#alistairillustrates

Alrighty, let’s start with “beast” being a general term for anything native to the Deepnest. It refers to those who live in communities (one such community being the Distant Village which surely had a different name to the Beasts) and those who were more unruly (these would be the “wild” ones like dirtcarvers and garpedes and such). But assume for the rest of this post that when I say Beast (capital B), i mean the sentient ones. The beasts (lower case b) are wild and don’t have a society so much as instinctive interactions and such. The exception is the nosk species, but that’s a later thing. And if I forget in this post, remind me later.

Anyway.

Hardiness and ferocity and cunning are favored traits in the hunters and warriors. But they’re not the only valuable traits a Beast can have! To live in a dangerous place like the Deepnest, it’s important to have a strong, cohesive community. There are the hunters who bring food, and the warriors who defend the villages (because there are more than one village. c’mon. the game only takes place in a 2D space and deepnest is HUGE), but there also need to be builders and carers and healers and so on, each with their own traits that help the village. Community is very important - working together, taking care of each other, watching out for signs of infiltration via things digging in or someone acting odd. Even before the infection would’ve been an issue, the Beasts would’ve had to watch out for signs of a nosk trying to sneak its way in. 

Depending on where in the Deepnest a village was, who lived there and what materials the homes were made of varied. A village nearer the Gardens could have access to leaves and vines for building and crafting as well as thorns for weapons. That village could also have glowing mushrooms growing around the chamber as the main sources of light. A village deeper down might be more reliant on silk for building material. Maybe that chamber is usually dark as the bioluminescent things don’t thrive that far down (maybe the void is close enough that it consumes some of the light too), but these Beasts have captured/stolen some lumaflies which they keep in covered lanterns for when they need light. Building materials like planks and wood beams would be of limited use since the twisting maze of tunnels would limit how long anything could be while being transported, and you can only shorten a pole so many times before it becomes useless for the intended purpose.

Among the hunters and warriors, some would aim to be beast tamers. The example I like to use is a warrior-in-training sneaking into a garpede nest and taking an egg. They raise the baby garpede and hunt for it and care for it and ideally it bonds to that warrior, and they can train it to be useful in hunting or defending the village or, assuming it gets big enough and is still controllable, it can be used to deter another rampaging garpede. But, of course, a garpede can’t be easily stopped once it starts going, so if the warrior loses control of the armored beast, it could do A Lot of damage to the village before it’s felled or driven away. It’s a risk that the whole village takes.

An export of the Deepnest is spidersilk! That’s a game-established thing. You can see spools of it in the hidden station, and so so many spools in the weaver’s den. Spidersilk paper was used for recording things. Unfortunately, the ‘rain’ that eventually started to fall in the City ruined most of the spidersilk paper records. It’s mostly the tablets that remain. But... irl we see webs out in the rain with water drops beaded along the threads, so maybe it’s actually whatever ink was used on the silk that was ruined by the rain.

I also think Beasts with a skill in weaving (and I’m including both Weavers the species and weavers the other Beasts who can weave silk. like regular spiders) could contribute to the exports. Weaving clothes and decorations and such. I have no foundation for this, but what if all of the pale court’s robes were actually spidersilk? Pale and shiny. And remember, there were spools of the stuff in the hidden station, right next to where the white palace used to be. Although, I imagine the silk could also be dyed for selling to the more regular bugs of Hallownest. Fancy silks for the upper class bugs who wanted to show off.

Weavers specifically could weave spells. Seals and glyphs and such, using their silk as the conduit. 

When the Wyrm came along, the balance of power shifted. The Beasts didn’t have a god for PK to take issue with, but the Beasts themselves likely didn’t care for a new powerful entity staking his claim so close to the Deepnest. Ancient Basin is right next-door, after all. I actually think the Basin used to be part of the Deepnest but PK fought to claim that space. (I wonder if he picked that place to be near the entrance to the Abyss or if that was pure coincidence that he’d take advantage of later?)

