Douglas; The most un-immersive lore expert this side of the Nexus (Skyrim Follower Mod)
Project Overview
**************INTRODUCTION**************
This is just a quick breakdown for the hurried and those unfamiliar with the modding scene around The Elder Scrolls; Skyrim (TES;V). Essentially, this is a follower mod that aims to poke fun at Skyrim, Bethesda, mods, and pretty much everything that he can. Douglas, the titular character is constantly snarky, sarcastic, and is constantly breaking the fourth wall, blurring the lines the between the actor and the acted. Because of this, each character has two roles, their character, and the guy voicing said character. Think of it like being in a movie, where the plot of said movie is that your an actor in a movie. A bit confusing, but get used to that. Below I'll just post what I'm probably going to be posting on the mod page when this baby goes live. If you really don't care about that, and just want to get to the voice acting details, skip to the **DETAILS** part.
**************BACKGROUND**************
Followers have come a long way in TES. From the days of the Adoring Fan in Oblivion, to the colourful cast of characters in Skyrim. There's something for everyone. And even if there isn't something for you in the base game, there's always mods. Again, a lot of goods one's out there. But let's face something here. For every Inigo, Hoth and Arissa out there, a ton of the follower mods that get uploaded to the Nexus and the Workshop and all those other places tend to be less than ideal. From the accented eye candy, to the edgy OP assassins, to those hastily made followers who just use vanilla dialogue, follower mods leave a lot to be desired. Often times they can be lazily thought up, sloppily implemented, and painfully unfunny. And none of them are named Douglas. Like, at all. What's up with that anyways?
Well fear not ladies and gentlemen! With my newest mod, I aim to fix at least one of those things. Meet the spiciest new mod on the Nexus, Douglas! He's a Khajiit, because no one would care if he was a bosmer or something like that. But he isn't your ordinary cat, oh no. Using patent-pending technology, and maybe just a little bit of witchcraft, I aim to make Douglas as lifelike and real as possible. And I truly mean lifelike. You see, a lot of other mods strive for the realism and immersion into the Tamerialic scene by making their follower as reactive and chatty as possible. Write and record lines for when it snows, when you enter a bandit cave, when a courier chases you down completely in the nude, etc. And that's all fine and dandy, but while said follower mod was blabbing on about the snow, the player was probably too busy climbing a 90 degree slope with a horse. And that same "realistic" mod will just smile and act like every horse in the province was meant to be fitted with climbing hooks in their horseshoes. You call that immersion?
No more will that ever be a problem with Douglas. He'll gladly talk to you about Skyrim's disappointing magic system, or how anyone who says Oblivion is the best TES game has literally never once listened to anything an npc ever said. How hilarious that you can literally become an Archmage without using any sort of magic, or how you should actually try playing the game for once, you stealth arching fuck. Douglas isn't just your friend. He's your voice of reason.
Now, I know what you're saying. "Iz cat taht no speak like kahjit, and talk abot gam it in, Muh lore-friendlyness!" You may be expecting some kind of snarky comeback, or for me to maybe imply that lore players are cucks or something stupid like that. But no, they bring up a very good point. Why would I want this weird feline dude in my game if all he's going to do is take me out of it? I get these kinds of people. I myself am actually really into TES lore. I'm no expert, but I can make my through Kalpas, CHIM and everything else in between with enough understanding to get by. The universe of TES is truly a fascinating one. Hence why I, and therefore Douglas as well, would love to share that with the world. Specifically, the kind of people who aren't so well-read on the lore. You know, the kind of people who would download a mod like this.
At anytime during your travels, you will be able to prime Douglas on what he's thinking at the time, along asking him to tell you a fun fact about TES. These could range from lore, to skyrim mechanics, to even the creation of the series. When relaxed though, you can go a bit deeper into the lore than just facts, and when relaxing at an Inn or player owned home, you can ask Douglas to explain a more complicated concept in the TES universe. Topics include the creation of Mundus, the debate on Talos' divinity, Tamerialic politics, an entire timeline of the whole series, and much more! Explained in easy to understand and funny ways, now even YOU can be a lore expert!
And he comes with a quest! Because all the good follower mods need one these days. What more could you want?
