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So I was watching the stream today and I noticed a certain dialogue option in the Gilded Vale Inn. Hmmm...

 

ZufXReK.pngFor those of you who aren't deeply into Black Isle lore The Black Hound was a Forgotten Realms DnD game that Josh Sawyer was the lead on before it was cancelled. He wrote about it here: http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2012/09/the-black-hound-what-its-deal-was.html

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Inside the Black Hound Inn, they included a nice touch with a stained glass window with the concepted box art for The Black Hound.

 

 

cover6.jpg

 

Jefferson Lives!

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"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

"P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle

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  • 1 month later...

*summons Ramza*

 

"JEFFERSON"

 

Who dares call my name?

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"Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!" -Minsc

"I am a well-known racist in the Realms! Elves? Dwarves? Ha! Kill'em all! Humans rule! -Me

 

Volourn will never grow up, he's like the Black Peter Pan, here to tell you that it might be great to always be a child, but everybody around is gonna hate it. :p
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*summons Ramza*

"JEFFERSON"

 

 

Who dares call my name?

Dang. It worked! Do I get three wishes?

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"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

"P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle

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*summons Ramza*

"JEFFERSON"

 

Who dares call my name?

Dang. It worked! Do I get three wishes?

 

 

Nope, you get 3 curses instead :)

"Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!" -Minsc

"I am a well-known racist in the Realms! Elves? Dwarves? Ha! Kill'em all! Humans rule! -Me

 

Volourn will never grow up, he's like the Black Peter Pan, here to tell you that it might be great to always be a child, but everybody around is gonna hate it. :p
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Inside the Black Hound Inn, they included a nice touch with a stained glass window with the concepted box art for The Black Hound.

 

 

cover6.jpg

 

Jefferson Lives!

This was so sweet, it hurt, Leferd.  rat bastard!  For a while, I had some of the screenshots BIS posted on my computer.  I went to look for them the other day and I couldn't find them.

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Fionavar's Holliday Wishes to all members of our online community:  Happy Holidays

 

Join the revelry at the Obsidian Plays channel:
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Remembering tarna, Phosphor, Metadigital, and Visceris.  Drink mead heartily in the halls of Valhalla, my friends!

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I must have some archives on the Black Hound project somewhere in one of my USB keys if you are interested. There was only one screenshot though. All the rest was concept art, which you can find on Vance Kovacs' website.

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"Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!" -Minsc

"I am a well-known racist in the Realms! Elves? Dwarves? Ha! Kill'em all! Humans rule! -Me

 

Volourn will never grow up, he's like the Black Peter Pan, here to tell you that it might be great to always be a child, but everybody around is gonna hate it. :p
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I thought there were more. I seem to recall a graveyard with some large sepulcher and... skeletons? I dunno. It's hard to look at old Black Hound stuff because I really thought the ideas behind the game were great and then I want to see it made, which is now impossible. The idea that the PC wasn't some great hero or there to save the world, but just happened to witness something that marked him and he spends the rest of the game trying to deal with this situation that came at him completely out of the blue. No preconceived notions about him being heroic or evil. No save the world chosen one story line. Just this guy and a highly personal problem that, if I recall correctly, started to become larger than just *his* problem. I *want* that story, and we're never going to get it the way it was set up for BG3. So it's just self inflicted torture to keep following it. It's like watching the food channel show a great recipe for your favorite dish only to realize you're having peanut butter sandwiches on stale bread for dinner that night.

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Fionavar's Holliday Wishes to all members of our online community:  Happy Holidays

 

Join the revelry at the Obsidian Plays channel:
Obsidian Plays


 
Remembering tarna, Phosphor, Metadigital, and Visceris.  Drink mead heartily in the halls of Valhalla, my friends!

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Oh so it is.  :facepalm:  I wonder if it was a backer designed inn or if it's the devs themselves nodding towards their old project.

 

The story behind the Black Hound Inn is a little strange. It was designated to be a backer inn. During production we informed the inn backers to fill out their design ideas and get them back to us. Several producers followed up with these backers. It generally took several weeks, sometimes longer, to get all the designs back in. I personally called a few of them myself to try to expedite the process. 

 

We had a mysterious backer that never got back to us. Email, phone calls, nothing. At one point I left the backer my personal cell phone and urged him to get back to us as time was running out. Still nothing. We were a little baffled and hoped everything was ok with this backer but ultimately had to move on.

