Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 16

Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 16

Feral Lizardfish

Encyclopedia #169

Aberrant form of lizardfish

Description:

A bipedal body burgeons with primitive limbs, preparing for an ascent.

Comment: …Is there really anything else worth saying?

How to catch: These awful, awful things share the frigid waters with the rest of the new region’s fish. I’d recommend using the rod to seek them out over the dinky little net offered by the merchants, for reasons I hope I made clear in the last segment.

Bulbous Toothfish

Encyclopedia #170

Aberrant form of toothfish

Description:

Vessels feed a distended, fluid-filled body. A shadow stirs inside.

Comment: I do hate that “Is this where pale graspers come from?” was the most optimistic line of thought I initially ran down at the first sight of this poor host. A trophy sized specimen can be caught nearing 7 feet long, that passenger is not to be assumed as some ignorable little cuttlefish. Horrible things have grown from smaller seeds. Listen, at least in my view, that bastard mystery spawn of the stars is a thing to fear in implication. Relieve these poor fish of their burden, and the seas of these invading strangers, and do it without guilt.

How to catch: This is a rod-only catch of the icey waters.

Grisly Shark

Encyclopedia #171

Aberrant form of goblin shark

Description:

Errant teeth push through failing skin. A single mouth is not enough.

Comment: But can the other mouths also do this?

How to catch: For time spent catching these, they can be a decent money maker for those still in the process of exploring the Reach. Rod them up from those dark, chilly depths where found.

Pale Grasper

Encyclopedia #172

Aberrant form of colossal squid

Description:

Hands of ice reach upward, a sharp hoarfrost blooming across whatever they touch.

Comment: Enormous, eldritch, iconic… the largest and most infamous of the catchable stock under that ice. My theory runs that these colossal agents work on behalf of the great sleeping master, patchworking and keeping the flows knit together, even in these warmer waters where otherwise impossible.

How to catch: For most, this is the very last aberration, at least within the Pale Reach, they will obtain. They are a net-only catch that is only awarded to the patient and/or the lucky, to the chagrin of many a fisherman around the ice. Requiring 11 slots of cargo space, they are completely ignored by the brittle net, requiring you to have otherwise completed your exploration and tasks in the Pale Reach before even thinking about trawling one of these up. You’ll know the appropriate equipment when you find it. Colossal squid are already an uncommon sight, and their twisted brethren much more so. This is why I advise attaching as much other equipment known to raise the chances of grotesque catches as can fit to help the odds. At a whopping $500-$625 per specimen, you’ll think your time well compensated for at first. Not to burst any bubbles on that front, but do keep in mind that their incredible size rounds their base value-per-slot as around $45.45. This is a relatively high price for a fish, but it is still narrowly beat by the cleft mouth shark’s $45.83 per slot base price.

Fallen Stars

Encyclopedia #173

Aberrant form of sea stars

Description:

An assembly of asteroids, conjoined in the dark. Finger-like roots stretch down through the substrate.

Comment: How many more will they send down? Less and less, Dredge gives me a world where I can look up at the great expanse beyond the ground and sea, and call it “the heavens”. There are things below us we were never meant to disturb, just as the things above should know not to disturb us. How many rungs exist on this great ladder?

How to catch: Taking only 2 slots and readily found anywhere in The Reach plentiful in life and measuring at over 50 meters deep, you shouldn’t have to do much waiting to get your hands on sea stars with your crab pots.

King’s Wreath

Encyclopedia #174

Aberrant form of King Crab

Description:

A clockwork crown of claws. A cycle of succession in the deep.

Comment: You know, it’s almost disappointing that there were no new paints to be found from scouring the Pale Reach. I would have found the slate-grey of these mutated crabs to be a nice addition to the pigments available in Little Marrow, fittingly cold and sleek. I guess a full grotesque collection will be keepsake enough for tackling these new abominations. To date, the King’s Wreath makes the final entry in the encyclopedia its throne.

How to catch: Like the above, this is another quarry meant for the pot. Same depth and biome, just keep in mind that they take up a 2x2 square of space when selecting your traps. I still personally use the maw of the deep for all of my crab fishing, and I carried that habit unchanged to the new area.

