Dawnsbury Days - Good Little Children Never Grow Up
Project Overview
Dawnsbury Days is a 2024 turn-based tactics videogame with a 95%+ overwhelmingly positive rating out of 600 reviews on Steam. It's a singleplayer sincere and positive RPG story about a group of childhood friends who rise up to defend their hometown from evil monsters.
Good Little Children Never Grow Up is an upcoming DLC expansion to the video game. It is the story of a group heroes exploring a haunted house where terrible things have happened 20 years ago, and the heroes must discover them, exorcise any evil left in the manor and rescue civilians who have ventured in and have been trapped inside.
I'm looking to cast for every role in the expansion story except for the four main characters and two other characters who appeared in Dawnsbury Days previously and will be voiced by their original actors.
Compensation. I offer $3/line, with a minimum of $50/actor. I expect three takes for each line, but will pay additional compensation for extra rereads on top of that. If live direction becomes needed, I will pay $125/hour instead.
No AI. Dawnsbury Days doesn't use AI, I will not use your voice for AI and your contract will include the NAVA AI rider.
Timeline. I expect to cast in a couple of days after the casting call deadline and then I will need you to deliver your lines in two weeks from there, with a deadline of September 15.
How to audition. Please record 2-3 takes for each audition line, in the format A-B-C-A-B-C. Do not slate. In the accompanying text, please consider including references to your past work, if any.
Tone. Dawnsbury Days is a sincere story of good against evil. The heroes are genuine friends and the villains are generally aware that they're evil. The overall tone is bright, youthful, adventurous and optimistic: Life is full wonders, so let's explore them. Good will triumph over evil eventually and there will be a happy ending for everyone (well the good guys, at least). Think of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Despite some lighthearted elements, we play things straight and with respect to source material and with appropriate reverence. The adventure is about cleaning up a haunt formed from a mass murder of children; we treat this plot point with appropriate gravity and don't make light of it, and don't joke in serious situations.
However, this is still ultimately an adventure. Even when sad, all characters are always active, never sad or brooding, and never depressed.
Tone: A tabletop adventure. The game attempts to emulate the feel of a tabletop roleplaying game, where characters use slightly exaggerated voices as the gamemaster must use a different voice tint for each character. In any case, most characters speak confidently, perhaps even theatrically, and in a strong voice. Characters enunciate well and clearly, while still emoting throughout. Think of it almost as if you're putting on a classical play.
Screenshots.
Character art:
Theme music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O62DkYLgoA
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You are Lord Sinnthrix, a lawyer-like devil of the Nine Hells. You're strong, handsome, suave, charismatic, justly confident, and disarmingly charming. Routinely, you allow yourself to be summoned by mortal devil worshippers to make deals with mortals offering brief power in exchange for dominion over their souls, and you hope to use it to rise in the hierarchies of Hell. In your interactions with mortals, you are diplomatic and disarming, and try to put mortals at ease, but you always have charisma and presence.
Twenty years ago, you made a deal for the soul of Grandmother Demay but through her mastery of magic, she found loopholes in your contract and you did not get the soul. Now, twenty years later, heroes entered the orphanage and they are summoning you to learn about what happened twenty years ago. For you, this is an excellent opportunity to fix your mistakes in the past and finally seize the Grandmother's soul for yourself.
Line 1 is your introduction shortly after you're summoned; in line 2 you react with charm when the heroes are surprised you're well-spoken and don't immediately attack; in line 3, you react with disappointment when the heroes decide to attack you instead of making a deal with you.
- male adult
But let's begin properly, shall we? I am Lord Sinnthrix, of the Fifth Circle. And who am I talking to?
Ha ha ha! I know your world is fighting an invasion by demons for the last seven years. It must be strange that your opponent doesn't immediately want to tear you apart.
On the off chance that you manage to defeat me, a word of advice: You don't need to kill every monster you come across.
