Radiant Hearts Academy came from a collaboration with Suann, also known as The Geekstress, who joined my Storytellers tier on Patreon with a Pathfinder 2e adventure: a high-magic academy where danger and friendship end up being closely related.
The Storytellers tier is designed for exactly this kind of project — someone brings a world, I write music for it, and the result goes into both their campaign and my general library. Radiant Hearts Academy is one of the fuller projects from that series: eight tracks with a range of moods and situations, from intimate and sad to upbeat and magical.
The biggest decision for this album was bringing in live string players. I worked with real musicians through Musiversal, and that choice shaped everything. Virtual strings can be very convincing on their own, but live performances carry a quality that’s hard to replicate — small imperfections, real breath, the sense that a person is playing rather than a sample. For a story built around memory and the weight of relationships, that texture mattered more than technical polish.
The tracks reflect the emotional range of the setting. “A Life Long Past” is slow and delicate — more about memory and loss than anything active. “The Inkmage” sits at the other end: upbeat, restless, the kind of thing that fits a character working hard at something they love. In between there are pieces for tense discovery, arcane study, peaceful exploration, and the kind of triumphant feeling that comes from having earned something.