I should probably address the general relationships of the denizens of deepnest with those in the bordering territories, huh? Let’s go back to before Hallownest was a thing, before the Wyrm came and gave mind to the pillbugs and beetles and such in the area.

-The Moth Tribe occupied the area in and around what would later be known as the Resting Grounds. No conflict with Beasts, too far away.

-The Hive kept to itself with the exception of expanding, which it was successful at, but it didn’t get greedy. The bees and the beasts likely had scuffles and encounters, but generally, they left each other alone, being evenly matched between power and numbers.

-The fungal folk... so what if some mushrooms get eaten. They share a mind and losing some of a body sometimes isn’t a huge deal.

-idk where the Flukes are in all this, but probably beasts hunt them sometimes. No attempt to gain the flukes’ territory (whatever it was before the Waterways were a thing).

-The Mosskin Tribe occupied what would eventually become the Queen’s Gardens. Maybe thorns were tended around and over all the entrances to the Deepnest that they could find. Sure, some beasts still came through, but it would be a decent deterrent.

-The Mantis Tribe. Ancient rivalry. The territory line shifted over the years, giving and taking, each side honing their skills to attack and defend against the other. The beasts had variety and strength and numbers on their side, but the mantids had skill and speed and discipline. When it came to a Beast warrior fighting a mantis warrior, they were more evenly matched.

Curious bugs that wander into the Deepnest are eaten. Some bugs are lured. We see multiple regular pillbugs in the nosk den. Also, there were plenty of infected ones/corpse creepers elsewhere in the Deepnest, so bugs came in, but didn’t come out. Tasty snacks.

The Beasts might’ve done some trading with the Hallownest bugs, but those bugs were not welcome in Beast territory. It was perilous to deal with Beasts and their home. (hmm.. Deepnest is the Australia of Hallownest)

SOUL SANCTUM

let’s just get this out of the way first - love love love love love the music holy shit. it’s not something i’d listen to when i want to chill out, but oooohhhhh those organs. and when the whispers are in there too?? and “Mage Under Glass” with the laughter??? yesss

Anyway. In general, I’m a sucker for unethical laboratories in stories and games. There’s so much potential for fucked up and creative ideas within canon and in the fan characters/interpretations (I’m looking at you, Fraught. i love you, you fucked up spider <3). 

How do you get soul? you harvest it. and you get on the king’s bad side in the process of course. and the watcher’s too, im sure. lurien’s like, ‘hey wtf those bugs are citizens under my watch. stop it’ and ‘well fuck you, im gonna point my telescope right into your office window, you soul bastard. i can read all the notes on your fucked up experiments now. whatcha gonna do now?’

How unethical were the experiments before the radiance’s insidious presence became a factor? Even if the Sanctum started as a safe place of learning, I think it wouldn’t have taken long for at least some of the bugs to start doing questionable things. Not everyone needs a moth to nudge them to cross the ethics line. But when the soul master changed course, set the scholars to study immortality, what did they focus on? improving the body so it won’t slow and cease its function as time passes? prolonging the stability of the mind so age doesn’t corrupt memories or cognition? focusing on a bug’s own soul to do something that way? any combination of this could fuck up the stability of the mind and/or body of the subjects. That’s where we get the mistakes/follies, right? too much soul for some that cause melting pretty quickly. for others that don’t have a negative reaction right away, maybe a dependency on soul is built up and must be maintained to stave off negative effects of withdrawal, then of course there’s a shortage. you can’t harvest bodies forever. maybe the souls of the infected bugs aren’t viable, maybe the infection taints them, spreads the infection to whatever bug absorbs it. there are options here.

There’s also the soul warriors. They have dream dialogue where they say something about not remembering how they have these moves or how to fight or something like that, right? so what if those bugs had souls of trained fighters like city sentries implanted in them? they suddenly have new instincts for situations that they themselves didn’t experience or train for. i kinda get neuromod vibes from this concept (from the game Prey). 

