Brawlhalla: Underworld (BH:U) was a fan-made audio drama produced, directed, and (mostly) written by Baron Dipitous. It was inspired on March 19, 2020 by Akiko's colored art and sketches of Brawlhalla characters in the style of a mid-twentieth century crime drama.
Copyright note: Each piece of production material shared and linked on this page is the property of their original creators. If you wish to use anything you see or hear on this page for your own purposes, please contact the original creator.
Brawlhalla: Underworld YouTube Channel
This is where the first three episodes of the show originally premiered. The channel also contains the rest of the planned season 1 (episodes 4-10), cast and crew interviews, bloopers, production updates, and more. Those update videos (especially this one) also provide a more complete history of the creation and development of the project.
Art
Although BH:U was ultimately an audio drama, the Brawlhalla community was filled with talented fan artists that could help bring Akiko's initial concepts to life, visually. Audio can only capture so much of the glitz, glamor, mystery, and danger of the BH:U setting, and artists were brought onto the project from the very beginning. The plan was to take inspiration from Akiko's initial sketches to make more concrete character concepts that would lead into the creation of full scenes to be used in the episode videos.
Each art-related subheading below links to a folder that contains the relevant art pieces. Art credit is given in the title of each piece.
Akiko's Early Concept Art
The following pieces were all made by Akiko (shown on Twitter, March 2020) when she was planning some sort of comic for the "mafia AU." She allowed the sketches to be kept for reference in the BH:U project.
Character Concepts
A lot of characters needed to be conceptualized in this new setting, and a large number of artists stepped up to deliver some great pieces to be used as references for the scenes that would end up in the actual episode videos.
Scenes
Each episode was planned to have 3-5 scenes made for it. These scenes were meant to supplement the action and dialogue heard in the audio drama. As you can see, a number of different artists provided their own takes on certain scenes. The disparity in style from one scene to another was intentional, because the nature of audio dramas is such that each person will imagine something a little different as they listen. Also, using multiple artists helped reduce the overall artistic workload. The "Scenes" folder shows all the scenes that were done (or partially done) for BH:U episodes.
Promotional Material
There were various promotional pieces made for the project's social media pages, as well as for the Reveal Week shortly before the premiere of episode 1 on YouTube (more info on Reveal Week in the Production Documents/Notes section below).
Fan Art
A small collection of fan-made art, banners, & profile pictures was made, inspired by BH:U. Some of the pieces in this fan art folder were made by people within the BH:U project, but the art was placed here because they didn't quite fit anywhere else.Music
Original Music
Catfoodinator and LeBruskii contributed some original music and arrangements that ended up being used for the opening and closing segments of each episode.
Credits (Normal), by Catfoodinator
Credits (Mystery), by Catfoodinator (this version was used to add a touch of intrigue or enigma to the ending of an episode)
The Twilight Grove: VBI Discussion, by LeBruskii (an arrangement of the Twilight Grove theme from Brawlhalla, used for episode intros)
LeBruskii also contributed two more Brawlhalla arrangements that didn't end up getting used:
Brawlhaven: Casual Inn Chat
Miami Dome: Freeze VBI
Musical Themes
This Musical Themes document contains some general notes about the possible musical pallets of some of the main characters in BH:U. The production didn't follow this perfectly, but these notes gave a decent sense of how each character might be portrayed. Several musical pieces are mentioned in the document, and those pieces are generally taken from the YouTube Audio Library.Musical Attributions
A document for Attribution Notes was helpful in giving proper credit to pieces from the YouTube Audio Library that were planned to be used in BH:U.Production Documents/Notes
Who's Who
On March 20, 2020, Akiko set up a private Discord meeting between herself, Hyena, Cyanpetra, & Baron Dipitous to discuss possible connections in her "mafia AU." When she let Baron borrow the AU concept for the audio drama, he kept the original diagram and shifted a few faces around to better suit the planned story. The latest version can be seen below (or by using this link):
Plot/World Notes
There were 3-4 seasons planned for Brawlhalla: Underworld, though as the documents below will show, there was still a good deal of plot that hadn't yet been set in stone.
The Underworld Notes document gives the internal details of each of the seven gangs, as well as other narrative notes as the "worldbuilding" progressed.
The Plot Notes document gives a more specific outline for the different seasons, although there are still a fair amount of points left unsorted. It should also be noted that although the Grand Tournament was planned to be the primary setting for season 2, the writers were actually starting to make plans to scrap the tournament to simplify the plot and production shortly before the BH:U project was retired.
Akiko was never much involved in the BH:U project, but she did at one point provide some thoughts she had for the ending of the story. That's what the Notes from Akiko document shows. There were plans to make use of at least some of these ideas.
The Underworld Notes document gives the internal details of each of the seven gangs, as well as other narrative notes as the "worldbuilding" progressed.
The Plot Notes document gives a more specific outline for the different seasons, although there are still a fair amount of points left unsorted. It should also be noted that although the Grand Tournament was planned to be the primary setting for season 2, the writers were actually starting to make plans to scrap the tournament to simplify the plot and production shortly before the BH:U project was retired.
Akiko was never much involved in the BH:U project, but she did at one point provide some thoughts she had for the ending of the story. That's what the Notes from Akiko document shows. There were plans to make use of at least some of these ideas.
Scripts
Each of these scripts were written by Baron Dipitous, though many people in the production (especially Pat Hyena, Captain Moneybags, and Daevon) gave lots of input for the plot and for various lines.
Season 1: Enter the Underworld
Season 2: The Grand Tournament
Grand Tournament Bracket (Made before Mako's release)
Episode 1 (unfinished dialogue)
Episodes 2–10 (unfinished outlines)
Audition Sheets
The initial hope for the project was to have all playable characters in Brawlhalla have a speaking part, so there were multiple rounds of auditions that prioritized the roles that had lines in the script first. The audition documents below are the ones that were shared with the public to explain the audition process, expectations, and role information. The "Round 4" document was never publicly shared because it served as a place to store the roles that didn't have lines yet.
Reveal Week Schedule
In the weeks leading up to the premiere of episode 1 on YouTube, the idea was brought up to have a "reveal week" to generate excitement and hype for the release of the project to the public. This initiative was inspired by the reveal weeks Blue Mammoth Games had done for the first two seasons of the Brawlhalla Battle Pass. For the BH:U reveal week, people within the project volunteered to share something at certain days and times. Some revealed concept art, others revealed voice acting clips or videos, and still others revealed informational documents of interest (cast list, etc.). All of this led up to the episode 1 release on October 2, 2020. The link below takes you to the schedule that was put together to plan all of this. All reveals were posted on Twitter.
"Silly" Scripts
In all the fun and tomfoolery that was had in the server, a couple of smaller, sillier scripts were created. There were plans to have the voice actors record these scenes, but no one got around to it. Enjoy the scripts.
Pepe Silvia...but BH:U? (a rewrite of the classic scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but with Brawlhalla characters)
Chaos Blaster Gang: Crazy Stupid Riot (some of the voice actors spontaneously fashioned this fun, "go crazy go stupid" bit of headcanon that involved four female Brawlhalla characters who use blasters: Ada, Cassidy, Diana, and Nix)
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