You play Grandmother Demay, an evil, insane and murderous orphanage administrator, once pretending to be a kindly old woman. In truth, however, the Grandmother had gone insane and became single-mindedly focused on the belief that adults are the source of all evil in the world and that she must not allow any children to become adults. Thus, once orphans reached a certain age, she would lead them to the cellar and kill them. Then, twenty years ago, the orphans figured it out, killed the Grandmother and fled.
However, her spirit does not rest easy and continues haunting the orphanage. The heroes' job is to destroy this remnant of the Grandmother.
Most of your lines are in flashbacks to twenty years ago when the Grandmother was still a human woman and was "taking care" of the orphanage, but some lines are from her current existence as an undead abomination.
For the audition,
- In line 1, the Grandmother's spirit pretends to be a kindly old woman and is luring Otis, Able and Saya into the cellar so that she can dominate their minds and turn them also into undead.
- Lines 2 and 3 are in a flashback replaying the scene of the Grandmother's death from twenty years ago. In line 2, the orphan Liandra confronts the Grandmother having figured what she had been doing, and the Grandmother calmly, kindly, but with an undertone of insanity, explains to Liandra why it's a good thing that she kills all the orphans.
- In line 3, in the same flashback, after the orphans lock down the still-human Grandmother in the cellar, she panics and becomes enraged and desperate, realizing that she may die trapped in here (she will).
- female adult
- female senior
You must be looking for my dear Sable, children. She's playing down in the cellar.
...sometimes I think I wait too long. I become too attached. But I had to save her. I have to save all of you.
You are all very naughty children! Let me out!! LET ME OUT!!!!
You're Talia, a female human aristocrat, and you came with your family to claim the orphanage as your new home, but unfortunately, the orphanage was still haunted and you fell under its spell and became possessed by a shadow demon who is now controlling your actions. Your personality shines through from underneath the shadow demon's influence, but you're fearful, sometimes almost panicking, and there are hints of insanity in your voice.
For the audition, the first line is an introduction when the heroes find you locked up in a pantry. You recoil and retreat against the far wall, panicking, afraid that the heroes will kill you (because the demon possessing you fears adults).
The second line is after you calm down and the heroes convinced you to tell them about what happened in the orphanage after you arrived.
The third line is an excerpt from a lullaby you're singing to yourself that the heroes can listen to through the door before they open the pantry. You're singing it to yourself because it's a song imprinted on the shadow demon possessing you because it was often used at the orphanage. The correct melody is in this YouTube video at timestamp 0:21 but you don't need to follow it for the audition, and you won't need to sing as high or as clearly in any case: it's quite ok for the singing to be somewhat false.
(In the end, Talia either dies or is exorcised and rescued, depending on the heroes' actions. Her daughter survives in any case.)
- female adult
(demented, desperate) Adults! No! Stay back! Don't touch me!
(narrating, still fearful and insane) I came with my husband Tiberius and our daughter, Sable. Everything seemed normal at first. A beautiful manor, near to a loving community.
(singing) Good little children never grow up.
You are Azor, a farm hound of the farmer Tarnak, and you went with your Master to the orphanage, and stayed behind when you got separated due to an attack by monsters. The heroes find you in the orphanage's back yard and if they drank a potion of speak with animals, they can talk to you in human speech.
You are a dog, but you understand the heroes and they can understand you thanks to the potion's magic. You have the personality of a domesticated pet dog: You're cute, friendly, and fiercely loyal to your Master. You're also sincere and say exactly what's on your mind, and you generally like humans and you especially love playing with children. Thanks to the potion's magic, you can speak well and with proper and advanced grammar but you're still a dog and you don't have human-level intelligence. The dissonance between your adult human-like voice and good grammar and the simple content of the things you say is intentional and evocative of the spell's magic.
See this Baldur's Gate 3 video for an example on how a dog speaking might sound (you're not expected to copy this dog's voice).
- male teen
- male adult
- creature
- male young adult
I don't know you... but you smell nice. Yes -- I like you. I like you a lot.
You may not know this but there are things in the big house that want to kill me. The house is... haunted!
I'm strong. I can fight. But... I can't stress this enough... I really, really, really, really, really don't want to die.
