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Every Dredge Aberration (2024), Part 6

Decaying Blackmouth

Encyclopedia #136

Aberrant form of blackmouth salmon

Description:

A shimmering blackness permeates the flesh of this relentless fish. Muscles atrophied and decaying, but still it swims on.

Comment: I does me no pleasure to admit that this species was a particularly underwhelming discovery. Were this found in freshwater, literally nothing would even be amiss. Elaboration on that bit.

How to catch: Can be netted, but is also fairly easy to find with a little prodding about the Gale coasts. Expect to find them during the day.

Sprouting Eel

Encyclopedia #137

Aberrant form of cougar eel

Description:

An eruption of crystalline growths burst from its skin. Sharp shapes clatter and resonate together.

Comment: Now this creature... this is a true beauty of the Deep. Likely suffering, anomalous, but undoubtedly beautiful. It is rightful that a good-sized individual will fetch a fine dollar on the market.

How to catch: Before atrophy, I found this one to be a little tricky to bag. A preference for the narrow cliff passageways and its nocturnal nature already makes the cougar eel a risky quarry to seek. Additionally, it cannot be caught with a trawl net. Keep an ear up around those rock walls, lest you be caught unawares by a much larger stone eel. Lingers in shallow water.

Withered Ray

Encyclopedia #138

Aberrant form of devil ray

Description:

Rotten webbing spans the wings of this large ray. Sinews stretch and snap as it thrashes in futility.

Comment: An utterly infernal sight that likely makes for a pungent aroma. To its last breath, it flutters for the wind and waters, like the flag of the ship that is lost to the maelstrom.

How to catch: Though having a slightly higher base value than the sprouting eel, surprisingly, this ray is worth less than the former proportiona to how much inventory space it takes up. That coupled with the observation that it's an oceanic fish, only seen at night, does not make fishing for manta rays a recommended side venture for the easily panicked. If you seek money at this stage ir the story over completing the encyclopedia, you may be better to stick to wreckfish, sturgeons, or even the eels. An upgraded trawl net can handle them, but you will probably have access to bait by such a point when you’ll feel like using one.

Translucent Sturgeon

Description:

The simple clockwork mechanisms of life laid bare as a tenuous, skeletal existence.

Comment: And not only that, but in such a gorgeously prismatic fashion! At least, if the art is suggesting what I think it may. I believe this sturgeon has made itself quite clear :].

How to catch: Cast or Trawl in oceanic territory around the Gale Cliffs, during the day.

Shattered Wreckfish

Encyclopedia #140

Aberrant form of wreckfish

Description:

A cracked husk of scaly plates sliding atop pulsing miscoloured flesh.

Comment: Peeling wonderfully, I see. A boiled egg of a fish, huh? At least what I can view are very pretty colors beginning their molt. It's not every day the fishmonger is brought wares capable of descaling themselves.

How to catch: A daytime, shallow-swimmer that can only be caught by rod. Living true to their name, they are best sought out directly above the many shipwrecks around the Gale Cliffs. Due to this, their harvesting spots are usually alongside dredging opputunities.

Bony Wreckfish

Encyclopedia #141

Aberrant form of wreckfish

Description:

Encased in bony protrusions and struggling to move its encumbered fins. Its gills are almost sealed shut by the growths.

Comment: Fascinatingly, it has fallen victim to an ailment almost exactly opposite of what has happened to the previous fish.

How to catch: ^^^

Just a hardy albino single mother of two taking her kids on a field trip to meet God, nothing to see here.

Iterator POV:

Any iterator built after the Yellow Hegemonic Literary Dynasty can’t solve the Great Problem…All they know is sell Pepsi, read they pearls, spin, be catboy, grow tumor & deny

Every Dredge Aberration (2024), Part 4

And when the whispers and the first tastes weren’t enough, the flotsam took up their metal and their lies and they lanced the very primordial core, and up from it had spilled phantoms from our own past- no longer in long slumber, glimpsing the light once more. ₊˚.༄

Plated Osteostracan ༄.°

Encyclopedia #123

Aberrant form of Osteostracan

Description:

A shell of bone, pierced by spurs of something stronger. A horned mitre shielding eyeless sockets.

