How did you come up with Blood Hounds?
Oh boy. Short story which will end up really long is:
I had to make a game without miniatures because I didn't have any money to make minis. Normally for many people this wouldn't be too much of a problem. However for me it was a huge problem because I like making my own crap in every way shape and form.

So I was more or less was in a quandry of:
Make something crazy ie scifi since I had a scifi project going with tons of units, a world book and force book that would be much much harder to make a substantial amount of minis for once I had the cash or, pick something toned down and already well known to attract a substantial user base. So I pussed out and went for the latter.

Why a WW2 German Campaign?
I wanted the consumer to need as little miniatures as possible. So I concocted a crap story that this was a secret group sent in by America to "observe" the situation right at the start of the war way before the OSS was created to do the same thing. Being that they would be behind enemy territory with Germans everywhere and that they needed to steal German supplies to strive and thrive that would mean the player would only need field Germans vs Germans since the good guys were dressed as undercover germans. Excellent. Plus the Nazis were the fashion extroidinares of WW2 so the game would look stylin' all round.

So I layed out the ground work for the game little by little. I was going to make a series of games called SOG, Special Operations Groups. It would follow secret ficticious special forces groups through various battles in various genres like WW2, Vietnam, Modern etc. But I just was'nt overly motivated. Not because I don't like WW2 or Vietnam or Modern but because when I make something I need to be creatively involved, not just on an architect level where you input numbers into historical figures and make the game statistically involved and fun to play. Quite frankly I need the freedom to bullshit. Create extraordinary circumstances to have more fun than should be allowed in a historical context. So I sat there with my fist up my butt and the game went nowhere until....

One night I was tired of thinking about making this game. I was ticked I couldn't make scifi or fantasy miniatures to kick off a genre I could really work in and make tons of creativeity for. But I had the Pilgrim Cell Rules sitting here done so I had to make something and now dammit. So I said screw it and made a RKE desktop for the fun of it. Just some crap to upload to the site and give away for free that I would enjoy. A few days after making the desktop with blacks and reds and dark sharp blade spikes everywhere I'm like damn thats cool in a weird dark way and I pictured using it in a book someday. But what kind of book? I could picture a vampire standing in front of it etc. But that was overly fantasy. Then I'm like wait! American vamps masquerading as Germans all pale and dark and crap with some cool abilities on the side draining SS agents in back alleys of thier vital fluids etc. Hmm....... maybe.

Or not. I just was not feeling the whole vamp thing. I mean what, are you going to have vamps fighting humans and thats it? You have to kick it up a notch. Maybe make something with heavier undead elements in WW2. Ah ah ah. No can do. Have to use miniatures people already have or are already on the market and the amount of minis needed along with the variety has to be minimal. Otherwise I would have to hope people would buy my game enough to the point I could make minis which in turn would take alomost half a year to produce ie getting money, waiting for a sculptor to free up, getting sculpts made then waiting for them to be cast up in a production cycle. Too long.

So I decided to ponder the idea of a supernatural game theme without heavy looks like monsters, zombies etc. What about immortals? You know, like "There can be only one". Mmmm.... decent and I could make a quick back story about how they came to be and how they tour the world participating in wars. Mmm...... meh, eh, nah. I'm going in the right direction but I still havn't found the key that would open this bitch up. Its really not outside the box as much as I would like it to be. But again, I can't go to far either because of the miniature limit. Yet still excited about this new direction I thought about the prospects non stop.

The original name I came up for this game was Special Operations Groups: Jagd Wolf. Jagd meaning hunter in German so these guys would be hunting the wolves IE Germans or they themselves were "Hunting Wolves" on the prowl. So I had this name in my head concerning wolves. Kept thinking wolves, wolves, wolves...... Werewolves in the game instead of vampires? Maybe they could mutate after being shot or after killing so many enemies or getting angry etc? Okay..... maybe. I could downplay the werewolf thing so it's not a huge issue in the game. Give them good night vision, slightly better human strength etc. Like super special forces or something. Around the level of being genetically engineered. Okay this may go somewhere. Lets entertain my fool of a brain fart.