I already know that height is most of the reason no one likes Skoodge back home, but kept wondering why Irkens think he’s also incredibly ugly on top of the short thing. Like, Jhonen knows how to draw/design hideous characters. Skoodge isn’t disfigured, or blemished, he’s… cute. A goofy silly little blorbo. He looks like a squishmellow??? He’s adorable to us, he’s a beloved fan fave. But he’s so darned ugly to them. Didn’t add up until it hit me.

He’s built like the Irken equivalent of a damn pug.

Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 14

Collapsed Viperfish

Encyclopedia #157

Aberrant form of viperfish

Description:

A rejection of the light - or a return to the ways of the deep?

Comment: Well then. I was content to assume the former on my own. After all, many deep-dwelling fish can endure a horrific strain from a quick ascension to the surface, but no, I was denied that peace of mind by the second half of the description. It is harsher learning that to some, the Deep’s ways are a full-body prolapse.

How to catch: Much the same as the previous entry. Abyssal rod, open sea. Simple enough.

Skeletal Moonfish

Encyclopedia #158

Aberrant form of moonfish

Description:

Chittering bones still operate a ghostly body impossibly devoid of organs.

Comment: And yet they stay bound in a new ghostly skin. Imagine if the organs were all unharmed, merely now transparent to the eye. Or don’t, the fish is every bit the same seeming abomination.

How to catch: I admit with no reservation that this (and the one below) is a fish I stooped to baiting out and using atrophy for over scouring for many natural spawn points. They aren’t impossible to find, just few and far between, and especially tricky to cast in. See, moonfish are one of the more dangerous quarries to seek, combining the fact that they are strictly nocturnal and only found in the open ocean. An underwhelming challenge for the experienced angler, it still remains hazardous to linger so far out in the night’s fog if you consider yourself still wet behind the ears in this place. Mechanically, you’ll only need an oceanic rod to pull them up. Keep your wits about you and your lights on.

Beaked Moonfish

Encyclopedia #159

Aberrant form of moonfish

Description:

A rocky body that bears the scars and scratches of things from below. A crushing beak, a tool of its own deep terror.

Comment: Letting you know that the maximum size of this specimen can top out at about a meter and a half long. It speaks volumes to the strength of this animal to be able to swim on with all the added weight.

How to catch: ^^^

Congealed Rattail

Encyclopedia #160

Aberrant form of

Description:

The flesh of this deep dweller has turned to a thick ooze, secreting an oily gel that covers its entire body.

Comment: Probably with the texture of hagfish slime. A revolting change, but one that cold serve a new survival advantage against predation. Except from us, of course.

How to catch: Drag them forth from the very deepest corners of the wild sea. This creature knows nothing but the pitch black of the hadal zone.

Charred Sunfish

Encyclopedia #161

Aberrant form of

Description:

Scales chipped and flaking, its crackling body is hot to the touch.

Comment: That’s a crispy pancake right there. Does the deep burn? Perhaps this is a similar case to the ailment of aberrant tarpons we saw before in the twisted strand. Sometimes their boons make the kiss of the sun… unwelcoming to their new bodies. A common mola would frequently bask at the surface as a natural behavior, and such habits may die hard.

How to catch: True to name, the ocean sunfish prefers the open waters, and sunlight. All you will need is an oceanic rod and definitely your spyglass to track a good spot down.

Glaring Sunfish

Encyclopedia #162

Aberrant form of ocean sunfish

Description:

Ocular tongues watch from socketed mouths. Each offers its own form of deep pity.

Comment: It’s like looking into the face of an angel… an emissary of the fathomless, gazing with sympathy to the unworthy. Why? Because they’ve seen what’s coming.

How to catch: ^^^

Other people: *mocking the assumed foolishness and negligence of Clockwerk to knowingly pull a Batman’s parents on Sly Cooper* *complaining about what is assumed to be a cheap writing excuse to explain Sly’s survival of the Fiendish’s Five’s attack on his home*

Me: But actually? No? It wouldn’t have been smarter on Clockwerk’s part to “finish the job” with Sly back then. Clockwerk pigeonholed himself into a fruitless job that is not meant to be finished.