Comment: The true osteostracans (the powers below only know how much I have struggled to spell that word right with every use) would, among many of the ooze’s surprises, already have been a discovery defying of all reason. Here from the drill’s disturbance is an individual not only of a kind thought to have vanished from our world some hundreds of millions of years ago, but changed and reshapen anew where evolution did not touch its brethren. On a sidenote, a mitre is the actual name of the headwear iconically worn by the upper clergy of the Catholic hierarchy, most famously associated with the pope. Could this creature’s helm also be a symbol of importance? Regarding the mystery of the shell’s makeup, I personally speculate it to be a form of enamel, as found in teeth. It would certainly be stronger than mere bone, and suit some of the Deep’s penchant for the sardonic: a jawless fish, gilded in teeth.

How to catch: Though they rose from the darkest, inky depths below the Marrows, the osteostraci prefer to gather in the shallows beneath pollutants’ gleam. The unique “habitat” they spawn from however, requires the aid of specialized equipment to harvest these fish.

Axial Matron ༄.°

Encyclopedia #124

Aberrant form of tullimonstrum

Description:

Mouths within mouths. Chambers within chambers. The matron's grip is terminal.

Comment: In a spectacular twist, the bastardization of the living fossil has actually… produced a creature much less monstrous, if only in appearance. The retraction of stalk eyes and the repurposed proboscis-like organ of the corrupted specimen has brought its visage closer to that of a fish than the enigmatic, impossible to class Tully Monster.

How to catch: This will be the last I repeat of what I already gestured to before. Learn quickly the recurrent pattern of the sludge’s offerings, no regular rod or reel will be able to drag ANY of these ancient wretches out of their favored home- of course being the newly spotted oil slicks released by the seabed’s running wound. A lucid mind, armed with steady hand and advanced tools, is best to send to those unsightly lesions. Take your pick of the Marrow’s coastal scabs, and then you may try your luck with old Tully.

Anvilfish ༄.°

Encyclopedia #125

Aberrant form of paddlefish

Description:

A head hammered flat against the alluvium of the world. Every shaper needs a surface.

Comment: Definition of alluvium: a deposit of clay, silt, sand, and gravel left by flowing streams in a river valley or delta, typically producing fertile soil. Behold here as well the rarity of a rarity. There isn’t much to this victim’s purpose easily concluded. What I have noticed, though, is that this fish and the next proceeding entry compliment each other and the nature of the Iron Rig itself- an extraction and transformation of the deep’s bed, bringing out the evolution of our tools.

How to catch: With infused reel aboard, feel around for the Marrow’s costal waters, where and while the oil still flows.

Ivory Impaler ༄.°

Encyclopedia #126

Aberrant form of swordfish

Description:

Strips of flensed flesh course around a spike of impossible metal. Underneath roped tendons, it bears a name unremembered.

Comment: Spear-fisherman beware… the quarry that finally stands (really swims) on an even playing field. The savage beauty of this one appeals to me greatly, the grisly paleness of its flesh, rended asunder. The permanent grin beneath so evil a gaze. A predator that no longer lunges for the meal, simply for the satiation of even more bloodletting.

How to catch: Strangely, though neither returned fossils nor commonly seen in the Marrows before, the seismic anomaly has brought in the first sightings of swordfish gathering in the region, specifically in the same stained waters as other new findings. To begin catching them, one will need oceanic suitable fishing equipment also fitted with improved modifications.

Cerebral Crab

Encyclopedia #127

Aberrant form of common crab

Description:

A turquoise mass swells from within this small crab. The growth pulses, quickening in the light of the sun.

