Dredge Spoilers - Tumblr Posts

Realize swiftly to fish by the security of daylight and to rest frequently, in order to avoid encountering the false ship, and other such things the townsfolk find troublesome to speak of. I watch the clock diligently and always try to keep a familiar port within eye view by the time dusk looms over my vessel. For a while, things go smoothly and I all but conquer the Marrows.

Eventually, I make my way to a rocky and cliff-surrounded bay in the south. A new, exciting area with new fish, quests, and fresh faces. Whatever new dangers there will be, I have learned that in the light with a clear mind, I will be safe. Besides, the waters here are shallow and the path between the cliffs narrow and close to respite. Eager to explore before the sunset, of course I molly on into one of those passageways.

As soon as I dare to begin dredging the waters for their treasures, the mountains themselves rumble and quake with a rising growl. Out of an enormous underwater hole I paid no attention to before, a monstrous, cyclopian eel with a maw that puts the anglerfish to shame slinks out. One glowing, hellish eye locks onto me as it misses the first lunge and I crash into the rock face in a panic. It’s broad daylight. I have what amounts to a nautical turbo boost ability now, but to use it in that tight maze of cliffs could end me faster than the serpent. When I maneuver back into the bay, barely outpacing it, it still chases me on past the docks before it gives up.

playing dredge. sailing around at night. see another ship on the water blaring its horn and beelining at me. think wtf and start heading back to the dock bc im not prepared for whatever this interaction is gonna be. the ship is much faster than me but thats ok, im pretty close to shore.

ship gets within viewing distance. the horn sounds kinda off. the lights in the windows don't look much like windows any more. there's a weird and distinctly un-ship-like shape under the water.

it's not a fucking boat. it's a fish pretending to be a boat. a big fucking fish chasing after me trying to trick me into thinking it's a fellow fisherman. when i get into range of the dock it shies away from the light and darts back underwater so fast it's like it was never there. i close the fucking game and never open it again.

The Night Angler is so baby girl actually I love her so much like

Work it

stunning

Aberrant Fish

!! Hi there, if you are reading this, know that this post is currently going through a sort of overhaul and revisit as of September. With the release of the Iron Rig DLC, and me finally getting around to finishing it, several updates to the hyperlinks below are in the works to fix some outdated numbering and account for the MANY additional aberrations that the latest expansion has added to existing regions.

The first hint many an angler will get of the dark, insidious secrets these waters hold,

and yet, they are the first thing to be accepted as only another flavor of mundane.

The game text calls them grotesque. The fishmonger calls them corrupted. You get to call them a bonus. Rather than fear and revile them, tradesmen will pay a shiny extra penny to add them into their stock. They are gestured to and spoken of, but never truly elaborated on by the townsfolk. They have probably been here long before most of them, and so will be here long after they are gone. They were certainly here before you. Maybe you don’t need their answers, and yet if you are like me, you still witlessly question and keep dredging for more.

Like many things pulled from those cursed depths, they whisper flecks of madness from an impossible voice. What messages do they carry, and what forces do they play vessel to? Are they the lingering embers from a long-extinguished calamity, or are they harbingers of the next one to come?

I believe we have already seen signs of fire with our own eyes- impossible, great beasts that prowl the four (now five) coasts, the dying cult, gibbering fog…. That damned book. These tortured creatures are but another form of the same smoke.

To the question of where they came from, if your fisherman pokes around enough and braves the darkness, he may have already found a response in one of the many obelisks scattered around the map. Specifically, I refer to this.

This would suggest the aberrants themselves are what leaked in through the cracks that the largest of all monsters wants to rend apart? Not entirely, but in part. For the researcher at the Stellar Basin came to her own conclusion I want to factor in.

Her words give credence to the possibility that it is actually those greater beasts themselves at the heart of the corruption. I think she was half onto something, because what if these twisted forms, both large and small, were blooms along the same set of festering roots?

The more dark stones you disturb in the frenzy of your own madness, the more you learn about the age before your arrival, about the islands, and especially about their current guardians. The Mindsuckers- carrion puppet masters given a home, the Basin creature- a spore that miraculously survived its dive to the abyss, and the Serpent- lifeless stone made animate and malicious, all had their creation remembered in great detail by the obelisks. Some hints point that their emergence was rather recent, relative to even more powerful beings, such as the leviathan.

