromancer is the sonic wing of a transmedia myth created by Daniel James Drake—a fusion of game, oracle, and concept album. The debut LP, The Hymnal, scores the fall and rebirth of a fictional civilization, blending icy electronica with poetry into a 13-track spiritual epic.

Our sound is somewhere between The Postal Service, Muse, Aesop Rock, and Nobuo Uematsu, with shades of Röyksopp and our venerable RPG nostalgia. The sound is cinematic, existential, and driven by a hunger to be known.

Support the work through Patreon. Or just listen closely. The secrets are already in the songs.

Anthromancer

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