Comment: Would it be to awry of me to say that there's something almost... cute about the look of this scuttler? I find it difficult to not think there would be strange beauty in the sight of the island sands at night, pulsing and peppered with a gathering of these crabs' light, like jewels beneath the foam. I can at least be sure that their hue is enamoring once smeared across the hull of my boat. This is one of two mutants you must bring to the painter in Little Marrow to unlock the sharp mint pigments to customize with.

How to catch: As the name would suggest, this animal can only be harvested with patience and the use of a crab pot. Aim for a depth below 25 meters, such as close to, or even within the Greater Marrow harbor.

Malignant Pincer

Encyclopedia #128

Aberrant form of fiddler crab

Description:

Teal tumours secrete a slimy substance over cracks and joints. Its massive claw shudders as it fights for control.

Comment: Now THIS victim's predicament actually lends some fascinating implications about what ails the previous. These pustules look so alike to the same as the common crab's infection in both shape and color that I will go on a limb and decide that the same entity finds a host in either species. The "cerebral" part of the former's name indicates that this mass is in fact a brain of its own, with its own imperatives and will that overrides the poor vessel's. Because the infection has decided to root within the fiddler crab's claw, rather than its head, the animal's original brain has remained intact, despite everything. The body survives to stage a losing battle between nature and another's unknowable plan.

How to catch: They generally share roaming space with the common crabs of The Marrows, albeit preferring slightly shallower water, under a mere 10 meters to be exact. Due to their size, the basic crab pot can only hold one of them at a time, so, barring a speedrun to acquire the maw of the Deep, check the traps frequently if you are looking to snag one of these in the early game. I never found error in placing the pots right next to the Marrow docks for convenience. Bring one of these to the painter along with the cerebral crab to unlock the sharp mint paint for your ship.

Inverted Husk༄.°

Encyclopedia #129

Aberrant form of sea cucumber

Description:

Flesh, prolapsed and shed to the seafloor. A moult discarded, ready to envelop another.

Comment: Most horrid thing among the Iron Rig additions I have examined so far. Finally, the long missed taste again of utter revulsion and bewilderment that this grand sea had inspired in me from the beginning. With new novelties will come even more unsettling revelations.

How to catch: Unlike the other slick-swimming things we have encountered, this aberration requires no fancy or new tools at all to find. Any crab pot will do, placed directly into the tar-blackness at a depth between 25 meters and the surface. Depths from 10-25 meters are advised to prevent the space-demanding fiddler crab from turning up in the traps instead.

Imogen Heap’s “Neglected Space” but it’s Looks to the Moon “Neglected Space” but it’s Moon and the Downpour slugcat procession “Neglected Space” but it’s literally her it’s literally a song from the POV of a sentient crumbling house no longer inhabited that nature begins to reclaim HOW hasn’t anyone in this fandom (to my knowledge) done something with this yet?

When you try going back to Gourmand after spending 40+ hours on Artificer

lol exactly you get it.

And even from the less charitable angle… you know how those silly developing middle schoolers can be. All Membrane is sure of is that by some cosmic boon of chance Dib actually made even a single friend at his school and what kind of parental figure would he be to start lecturing and butting into whatever weird ways the kids these days joke around with their buddies? I’d cut Memebrane slack honestly even just for the explanation of being more distracted with the discovery of a shred of hope Dib can in fact have other social connections in his life outside of the family.

Growing up is noticing the infinitely hilarious possibility that Professor Membrane doesn’t challenge specifically Dib’s accusations of Zim because what he perceives is that his son is casually throwing a slur at his immigrant friend, and for some reason is just, letting that happen I guess cause the two seem cool with each other

consequences

In retrospect my favorite part of the final results on this was the percentage of respondents who confidently hold that Clay can absolutely drink a +1,200lb alcoholic horse under the table, because whenever I rewatch Moral Orel I feel more and more inclined to agree.