I popped open my computer dictionary and thesaurus because the SOG name was now dead. I mean, werewolves don't exactly say "human special forces" now does it? So I looked up the word wolf and started going through various possibilities for team names like canine, lupine, wolf pack.... Wolf Pack, kinda cool but standard.... A little too normal. I didn't want to use Jagd Wolf as a multi series title since that was overly German and I needed something with a broader context. So I looked up the word wolf pack which in turn led me to look up the individual word pack which then in turn led to hounds ie a "pack of hounds". So I looked up hound and stumbled across Bloodhound. Wow that sounds good.

Okay but Bloodhounds are funny looking strong hunting dogs not werewolves. So I decided to break up the name like Blood-Hounds ie wolves which are related to dogs hounding the enemy and they seek blood. Works for me. But where did they come from, how did they become werewolves, why are they drawn to war? In some cases this may look like one problem creating another with no way of getting out. One question makes two questions which makes three questions and more. But I didn't feel that way. I was overly excited as this was flying along towards something new I could use that would let me open a creative can of whupass.

I knew I wanted to use that name Blood Hounds so after doing research into the name and checking to see if another game was using it etc I went ahead and started doing up the text portion of the logo for it in photoshop. Always keep moving while always keeping in mind your objective. Before I had stalled. I got in a rut of thinking I was doing strait historical and accepted my fate yet my mind refused to let me do the project because it simply wasn't for me. Instead of thinking of a way out I hemmed and hawed at a project I didn't want to do. When I focussed on something else ie making a fun spooky desktop it released enough negative focus on my current situation and opened my mind to day dream about the darkness of the desktop which opened a door for creativity to be applied in turn to that which I was frustrated with.

Boy, what in the hell did you just say?
Okay simply put, this is why many artists take drugs. It opens the mind to create freely which is great for art gallery paintings that need to be overly original and freaky. For practical practitioners and creators however this is a pitfall as drugs allow an endless parade of creativity without scope and scale. You are so far off you are admired for being quirky, wierd, exotic and original yet most of what you create cannot be consumed by the public because well.... it's quirky, wierd, exotic and original which makes it appreciated by other drug addicts and those who like something wierd once in a while to wet thier ocular appetites.

Thus things like music and activities such as web browsing, other projects, movies, video games etc are great for creators because they will disipate your creative block and while meandering across the plains of others creations the slightest fancy your eyes cross become the missing puzzle piece to your own dilema. This is more or less the artist's contribution to other artists. We are thus responsible for taking what our masters have given us and in turn propelling our work to new heights which our society may understand thus procuring a future generation who wants to create with the same zealous profession and passion as those before.

Good God, are you still here after that side dish of creativite response and reasoning? Okay back on topic...

So anyway bitches, I was working on the Blood Hounds logo in photoshop. I decided to make the letters in red ie blood ie Blood Hounds and werewolves biting crap everywhere with blood. Wow, it's like I have this fixation with Blood and War. Red (color of blood and roman god of war mars), Red Knight (knight of war), Red Knight Entertainment )company of wargaming and maiming), huh, no shit. Okay. But all blood red for the text in the logo just wasn't working. So I put the word Blood on top of the word Hounds so the logo would stack that way top to bottom. (Later I changed the layout back again) I then started playing with the color for the word Hounds. I added color in photoshop and made the word Hounds stark naked blue and that's when it hit. Red for Blood, Blue for Hounds ie red white and blue. I then made stars that crossed the word Hounds so I had all the makings of the American Flag. Okay, so these were definetely American Werwolves that did not travel to London. :) Now what? Where did they come from?

So I searched the term blood hounds online and came across the hunting dogs of course. Used in Britain and America as hunting hounds. "No kidding, I didn't know that Dave" you say. Dave replies "Go to hell." Then I saw a picture of an Colonial Brit with a bloodhound. That was it. Revolutionary war. How were they created? What mysticism or wierd crap existed around that time? Free Masons? I really did not want to entertain world conquering crap on a human level. I needed something a bit freakier.