Maybe there are even more unseen horrors far below, blessedly out of our reach, for now. My view is that the malformed beasts are the aimless children of such unfathomable things waiting beyond the veil. With them came its influence, and its corruption, and from them it continues to spread to all life surrounding. The smaller rifts were always a transformative disease upon the harbor’s fish, but with the rise of the new monsters, the sickness runs farther and less avoidably than ever. Whether these aberrant spawn are a gift to the worthy, or another deceptive evil that leads to madness remains left to be seen.

I will be giving a spotlight to each of these fascinating specimens at the back of Dredge’s encyclopedia, including those found in the expansions, for further comment and appreciation. Updating the list below as we go along!

[#104-109]

[#110-115]

[#116-122]

[#123-129]

[#130-135]

[#136-141]

[#142-148]

[#115-120] [#149-154]

[#121-126] [#155-159]

[#127-132] [#160-164]

[#133-138] [update still WIP]

[#139-144] [update still WIP]

[#145-150] [update still WIP]

[#151-156] [update still WIP]

[#157-162] [update still WIP]

[#163-168] [update still WIP]

[#169-174] [update still WIP]

[Bonus I. Night Angler]

[Bonus II. Serpent]

[Bonus III. Basin Creature]

[Bonus IV. Mindsuckers]

[Bonus V. Unseeing Mother]

[Bonus VI. “Narwhal”]

So there was this man, and he might have gone sticking his nose in some places it didn’t belong some time ago. He wasn’t a bad guy at all, just stumbled one day into an encounter with a reality-breaking, immensely powerful artifact he was completely ignorant of. Very shorty after he discovered this magical item, he endures a near death experience followed by the deaths of multiple people in his general vicinity.

Horrible things happen that seem inexpiably tied to the powers he’s suddenly found in his possession. You find out most of this backstory via the notes and contextual breadcrumb trail of clues that slowly hint at the fact that- oh shit. That’s you. You’re the dude. You’re the man and you forgot about it because the consequences of your bumbling actions wracked you with so much guilt and fear that you sought supernatural means of erasing the memories from your head. And it worked.

And what did you have to fear, exactly? Well, hostile eldritch creatures that seemingly have been brought over from another dimension, for one. Inconveniently, you literally begin to lose grip of your sanity and hallucinate even more potential threats if you linger in darkness for too long. Light sources are your respite. Also, no pressure, but apparently something really big is really pissed off that you still haven’t set the balance right and returned the artifact it was watching over, and it’s hunting you and it down for the entire story.

You come to terms with not only this, but also the fact that you are the cause of everything messed up going on in the plot and your selfish past has been the root of a lot of innocent people’s misfortune and suffering. Otherworldly forces, via the persona of an old man, have been pulling at your strings for a very long time to manipulate you into fulfilling a chain of events that would end up literally tearing a rift between two worlds as we know them.

Eventually you learn all you need to in order to confront the person you used to be and the malicious force you are helping, and that final confrontation presents you with a crossroads decision that will determine your fate and the success of the evil.

You can put a stop to the forbidden ritual, right the wrongs of your past, surrender the cursed item and atone before yourself and its guardian.

Or,

You can prove yourself spineless, selfish, and pathetic to the end, and see through the completion of the forbidden ritual. The evil force gets to cross through the created rift, and a happy ending is had by maybe one.

And also nothing is scarier than the thought of being in the water. There’s crazy shit in water sometimes.

Anyone else realize yet how tantalizingly close Dredge and Amnesia: The Dark Descent are to telling the exact same narrative just with a tiny pinch of variables moved around?

Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Bonus II

A beastly lord slinks through cavern and cliff. He slugs through earth and time and the wind joins his bellow before he returns to his recluse. Eventually, a pestilent sound rouses him from his burrow. There is an interloper above his halls, and they will know his wrath. No trespass evades his infernal gaze, and no vessel escapes his collection. Well, maybe all but one. “Serpent” they call the cliffs’ master, a name which lends the mind to instance threads of devilry and epic mythos. Such analogies are definitely not inappropriate for the giant aberration that stalks the Gale Cliffs. For two decades, he has patrolled and altered their passageways with slow lurch, one burning coal of an eye scanning for food or foe. Armed with strength to grind through rocksides, petrified scales, and a toothed maw fit to cleave through the largest of the world’s mammals, not even the seasoned whalers of the region play challenge to this monster. No mere fisherman could hope to test his ire and return unscathed…none, save the very man who may have indirectly led to its birth.

