Food webs

Here are the food web diagrams I worked out for both the terrestrial and the aquatic ecosystem of Dark Waters. There will be some overlap between the two systems, but I figured the diagrams were complicated enough to begin with. According to diagrams I found on wikipedia, the accepted notation for food webs is A ---> B means that A --is eaten by--> B, even thought that seems a bit counterintuitive.

These may be somewhat subject to revision as I proceed with the project, but the general form of the web and relationship of the creatures should stay mostly the same. The names I'm using thus far are shorthand, and some of these creatures have been further developed than others. In some cases I'm using the name of an existing animal that has some of the traits I want to bring to my creature ("clownfish" for example, will not be a clownfish, but will have developed resistance to the sting of the giant jellyfish and therefore can live among its tentacles without fear of predators). The colors relate loosely to that creature's preferred diet. Red represents the top predator, and green and turquoise respectively represent herbivores or fish that eat plankton.

Terrestrial food web

Aquatic food web

Dark Waters project blog

I am officially beginning a blog for my thesis project, Dark Waters. Hopefully this will help me record my progress and process as I design the world of Dark Waters.

For those of you who don't know (or have forgotten) Dark Waters is going to be the backbone of a game. In short, I'm designing an ecosystem. Or to be more accurate, two related ecosystems. The first is a terrestrial environment protected by a huge dome that has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. This is a self-contained environment that has been evolving virtually in a vacuum. Although the sciences that created it are almost extinct, the humanoid inhabitants keep the huge self-contained dome functioning with technology that has become shamanistic through the generations. Many of the creatures living inside the dome survived, and have over the generations created a highly specific and tightly woven food web. The other ecosystem is that of the Abyssal zone, the deep sea creatures that surround the dome and interact with it.

I plan to post images, thoughts, creature descriptions, general progress updates, and tidbits of narrative relating to my project on this blog. Hopefully it will keep me updating, and perhaps keep some of you interested as well.

—Katie