 

At that point we already had a basic blockout for the inn located in Gilded Vale. Without spoiling anything, we kind of worked the real life situation into some lore about the inn, but it still needed a name. Olivia Veras, the designer for Gilded Vale,  came to Josh and I saying some of the designers wanted to call the inn the Black Hound. I liked the idea and so did Josh. Not sure who's idea it was for the stained glass art (probably Josh), but it looks great in game.

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Oh so it is.  :facepalm:  I wonder if it was a backer designed inn or if it's the devs themselves nodding towards their old project.

 

The story behind the Black Hound Inn is a little strange. It was designated to be a backer inn. During production we informed the inn backers to fill out their design ideas and get them back to us. Several producers followed up with these backers. It generally took several weeks, sometimes longer, to get all the designs back in. I personally called a few of them myself to try to expedite the process. 

 

We had a mysterious backer that never got back to us. Email, phone calls, nothing. At one point I left the backer my personal cell phone and urged him to get back to us as time was running out. Still nothing. We were a little baffled and hoped everything was ok with this backer but ultimately had to move on.

 

At that point we already had a basic blockout for the inn located in Gilded Vale. Without spoiling anything, we kind of worked the real life situation into some lore about the inn, but it still needed a name. Olivia Veras, the designer for Gilded Vale,  came to Josh and I saying some of the designers wanted to call the inn the Black Hound. I liked the idea and so did Josh. Not sure who's idea it was for the stained glass art (probably Josh), but it looks great in game.

 

The guy who didn't finish the item design is still alivew00t.gif

I think I can finish it within 1 month, for the expansion. Don't abandon me~

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Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, She got the Mercedes Benz

She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

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The idea that the PC wasn't some great hero or there to save the world, but just happened to witness something that marked him and he spends the rest of the game trying to deal with this situation that came at him completely out of the blue. No preconceived notions about him being heroic or evil. No save the world chosen one story line. Just this guy and a highly personal problem that, if I recall correctly, started to become larger than just *his* problem. I *want* that story, and we're never going to get it the way it was set up for BG3.

It's funny you describe the premise of BG3 like that, because from the Pillars Wiki:

 

The player witnesses an extraordinary and horrific supernatural event that thrusts them into a unique and difficult circumstance. Burdened with the consequences of this event, the player has to investigate what has happened in order to free themselves from the restless forces that follow and haunt them wherever they go.

 

Obviously I don't know the story of this game, but cancelled titles don't always die completely. One example that Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone worked on is Fallout: Van Buren.  From the article:

 

"One of the more significant elements of the plot and back story of Van Buren was to be the war between the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel. One of the main designers, Chris Avellone mentioned that aspects from Van Buren would appear in Fallout: New Vegas such as the NCR- BoS war and a companion from Van Buren, Joshua Graham appears in heavily modified form, as does an antagonistic faction known as Caesar's Legion."

 

Good ideas and stories can often be adapted, and since the games weren't released we may never know what was borrowed or referenced.  I'm sure Obsidian will do a good job with this one though.

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Good ideas and stories can often be adapted, and since the games weren't released we may never know what was borrowed or referenced.  I'm sure Obsidian will do a good job with this one though.

I was about the post the same thing, the basic premise of the Black Hound is basically the same premise as Eternity.... so maybe we did get that story after all?  Also that stained glass is very nice, great style to it and I have been really happy with similar small details you see in game like paintings and shields and such.  They are all very nicely detailed.

 

As for that backer..... seriously they dropped that much money then never responded?  Insane.

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The idea that the PC wasn't some great hero or there to save the world, but just happened to witness something that marked him and he spends the rest of the game trying to deal with this situation that came at him completely out of the blue. No preconceived notions about him being heroic or evil. No save the world chosen one story line. Just this guy and a highly personal problem that, if I recall correctly, started to become larger than just *his* problem. I *want* that story, and we're never going to get it the way it was set up for BG3.

It's funny you describe the premise of BG3 like that, because from the Pillars Wiki:

 

The player witnesses an extraordinary and horrific supernatural event that thrusts them into a unique and difficult circumstance. Burdened with the consequences of this event, the player has to investigate what has happened in order to free themselves from the restless forces that follow and haunt them wherever they go.