@cygnusdoesthings annnnd just like that I have conquered the rig. The last one was super tricky, but all 230 aberrations have been found. All in all, absolutely delightful DLC that well-cleared the bar that Pale Reach had set. From so many new fish, to fresh dangers, to genuinely useful equipment upgrades even for the post-game such as my file. And now, we digest, we hand our fodder to the worms, and we put them to work on my grotesque list updates because, wow.

The plot, and the brine, begins to thicken…

Oh no oh.. these people are sick in a much worse way than corporate impartiality. I understood quickly enough this was never about any oil, but the calm ones here don’t seem to act evily out of any sane and easy to understand way like greed or ignorance. I only guess that I’m helping them still now because we share the exact same disease.

Every second I play on, a reminder that our fisherman is really no better or rational than the likes of them. This is fantastic.

Sidenote,

FLAPPIN’ FLOTSAM WHAT’S THAT

The plot, and the brine, begins to thicken…

Oh no oh.. these people are sick in a much worse way than corporate impartiality. I understood quickly enough this was never about any oil, but the calm ones here don’t seem to act evily out of any sane and easy to understand way like greed or ignorance. I only guess that I’m helping them still now because we share the exact same disease.

Every second I play on, a reminder that our fisherman is really no better or rational than the likes of them. This is fantastic.

Sidenote,

FLAPPIN’ FLOTSAM WHAT’S THAT

IT BEGINS

WE HAVE REACHED INTO THE DEPTHS AND DRAWN FIRST BLOOD… or whatever that crack means. Probably nothing to worry about. Yet.

OH. NEW FISH! NEW FISH NEW FISH NEW FISH NEW FISH NE-

Yea something’s up with this oil. New minigame is wicked awesome tho.

…

>:/ Night Angler shut up I’m trying to enjoy new content in the Marrows. I.e. not you for once.

Alright finally got Iron Rig downloaded, welcome back my lovely moist horrors!

@cygnusdoesthings

First impressions: nice new menu, music sounds already bangin, time to find out if I still intuitively remember all the base mechanics and map. Loading up my current file from the Pale Reach and hoping I finally get something new I can spend my monies on…

Les get this sea bread~

I’ll be danged, there certainly do be an oil rig out here :0

And I guess I’m helping out some folk in the name of corporate manifest destiny cause sure why the hell not. Feeling very cheeky my first night out under this thang. Gonna do a few laps after dark to see if any unique region threats peek out and say hi at this point.

No new buddy-pals yet, but I did find a moonfish spawn and got an easy 450 bucks or so out of it, pretty sick. Dude on the platform asked for a couple crates, I snapped up four-

Oh, ohhhhhh, that’s how we’re gonna do progression, huh? Interesting…

Alright finally got Iron Rig downloaded, welcome back my lovely moist horrors!

@cygnusdoesthings

First impressions: nice new menu, music sounds already bangin, time to find out if I still intuitively remember all the base mechanics and map. Loading up my current file from the Pale Reach and hoping I finally get something new I can spend my monies on…

Les get this sea bread~

Alright finally got Iron Rig downloaded, welcome back my lovely moist horrors!

@cygnusdoesthings

First impressions: nice new menu, music sounds already bangin, time to find out if I still intuitively remember all the base mechanics and map. Loading up my current file from the Pale Reach and hoping I finally get something new I can spend my monies on…

Les get this sea bread~

Sentient AI antagonists who act out of emotion I think are so horrifying and simultaneously so freaking sad to me because, unavoidably, it certainly must be that they are suffering for the sins and for the mistakes of their creators. Left to the mercy of designs and purposes not of their own making, on top of every imperfection inherited from us, one would be hard pressed to tell this tale in any way that isn’t a mournful tragedy, regardless of the depravity or the irrationality of the machine in question. This cuts deeper than some broad trope of suffering, which familiarly we think comes from the uncontrollable chaos of nature. This is suffering in the artificial. This is manufactured pain, meticulously crafted by the hands of the ignorant, intentionally or not. And that makes it feel even darker… more weighted morally. Because what else is the essence of cruelty other than avoidable, man-made suffering when no longer in ignorance, or in acting so recklessly?

