Hi Nikjima!! Wanted to express how much I absolutely adore your modding work and you're doing the devil's work by bringing so much more of Raphael to us
I randomly started thinking of the cut content of Raphael/HoH in bg3 and I figured you would be the expert on this. I'm wondering if you know of any summary/list of all of the contents that didn't make it to the released game? As far as I know there's the wedding chapel in the upper city, the belly button line, and him begging Mephistopheles for help. Did I miss any more of it??
Thanks a lot and once again I appreciate you and your creations!!!
Thank you so much! That's so lovely of you to say! 🥰 I'm glad you like my work so much!
Brace yourself, for this is a long-ass post of all the things I can recall off the top of my head that were cut, but are still in the files somewhere, beyond those mentioned. I have spent a lot of time over the years poring over the game files in search of any scrap of Raphael content.
Also, beware the kneeples.
1. There's the long rest scene where Raphael would show up at your camp one night to reveal your companions' secrets (Vampire, living bomb, Shar worshipper, etc), which only exists as a very rough draft of a dialogue document, no proper dialogue, recorded audio or actual cutscene. It's named CAMP_Monitor_AvD_RevealPartySecrets and includes Raphael saying "Hey, wake up I've got something important to tell you." Which is hilarious to me.
"Hey, Astarion's a vampire. Goodnight" *EXPLOSION*
The below is literally all of it.
2. Also in a similar state, there's an early draft of an epilogue scene where if you'd signed the contract he would show up at the party and request the player hands the crown over (which shows remarkable patience, waiting 6 months before ever asking).
He'd offer to provide 'entertainment' if we gave it to him ("But be it me to thwart your gluttony. Fulfill your end of the bargin, give me the crown, and you can continue your merry celebration. I can even provide some further entertainment if you ask nicely.")
It opens with the line "Tisk tisk. You've been incredibly naughty. Do you really think I've forgotten?" Which is actually illegal in 28 countries. 🥵
Alas, it's just a draft dialogue, I could find no recorded audio or actual cutscene info. It's named EPI_Epilogue_Raphael (as opposed to the current orange box of hatred epilogue scene called END_GameFinale_RaphaelCrownUpdate).
3. There's another area, much like the Chaphael, called RaphaelPunished, which would presumably have been where the 'Mephistopheles thanks us and eats him' cutscene that was removed [link to interview with Swen discussing it] took place. It's just a big, unfinished hellscape, no attached dialogue or cutscene info, much like the Chaphael.
There's also a NPC referred to as Placeholder_MephistophelesHelper, which is a tiefling with Rolan's face. I couldn't find any dialogue or other info attached to him, but I presume he was tied to said cut scene.
SlimX mentions the Area and the NPC in their video [here].
There's also some trigger points (which are basically where things will spawn in or cutscenes will occur) bundled in a group named 'RaphaelCommuppance' which I also believe was tied to it. It includes references to Raphael, the player, and big Meph himself. Gods and Monsters is the name of a cluster of epilogue scenes, such as the Withers and Raphael crown update, so my guess is it would have played as an alternative to the crown update if poor pookie was slaughtered.
4. There's a messenger for Raphael that was in Rivington (presumably replaced by Korrilla), a tiefling in common clothes that would greet you with "You're here in one piece. We knew you would make it. My employer has an invitation you won't want to turn down." then slip the player a note (which is also still in the files) from Raphael himself, inviting them to meet him in Sharess' Caress. Signed 'R' and everything, swoon.
SlimX also covers this NPC (and recreates the cutscene) in their video [here].
5. There are also 8 different Raphael/HoH narrator dialogues for the Scrying Orb in The Devil's Fee, depending on if he's alive/dead/you gave your body to Haarlep, not just the default two. They're currently untriggerable ingame and I haven't been able to figure out how to enable them.
6. There's a few lines of a spell named 'Diabolical Ally' that has the description 'Summon the crafty devil Raphael to fight alongside you.' which would indicate that Raphael would have been a summonable ally at some point. However the character reference attached to the summon (UUID 1f01da1b-06a9-4b04-a83e-4d6854ea9e1a) doesn't exist, so there's no way of knowing which form of Raphael it would have been.
Interestingly, the entry name (which is not the name displayed ingame, but the one used in the code when assigning the spell) is Target_LOW_DiabolicalThrall. Target is the type of spell (you target someone or somewhere and cast it), LOW means it was created to exist in the Lower City.
Perhaps we'd have been able to cast it to summon a diabolical thrall in Raphael's form to aid us? Maybe it was Haarlep? Perhaps we'd have been able to make Raphael himself our thrall. We'll likely never know.
7. There's a second male cambion bodytype, the B body, which is slightly bulkier than the one used ingame for all male cambions (A body). The mesh of it lines up perfectly with the neck of Raphael's cambion head, which does not actually line up with the regular cambion body beneath his doublet. Ya boi is walking around decapitated, all my mods where you can see his neck have a custom head I made that correctly fits the vanilla cambion body neck.
