Jelun Erlenrast, cleric of The Twilight

Basics

DnD 5E, the ring campaign, twilight cleric, level 5

Playlist

Modelled after the checklist in this blog post!

Song 1: Theme Song | Conversations with Ghosts - Bear's Den I think this song gets Jeluns flavor of thoughtfulness quite good. He's still quite stuck in the past, even though he doesn't quite realize that, because as far as he is concerned, he HAS moved on already. He might not have fully anticipated the part where moving on is not an one-time thing, but a process that keeps on happening. Because of that, it happens quite often that he relates current events to a few key experiences and makes decisions and gives advice influenced by that. That doesn't always work out, because Now is not Then and the situations are not the same.
Song 2: How he views himself | Some Kind of Ghoul - Joe Zempel & Bethany Conerly ... See, the problem is that for Jelun, it's so easy to find very tragic songs that fit him and finding positive or neutral songs is much harder. He does feel somewhat empty, though. And to a degree, possibly not even like he's doing things for his own sake, but instead to support other people and for a Greater Goal. Which is pretty ironic, given his thoughts on self-determination and control/manipulation. Also, "change for better or for worse" is just a very Jelun thing (change, both good and bad, is one ot the big themes of his deity).
Song 3: How he views the rest of the world | Illusion & Dream - Poets of the Fall This one is pretty much about how his worldview is shaped by his religious beliefs. His view on the world isn't quite as negative/critcal as in this song. It's more about how dishonesty (both to the self and others), obfuscation, manipulation are everywhere around them. That's not necessarily a bad thing per se, it's just important to notice and to question the concept of "truth" (and also of "good" and "evil"). Most of the time, there is not one single truth, but only a myriad of different perspectives and agendas and understandings. Things are grey, most of the time. Not black and white.
Song 4: Relationship with another character | Misguided Ghosts - Paramore This song is about him and his party member Prisma. They had a rough spot a while ago when Prisma had been cursed by a book. Prisma, both by virtue of being cursed and being PRISMA (she's a wizard if that helps) wanted to keep reading the book. Jelun wanted to keep her as far away from the book as possible. Prisma called him out on his hypocrisy: How could he value people's free will and right to make their own decisions so much, and still deny her the knowledge she craved? Well, because of the curse of course. But Jelun still felt quite shaken by that criticism. Especially because this situation made him relate to Prisma quite a bit, in slightly convulted ways. They're both misguided ghosts.
Song 5: What he wants | Neptune - Sleeping at Last Now, what DOES Jelun want? Does he want to talk about what's going on with him to his friends? After all, they have talked a lot (not always entirely voluntarily) about what is going on with them. And he's OVER it all after all! He's worked through it, he's done his healing, it shouldn't be hard to talk about, surely. But maybe he really doesn't know how. Or does he want to keep bottling everything up? Even when things happen that make his inner alarm sirens ring, even when it feels like things are repeating. He's used to his caretaker role as a cleric and just cannot quite envision being the one taken care of. Also, the others already have so many problems without him adding to the pile and really, it's just not very acute or urgent!
Song 6: What's important to him | This Is Gospel - Panic! At The Disco It's a religion-y song again. His devotion to The Twilight helped him quite a bit to get back on track and his aim is to aid others through his devotion as well. He wants to give people space to breathe, to reflect, to rest for a bit, hidden from the harsh light of day and reality by the gentle blanket of twilight. He wants to help the downtrodden, the people seeking sanctuary and stability - by enabling them to help themselves.
Song 7: What he hates | Body - Mother Mother Well ... my dude has some body issues. They have a certain root cause, but when you spend enough time wanting to hide your physical shape away and please, no one look at me. Feeling uncomfortable in your skin. That just kinda carried over into a general aversion to his body.
Song 8: Ass-Kicking Song | Hollow - Cloudeater Mostly, it's just the most ass-kicky song on his playlist sound-wise. With the beat and the kinda choppy delivery of the vocals and all! Could coordinate a fight scene to this. Otherwise, yknow. "So don't lead, I won't follow". "I won't get entranced, I will be changing soon". That's him.
Song 9: An event in his life | Funeral Bell - PHILDEL ... I think my lips might be sealed for this one atm. Don't want to give too much away about things that have not yet come up ingame ;)
Song 10: "Origin" Song | bury a friend - Billie Eilish Similar problem as above. But honestly, for this one it's more vibes-based than any literal match between this song and Jelun's backstory. It's more that the slightly unhinged, hectic and unsettling atmosphere of this song fits quite well with how I imagined parts of Jeluns backstory to feel right from the start. So, the origin of his origin :D
Song 11: End Credit Song | Twilight - ONEUS He's a twilight cleric. The song is called twilight. Need I say more? And also, the lyrics have some solid Jelun vibes as well - probably because they are using the process of a setting sun and the ensuing twilight as a metaphor, HAH.
Song 12: BONUS SONG | back around - halfalive ... We're not there yet. Well, we were there already, once. But we might need to ... come back around to it. This song grappled me out of nowhere and proclaimed that it was now a Jelun song, maybe even THE Jelun song. That was at a point where Jeluns sirens were once again shrieking thanks to some external stressors and just felt like a nice place to strive for. I like how this song is ... kind of desperately optimistic? It recognizes that rock bottom has been reached, but then concludes that this means that it's time to get to work and claw your way back to the top. And, you know, the overall theme of cyclicality is just very very Jelun.