If you are unfamiliar with it, Syrinscape is a sound design app that adds evocative ambient background sound and a movie-like soundtrack to your tabletop gaming experience. From ethereal forests and stony shorelines to dank vermin-filled dungeons and the spooky depths of the underdark.

And now they have landed a partnership with D&D. This along with the recently announced Call Of Cthulhu RPG soundtrack and their existing collaboration with Pathfinder RPG, not to mention their vast library of original soundtrack content, Syrinscape has taken the lead on making a fully immersive gaming experience.

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With the launch date for Paizo’s Starfinder Roleplaying Game approaching this summer, the company has revealed some additional detail regarding the products being released. Starfinder is a science-fantasy game based on the Pathfinder RPG, set in space, and compatible but stand-alone.

The initial slate of Starfinder releases scheduled for Gen Con will include a Core Rulebook ($60), GM Screen ($20), and Player Character Folio ($10). Also available at the same time will be the first part of a Starfinder Adventure Path, Incident at Absalom Station ($23), as well as the usual adventure path accessories, a pawn collection ($25) and flip mats ($15-20). The core rulebook runs 560 pages and includes several new races, seven classes (technomancer, mechanic, soldier, envoy, operative, mystic, and solarion), science-fantasy equipment, spells, and rules for starship construction and combat.

Following in September will be Starfinder Condition Cards ($13). In October will be Starfinder Alien Archive ($40) with rules for both creatures as adversaries and creatures as player-characters.

Paizo also has in the works a Starfinder organized play program. The Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild will be separate from but similar to the Pathfinder Society—the major difference being that Starfinder characters will be able to be members of more than one faction at a time, sort of like multi-classing.

To accommodate third-party products, Paizo has already published a Starfinder Compatibility License. It’s also licensed Syrinscape to produce official Starfinder sound-effects and is working with Ninja Division on Starfinder prepainted miniatures.

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A new partnership between Syrinscape and Green Ronin is giving gamers Mutants & Masterminds soundsets for the former’s Syrinscape Sci-Fi app. These aren’t just fixed tracks meant to be played on loop. Syrinscape’s players (available for PC, Mac, Android, and iOS) enable gamers to make live adjustments to the balance and intensity of sound elements, as well as to combine elements from different sets to fit the unique environments of their games.

Two M&M sets, Space Fight and Freedom City 2525, are available immediately for $4 each. These’ll allow gamemasters to mix and program the sounds of freeze rays, droids, sirens, force fields, and more. Additional soundsets are planned for release every month. (A sci-fi subscription covering all of them costs $6.50 a month.)

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Is for you the board-gaming experience coming up short as a sensory experience? Syrinscape has you covered with a newly released sound-effects player for board games. The base player comes with “ooh”, “aah”, rolling dice, and other sounds for adding drama, mocking opponents, and underscoring victories.

Like the company’s Fantasy and Sci-Fi players designed for roleplaying games, the Syrinscape Board Game Player provides much greater flexibility than just looping a prerecorded track. Users can set a selection of sound elements to play in a randomized pattern or mix them manually on-the-fly.

The Syrinscape Board Game Player is available for PCs (Windows and Mac), as well as Android and iOS mobile devices. Soundsets featuring individual sounds and preprogrammed environments for Chess, Casino, and Soduku are included. Additional soundsets are available at $10 each for Catan from Mayfair Games and Spellcaster and Spike from R&R Games. With the Catan set comes sounds for sheep, the knight and robber, sawing wood, a city marketplace, and more. The Spellcaster set includes unique sounds, in male and female sorcerer versions, for each of the games’ spells. The Spike set has a theme song and the sounds of trains and cargo.

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A new bundle of creepy soundsets is being offered by Syrinscape just in time for the holiday. The Halloween Survival SoundPack ($20, a 16 percent discount off the sets sold separately) includes:

• Abandoned Lunatic Asylum
• Deserted Desert House
• Mad Scientist’s Laboratory
• Zombie Apocalypse
• Quasi-Organic Vessel
• Swarm Attack

With Syrinscape’s interface, you can program and mix the sounds of zombies eating, victims screaming, flamethrowers, creaking doors, psychotics laughs, insect swarms, and dozens of other elements. Consider it for your special Halloween game night or even just as background to greet trick-or-treaters.

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I’m really glad I took that appointment with Syrinscape. To be honest, I had dismissed the company as just another producer of ambient-sound tracks. But Syrinscape is much more than that.

While other purveyors of background sounds for tabletop gaming offer fixed tracks meant to be played on loop, Syrinscape’s sounds are generated on the fly with tremendous customization potential. The company offers two players, one for fantasy settings and one for science fiction. The Syrinscape Fantasy Player so far includes about 30 sound sets, each with 5-15 sound elements. For example, the flooded cavern set includes “drip”, “toss a rock in”, “passing waterfall”, “distant wind”, “what was that?”, and ten other components.

With Syrinscape’s players, gamers are not only able to make live adjustments to the balance and intensity of sound elements, they can also combine elements from different sets to fit the unique environments of their games.

Players, which can be downloaded for free, come with two sound sets and run on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Additional sound sets can be purchased for $4 each. Another option is the subscription rate, which at $6.50 per month includes permanent access to all new releases, as well as the entire back catalog.

Syrinscape releases new sound sets about once a month. The company is also working with Paizo to release custom sound sets for the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, one for each chapter. Several of those are already available and new ones come out every other month.

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