Welcome everyone, both dead and deader, to this second issue of the Herald of the Dead!
This will be a surface-level summary of last month's streams for those who cannot take the time to watch them in their entirety.
The summary
This was a busy month! The real quick overview is this: We started this month with a guest appearance of @George Ledoux , voice over producer and voice actor for some of the big names in the Deadhaus Lore, and @Denis Dyack , the big man himself! The next stream was the big reveal regarding the Octahedron with lore enthusiast @Varik Keldun appearing to ask many questions of @Denis Dyack ! The third stream this month was taking it a bit easier, a community stream with the appearance of @Rx_Bishop_MD and myself to take the pulse of the community. We found nothing of course. The last stream of the month was a great one! We saw the in-game model revealed of none other than Baron Aoric. Oh, and Lord Zorin was there too, I guess.
The Dead Speak
The first stream of the month featured the double appearance of @George Ledoux and @Denis Dyack , but the main star of the stream was most definitely George! George gave us a small part of his life in the first part of the stream, before answering questions from the audience and telling some stories about his career as a voice actor in the second part of the stream!
George told us that he started voice acting when he was really just a kid, when his brother came back from service and gifted him with a reel to reel recording. He told stories to entertain himself, and recorded himself doing the voices. Fast forward to somewhere in the '90's, and he was good friends with a writer who was also a friend of the TMNT creators, who recommended that he should do voice acting.
He took his first steps towards becoming a VA by sending out many demo reels to basically everyone, whereupon he got a job about six months later, at a local game studio. He did the voice of a royal advisor in that game, and has since been doing various voices which you can find on his site. He has done the voice for the royal advisor in the Majesty games, and that voice has set an example for all royal advisors in fantasy games since.
George didn't really think about it anymore since then, until the internet reminded him of it, with many pointing that "He's that guy from my childhood!", which was a weird revelation for him. Seeing that he has made such an impact, he has said to himself that he should be more careful about what he does.
About working in the voice acting industry, George has said that it is mostly (90-95%) looking for work and only a little bit actual voice acting. As advice, George mentioned that working really hard is a requirement, as well as not giving up and keeping on doing good work. Being a good person helps you keep what work you get, which is also a nice benefit.
One thing he cautions everyone to keep in m,ind is that voice acting is an acting job, the voice actor can be very different from the characters they portray. He himself sometimes can't believe that he was the one who portrayed some of the characters.
George also analyzed the voice acting industry and what jobs are the best paying and what ones are the most fun. He said that the big commercial jobs are the best paying jobs in the industry, and also one of the ones that are the hardest to actually get the job, because of that fact. He himself enjoys video game jobs, as they allow a voice actor to get to play a character (though at times it is a bit difficult, with the many, many death sounds you have to make).
In working with Apocalypse, George summed up his creative process like this: Denis and the team give ideas of what they want it all to sound like, which George then gives a voice for, mostly by searching through his giant archive of voices. His job as the Voice Over Producer means that he knows exactly who did what voice as well (well, mostly)! Mostly because he directs each one personally, making sure that they don't have to deal with being uncertain of what the director wants, which he stated he rather disliked.
He searches for the voice actors by looking through his voice library, where he has a lot of different voice actors' demo reels saved. He then tries to figure out who that voice belongs to, since he has mentioned that it is quite difficult to remember who did what, though he says that his memory is better than he expects it to be. After that, he sends out invitations to those voice actors who he feels would be good fits, and the auditions he gets back, he edits them and presents them to Denis and Jack to see if it fits with what they had in mind.
George also gave credit to which characters have been voiced by what voice actors. He himself voiced Ngaztak, the King of Deadhaus, and Alaric, the main narrator from the first season of the Chronicles. Other characters that appeared were the Other Scholar from "Of Banshees I", who was voiced by Matt Curtis. The narration in Memento Mori was done by Chris Sharpes, if you still remember that trailer. The guards in "Of Wraiths I" were voiced by Andy Mack and Michael McCarroll. The Knight Captain Harwin from "Of Revenants I" was voiced by Trendane Sparks.