Like if you really want to ponder on it, Clockwerk could be forced, in a way, to ensure the continuation of the cooper line, not the end of it. When you define and depend your whole existence on that which you hate, what do you have left when the object of your ire is no more? Clockwork would have died if his hate was ever allowed to diminish or find resolution. He’s like a ghost bound only to his power and body by a single remaining tether, and that tether is the drive to tread on the grave of the Cooper Clan’s legacy.

He doesn’t loathe them personally, he hates everything they represent and stand for, because he once envied it to the point of madness. That’s why he sundered the Thievious Raccoonus and left our Cooper untouched. He told you so himself. Notice how coincidentally the attack was timed on the very day Sly was meant to inherit the book? It was all about letting the boy learn what it meant to be a Cooper and then ripping away from him the access to everything his ancestors learned and built to help him carry that torch.

This gamble of his, this experiment he planned out that involved letting Connor’s son escape the slaughter, that’s the way he keeps himself going while staring down the barrel of the only real threat to his immortality. Killing them all, he reckoned in his centuries of reflection, wouldn’t fulfill his vendetta. He wanted to prove without any shadow of doubt that there was nothing about the Coopers that made them inherently superior to him- who himself was once only an owl. He was after their reputation. Murder was one of many methods, but complete humiliation was the actual goal. Clockwerk was probably snickering to himself all the way from the volcano for years, giddy at the thought of this child he reduced from the son of a master thief to an orphaned pauper. What he wanted was for Sly to live on… live on and be the last pathetic, miserable shred of the Cooper memory that Clockwerk could compare himself to once he has achieved everything him and the Five had set out to accomplish.

Giving their line the final glory of a tragic and sudden end like that after one unlucky slip of Connor’s vigilance was more than he could stomach. His greatest enemies don’t deserve to be remembered with that honor intact. Had Sly moved on and done literally anything else with his life but successfully take up that mantle and reap revenge, then the bird would have won. He would have never been bothered again by the owl either, I bet. Clockwerk just had to take that (astronomically unlikely) risk to see the boy’s potential through. It’s the only reason that dark force has kept him going literally up to and through the second game.

Zim being ate but in the manner of a rat infected with toxoplasmosis being eaten by a street cat that’s missing half an ear

Okay but the internal dynamics of Zib as a fusion are a fantastic thing to think about because this beautiful paradoxical cross-ways power imbalance in which Zim is both a helpless captive in Dib's mind and an overpowering, corrupting influence, all at the same time

So this is part of a big spiel I went off on about the nature of Zim and Dib’s rivalry but I didn’t want to live in fear that the context for this particular point wasn’t understood

“[…] it's not really the fate of the Earth that's at stake when it's time for prank wars gone awry and school showdowns. No matter what either of them claim, it's a whole different ballgame when the stakes are actually ego. The muffin throw, the Bologna virus, The Food Fight, and The Wettening were not even really scuffles to the death if you take notice. Those battles were about both of them each trying to send a message to the other in one long-going argument. Zim's is a statement about the inherent supremacy of his species, and Dib's is a middle finger that shouts not to underestimate humans so quickly. You ever listen to "Impress Your Creators" by Tub Ring??

The ending part of that song is Dib's entire spirit”

Cause irrelevant to the whole zim vs dib thing, this specific vibe is like 85% of why Dib’s such a great character to me. Why it’s so easy to root for him as both antagonist and protagonist, and why even though I’m usually a sucker for villains, I respect the hell out of the hero he’s trying to play. Mostly though why this is just his 2nd top character song in my head.

The whole gist of “impress your creators” is this: A pod of advanced aliens shows up on earth, introduce themselves as essentially humanity’s gods, and then ominously inform us that we have 10 years and only one chance to do our best to “impress them”. Vague instructions and an implied threat of obliteration from a strange and super advanced kind. No pressure. They fly back out. One decade passes, they return as promised, and THIS was the big reveal for what humans did with all that time and hard work.