All My Brain Juices In A Bowl Of Soup

So yeah here’s Myla, the friendly singing miner bug who loves singing about burying her dead family in the ground or something. And I haven’t finished the game yet, but I naturally assume that nothing bad will ever happen to Myla.

Awakened!Roman: Indulgence

Close ups:

You know what that means

Dreams are a bad thing in hk, so making nightmares a good thing is fascinating. Of course neither is black and white, but ultimately the nightmare heart is doing lands a service.

It’s a cleansing fire to ensure the ecosystem can start anew. It’s actually a really, really interesting nod to how nightmares, like dreams, are our brains’ way of processing complicated topics and feelings. You can’t just process the good, or it’ll mess your mind and body up! You need nightmares (in moderation ofc) in order to fully process your feelings.

The plant-themed ones like Unn & Nyleth are producers, Greyroot's an opportunistic parasite, the Pale Beings would territorial apex predators by default though the individuals we meet vary in how 'civilized' they are, Lifeblood works a bit like an invasive species, and Grimm is a scavenger / destruent, kind of like a vulture.

The Radiance one of whateverever Grimm & Lifeblood are & in-universe symbolically associated with entropy & destructive force of nature, but also has this very bright angelic look.

Since she's an Evil angel, it makes sense to have Grimm who is sort of a Nice Devil. (in going with the theme that nothing is intrinsically all good or all evil, one of whatever the villain is be an ally. GMS an evil version of the Hallownest royals who sort of represents all the negative sides of order & civilization. )

The 1st game was a story of ivilization crumbling in the face of calamity & being taken back by destructive forces of nature, such as a plague, whereas in the 2nd one we have a story of corrupt civilization destroying & exploiting nature.

Also the contrast of "new" vs "old" gods. First time around the villain is an "old" god who's salty that her religion went out of fashion (lovecraft adjacent idea that old & mysterious = especially dangerous & ineffable), whereas next we get a villain who's a "new" god who forcibly imposed herself. She also uses much more monotheism-like aesthetics with how the statues & icons depict an abstract symbol (rather than a more or less stylized statue of her) & the general vaguely roman-catholic aesthetic of her religion.

But, then it's tied to the eco-system motif in that she's the only god in Pharloom because she systematically offs potential rivals.

The void probably occupies more the space of a lovecraftian squid or D& D's Far Realm with how it's all tentacly & clearly representing the unknown, but while it's generally scary & unknowable we also get a bunch of heroic characters associated with it!

(the void a neutral hard to control force, but there are evil forces associated with it like the Steel Masters, who seem to be a bunch of slavers)