Indians. Bingo bango. As if the Native American hasn't been portrayed in wierd or stupid enough ways, I was about to become a contributor. So you always hear about the spirit wolf, buffalo, eagle etc so I made up some group of declared Americans in the Revolutionary War had been hunting indian scout parties loyal to the British and had been ambushed several times and lost men. Deep in the woods they are captured by another indian party but this one looks rather odd and isn't kitted out for scouting. So they are taken to this freak camp and a freak shaman comes out and they are all forced to drink his potent moon juices in which they pass out and when they awake the camp is totally gone and one indian sits in front of them. Then he gets all deep and speaks broken english and tells them of wierd beasts thirsting for blood ie conflicts etc. And that pretty much set up the whole deal. Of course there is tons of creative details on what was said, how it was done and why, but thats for those who read the book. (Barter Square: Go now)

Of course now I was left with wanting to make a bunch of historical games through time with werewolves. And quite frankly werewolves fighting humans and more humans through time sucks a big bad bag of squirrel nuts. So now I needed to make something that would incorporate wolves and a stronger enemy. So I set it up as they go through time as more or less immortal humans that occasionaly "were" up, and they start to encounter the other freaky beings in the world.

In Germany WW2 they meet genetic freaks and experiements.

Next big war that starts with a V and is somewhere in asia (hint hint, Vietnam you asshole!) they encounter a bloodthirsty Russian Vampire (ie the Ruskies took some "German" engineering also from WW2) running a death cult in the jungle trying to build a small bloody nation etc.

After that the Blood Hounds are keyed in to a secret society of vampires world wide and go on the hunt. Kind of similar to that movie where a black guy whos name sounds close to "raid" goes around killing vamps. Of course mine will be different as each book focusses on a military or historical aspect and involves werewolves who operate differently with many personalities.

This also took care of being creative but starting out humble. 1st you fight some germans and as you dig deeper in the reich you find and fight some freak experiments. WW2 ends and you kick it up a notch in Vietnam. Vietnam ends and you explore the secret vampire nation in modern times. So to start my game needs Germans. In the end it needs a bunch of wierd crap but hopefully as the series progress's in popularity I can start small and make all the miniatures needed as I just refuse to endorse others miniatures. I mean who am I kidding, I need to make a good book and save for producing minis. Not to mention pricing should be fun. (Okay so that was some shamless promotion that I want to kick some ass with what I MAKE. Blow.)

So, if you want to quantify in generic terms what Blood Hounds is about, take "raid" the name that sounds like the guy who kills vampires and put that into a bunch of cool historical military movies with a good dose of "there can be only one" so these guys have knowledge and know how out the frikkin wazoo, add in some splashes of a movie that has werewolves ie lycanthropes tearing your ass up and then throw in some freaky indian spookyness to kick it all off with hardcore action and some x-files freakiness here and there and you more or less have a wierd Hollywood outline of what I am sort of making. Well, for those of you anyway who want a small indication of mass quantification to figure out the slightest idea of what the hell I am going on about.

And that, that is how I came up with Blood Hounds. The process from the time I stared at my desktop hating the direction I was going in to realizing my new direction to the point where I figured out where the entire series would go took about three days of on and off reasoning, think tanking and dreaming. Sometimes I would be falling alseep in bed thinking about where this was going and hitting upon some major ideas and having to roll over and write them down before they were lost to my lazy slumber. And that is exactly why I am doing this. Because it is fun, kicks ass and when others come along and enjoy it the party gets started in a big way.

Best of all I can bill it as five types of games in one:
01. Super werewolf team fights freaks in WW2.
02. Igonore werewolf aspect and play as secret special forces team.
03. Ignore fictional special forces team and play the listed historical units in the book.
04. Play Co-Op with yourself or a friend.
05. Play vs your friends ie typical wargaming.

Whew! Thats a wrap. That's three days of rhyme and reason in my head explaining just what exactly triggers my creative gun. I probably will not explain this all over again concerning other games, thanks for reading, drink your milk, eat your vegetables, get the hell off my website and stop sucking down my bandwidth you nosey no good kids!

Aaarooooooo!!!!! Aa aa Aarooooooo!!!!!



Part 2
And everything I wrote above is crap. Can't use it. Can't bring myself to do it. What happened? Found out a little about myself. Sigh...