Battlefield ambience for D&D
A battle is almost entirely far away: a distant roar, steel every three seconds, and shouts close by. The recipe, and where the fight goes.
A battlefield is a distant-battle loop at 65% with five scheduled layers over it, and nearly all of them are far: steel every three seconds, horses, a catapult, a war horn. Only the shouts are nearby. That one near layer is what puts the party at the edge of the battle rather than in a recording of one.
What it sounds like
The mistake is to make the battlefield loud. A battle already at full volume has nowhere to go when the party's own fight starts, and every sound they make lands on top of a wall of noise and vanishes.
So this is a quiet recipe for a loud subject. Five of the six layers are pushed out — the clash of steel every three seconds is far, so it reads as a line of battle somewhere over there rather than a duel at the party's elbow. The only thing nearby is shouting, every twelve seconds, and that is the layer doing the real work: it means there are people close enough to shout at.
Everything in the middle of the mix is left empty, which is where the board goes. When somebody swings, it is the loudest thing on the field.
The recipe, dial by dial
This is the environment as it ships. Every layer is the same kind of thing — one sound from the library and a set of dials — so there is nothing special about which slot a sound sits in. The names are only names.
| Layer | Sound | How often | Wander | Volume | Distance | Reverb | Echo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battle | Distant battle | loop | — | 65% | close | off | off |
| Steel | Distant clash | every ~3.0 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
| Shouts | Distant shouts | every ~12 s | 70% | 50% | nearby | medium | 1 bounce |
| Horns | War horn | every ~60 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
| Siege | Catapult | every ~45 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
| Horses | Horse neigh | every ~30 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
Master volume 80%. Every number above is read out of the environment that ships in the app, and printed in the words the app prints beside each slider.
- Battle — The roar, 65%. An army you can hear and never see.
Distant battle - Steel — Every three seconds and far. The fastest layer here, and the one most often ruined by pulling it closer.
Distant clash - Shouts — Every twelve seconds, nearby — the only near layer in the environment, and the reason the party is standing in a battle rather than listening to one.
Distant shouts - Horns — A minute apart, far. Somebody out there is still giving orders.
War horn - Siege — A catapult every forty-five seconds. The sound that says this is a siege rather than a skirmish.
Catapult - Horses — Every thirty seconds, far. Cheap, and it widens the field more than anything else on the list.
Horse neigh
What each dial does is covered once, properly, in Environments & layers.
Boards to load with it
The environment is the place; boards are the things that happen in it. These three ship built in and suit this one:
Load them, then press + New scene and the environment and the boards come back together next week in one tap. Scenes covers that.
Make it yours
After the battle
Aftermath ships built in and is a better page-turn than fading this out: the roar is gone, and what is left is wind and the sounds people make when a fight has finished.
A siege, from the wall
Siege Camp and Battlements, Night are both built in. The useful trick is to run Battlements and push every layer far: the siege is happening to the wall they are standing on.
A skirmish, not a war
Turn off the roar, the horn and the catapult. Steel, shouts and horses is a fight between a dozen people in a field, which is what most encounters actually are.
None of this is destructive: the built-in environments cannot be overwritten. Change what you like, and press Save a copy as… when it sounds right.
The recordings
Every sound this environment uses, and who recorded it. Most of the library is public domain; the Creative Commons Attribution recordings are credited here because that is what the licence asks for. The full list is on Sounds & licensing.
- Distant battle — SwordBattle2.wav by freefire66 (CC0)
- Distant clash — Sword.wav by hello_flowers (CC0)
- Distant clash — Sword Clash.wav by Bird_man (CC0)
- Distant clash — Sword Clash by loudernoises (CC0)
- Distant clash — Sword Swings by SamsterBirdies (CC0)
- Distant clash — Sword block combo.wav by ethanchase7744 (CC0)
- Distant shouts — Hey - Men Shouting together - Jewish Wedding by khenshom (CC0)
- War horn — war horn.wav by adharca (CC0)
- War horn — Booga Booga War Horn Variant 4 by Palaniru (CC0)
- War horn — Booga Booga War Horn Variant 2 by Palaniru (CC0)
- War horn — Booga Booga War Horn Variant 3 by Palaniru (CC0)
- Catapult — catapult for tiny things.aif by batchku (CC0)
- Catapult — R01-03-Catapult Launch and Hit Target.wav by craigsmith (CC0)
- Horse neigh — horse neigh shortened.wav by shadoWisp (CC0)
- Horse neigh — Horse by poodaddy69 (CC0)
- Horse neigh — Renill de cavall / Horse Neigh by Salsero_classic (CC0)
Related
Open Battlefield in Thaumaturgy — it is free, there is nothing to install, and nothing to sign up for.
Updated 24 October 2026