Hatched in the Hollow

Unlike the hostile angler of the previous area, the Gale Serpent has had no shadow of mystery set over its creation. Originally approaching this, and gathering information, I assumed I was to theorize some horrible mutation of a local fish gone awry, as I did with the Marrows Angler. The conger eel aberration was of special interest for demonstrating the ability of the Entity’s corruption to transform flesh to crystal and rock. Howbeit, there is an obelisk to the Southeast corner of the Gale Cliffs which flips this original hunch completely around. The Serpent, in fact, was not life turned to stone, but lifeless rock given soul.

All it had taken was for the crimson sorcery to seep into a deep crevice, as it is adept to, far down into the hearth of the very mountains themselves until this great eel had breached through- The wyrm, sculpted my malice, and animated by a dark energy, is in fact the one behind the detriment of the settlements around its home. Its tunneling through the underwater crags was named as causing the collapse of an entire village, which also coincided with the disappearance of the whales that the neighboring town so relied on for a thriving industry. Stories told of both corroborate that, like all strange occurrence fanning out from The Marrows, the serpent’s creation was spurred by someone dredging up the Book of the Deep. This would put the age of the beast at 20 some odd years, likely the same as the other nightmares of the major islands. In all of that time, the Serpent has in turn sculpted the cliffs into a proper domain for his liking. One that all but the well-prepared and bold dare encroach upon.

A Dragon of the Depths

The concept of the Gale Cliff’s snake would appear delightfully inspired from a great shadow of the horrors thought of by men. From the biblical leviathan, to coiling Jormundgandr, to the many aquatic wyrms of Greek tales, the sea serpent has been a subject repeated through vast swaths of oceanic legend. Where landlubbers dreamed of great scaled predators that ruled the skies and earth, there were likewise the dragons of the seamen’s paranoia, equally as tenacious and fearsome. Through the power of the Deep, these fears were brought to reality in this massive eel. His length alone dwarves the fisherman’s boat by about 5 or 6 times, and his bite is twice as punishing as the Night Angler’s. With the whales he once feasted on no longer in range of his hunting ground, he’s more than willing to make meal of the pirates and sailors that are brave enough to return. Though having no use for human trinkets, he greedily drags our treasures down to keep in his lair, and he turns quick rage to those who venture to plunder his burrow. Like so many of the terrible dragons of men’s tales, he guards his hoard, he devours the livelihood of those living too close, and he lives in a labyrinth of his own design.

Tactics

Several factors about the Serpent make him a far less avoidable threat than the Angler, and many investigating the cliffs for the first time will learn this the hard way. Even still, he is far from an inevitable threat to one’s journey. For one, the light of day provides no protection from his attacks as can be expected in The Marrows. The serpent listens for visitors in the narrow wind tunnels between the mountains at all times. By the time he emerges from the cliffs, he has already began to hone in on the ship, making silence or shutting off the lights to hide a useless action. There is an amount of predictability to his charge, if one pays attention to the rockwalls throughout the Gale cliffs. There are a number of visible, gaping tunnels beneath the waterline, where he will reliably emerge from, or retreat into. Avoid passing directly by or over one of these if a quake begins. The landslides and shaking rumble are the telltale sign that he is both awake and hunting you. While he behaves no differently at night, the fog and its own effects make encounters with him all the more dangerous. The sudden rocks that will appear at high panic can slow down an escape or even present their own lethal threat. All except for his hateful eye, the fog makes him more difficult to spot at a distance, lending an even more sinister appearance to the monster in the darkness.

Another way to tell if one is being pursued is attention to the red tinge that will increasingly encroach on their vision. Its intensity can serve as an indicator of how closely he is approaching as well as a warning to quickly stop any fishing/dredging activity in order to make a getaway. As far as speed is concerned, it is the single weakness of the Serpent; this makes an upgraded engine or the use of the words of Haste most key in evading his attacks. Even a slower vessel might be able to corner him sharply enough for a near miss, but distance will be the greatest shield. Banishing words, when available, can also serve as a reliable deterrent.

Interestingly, the Serpent’s eye only opens when he is in a hostile state. If slinking away, or passive, it will remain closed.