The great announcement made in this stream is in the Final Announcements section below!
The Octahedron Dismantled
The second stream of the month was the big Octahedron stream, with as guests @Varik Keldun and @Denis Dyack . Varik is known for having his many theories regarding the lore, quite a few of them featuring the octahedron, and Denis is Denis, I don't think I need to explain why he is there, do I?
I will have to say at the start of this segment that I will be generalizing a lot. It is just too intricate an explanation to really do justice in text, and I highly suggest that you watch the stream yourself.
The stream started with Denis explaining exactly how he sees game design, to explain exactly what the thought process behind making the Octahedron so important was. With the Octahedron as a solid core and base to work from, it could be made relatively easy to understand, and from there, to expand upon it.
The core that the Octahedron is, is based upon a rock-paper-scissors style gameplay system. This is made easier because three is a good number for balancing things, and with three states in the trinary archetype system, there is an easy and intuitive balance on one facet of the octahedron already.
It is also a scream to the game development community, one that says "We can do better, we can do different." Don't be afraid of change and don't be afraid of experimenting. One example mentioned is Cthulhu Wars, which is completely asymmetrical, and yet completely balanced within the system. (And fun to play as well.)
Now onto the Octahedron itself. The octahedron was revealed when Varik Keldun decided to analyze the poems in the Necroliberatas, and finding that there was a very important shape mentioned there. The Octahedron was revealed far before Denis thought it would be revealed, and he was quite shocked at how much was figured out just from the scraps that are in the Necroliberatas.
Because it was figured out so quickly, it was decided that 'eventually' there woudl be a stream dedicated to telling us in the community how the Octahedron functioned in the world. That 'eventually' became now, with this stream.
The first point on the Octahedron is at the very top, the Physical point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus, and one of the first three known to us. The second is along the square plane in the center of the Octahedron, the Magickal point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus. The last and final point known to us is along the same plane as the Magickal point, it is the Essential point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus. Varik Keldun has made two pictures explaining exactly where they are. The first is on a 2d representation of the Octahedron, and the second is on a facet sheet of the Octahedron.
The Octahedron with the known points and the unknown points.
The Octahedron Facet Sheet, speculative points removed by me.
All the 'elements' or pools on the octahedron correspond with one of the six elder gods that are locked in eternal battle, as spoken by the Necroliberatas. Across different dimensions, this might be different, but in Malorum, this is an absolute truth. As far as we know, anyway.
This also means that the multiple hauses correspond each with a facet of the Octahedron. The Ninth Haus was confirmed in the Community Scream to be represented by the square face, so there is a possibility for up to nine classes in that haus.
We don't know what the other points of the Octahedron signify, and we probably won't know for a while until the next Haus comes along, since Denis fears that if we have but one more point to base something on, we might figure out the rest of the points on the octahedron. Denis likened it to a math equation, and if we know how the first of the last three variables, we might know how they interact with the rest of the known points.
After that, the stream turned to questions, and we got confirmation of several questions regarding the pantheon (there are other gods, and there is a hierarchy within the pantheon, some gods do have blessings they can cast), ascension along the pantheon (secret, difficult, possible, "The runes of power alow ascension"), the history of Malorum (it will go across a long time, Malazan, book of the fallen, type length), spells (proto-indo-european singing (PIE Singing)), and wight parts (animal parts are available).
Taking the pulse (and finding none)
The third stream of this month did not bring much new information. It was a stream in which @Rx_Bishop_MD and me were guests, and we found talked about the community, and the new way of handling afterparties. We also read aloud a few of the World Anvil submissions, with voice acting done for one of the pieces.
In general, this stream was more of a winding down stream than a stream that really provided a lot of information. What we did do, was explain how the new Community Scream works, during the new afterparty format. More on that will be in the final Announcements section though.