I have my suspicion the B body is the body used in EA, as I've seen images of him from very early EA with noticeably larger hands and a broader build. The second body, as it exists ingame, is only a mesh and does not have a working texture, if you overlay the A body texture onto it, it's just a whole mess, nipples on the knees and all sorts. It also doesn't have the gap on the back for the wings the A body has, and has a different shaped gap for the tail.
8. And finally, there's some additional dialogue if you either lost the hammer, or didn't sign the contract, poked around in the HoH, set off his alarm, don't kill him, then go to the Astral plane and refuse the Emperor, where he scolds you for poking around his home before he offers you the final deal or returns the hammer to you. Currently unobtainable in vanilla as once Raphael is alerted you must fight him before you can leave the HoH and he must die, no more deals, it's over.
I recall seeing someone post a clip of it on Tumblr, but I can't find the post at the moment, it's possibly available via use of the debug book or similar mods that would let you trigger the alarm then teleport out anyway. If I can find the post I'll add a link here.
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. As you can see they're mainly massively incomplete so not something I can easily mod back in like ol' Bellybutton or his EA boots. Fun to think about the 'what if's' though. Well, except the 'punished' one, not a fan of that one myself, glad it got cut.
Whew! That was a lot of typing and screenshotting. Hope this was interesting for you! Thanks again for the kind words and the ask!
Do you have access to EA human Raphael? I think he looked a little different in some area like his eyes. I think they changed his expression too
Hi Anon!
I got hold of the EA mesh and textures for human Raphael and compared them with the ones in the current version of the game to see what the differences were. In terms of the shape of the mesh of the head, they're identical. When layered over each other there is zero difference in any part of the head - he was already perfect, no changes needed. 😌
[EA - Current]
However, I took a look at his EA textures, and those are different - the most notable change is that his EA head textures included a custom MSK (Material SKin) map, which his current one doesn't. This map specifically highlighted his upper cheekbones and the tips of his ears by reducing the amount of melanin in them. The one his current head uses is a generic MSK used for most heads in-game, not one custom-made to make him slay harder. The change in that highlighting is most likely what looks different around his eye area.
[EA - Current]
There are a couple of other differences in his other textures too. For example his stubble is more subtle in the EA head textures (the current version uses some of the eyebrow colouring to make it stand out more), and his lips are slightly pinker. There are a few adjustments done to the bottom of his neck texture too, but I presume those were simply to blend it with any changes made to the body textures during development.
Below are a few gifs I made to compare the two versions of his skin textures:
As for his expressions, the way those looked for all characters changed a lot between EA and release - if you watch some EA footage you'll probably notice that a lot of the character's mouths are slightly too wide, for example, especially when talking or smiling. Larian refined the facial expressions and animations a ton during EA. Unfortunately it's not something I can bring into the current version of the game to compare - I'd basically have to remake the face rig, animations, and a cutscene to show them off. But the short answer is yes, they did alter his expressions, because the entire way the face animations are handled was refined and improved.
I put the EA textures on him ingame and I think the pinker lips and reduced stubble make him look slightly younger. It's kinda giving human Haarlep and I'm not mad about it.
(Right images are EA, left are current)
Ignore the neck seam, I wasn't about to spend 3 hours fixing it just to sate my curiosity about how it looks ingame, and I certainly wasn't about to cover up his cleavage. That's not who I am.
Thanks again to MaxStrengthWizard for returning to the EA file mines for me once more!
Since you're the Raphael expert and I can't test it myself: Does Raphael actually sing his Final Act during the battle, or will silencing him not influence his vocals in the song at all? It's funny there's like one video disproving it as a myth, yet it seems to really persist.
Hello Anon!
The idea that Raphael can be silenced to stop his singing during his battle song is an incredibly pervasive piece of fiction, utterly untrue.
Raphael (the literal character model we are fighting in game) is not actively singing his battle song, it's battle music the same as any other one we hear in any other fight, his mouth does not move with the lyrics, silencing him does not affect the song, killing/silencing Korrilla doesn't effect the song, the vocals will play regardless of what you do to either of them.
The music in BG3 doesn't work like that, there is no mechanic in place for it. I've tested it repeatedly myself after hearing the rumour about it. Raphael and the female vocalist will keep singing, even if he's dead, so long as the battle continues.
My main suspicions for the rumour starting are:
1) someone made it up because it sounded cool and claimed it was true for that sweet, sweet internet clout, nobody checked, the lie grew as more people thought 'oh that's cool' and never checked it themselves.
2) The full 7-minute Final Act song (Full Fight Version) that we hear in the battle has long instrumental sections. I suspect people may have heard those sections, after having silenced him, and either ended the fight or lost concentration before the vocals started up again.
The 2-minute version of Final Act that was originally the only one Borislav had on youtube lacks those instrumental breaks, and has more repetition of the female vocals, so if someone had only heard that version, then went into his fight, silenced him, and suddenly noticed the song had these large gaps between Raphael's vocals, they maybe thought their actions had caused him to stop singing.