The Serpent is such a sluggish swimmer, indeed, that any vessel with a base speed of 40 knots or more does not have much to fear from him even without the use of the book’s spells. Of course, it becomes no less important to still carefully navigate the passageways it will be traveling through. The maze of the cliffs and their frequent waterspouts make a panicked dash unfeasible, especially for boats possessing a weak hull integrity. In time, though, this mighty aberration will be left treading behind as the one before it.

Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 13

Sable Reacher

Encyclopedia #151

Aberrant form of squat lobster

Description:

Wings of muscle spin webs between inky black legs. A gloomy core grows in the deep.

Comment: You know what else will glow? The sheam of fresh pigment across my hull, as soon as I have the other half of the black abyss recipe.

How to catch: Get your pots fit and ready, keeping in mind the 5 slots of inventory needed for just one squat lobster. Set them to wait between the surface and 25 meters. I recommend setting pots deeper than 10 meters at minimum to avoid volcano snails.

Umbral Puppet

Encyclopedia #152

Aberrant form of spider crab

Description:

Long limbs hang idly from a body mounted with blackened spheres. It waits for the call of the void.

Comment: We all dread in the assumption that it waits not for a call from the depths, but a call from above. Claim one of these before it realizes its dream, for a sleek new boat paint is calling for you.

How to catch: Conveniently, these can be caught in crab pots placed at any depth within the confines of Devil’s Spine. That’s right! Your only barrier to effectively catching these will be a spacious requirement of at least 7 slots, making this a more fitting use than ever for a highly upgraded trap or the maw of the deep. All previous info in mind, it’s easy to conclude that the most effective way to hunt for umbral puppets/spider crabs alone is to place pots past 25 meters.

Anchovy King

Encyclopedia #153

Aberrant form of anchovy

Description:

...and in their numbers, they will rise.

Comment: This is truly a gruesome reference to the knowing. I don’t suppose my fisherman knows anything of rat or squirrel kings, but he knows that the more meat, the merrier in this economy.

How to catch: *Note- THIS exact aberration is one of many reasons I continue to give for why it is wise to obtain and use an oceanic trawling net sooner, rather than later, in this journey. Where my older advice would have suggested obtaining the heavy duty trawl net as soon as possible, I’m instead now telling you not to do this, if and only IF you are able to venture to the Pale Reach. Within the heart of those icy fragments you can find a trawling set that puts the heavy duty equipment to shame, in that it takes less cargo space, works in 4 different kinds of sea, and most importantly, it raises the chance for netting an aberrant fish by 5%.* As for advice specific to the anchovy king, it is what is known by the encyclopedia as an open-ocean dweller. It calls none of the major islands its home, and lingers out in the far, far ocean between and around the main regions. Rumor also has it that the upper left portion of F10 on the map has an unusually high concentration of anchovy spawning, so it wouldn’t hurt to focus there if you are determined to bag this ball of fish sooner.

Leeching Prawn

Encyclopedia #154

Aberrant form of scarlet prawn

Description:

This tiny parasite rasps away the flesh of whatever it attaches to. Its hooked legs ensure an enduring grip.

Comment: Requesting for someone to let me know whether or not I’m the only one seeing a resemblance to another world’s “rock grub”

How to catch: Like the humble anchovy and its mutagenic sibling, open-ocean prawn can take a lot of luck or patience for most fisherman to add to their collection, for they also cannot be caught by rod; however, they can be collected by a crab pot in addition to an oceanic trawl net. They only take a single inventory slot and swim at any depth greater than 25 meters in the open sea.

Razormouth Tuna

Encyclopedia #155

Aberrant form of blackfin tuna

Description:

Half teeth, half muscle, this fish's sole purpose is the pursuit of its unfortunate prey.

Comment: Much the function of the normal blackfin, so what really has changed past the eyes and the teeth?

How to catch: Haul or trawl out of those vast, open waters.

Decrepit Viperfish

Encyclopedia #156

Aberrant form of viperfish

Description:

Gnashing teeth are the only hint that this withered body still holds life. An urge to bite that persists in perpetuity.

Comment: And yet still, as with all of the Deep’s children, there’s more value to be found here than the typical viperfish… somehow.

How to catch: Bring a line that can tackle the abyss out on the open ocean. Nothing more will be needed.

“Local ecosystem” I mean that’s a pretty conservative estimate of his total impact range

that's it. that's the game

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: ^^^