Lord Zorin in the Flesh
The big stream of the month! The last stream of the month, as always, featured the reveal of a new art piece to gawk at, and this time, it was another in game model! You heard it right, the model you all saw in the spoiler at the top of the page, is the in game model, not for cinematics, but for actual gameplay. This is the model you walk up to if you want to speak to Lord Zorin. If you are of high enough rank to deserve his attention, of course.
The stream started by showing some of the older vampire concept art, mainly their homes, that can be seen in this Red Lady collection on Artstation. These all set the tone for what Vampire society is like before culminating in the grand visage of the shrine to the vampire figure of worship, the first vampire, the Red Lady herself.
The Red Lady is the first vampire and the one that all vampires pay tribute to. What we know about her lore is found in the Media section, as a discription for the Red Lady art piece.
The stream focused on the Zorin concept art after that, featuring Zorin in the various poses that they went through before eventually choosing the current Zorin pose. However, the in game model does draw from the various other poses that were proposed, most tellingly, it draws from the more regal and royal poses from Zorin.
This is the final concept art of Lord Zorin, and where the in game model draws most heavily from. The fact that Deadhaus is where Denis would have taken then Legacy of Kain series if he had been allowed to work on any tame after the first is showing more, and shows in the final in game model.
This is the final in game model for Lord Zorin. This is not him in action as you can see in the concept art, but this is Zorin as he is after just eating, you can see the remains of his last meal dripping out of his mouth.
The details all over this model are unbelievable. There are the many fine details in the face, the hair and the eyes, which all show an ancient monster that disguises itself as a human at times, but just a clearly isn't. The mouth shows very clearly that it is not just a human with slightly distorted features and some longer canines.
The armour isn't left without details either, it is very intricate, with many scratches and clear seperation in the pieces that make up the many different spikes. @Meta posited that maybe it is in so many segments to allow for shapeshifting. The many spikes on the armour were also noted by the stream hosts, and they said that it was to maybe protect against beheadings, which in a lot of vampiric folklore serves as one of the steps in order to put a vampire to rest permanently.
One further detail that was noted was the fact that Zorin's right arm was unarmoured, which they said might have to do with magic, since in some media, armour interferes with the ability to cast spells. Another thing that is a possible reason, is that Zorin might fight using his left arm as his sword arm. Since his right arm wouldn't be forward as much, if he was lefthanded, it would make sense to leave it unarmoured if that gives him a benefit.
Zorin's belt was also shown, with all the extra baubles he hangs on his belts.
One of those baubles just happens to be the animated head of Baron Aoric, a baron who got on Zorin's bad side while alive. Zorin cut off his head and animated it, and Baron Aoric has been a pain to everyone since then.
Final announcements
The first of the final announcements is that, since the first season of the chronicles of Alaric is over now, George wanted to do something. That something is a community voice acted interlude. You can audition if you meet these requirements. The auditions are still open.
The second announcement is that the poll to name the next tarot card has ended in a landslide victory for Exsanguinate. The poll can be found here if you want to check the results.
The Community Scream is the third announcement. Now that it has been mentioned in the streams, a quick summary of the new format: After the stream ends but before the hosts join, it is time to ask the general questions and to reflect a bit on the stream. When the hosts join the Community Scream, questions about the stream itself can be asked and will be answered if the hosts know the answer and can tell the answer. And sometimes, just sometimes, we can have a nice surprise, such as Denis dropping by, which happened in the last Community Scream of this month!
The fourth announcement this month is a different one:
"We value our community and at all times we want to be as transparent as possible. Denis announced this month that our projected release date has been pushed to next year. Our team is working hard to make Deadhaus Sonata the best it can be. We thank all of you for continuing on this journey with us and for your support."
Don't forget to follow Deadhaus Sonata on all the social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If this edition of the Herald has sparked your interest, you can always watch the video of the streams on the Deadhaus Youtube, and catch the next stream over on Twitch. If you want to talk to the community outside of the streams and forums, there is always the Discord.
