There’s no place like brimstone: A brief look at the Crypt

Darkest greetings, puny humans, I hope your week has been thoroughly miserable. Since I last scribbled on this marvellous electrical word slate, my minions have been busy terrorising the local populace with all manner of unspeakable acts and barbecuing pandas like they’re going out of fashion. I’m not keen; they’re a little tough. Not like the sheepies.

This week, I decided to roast one those horribly nice Codemasters developer people on a spit until he agreed to write some words down about our current home, which we call The Crypt. Well I say write; strictly speaking he screamed them in my general direction while he slowly cooked.

Very tasty he was too!

 

Love, Gnarl x

 

The Crypt

The Crypt, otherwise known as the Hub, is located in the lowest parts of the Netherdeep and is a very old structure formed of stone and forged metal that pre-dates the current presence of the minions and Netherghūls by a duration best measured in eras. The true earliest origins of the Hub are not known to the characters in-game, however, the Hub caters to both minions and the Netherghūls, suggesting it has always been associated with the line of the Overlord.

From the earliest concepts of the Hub we wanted to run with the idea that minions had recently relocated here and begun to put their grubby hands on things by building temporary structures that reflected each of the minion types to make it feel more like “home”, a bar where they can hurl rocks at the evening “musical” entertainment, Ricket’s Forge and a kitchen, home of happy pandas.

 

 

From the earliest concepts of the Hub we wanted to run with the idea that minions had recently relocated here and begun to put their grubby hands on things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gnarl has been to the hub before; perhaps even lived there before, but he’s a little tight lipped about his past so nobody knows for sure. All that we know is that it was his idea to use it as a last refuge for the minions and begin the task of finding new evil doers to combat the overpowering goodness that has spread through the world.

Part of the reason for coming here is that Gnarl expected to find a mysterious source of power called the Netherheart upon arrival; as he states to players early in the game, this has gone missing in the vast passage of time since his last visit.

The Netherheart has a distinctive crystalline appearance, infused with strange energy that Gnarl suggests may have been used as a disco ball once or twice. Ricket believes that the plinth for the Netherheart is the oldest part of the Hub, with other parts being later additions made by different inhabitants over time.

The Hub was chosen by Gnarl because it is defensible. The entire Netherdeep floats above the Abyss as volcanic fragments of rock, that form islands – however, the Hub is disconnected from the rest of the region and is difficult to reach for those who do not know the way. This keeps the minions safe from the Golden – for now.

From the beginning we were conscious of the fact that we didn’t want to spend all our time running huge distances from vendor to vendor.

When creating the Hub we wanted to construct an area where players could drop in, spend loot and quickly go back out into the world to carry out more evil acts. So from the beginning we were conscious of the fact that we didn’t want to spend all our time running huge distances from vendor to vendor, so we centralised most things the player would need around the portal the player will return to the Hub through.

As with any evil sanctuary there needed to be an area to fuel the ego and thus the Hall of Villains was born, residing at very top of a plateau structure, storing the rewards of an evil days work, and at the centre of this is the Throne of the Overlord. This currently sits empty and is protected by some kind of enchantment; Gnarl has warned the Netherghūls not to attempt to sit on it – the results, apparently, will be “messy” and “entrail-y”.

Getting to the Hall of Villains you’ll need to take the Stairs of Greed. You’ll see that the minions have taken this very seriously and have been busy collecting enough trash to occupy an oversize landfill in the hopes of luring new masters. Sadly none of it is of any use so we’ll have to get to the smiting and bring in the loot!

Finally the Forge, which is Rickets favourite part of the hub because it’s aptly named Ricket’s Forge.
Powered by the might of minions the forge has always been used by the elite to craft the most powerful weapons in history allowing evil doers to carve, bludgeon and smash their power right down the throats of those who stand against them. However in recent years the forge has taken a bit of a hammering from all sorts of unskilled creatures and now sits in a state of disarray. Ricket is currently using a bit of elbow grease to scrape away all of the crusted sludge left over by the last lot and is looking for a way to give it a bit of a kick start to return the forge to its former glory.

 

 

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