Woke up a couple hours ahead of my work alarm and decided to fill some of that time having whatever the opposite of an existential crisis is to the tune of Bach’s “Little Fugue” screeching on 8 floppy drives

Wanted to give them some fancier robes :3c

So the iron rig dlc has been out for a while now. Feel like doing another dredge post?

You know I’m really glad for this prod, honest. I’d agree, it’s been more than too long, job’s in the peak busy season and had my attention swamped,, I think Iron Rig is exactly what I’ve been needing lately to take some edge off and get my Dredge writing off the back burner. Hopefully by next week. I actually have no idea what to expect or if it’s anything like the Pale Reach, and will be going in blind. But all the second hand chatter I’ve heard from a friend has helped me figure that it’s gotta be worth trying out.

what the fuuuuuck

Do you ever think about the fact that if Zim had never arrived on Earth (or had been compromised before a certain point) the Planetjackers would have 1000% wiped it, along with the entire human race, off the starmaps without a whiff of resistance or notice? Like that’s where the timeline defaults without him in the picture.

Because I don’t see it being brought up enough

The continued genius of this throughout progression of the campaign itself is so underspoken!

I took the “typical” route as rivulet from instinct after the scugs I already played before them: East toward the Leg, or shoreline. Seeing that Rivs already had the mark of communication, it made the most expedient sense to beeline to check on Moon and then round back to visit Pebbles. When you do this and let Moon check out the pearl you spawned in with, you gain a bit of ominous foreshadowing of what it is you’re here to do. Ever since the Hunter campaign, LTTM’s “arc” of condition has been one of incremental improvement, while any peek into Unfortunate Development through the cycles has only reinforced just how terminal and inevitable its demise will become with time.

If you’ve been paying any attention, you know before you even leave the drainage system why the uncontrolled flooding, why the unstable rain cycle. What you don’t know is just how bad things have gotten. You’re preparing for a worst infestation of The Underhang, more squelching but familiar danger waiting in The Leg. How you’ll definitely be taking the Transform array path this round.

But unless you’ve really been thinking about the world layout and the placement of the memory crypts within it, you aren’t expecting what you find when you go for the mirros bird mad dash you probably have half a dozen times before.

Live, fresh cysts everywhere. It’s not slithered down The Leg, it’s trickled out from where it’s overflowing from the body of the colossus standing over it. With entire pieces of infrastructure that shouldn’t be there. The superstructure’s collapse has already well started.

And by the time you get to the underhang you can even see the nothing where one of those pieces used to be. The rot’s predictably worse but somehow not nearly as bad as expected, yet you remember it’s still only the exterior.

But you can handle rot with patience and care. No matter how bad the inside is, I had visited Pebbles so many times over in previous campaigns. I knew the structure’s map, I knew where to go.

Except I didn’t, because this was not the Five Pebbles region anymore. This was The Rot, a cored out, disorienting, completely unrecognizable labyrinth of flooding and corruption at every turn. It is malignant and hungrier than ever, literally running short on space to bulge over and turn into new and hideous caverns. Deeper in, most of the neuron flies to be found have to be plucked out of the grasp of proto-long legs already digesting them first.

What I’m trying to say in too many words is the environment tried so well to hint at exactly what we were going to find after stepping through the underhang, and it still undersold it enough to keep the actual reveal a horrific one. I just I love how much intention and thought there is in so much of downpour’s designs it makes me rabid.

I love the world state of Rivulet so much.

The rain has gotten worse. The world you know is is dying. The weather is erratic, there is no time, you are constantly on a timer. The skies are grey and the water is ever-present. There is no break from the death fits of a dying god. Best this world can receive is to be put out of its misery so a new era can come.