#game ref

[mewguca]

I'll post this stupid thing here too actually

Thorns Without Roses more like Thorns Without Razors am I right haha ????????????????,?

the joke is based on rp stuff,

um. dont worru about it.

[fungal-wasted]

Ancestral, Overgrown and Crystallized Mounds

Or, another one of those posts where I look at backgrounds to get art references and perhaps some information.

Disclaimer: I don't know much about actual architecture to use proper terms, nor am ai fully familiar with the materials presented.

Credits: All images were taken by @dromaeo-sauridae. We had fun talking about these areas.

The Mounds are places scattered around the map, where the snail shamans seem to reside in. We can find three of them in-game, one in the Crossroads, another one in Crystal Peak and a third one in the border between Queen's Gardens and Fog Canyon. This section focuses mainly on what makes the mounds stand out and what elements they share with other places in the game.

All three mounds:

Are closed places that must be accessed through an entrance, and as such, can't be seen fully with the in-game map.

Have wood-like planks as the main material

Have mask-like patterns on their floors and walls.

have at least one structure that resembles the ribs and spine of a larger cresture

Have masks hanging from sticks

Use torches

Now, let's take a more detailed look.

The bench in the Ancestral mound seems to have it's own unique design, and is colored lighter than most other benches. We can see something resembling ribs right next to the Shaman. Now: how likely are bones to be found in the game? We don't know much of the world beyond the system of caverns we commonly refer to as Hallownest. However, mamy people consider Gruz Mother to have a spine, and tools like the mantis claw are made from it, so, by some means, the snails have made use of these bones. Another possibility has to do with the Forest of Bones that did not make it into the final game but... that's not the point of this post.

In this path we can notice two main elements. Firstly, the walls seem to be made of curved structures, that could be bone, once again, or another sturdy material. Secondly, we can see wood planks on the foreground. The closest mention we have of wood comes from Zote's nail being made of shellwood. What this material is exactly and how it is obtained is not shown directly, but I will state from now that it is present in almost every area, either in one-way shortcuts, or support. The Mounds have an abundance of it, though.

Two things thay stand out to me here are the nets with.... masks? pebbles? on them. I am not sure about their purpose beyond storage. This photo also gives a closer look to the shellwood structure. Some kind of rope is used to make it stick together.

We can also get a closer look at the torches. What fuel do they use? Why use them instead of lumaflies? So far, the mounds and the Colosseum of Fools are the only places I recall using torches for lighting. Lurien and Herrah have candles surrounding them, but that seems to have a different purpose.

Bigger masks can be found on the walls all over the place. The design doesn't particularly match any seen bug. Though I must admit I have not checked for resemblances to the Soul Totems or other creatures. It's more likely just a generic mask design.

Here you can get a look at the Overgrown Mound, showing more of the same elements, except the place is covered in moss. The mask on a stick has a slight resemblance to a vessel's head, but this sprite is reused in all mounds and besides there isn't much new to point out.

And finally, these are images of the Crystallized Mound, from the tunnel that leads towards its entrance, the gate itself snd the place where the last Snail was located.

[farmergadda]

My favorite Not-Dnd game is a Lasers and Feelings hack called Steel & Spirit by Occupiedhex it's like 2 pages long and 100% free to download the whole thing

[farolero-posting]

They're so.

[greededling]

lookin

[applestruda]

Shapes in the deep

[krembruleed]

Height comparison chart based on the in-game models

Dragonborn Durge is 6'8" or 204cm. Halsin and Minsc are 6'7" or 200cm. Karlach is 6'4" or 192cm. Devil form Wyll is 6'1" or 185cm (the horns net him ~2 in / ~5cm!) Human form Wyll, Astarion, and Gale are 5'11" or 180 cm. Jaheira, Shadowheart, Minthara, and Lae'zel are 5'7" or 170cm.

The models are a little bigger in Blender than they would be in the real world. Devil Wyll was 6'7" going by his model in blender, which is just...Not Correct.

This could be because my extracts scaled slightly wrong when i imported them into blender, or the in-game scale is slightly larger than the real world, or they're just modeled a little taller than they're meant to be to make them look biggg. (my vote is that i fucked the scale. rip y'all's estimation of my intelligence.)

Whatever the reason, I knew that they were all scaled wrong in the same way. This means that instead of giving up a futile pursuit, I could do math to figure out something more reasonable.

We happen to know that Astarion is "approximately 5'11"."

I used that as a baseline. So, with our scale established, we get something like this:

Other notes:

Shadowheart/Jahiera/Minthara, Minsc/Halsin, and Gale/Astarion/Wyll share the same heights because they use the same body model.

I'm decently certain that githyanki share an armature with elves/half-elves/drow/humans, so even though the gith body model looks different, Lae'zel is the same height as the other gals to line up with their armature's bones.

I didn't include hair or head accessories (like Shadowheart's) in the total height (that's cheating).

I did include Durge's and Karlach's horns in their overall height, but Karlach's really don't add much (maybe a cm or 2).

Average height worldwide (on Earth) for men is 5'9"/ 175 cm, and for women is 5'4" / 161 cm, so they're all quite tall, but mostly still within a standard deviation of the average.

