Architecture in creatures

In my stories I often describe buildings, tunnels, huts, spaceships and even a waterworld styled barge. These constructs have so far always been inspired by in-game architecture, however far fetched this sometimes may seem at times. 

Several types of architecture can be found in the early games, shee, norn and ettin. The latter games also add spaceship architecture.

Grendels do not have a style associated with them, as far as I know. I gave them a troll-like building style in my most recent story. I felt this would fit with their physique and gave them the barbaric fit that one would expect. Ill fitting, crudely stacked large rocks, simple thatching and branches form a roof over that.

The norn ingame have no officially confirmed style to them, though I consider the treehouses in the three main games to be built by them. It fits with their playful nature and allows both children and our inner child to connect with them. It would in a way make sense for them to live in trees, away from the predatory behavior of the larger, clumsier grendels. Especially the c3 treehouses with their cob walls and little stove are a personal favorite to me.

Ettin architecture is only obviously present in c2. Canonically the temple in the desert was built by ettinae, as shown by c2 promotional material. Lore wise most things in the games must have been built by ettins, but most likely under shee supervision and before their exodus. In my second soso story the ettins live on a rusty industrial barge, which they constantly modify and rebuilt to fit their strange nature. This too was based upon ingame examples, mainly the submarines in c1 and 2 and the machine rooms the ettins live around in c2.

Obviously, shee were the only denizen of albia with real culture. Most buildings, constructs and tunnels are of shee design, even if the make would be ettin work. From a game design point of view the design of the c1 buildings evoke the feelings of the english countryside. The tunnels from c2 suggest many shee simply lived under the ground.

The woodland terrarium hatchery and teaching room are underground, covered by a smooth hill like a hobbit house.

In the mythology design most buildings and cities were actually of norn culture, the shee being only a small outlier group.

The other shee “architecture” are the spaceships of c3 and ds. These are not designed for looks but practicality, as very few cultural or aesthetic details are involved. Interestingly, no precedent for biological machines are seen on albia which might simply be an example of shee tech evolving at a ridiculous pace.

However, even though technology dictates most of the style and no aesthetic follies are present on shee spaceship designs, cultural differences are still present. The general shee population mostly seems to choose a hybrid use of technology, still often employing metal parts and mechanical machinery. The lone shee on the other hand employs solely organic machinery. The last cultural distinction are the banshee. Though no official material of their ships have been shown, the egg layer of the banshee grendel is made of stone which suggests an interesting fantasy-like style of machine and ship construction.

The ship in the ascent from the sump story was inspired by the ds ship, though less of a jellyfish and more like a vertebrate. The ringworld the current storyline plays upon is a combination of organic and mechanical parts, more so than the c3 ship. My reasoning for this would be that the ettin needed to use replaceable parts to repair the ship whenever necessary.

The different cultures inside the ship are inspired by their terrain, species and real life primitive cultures. The buildings of Sosir’s tribe are inspired by western european iron age roundhouses, for example.

What is your favorite building style in creatures? Which constructs in all games do you enjoy most, regardless of the rest of the games enjoyment? Please let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading and until the next friday story!