This will be a surface-level summary of last month's streams for those who cannot take the time to watch them in their entirety.
The summary
This was a busy month! The real quick overview is this: We started this month with a guest appearance of @George Ledoux , voice over producer and voice actor for some of the big names in the Deadhaus Lore, and @Denis Dyack , the big man himself! The next stream was the big reveal regarding the Octahedron with lore enthusiast @Varik Keldun appearing to ask many questions of @Denis Dyack ! The third stream this month was taking it a bit easier, a community stream with the appearance of @Rx_Bishop_MD and myself to take the pulse of the community. We found nothing of course. The last stream of the month was a great one! We saw the in-game model revealed of none other than Baron Aoric. Oh, and Lord Zorin was there too, I guess.
The Dead Speak
The first stream of the month featured the double appearance of @George Ledoux and @Denis Dyack , but the main star of the stream was most definitely George! George gave us a small part of his life in the first part of the stream, before answering questions from the audience and telling some stories about his career as a voice actor in the second part of the stream!
George told us that he started voice acting when he was really just a kid, when his brother came back from service and gifted him with a reel to reel recording. He told stories to entertain himself, and recorded himself doing the voices. Fast forward to somewhere in the '90's, and he was good friends with a writer who was also a friend of the TMNT creators, who recommended that he should do voice acting.
He took his first steps towards becoming a VA by sending out many demo reels to basically everyone, whereupon he got a job about six months later, at a local game studio. He did the voice of a royal advisor in that game, and has since been doing various voices which you can find on his site. He has done the voice for the royal advisor in the Majesty games, and that voice has set an example for all royal advisors in fantasy games since.
George didn't really think about it anymore since then, until the internet reminded him of it, with many pointing that "He's that guy from my childhood!", which was a weird revelation for him. Seeing that he has made such an impact, he has said to himself that he should be more careful about what he does.
About working in the voice acting industry, George has said that it is mostly (90-95%) looking for work and only a little bit actual voice acting. As advice, George mentioned that working really hard is a requirement, as well as not giving up and keeping on doing good work. Being a good person helps you keep what work you get, which is also a nice benefit.
One thing he cautions everyone to keep in m,ind is that voice acting is an acting job, the voice actor can be very different from the characters they portray. He himself sometimes can't believe that he was the one who portrayed some of the characters.
George also analyzed the voice acting industry and what jobs are the best paying and what ones are the most fun. He said that the big commercial jobs are the best paying jobs in the industry, and also one of the ones that are the hardest to actually get the job, because of that fact. He himself enjoys video game jobs, as they allow a voice actor to get to play a character (though at times it is a bit difficult, with the many, many death sounds you have to make).
In working with Apocalypse, George summed up his creative process like this: Denis and the team give ideas of what they want it all to sound like, which George then gives a voice for, mostly by searching through his giant archive of voices. His job as the Voice Over Producer means that he knows exactly who did what voice as well (well, mostly)! Mostly because he directs each one personally, making sure that they don't have to deal with being uncertain of what the director wants, which he stated he rather disliked.
He searches for the voice actors by looking through his voice library, where he has a lot of different voice actors' demo reels saved. He then tries to figure out who that voice belongs to, since he has mentioned that it is quite difficult to remember who did what, though he says that his memory is better than he expects it to be. After that, he sends out invitations to those voice actors who he feels would be good fits, and the auditions he gets back, he edits them and presents them to Denis and Jack to see if it fits with what they had in mind.
George also gave credit to which characters have been voiced by what voice actors. He himself voiced Ngaztak, the King of Deadhaus, and Alaric, the main narrator from the first season of the Chronicles. Other characters that appeared were the Other Scholar from "Of Banshees I", who was voiced by Matt Curtis. The narration in Memento Mori was done by Chris Sharpes, if you still remember that trailer. The guards in "Of Wraiths I" were voiced by Andy Mack and Michael McCarroll. The Knight Captain Harwin from "Of Revenants I" was voiced by Trendane Sparks.