Except for Karlach, Halsin, and Minsc, who are in the 99.9th percentile for height! They're not tall, they're huge.

[midgart]

stealing cigarettes and kisses

[factual-fantasy]

Ya'll.. hear me out-

[wombywoo]

O-positive

[0xycod0ne]

neil josten,, my muse,, my favourite blood soaked pathetic cat

[azuneekun]

drew my farmer althea with march (for scale)

[fungal-wasted]

Resting Grounds

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on architecture I am simply pointing out what I can see for the purpose of speculating or art references. Also, some talks about graveyards and methods of burial, so read with caution if the topic is sensitive at the moment. I send my best wishes.

Let's continue with a small yet important area: The Resting Grounds. This area is known for being the place of rest for deceased bugs of Hallownest, and home of the moths. Here we will see what elements stand out to this area and what we can infer from them.

First of all I wanted to show images of the entrance from the tram, the City of Tears and the Stag Station, which are some of the more... traditional ways to reach this areas for those who don't want to find out if they have fall damage.

Here we can see the average elements we expect we associate with Hallownest's architecture, followed by a big gate under a curved arc with a spike on top. The gate was left semi open.

The stag station shares a lot on common with others, except for two elements: those hanging pieces that seem to end on a bell, and the walls with masks carved. Those two elements are present all throughout this area and are unique to it.

This is the sign shown from the bottom entrance, connected to the City of Tears. The sign shows.... those "A" shaped icons (*sigh*), below the essence symbol. Surrounding the area are a few short pillars with a spiral segmentation.

Here we can get a glimpse into the vertical room that serves as a hub. The locked door at the top shows a round shape, reminiscent of the essence particles (which are in turn based on dreamcatchers, an object made by the Ojibwe culture). One can see this imagery present on the room where you pick up Dreamshield, whispering roots and the sign shown above.

(Ironically, dreamcatchers are associated with arthropods, except not moths, but spiders. I fully recommend reading more on their origin from Ojibwe or other Native American sources though, to be mindful of how we use symbols.)

Moving back: The other elements that stand out from this image are that the fences here are not shaped after the Pale King, but the Radiance. The biggest giveaways are the three pointed "crown" at the top, the curves that could represent her wings and the bottom vertical lines, resembling her lower body. Besides this, ledges are not decorated with Hallownest's usual symbols, but with masks.

I'm inclined to believe this is the main cavern designated for tombs, where most bugs would expect to leave their remains. If you look closer, you can see I've pointed to 5 different designs for tombstones. Most of them are quite simple, likely just displaying the name of the bug/family buried in a place. Maybe some could afford some other kind of sculpture above their graves, or it is given to members of a guild (which is the case in real life, actually). Below Xero's arena we can see what could be niches. They are a method of above-ground entombment which as far as I know, tend to be used for less time than underground burials.

This screenshot is very interesting because it shows the monument to the Dreamers, but behind it we see a pair of... horn-like structure, which we see when we enter the Dream Realm in the context of destroying the Dreamers or fighting the Radiance. This room also has bigger structure seen in the far background, but I would not be able to discern whether they are meant to be homes for any inhabitants nearby, or mausoleums.

This is a photo of the crypts, which remain overall neglected, housing belflies, some sources of geo and priced objects. Entombed husks also roam the area, which prove two things: a) bugs' bodies were wrapped to be preserved, and b) yes the infection can make long dead bugs active again. Now, I would... speculate a few possible reasons for the crypts being what they are. First one is that it is simply an older part of the Resting Grounds and is reflective of past traditions, and the second is that this is a common burial zone, which would be where the remains of long dead bugs would end up on. As far as I know... this is a practice some places have to be able to clear space for other families, often done close to a century after death. Any possibility is fine.

I also discussed with a mutual about the possibility of preserving the bodies being related to their tie to dreams because of their spirits, which could be supported by Markoth or Galien emerging from their bodies, but that's as much as we could say.

Finally: this is an area hidden in the Spirit's Glade, showing the only monuments that directly portray moths in the entire map. This area is hidden behind a calm waterfall that provides water for the Resting Grounds. As you can see, each statue differs in size but have the same shape overall. The item collected here is a King's Idol.

I hope this was helpful! If you have anything else to add feel free to do so

Other posts that you may be interested in:

Forgotten Cossroads

The Snail Shaman's Mounds

[serv0z]

GO SUPPORT THE INDIGO PARK KICKSTARTER !!

[farolero-posting]

Equivalent dialogue in English: [You... still don't know the extent of the world's deterioration, do you, Fran?] [Sigh.]

Not bringing this up for quality of translation btw, I think the translation is the best way to phrase it. Just noticing who uses tú vs. usted. In general what I saw is that Niko defaults to formal you (usted) with everyone they have met so far, but others reply using "tú" likely because they're a young kid. The Entity uses tú for us, which honestly feels personal, so I think that's a good move.

Equivalent dialogue in English: [Some god you are.]

This one hurts. Like this is a bit more like "what a deity you became/turned out to be." Love that about them, they're so mean and rude, as they should be. Also it's very nice that the translator paid attention to not gender the player, because the game as far as I have seen never uses the word "dios" which would be the direct translation of "god".

[albaharu]

they are frenemies ...they like disliking one another....frenemies ... they're like my less favorite brother