Here we love dirt
People have been asking for another Plague venue for a long time, and while Waterway, Mire and Ghostlight Ruins all have Plaguelike elements, a more inhospitable and harsh environment is something many people would love, including me! So that's why I made some suggestions.
What if we took some inspiration from Earthen environments because Earth is an incredibly unique and diverse place with superb areas, some even fitting for the Plague aesthetic. I'm primarily talking about the Atacama Desert, Antelope Canyon and Wadi Rum which are all orange and rusty red environments due to their iron-rich soil. They feature many unique and beautiful geological formations that could go extremely well with Plague territory. From salt lakes over flats to canyons, the potential is vast.
In harsh and dry areas, life is very adapted to the conditions which is why plants are hardy, thick and resistant, sometimes even filtering out salt. This is a great opportunity to make a landscape with large, boney growths which are resistant tree-like or fungus-like plants and bulbous roots spreading through the soil, trying to reach water.
To make the environment specifically intriguing and unique looking, I highly recommend basing the flora on the Socotra Island in Yemen. The island is isolated and has been for a very long time, and knowing that the Abiding Boneyard is also isolated and surrounded by highlands of Earth, Wind and Arcane territories, unique organisms could very well inhabit that area. Socotra Island has very strange looking plans, some trees barely even look like trees, flowers are thick and succulent, some plants have bulbous and extremely thick stems and trunks. Perfectly chaotic environment for Plague.
Another incredibly unique geographical location is Lake Natron in Tanzania. Due to being close to a volcano and volcanic processes, its contents are very toxic. It is a saline lake with a vivid red hue due to algae and microorganisms, hot springs and mummifying abilities. It is so alkaline it can barely support any sort of life, but some animals and plants do thrive around it. Flamingos eat the red pigmented algae, some resistant plants live on the shore, and some fish live in less-saline parts. Due to its high salt content, it can mummify and quite literally petrify corpses of animals which is perfect for the Plague aesthetic.
Hot springs of the Danakil Depression are another incredible example and are great for a Plague venue.
Some excellent enemies could be two-headed agamas, collared lizards, giant locusts, giant centipedes, mutant flamingos, Centaur scrappers, painted Serthis, bulbous cactus bosses, fata morgana mimics, petrified enemies, brine crustaceans and fungal creatures.
Also, I just stumbled upon KyraG's suggestion which is something I highly recommend you check out as well because they made art of their own!
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Then, another venue concept that occurred to me could be an agricultural field or fields. Edit: this can also be a Scene, which technically would be much better. Not your modern agriculture with combine harvesters and tractors, and endless fields of wheat or corn but smaller patches of land meant to be farmed on. I'll provide some screenshots for it. It would be great if there were vegetable patches, some arable land close to a body of water, and flower fields.
Enemies would be common wild critters like vulstals, wall lizards, mice, fanrats, kestrel gryphons, jackal hainus, ratsnake amphitheres, pheasant cockatrices and large wild nightmare bosses. I know it's not your conventional wild venue but the Golem Workshop isn't a wild venue either, it's a workshop, and same goes for the Waterway and the Arena.
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Another venue that would be pretty cool in my opinion is evergreen woods and shrubbery based on the Mediterranean environment, similar to what Brijuni have. I will go to Brijuni once again this summer and now that I have my new camera, I'll take some pics of what I mean. Until then, Google images it is. The Mediterranean features several unique types of topography, flora and fauna. I will be talking about the Adriatic specifically, which I am most familiar with.
The Adriatic coast is ever-changing, featuring many types of topography and vegetation. Karst is my personal favourite but there are many others such as rocky beaches, barren mountains with shrubbery here and there, scrub, semi-arid steppes, coastal wetlands like brackish bays, woodlands and forests. However, the specific vegetation and topography I'm talking about are woods with conifer trees such as stone pine, aleppo pine, fig trees, bay laurel, oleander, and Mediterranean scrub like lavender, rosemary, degenia, common sage, fennel, etc. For the love of me, I can't find good scientific articles that list the flora of the Adriatic but I'll go to the city's library eventually.
Some neat enemies could be geckos, horned viper amphitheres, wolves, wild hare jackalopes, stag cerdae, wild donkeys, hoopoes, large locusts, tarantula wolf spiders, etc. I currently have no idea for bosses so suggestions are welcome
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NEW VENUE IDEA! I'm keeping it short because it's nearly 8 am and I have not slept yet. Something along the lines of the environment, biota and climate of Madagascar! Madagascar features a whole load of different types of landscapes but the ones I'm specifically talking about are the lowlands. Beautiful orange soil and a breathtaking landscape of bulbous alien trees, small but green shrubbery and flowers, vibrant colours everywhere. A part of the venue is visible marshlands, right below a row of trees similar to the real Baobab. Throw in some phenomenal mountains and ancient sandstone buildings in the distance, like a lively city, and you have me sold! Madagascar is one of the most intriguing and outstanding places on Earth, mainly due to its long isolated state, just imagine all the cool and differently evolved monsters you could put in that venue! (some examples ft. obligatory Uncharted 4 content)
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A coastal mangrove swamp! This would be perfect for the Worldedge Wetlands location as the location of the venue would be a coastal swamp setting with brackish water. It can be a darker swamp, it can be a brighter swamp, either way it's great! Mangroves are incredibly resistant, hardy and adaptable trees who can filter out salt and can handle low oxygen environments, perfect material for an alien setting. And don't forget that the scenery is beautiful!
Some great enemies could be hammerhead threshers, kingfishers, mangrove crabs, mongooses, snails, toridae, sloths, salamanders and river dolphin bosses.
COMPLETED!
I think a Mire revamp is long overdue, not in an enemy sense but in an art sense. Lore-wise, the Mire is a Plague venue, but people usually don't identify it with Plague. In lore and nature, a mire is a wet, waterlogged area based on soil with incomplete decomposition of organic matter - and that is perfect for Plague. The idea of small oases with swampy water is incredible and I love it, but I still think that the Mire looks nothing more than just some woods. I have nothing against it whatsoever, but I do think it could use more swamp-like aesthetics.
To start, the area doesn't look warm at all when it probably is, very hot as a matter of fact, so adding warmer tones and making the sunlight pass through the trees would be great. Trees should look more adapted to a life in a lot of water, with wide trunks at the roots. Now...water. I think there should be much more shallow water presented to us. In my opinion, a blend between a bog and a swamp would be perfect for it.
More than a hundred years ago, before Robert Koch came up with a brilliant idea of drying out swamps, Croatia had problems with malaria - now we don't. The thing is, Istria (which is one of my favourite areas of Croatia) has a lot of small pools of water in areas of low elevation. The area is mainly dry but there are some miniature pools of water which is perfect for mosquitos. Beautiful red soil, dry shrubbery, Mediterranean trees, bone-coloured rocks, and then some bright green swamp pools with stale water. Now THAT'S perfect for the Plague aesthetic.
Also, it's important to make the water look green, covered in a lot of foamy algae and aquatic vegetation, add in some brighter orange and yellow colours to really make it look like a Plague venue.
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Once the Forgotten Cave gets revamped, could it possibly look somewhat like this?
Beautiful and imposing stalactites, warm lighting of torches and/or lightbulbs, crystal clear water reflecting the ceiling, etc. We could totally use an olm too.