 

Obviously I don't know the story of this game, but cancelled titles don't always die completely. One example that Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone worked on is Fallout: Van Buren.  From the article:

 

"One of the more significant elements of the plot and back story of Van Buren was to be the war between the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel. One of the main designers, Chris Avellone mentioned that aspects from Van Buren would appear in Fallout: New Vegas such as the NCR- BoS war and a companion from Van Buren, Joshua Graham appears in heavily modified form, as does an antagonistic faction known as Caesar's Legion."

 

Good ideas and stories can often be adapted, and since the games weren't released we may never know what was borrowed or referenced.  I'm sure Obsidian will do a good job with this one though.

 

Oh my goodness! When I first read this, I thought it was some sort of Black Hound wiki. I wasn't dismissive. I just figured that one of the people who followed the game at that time had put together a wiki and was citing what Sawyer had said about it at the time. In rereading it, I see that it's the Pillars wiki. That's... that's just awesome! I'm so happy to hear this news. I haven't been following as much as I could because I don't want to get spoiled too terribly much, but if I'm going to see something beforehand, *this* is something I'm happy to see. Thanks, man!

Fionavar's Holliday Wishes to all members of our online community:  Happy Holidays

 

Join the revelry at the Obsidian Plays channel:
Obsidian Plays


 
Remembering tarna, Phosphor, Metadigital, and Visceris.  Drink mead heartily in the halls of Valhalla, my friends!

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Good ideas and stories can often be adapted, and since the games weren't released we may never know what was borrowed or referenced.  I'm sure Obsidian will do a good job with this one though.

I was about the post the same thing, the basic premise of the Black Hound is basically the same premise as Eternity.... so maybe we did get that story after all?  Also that stained glass is very nice, great style to it and I have been really happy with similar small details you see in game like paintings and shields and such.  They are all very nicely detailed.

 

As for that backer..... seriously they dropped that much money then never responded?  Insane.

 

 

And if pillars of eternity does well, who knows, maybe Josh will decide to make another game with the same engine but with TBH scenario :yes:

"Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!" -Minsc

"I am a well-known racist in the Realms! Elves? Dwarves? Ha! Kill'em all! Humans rule! -Me

 

Volourn will never grow up, he's like the Black Peter Pan, here to tell you that it might be great to always be a child, but everybody around is gonna hate it. :p
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Oh so it is.  :facepalm:  I wonder if it was a backer designed inn or if it's the devs themselves nodding towards their old project.

 

The story behind the Black Hound Inn is a little strange. It was designated to be a backer inn. During production we informed the inn backers to fill out their design ideas and get them back to us. Several producers followed up with these backers. It generally took several weeks, sometimes longer, to get all the designs back in. I personally called a few of them myself to try to expedite the process. 

 

We had a mysterious backer that never got back to us. Email, phone calls, nothing. At one point I left the backer my personal cell phone and urged him to get back to us as time was running out. Still nothing. We were a little baffled and hoped everything was ok with this backer but ultimately had to move on.

 

At that point we already had a basic blockout for the inn located in Gilded Vale. Without spoiling anything, we kind of worked the real life situation into some lore about the inn, but it still needed a name. Olivia Veras, the designer for Gilded Vale,  came to Josh and I saying some of the designers wanted to call the inn the Black Hound. I liked the idea and so did Josh. Not sure who's idea it was for the stained glass art (probably Josh), but it looks great in game.

 

 

It's because of this kind of thing i like the KS model. Without it, we would have never known about such details or anecdotes. Thx.

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Good ideas and stories can often be adapted, and since the games weren't released we may never know what was borrowed or referenced.  I'm sure Obsidian will do a good job with this one though.

 

I was about the post the same thing, the basic premise of the Black Hound is basically the same premise as Eternity.... so maybe we did get that story after all?  Also that stained glass is very nice, great style to it and I have been really happy with similar small details you see in game like paintings and shields and such.  They are all very nicely detailed.

 

As for that backer..... seriously they dropped that much money then never responded?  Insane.

 

And if pillars of eternity does well, who knows, maybe Josh will decide to make another game with the same engine but with TBH scenario :yes:

We'll probably be regaled of the tale of The Black Hound at the inn. Who knows, there may be some plot foreshadowing included as a bit of an allegory of sorts.

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"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

"P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle

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