The great announcement made in this stream is in the Final Announcements section below!
The Octahedron Dismantled
The second stream of the month was the big Octahedron stream, with as guests @Varik Keldun and @Denis Dyack . Varik is known for having his many theories regarding the lore, quite a few of them featuring the octahedron, and Denis is Denis, I don't think I need to explain why he is there, do I?
I will have to say at the start of this segment that I will be generalizing a lot. It is just too intricate an explanation to really do justice in text, and I highly suggest that you watch the stream yourself.
The stream started with Denis explaining exactly how he sees game design, to explain exactly what the thought process behind making the Octahedron so important was. With the Octahedron as a solid core and base to work from, it could be made relatively easy to understand, and from there, to expand upon it.
The core that the Octahedron is, is based upon a rock-paper-scissors style gameplay system. This is made easier because three is a good number for balancing things, and with three states in the trinary archetype system, there is an easy and intuitive balance on one facet of the octahedron already.
It is also a scream to the game development community, one that says "We can do better, we can do different." Don't be afraid of change and don't be afraid of experimenting. One example mentioned is Cthulhu Wars, which is completely asymmetrical, and yet completely balanced within the system. (And fun to play as well.)
Now onto the Octahedron itself. The octahedron was revealed when Varik Keldun decided to analyze the poems in the Necroliberatas, and finding that there was a very important shape mentioned there. The Octahedron was revealed far before Denis thought it would be revealed, and he was quite shocked at how much was figured out just from the scraps that are in the Necroliberatas.
Because it was figured out so quickly, it was decided that 'eventually' there woudl be a stream dedicated to telling us in the community how the Octahedron functioned in the world. That 'eventually' became now, with this stream.
The first point on the Octahedron is at the very top, the Physical point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus, and one of the first three known to us. The second is along the square plane in the center of the Octahedron, the Magickal point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus. The last and final point known to us is along the same plane as the Magickal point, it is the Essential point on the Trinary system for Deadhaus. Varik Keldun has made two pictures explaining exactly where they are. The first is on a 2d representation of the Octahedron, and the second is on a facet sheet of the Octahedron.
The Octahedron with the known points and the unknown points.
The Octahedron Facet Sheet, speculative points removed by me.
All the 'elements' or pools on the octahedron correspond with one of the six elder gods that are locked in eternal battle, as spoken by the Necroliberatas. Across different dimensions, this might be different, but in Malorum, this is an absolute truth. As far as we know, anyway.
This also means that the multiple hauses correspond each with a facet of the Octahedron. The Ninth Haus was confirmed in the Community Scream to be represented by the square face, so there is a possibility for up to nine classes in that haus.
We don't know what the other points of the Octahedron signify, and we probably won't know for a while until the next Haus comes along, since Denis fears that if we have but one more point to base something on, we might figure out the rest of the points on the octahedron. Denis likened it to a math equation, and if we know how the first of the last three variables, we might know how they interact with the rest of the known points.
After that, the stream turned to questions, and we got confirmation of several questions regarding the pantheon (there are other gods, and there is a hierarchy within the pantheon, some gods do have blessings they can cast), ascension along the pantheon (secret, difficult, possible, "The runes of power alow ascension"), the history of Malorum (it will go across a long time, Malazan, book of the fallen, type length), spells (proto-indo-european singing (PIE Singing)), and wight parts (animal parts are available).
Taking the pulse (and finding none)
The third stream of this month did not bring much new information. It was a stream in which @Rx_Bishop_MD and me were guests, and we found talked about the community, and the new way of handling afterparties. We also read aloud a few of the World Anvil submissions, with voice acting done for one of the pieces.
In general, this stream was more of a winding down stream than a stream that really provided a lot of information. What we did do, was explain how the new Community Scream works, during the new afterparty format. More on that will be in the final Announcements section though.