Also, the parallels between the soul master and the pale king are neat. they both have corpse pits. they both think they’re hot shit (and to be fair, they are both powerful even if they’re in different leagues). the radiance directly fucks with both of them. neither of them admit defeat in their final dream nail dialogue. (iirc, arty-cakes has made a similar observation about the parallels, but i noticed this long before they made their post. still, it’s a good observation)

uhhh okay i’ll stop there for the Sanctum

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DEEPNEST

...skitter skitter skitter skitter...

i feel so sorry for anyone who has arachnophobia and couldn’t enjoy the game because of this area. that sucks. this is one of my fave areas specifically because of the skitters and clicks and snaps and wibbly music/sound effects that occasionally made my skin crawl. 

im a fan of spiders and centipedes, and deepnest delivered! 

i have a lot of headcanon stuff for deepnest society and beasts that has little to do with the game or established lore, so i’ll leave that for another time. But for more game-related stuff, let’s see...

i think nosks and corpse creepers and grub mimics, if not different life stages of the same species, are at least related. like how wild cats and cheetahs and panthers are related but not the same. nosks have the most developed shape shifting capabilities, and they have a sort of pocket dimension that they can fold their body into so they can fit into smaller disguises (how else do you explain how large the infected nosk actually is compared to the much smaller knight that it ran around as to lure the player in? magical dimension powers is what i’ve decided)

the weaver’s den showed much more development of architecture. more metal and arches and stuff. i can’t recall to what extent the basic shapes and materials reflect parts of hallownest, but i think that place was a more recent development compared to the rest of the Beasts’ infrastructure.

PK reeeaaallllyyyyy wanted to get a tram all the way across deepnest, didn’t he? we get one tram to the eastern edge which conveniently takes riders to the ancient basin below where most of hallownest’s citizens are. but then the failed tramway that heads for the distant village. could it have been one of the lesser conditions of herrah’s and pk’s agreement? but herrah would be asleep so she wouldn’t need the tram to visit the palace or have hornet visit her. but why else would a tram be intended to cross to there? idk that one doesn’t make much sense to me. maybe i’m forgetting a detail, but whatever.

deepnest is a horrible maze that i will continue to get lost in.

[bonus - okay i’ll share this:  one of the made-up swears i use for my beast character is “writhing mass” in reference to the skittering, scuttling pit of writhing things found as an area hazard in lieu of acid. like “bloody hell” or something haha. also it’s just fun to say.]

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MANTIS VILLAGE

Alas, i don’t spend a whole lot of time in this area. I think the mantids are cool and honorable, and i apologize for my weaverlings attacking friendly mantids, but sometimes a little deepnest should be allowed to cause mayhem in the mantis village, okay?

mantis lords/sisters of battle are great boss fights. the choreography and smoothness and reflexes and aaaahhhh yeah

i seriously wonder what’s up with all the giant spikes though. like. not even deepnest has giga-spikes like that. ......actually. i wonder if those spikes are there in case the beasts overrun the village. they’d certainly be painful obstacles to beasts trying to climb out of the village and into the fungal wastes.

I think it would’ve been cool if there had been some bit of dialogue or a lore tablet that hinted at the mantis traitors. i know there’s the broken throne, but i didn’t notice that; it was pointed out to me after i’d already played once or twice through the game. don’t get me wrong- it’s a cool little thing to look back on and be like ‘i see what you did there’. environmental storytelling or whatever. but i’d like a little more anyway.

i wonder how the fungal folk feel about the mantids. i imagine they occupy their own sections of the fungal wastes and just mutually don’t bother each other. i wonder how diplomacy would work between a mantis of individual mind and a mushroom of shared consciousness? they make a nice contrast in a sharp and cutting/soft and bludgeoning way as well as a swift and silent/energetic and noisy way with how they attack and stuff.