THE BESTIARY AND OCCULT SIDE OF HARK!

Thirty new cards lead beyond the courts and settled lands of Hark! into a world of strange creatures, shattered realms, ritual objects and half-understood magic.

Hurdy-Gurdy and drones give Curses & Beasts its central sonic identity. Lute, Psaltery and other plucked strings bring brittle detail and uneasy movement, while Woodwinds, Choir, Rebec and Bowed Strings introduce lamenting melodies, spectral voices and rough organic textures. Some sounds whisper at the edge of a piece. Others arrive with teeth.

• 30 new presets
• 30 unique, illustrated cards
• Bestiary, occult and ritual themes
• Hurdy-Gurdy and evolving drones
• Lute, Psaltery and other plucked strings
• Woodwinds, Recorder, Rebec and Bowed Strings
• Choirs, ambient voices and transformed vocal textures
  
• Three Legendary cards with holographic foil treatments
• Full access to Hark!’s granular and performance systems
• Installs directly through the Hark! pack browser
• Compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux
• Requires Hark!

Curses & Beasts explores the darker reaches of Hark!’s richly detailed fantasy world.

Its cards tell of horned creatures, sorcerers, cursed stables, broken kingdoms, ritual stones and beasts glimpsed beyond the edge of the known map. Each carries its own sound, illustration, title, rarity and fragment of lore. The collection moves between ominous drones, playable medieval instruments, restless plucked figures, spectral choirs and strange atmospheres. It is dark in character without being limited to background texture.

HURDY-GURDY AND DRONES AND AMBIENCE

Its grain, friction and natural movement become sustained drones, rough melodic instruments and slowly changing textures. Ensemble mode layers subtly detuned and offset voices, allowing held notes to move without settling into an obvious repeating loop. Slow Drift Freeze can suspend the source in an evolving cloud. Reverse and Randomise reveal new gestures within it. Storm, Tape FX, Delay and Reverb move the sound into distant chambers, gathering weather and worn, unfamiliar spaces.

PLUCKED STRINGS WITH UNEASY MOVEMENT

Lute and Psaltery bring a more immediate, tactile character to the expansion. Play them directly for brittle melodies and sparse folk figures, or reshape them into reversed fragments, broken rhythms and repeating patterns. Three arpeggiating presets introduce movement, from prowling figures to rapid passages that feel as though they are gathering momentum. Chord Lock places complex harmony beneath a single key. The Arpeggiator then opens it into patterns shaped by strum, swing, humanise, rubato and roll.

The result can feel measured and ritualistic, loose and hand-played, or increasingly unstable.

VOICES, WINDS AND BOWED CURSES

Choir, Woodwinds, Recorder, Rebec and Bowed Strings bring contrast to the darker drones and plucked instruments. Choirs can remain clear and mournful or dissolve into spectral atmosphere. Winds offer exposed, solitary melodies and distant calls. Rebec and Bowed Strings add roughness, tension and a more physical sense of movement. Together, they give Curses & Beasts enough range for melody, harmony, rhythm and atmosphere within the same expansion.

THREE LEGENDARY DISCOVERIES

The Curses & Beasts set contains cards across Common, Uncommon, Rare and Legendary tiers. Three Legendary cards lie within the expansion, each carrying a shifting holographic foil treatment inside Hark!’s interface.

Every copy contains the same complete 30-card collection. There are no randomised contents or blind digital purchases.

Load a card and its artwork, sound and fragment of lore appear together. Change the card and another creature, object or corner of the world emerges.

MADE FOR

• Dark folk and neofolk
• Dungeon synth
• Folk horror
• Medieval and fantasy composition
• Narrative and game scoring
• Ambient and experimental sound design
• Organic drones and evolving textures
• Unusual plucked, bowed and vocal sounds

INSTALLATION

Curses & Beasts expansion requires Hark!

Open the pack browser inside Hark!, choose Import Pack and select the downloaded expansion file. The same pack file works with supported Mac, Windows and Linux installations. All 30 presets and cards will then appear inside the instrument.

LICENCE

• Requires a licensed installation of Hark!
• Perpetual licence with no subscription
• Royalty-free use worldwide
• Sounds cannot be resold as sounds
• Sounds cannot be used to train generative audio models