**************DETAILS**************
Now that the basics are out of the way, let's talk acting. If you're still with me, I'm going to assume you know at least some of TES and it's quirks. If not, that's still fine, but not much of this is going to be making much sense. In terms of the voice acting for this mod, I'll need four minor character, with an estimated 20-30 lines, and one voice actor for Douglas, the main attraction of this mod. This is obviously still a work in progress, so I can't estimate the amount of lines he's going to have. I'm shooting for around 5000 though, It's a fuckton, which is why I'm probably just doing it myself. Still, if someone thinks themselves up for the challenge, and has the time and right voice for the job, go ahead.
The other big thing to know about this project is that every character is effectively playing two people in one. I briefly touched upon this in the opening, but I'll try to clarify a little bit more what I'm talking about. The big appeal of this mod is going to be its satirical commentary on TES, and I also wanted to reflect this with the characters in the mini-quest as well. For example, if you got the role of Shoal, not only are you playing the role of a Nord slaver and bandit, but you're also playing Shoal Prime, the role of the frustrated voice actor voicing him, annoyed by just how shitty the mod he's in is. The two voices should sound similar (obviously because they're the same person), but also unique enough to distinguish between them, without having to hear the context of the lines. Think of one character as being acted, and the other one being a completely natural random dude.
Hopefully that all made sense. The whole thing is very much a meta-narrative, and sounds easier to pull off than it might seem. Of course, the main onus of pulling it off is on me, but that's beside the point. If you're going to be auditioning for a role, make sure you can not only play both character, and character prime.
I look forward to working with you guys. Cheers.
When you are logged in, you can comment, add submissions, create projects, upvote, search open roles, and way more. Login here.
The man, the myth, and the legend himself. Douglas is going to be a very difficult character to voice. Not just because of the gargantuan amount of lines he's going to have, but also his personality. Douglas is in a lot of ways simply an extension of myself, and I fear that with outsourcing the role to someone else, I might lose a lot of the character. Plus if you're not familiar with TES, certain pronunciations might be botched, and other jokes may not land when said in the wrong way. It might seem a bit hyperbolic, but that's just how I feel. But I guess if you want to prove me wrong, go ahead.
Note that is someone is super serious about this role, and fits it well, I will definitely try to scrounge up what I can for your troubles. Would most likely be around 400-500$ I would assume. I know that said price is outrageously low, but that's probably going to be around all I can give. Losing that much would hurt me a lot, which is why I'm not offering it as an enticing upfront, and am completely fine with having to voice him myself. Consider the role as unpaid when applying though, and we can talk finances afterwards.
Douglas is a Khajiit, but doesn't act or sound like one at all. As mentioned, Douglas is an extension of myself and the community, so he really should just sound like a normal dude. Would prefer a young adult voice, but I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as you can nail the tone. Douglas is the only character in this mod that doesn't have a prime version, due to the mod author being the character himself. It should be as natural as possible, like a friend joking to another at a bar.
I'll have you know that I'm actually an esteemed lore professeur, thank you very much. Well, if you count online forum diplomas that is. Look, the point is, is that you already downloaded this crap, so I already did something right. And since I highly doubt you just downloaded this to mock me you-... Well, actually now that I think about it, that is entirely something that someone would do. That's kind of sad, actually....
You know the ancient dwarves actually believed that the Gods sh-.. Ah, I dicked it. Let me try that again. What? What do you mean it's already in the mod-.... Oh. uh... just ignore this one....
Here's a fun one, did you know Khajiit actually have barbed penises? Really though, someone woke up one morning and decided that spiked mace dicks were going to be a part of the cannon. I like to think I have more of a morning star though, y'know? Heh....
Shoal Large-Hammar is a Nord Bandit who has recently taken a interest in the kidnapping and slaving 'business', mainly due to his friend Quintus continuously assuring him that this is where the real money is at. Shoal is a man's man, and doesn't take shit from anyone. Shoal Prime is a renowned voice actor on the Skyrim modding scene. So much so that his voice is probably used more than some of the vanilla NPCs. Shoal Prime signed up to this project not really knowing what to expect, and is so far extremely disappointed at this mod's lack of quality and professionalism. His lines suck, the mod is glitchy as hell, and it seems to him like the mod author doesn't care in the slightest. They didn't even spell "Hammer" right. Shoal really just wants to get this amateur shit over with.