Lord Zorin in the Flesh
The big stream of the month! The last stream of the month, as always, featured the reveal of a new art piece to gawk at, and this time, it was another in game model! You heard it right, the model you all saw in the spoiler at the top of the page, is the in game model, not for cinematics, but for actual gameplay. This is the model you walk up to if you want to speak to Lord Zorin. If you are of high enough rank to deserve his attention, of course.
The stream started by showing some of the older vampire concept art, mainly their homes, that can be seen in this Red Lady collection on Artstation. These all set the tone for what Vampire society is like before culminating in the grand visage of the shrine to the vampire figure of worship, the first vampire, the Red Lady herself.
The Red Lady is the first vampire and the one that all vampires pay tribute to. What we know about her lore is found in the Media section, as a discription for the Red Lady art piece.
The stream focused on the Zorin concept art after that, featuring Zorin in the various poses that they went through before eventually choosing the current Zorin pose. However, the in game model does draw from the various other poses that were proposed, most tellingly, it draws from the more regal and royal poses from Zorin.
This is the final concept art of Lord Zorin, and where the in game model draws most heavily from. The fact that Deadhaus is where Denis would have taken then Legacy of Kain series if he had been allowed to work on any tame after the first is showing more, and shows in the final in game model.
This is the final in game model for Lord Zorin. This is not him in action as you can see in the concept art, but this is Zorin as he is after just eating, you can see the remains of his last meal dripping out of his mouth.
The details all over this model are unbelievable. There are the many fine details in the face, the hair and the eyes, which all show an ancient monster that disguises itself as a human at times, but just a clearly isn't. The mouth shows very clearly that it is not just a human with slightly distorted features and some longer canines.
The armour isn't left without details either, it is very intricate, with many scratches and clear seperation in the pieces that make up the many different spikes. @Meta posited that maybe it is in so many segments to allow for shapeshifting. The many spikes on the armour were also noted by the stream hosts, and they said that it was to maybe protect against beheadings, which in a lot of vampiric folklore serves as one of the steps in order to put a vampire to rest permanently.
One further detail that was noted was the fact that Zorin's right arm was unarmoured, which they said might have to do with magic, since in some media, armour interferes with the ability to cast spells. Another thing that is a possible reason, is that Zorin might fight using his left arm as his sword arm. Since his right arm wouldn't be forward as much, if he was lefthanded, it would make sense to leave it unarmoured if that gives him a benefit.
Zorin's belt was also shown, with all the extra baubles he hangs on his belts.
One of those baubles just happens to be the animated head of Baron Aoric, a baron who got on Zorin's bad side while alive. Zorin cut off his head and animated it, and Baron Aoric has been a pain to everyone since then.
Final announcements
The first of the final announcements is that, since the first season of the chronicles of Alaric is over now, George wanted to do something. That something is a community voice acted interlude. You can audition if you meet these requirements. The auditions are still open.
The second announcement is that the poll to name the next tarot card has ended in a landslide victory for Exsanguinate. The poll can be found here if you want to check the results.
The Community Scream is the third announcement. Now that it has been mentioned in the streams, a quick summary of the new format: After the stream ends but before the hosts join, it is time to ask the general questions and to reflect a bit on the stream. When the hosts join the Community Scream, questions about the stream itself can be asked and will be answered if the hosts know the answer and can tell the answer. And sometimes, just sometimes, we can have a nice surprise, such as Denis dropping by, which happened in the last Community Scream of this month!
The fourth announcement this month is a different one:
"We value our community and at all times we want to be as transparent as possible. Denis announced this month that our projected release date has been pushed to next year. Our team is working hard to make Deadhaus Sonata the best it can be. We thank all of you for continuing on this journey with us and for your support."
Don't forget to follow Deadhaus Sonata on all the social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If this edition of the Herald has sparked your interest, you can always watch the video of the streams on the Deadhaus Youtube, and catch the next stream over on Twitch. If you want to talk to the community outside of the streams and forums, there is always the Discord.