You are Tarnak, a human farmer whose three children have this morning left to greet new neighbours in what you thought was once a haunted orphanage. Unfortunately, the orphanage remained haunted and dangerous and your children haven't returned so you came to rescue them but you were chased away from the orphanage by undead monsters such as specters.
Running for your life, you ran until you encountered a group of heroes in a forest. After the heroes destroyed the specters that were pursuing you, you're now recovering from your desperate flight and must beg the heroes to save your children.
- male adult
(desperate but matter-of-fact and courteous) My name is Tarnak. Listen, I... I need your help. It's about my children.
(narrating his experience in the orphanage) I called out for Otis, Able and Saya, but there was no answer... except the ominous laughter.
(in response to "Are your children still in danger?") I think so, yes... gods, I should have known the orphanage was still haunted.
You will play Otis and Able, two 12-years-old brothers who ventured into the haunted orphanage on a dare and intend on exploring it for fun. During this exploration, their minds are captured by the spirit of the evil Grandmother and taken over. You will also play some other boy characters with 1 line each. Each character should have a different voice.
For the audition, the first two lines are from a flashback where we see Otis and Able carelessly playfighting with wooden swords in the orphanage's abandoned dining room.
In the third line, which happens during the final boss fight, an entranced Otis is mindlessly repeating a children's rhyme that the Grandmother loved, because he can't really think anything anymore, having become a mind-controlled thrall to the Grandmother's spirit.
(Both boys will later become free of the mind-controlling effect and return home after the player wins.)
- male child
(Otis, to his brother, during a playfight) Ouch! Hey, that drew blood! You did this on purpose!
(Able, in response) No, I didn't, Otis. It was an accident, I swear!
(in trance, expressionless, mind-controlled) Good little children... never fight...
You will play Saya, a 9-years-old scared lawful good civilian girl who ventured into the orphanage with her brothers; and also Kaylee, a 12-years-old orphan girl who convinces Liandra to rebel against the evil Grandmother; and also some additional girl characters who usually only have 1 line.
For the audition, the first two lines are in a flashback from a scene at night in the girls' dormitory where after bedtime, the two bravest orphan girls, Liandra and Kaylee, are whispering to each other, talking about how it's strange that children keep disappearing from the orphanage and the Grandmother doesn't say anything about it. In this whispered conversation, Kaylee comes into it knowing that the Grandmother is evil and is killing the orphans, but she must convince Liandra to take action.
The conversation is whispered but that should only affect the color of your voice, not its volume. Use "stage whispering", it should still be easy to understand you.
- female child
(Kaylee, an orphan girl, whispering at night to Liandra about a disappeared orphan) Isn't it kind of funny though? He was about the same age that Lucile was.
(Kaylee, an orphan girl, whispering at night with convinction or finality) She's evil, Liandra. Granny is evil.
(Saya, pictured, 9 years old girl, afraid, when her brothers enter the orphanage) We--- we shouldn't go into people's homes uninvited, Otis.
You will play a variety of either male-presenting or arbitrary gender intelligent monsters: the grim reaper, the barbed devil, the shadow demon, and the zombie. Each character should have a different voice.
For the audition:
- The grim reaper is a personification of death summoned by the heroes. He is confident, otherworldly, evil and wants only to kill everyone, but he's not angry; he's aloof and almost indifferent or intrigued. What's happening on the mortal world is beneath him.
- The barbed devil is a medium-level combat commander in the armies of Hell, summoned by the Grandmother in the past to guard the orphanage until he "successfully defends it from intruders". The Grandmother's unexpected death caused the barbed devil to be trapped in the orphanage by his contract, which angers him.
- The shadow demon is a possessing entity spawned from the Grandmother's sins, single-mindedly focus on destroying all adults in the world. He is a being of smoke and shadow made real. Evil, terror-inducing.
- male adult
- creature
- nonbinary
(grim reaper) You're not audacious. You're ignorant and foolish.
(barbed devil) EXCEPT NO INTRUDERS EVER CAME! We've been stuck here for twenty years! Until... now.
(shadow demon) You are adults. You are demons. Die.
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