Line one is spoken by Shoal, and lines two and three are spoken by Shoal Prime
Well well well, look at what we got here. A little kitty family reunion. Too bad I'm all out of yarn.
I'd just like to bring to light that I didn't even write that. I'm just a voice actor people. I don't even know why I signed up for this shit.
Frankly I thought we did as well. I'm not the one whose in charge of removing npcs from their location after a scene's done. I mean.... you could have literally just googled a video about it. It's really not that hard.
Quintus is an Imperial bandit who justs want to be respected by his peers. The gold has been drying up for his bandit pack, and he's looking for new ways to make as much gold as possible, to maybe finally get the others to respect him like they do all the other bigger and stronger bandits. Quintus Prime is a complete nerd who has never done voice acting before, and only signed up for this project because he saw the word "Lore" in the title. Suffice to say, he's not too good of a voice actor. His dramaticism is all off, and he's trying way to hard to sound like a bandit, almost to the point of cartoonishnesh. He tries to remain in character for most of the quest, as his precious immersion is all he really cares about.
Lines one and two are spoken by Quintus, and line three is spoken by Quintus Prime.
You foolish cat! Unless you give us the gold, you'll never get to see your precious kitty uncle ever again! Muhahahaha*Cough* Ah, sorry.
Why yes! Of course I sound bad! I AM bad. I am a super super bad. Bad guy. A Bandit, in fact. Uh.... bad...uh.... Give us the gold!
Shoal I'm trying as hard as I can here. The- the least you could do is just play along. It wasn't all that bad th-.... I mean I thought I was doing ok....
Dro'tarmiit is Douglas' uncle, an alchemist who was recently captured by bandits, and ransomed off to Douglas. A troubled cat, Dro'tarmiit has had a crippling gambling addiction for a lot of his life, and currently owes quite a sum of gold to the Orcish thug Karoberstgren. Dro'tarmiit prime is a younger kid, who only discovered TES after his friends were making "arrow-to-the-knee" jokes back in 2012. He doesn't really understand what's going on, or most of what he's saying, but since he does a surprisingly good Khajiit voice, he got the part.
Lines one and two are spoken by Dro'tarmiit, while line three is spoken by Dro'tarmiit prime. Line three is supposed to be drastically different from the other two, resembling the voice of a prepubescent kid. Don't kick yourself if you can't master this one. I know how hard it's probably going to be to find someone with the range of Elder Khajiit-Young Child.
Ah, my nephew! This one greets you with truely great pride. If you had not come, this one surely would have never again seen the light of the moons.
This... This is a bit awkward to Dro'tarmiit, but could this one request... some more help with a septim problem. Khajiit.... when not addicted to the sugars... we must find another addiction to keep Baan Dar at bay, no? This one needs coin, should he wish not end up in the grave.
You're one to talk!
Karoberstgren is an orcish card shark and thug, who tends to get violent when things don't go his way, and when people can't pay up their debts. Karoberstgren Prime is the mod authors friend, who literally only took this role because no one else would. He speaks every single one of his lines flatly, with no emotion or inflection at all. And his mic is really bad. Like, REALLY bad. At least his voice is kinda deep I guess....
The first two lines are spoken by Karoberstgren. You don't have to add the "shitty mic effect" in the audition if you don't want to. For the third line, since Karoberstgren was such a rushed character, the mod author wasn't able to record enough dialogue for the character, and instead is forced to mix together various syllables to try and form something coherent. It sounds awful, to say the least. For that line all I want to hear is each syllable pronounced with a different inflection, so when strong together, they can sound as bad as possible.
Karoberstgren Prime doesn't really have any lines,by the way, due to the characters already lacking lines.
What do you want? I'm not in a talking mood, and I've got shit to do here.
That cat couldn't even come here himself? Figures. Always was jumpy with his cards. So you got my money then? Hand it over.
Ah|Ei|Oh|Aye|Yuh|Eh|See|Oou|Me|Tuh|No|Rah
Comments
Public Submissions