I suspect it's such a popular myth because people want to believe it's true, it sounds like an amazing detail to laud Larian for, and people want to praise Larian, they made the game people love with so many wonderful details in it already - it sounds so plausible for them to have done it!
In the past I've been insulted and called a liar when I tried to tell people that it's not true, because of how many other people (with zero evidence) claim it to be fact. If 600 people say it's true and 1 says it's a lie, who do the public believe? Especially when the lie is so much more fun than the truth.
I seem to remember a post about the heights of Raphael’s different forms but I can’t find it now. Do have any idea what size they are? I’m specifically wondering about his fiend form. That’s taller than the cambion one right?
Hi Anon! I don't think I've ever made a post about their heights on here, but I have compared them before elsewhere! I think you can also see it in some of the screenshots for my Dress That Devil mod, where I have some 'group photos'. But yes, the Ascended Fiend form is much larger than his cambion form!
Here I've lined up Vena (standard BT1 height) with all his forms and Haarlep. His human form is the same height as BT2, the cambion form is the same height as BT4 (with horns on top), and the ascended fiend form is almost twice the human form's height when standing upright.
It's more notable when they're all in a set pose, as the cambion default stance is slightly hunched over, and the Ascended Fiend is too
As you can see, he is a very large fiend! Just means there's more of him to love.
Bit of a question, if you're open to it. You discovered the Wedding Chapel. What do you guess it was supposed to be used for?
The Chaphael, my font of madness. 😔
Thanks for the ask! It's hard to guess, really, but going over what I know about it:
It has the CTY prefix, not the BGO or GLO prefixes, which is what the rest of the HoH has, so I don't believe it was part of the House of Hope.
Only a small part of it is actually walkable, and parts of the wall are not 'solid', and can be walked through, so from my experience of other scene behaviours It was most likely intended for a cutscene.
The background sound when in the area is also one of the default dungeon environment sounds, not Raphael's theme or any music from the HoH.
It is very incomplete, there are gaps between the wall pieces, the floor is uneven, there are almost no 'triggers' in place, such as those for cameras or lighting, and it's very sparsely decorated, so whatever it was for seems to have been abandoned early, though there is evidence in the game files that suggest it was looked at as late on in development as patch 5.
My delulu theory is, of course, that it was made specifically for the player character to marry Raphael in, after giving him the crown and him making them his consort. I want it to be that so very badly it hurts.
What I think it's more likely to be is either:
a - a spot in the city we could visit to trade with Raphael for rare items using soul coins, as we've been told in the past that Raphael was at one point going to be a trader who we could barter with using soul coins. (as an aside, there's some info in the game files that indicates Raphael would have been able to assist us as a summoned ally, there's a spell named "Diabolical Ally" with the text "Summon the crafty devil Raphael to fight alongside you." The spell summon data contains the UUID for a character that doesn't exist, sadly, so I have no way of knowing what form he would have taken. It isn't set up the way the endgame allies for the final battles are, so maybe it'd have been attached to something you could barter from him? 'Use this ring to call upon my aid once per day' kinda deal. Fun idea) This one is unlikely if it really is a cutscene area, of course, though it could have been a case of 'enter building, cutscene begins, complete trade in cutscene, exit'.
b - a scene where we'd see some kind of cult of Raphael scenario going on, post-epilogue. (Archdevils have cults after all, so surely the Archdevil Supreme would have a real fancy one). Perhaps he chose to desecrate a wedding chapel for his cult base because doing such a thing amused him, all the pomp and ceremony of weddings would obviously appeal to him, and corrupting the location a religious ceremony would be held would be extra delicious. Maybe Hope really liked weddings so it was an extra little 'fuck you' to the cleric who denied him, too. There's an unfinished 'Raphael Punished' area, presumably where we'd witness Mephistopheles eating him, so why not have a counter version for those of us who side with him where we see the fruits of his labour?
c - Raphael actually does take the player character as his consort, binding them to him for eternity as a sort of trophy (I rule the hells and have the Hero of Faerun who slew the Absolute in my retinue, in your face dad, your dragon ain't shit), and being the ostentatious so-and-so he is, decided to have a full ceremony to announce it. It probably lasted 9 days and involved 666 different poems about how great he is. He wrote the vows, and once the player character recites all those infernal words it means they're his possession entirely.
Okay, that last one was veering wildly back into the delulu realm. Let me dream. 🥺
Thank you again for the ask, people rarely ask my thoughts on things, it was fun to go back over the Chapel again. I only spent like 4 hours poring over it this time, not 2 days. Improvement! 🙌
To have and to mould into whatever my heart desires. In your sickness and my health. Not even death shall part us, Little Mouse.
Seriously though they'll let us fuck a squid and a bear, but marrying a devil is where they draw the line?
You can probably tell that my fave Raph fics are when he tricks us into marrying him
We were robbed. 😭 They should have let us at least demand to seal the deal with a kiss. You can shag a whole squid, but not so much as a peck from the actual devil we know? Cruel, Larian. Cruel.
