She can feel the cold eyes of the unquiet dead on her. Each furtive step deeper into the baleful crypt floods her mind with the tortured screams of these cursed, purgatorial souls...
Stirring Abyss is the game that occurred when X-COM: Terror from the Deep, Das Boot, The Hunt for Red October and H. P. Lovecraft'' all got thrown into a blender together. Developed by Sleepy Sentry and K-Project, Stirring Abyss puts you in charge of the crew of the USS Salem, a cold-war era torpedo submarine sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
Tropes in Stirring Abyss:
- Alliance with an Abomination: It is possible to find multiple statues dedicated to the 'Bull-Headed God' who views attacking entities as his wayward children and will give aid to the crew of the Salem. Depending on how well the Fate Dice roll, this can either be entirely beneficial for the crew or have some severe strings attached, via raising the corruption level and making enemies even more dangerous.
- Apocalyptic Log: Throughout the descent into the abyss, it is possible to recover recordings left by the crew of a Soviet submarine that went through a similar catastrophic series of events to the crew of the Salem.
- Combat Tentacles: One of the possible mutations that the crew of the Salem can gain is the Abyssal Grasp which causes the crewmember to sprout a tentacle in place of an arm and allowing them to grapple enemies, damaging and pulling them closer. The downside is that the mutated crewmember can no longer use spearguns.
- Dirty Commies: There were logs left by the Soviet Submarine that were competing with the player over the excavation but it became Subverted Trope as many were just as suspicious towards their more obsessive superior (Voronin) and one of them—Petrov—hauled a nuclear warhead to the final boss area until his last-minute demise.
- Electric Jellyfish: They're basic enemies but the autopsy points out that jellyfish don't actually do this, which should be your first clue that something else is going on.
- A Father to His Men: Commander Buryakov had concern for his men in contrast to the scientist Voronin that some of the crews led a mutiny against the scientist when he got the Commander killed.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three kinds of crew classes aboard the Salem roughly translate to these.
- Crewmen are the fighters; with special abilities focused towards melee and reducing damage from enemy attacks.
- Scientists are the mages; using a variety of darts to inflict various status effects on enemies, provide first aid to other crewmembers and charm some enemies into attacking each other.
- Officers are the thieves; specialists in the use of spearguns, having special skills that add explosives or piercing qualities to their primary weapon and skills that buff the number of action points other crewmembers can have for a limited number of turns.
- Hero of Another Story: Combined with Villain of Another Story, the Soviet Expedition Logs that can be found through a number of missions tell a story that is very much a precursor to the main storyline, with the commander (Buryakov) of the preceding Soviet expedition being betrayed by his lead scientist (Voronin) who wished to use the technology of the underwater city for his own gain. By the end of the main story, all the members of the Soviet Expedition have been driven insane or in the case of the one Soviet that stayed sane (Seaman Petrov) died attempting to destroy the city with a nuclear bomb. It is only thanks to Petrov's sacrifice that the crew of the USS Salem have the chance to destroy the city at all.
- Human Sacrifice: The third mission ends with the crew finding the body of a fellow crewmate tied to a stone slab who was in the process of being ritualistically sacrificed. The crew can choose to bury him as best they can while deep underwater, continue the ritual via cutting out the dead crewman's heart, or scavenging any remaining equipment from the body.
- It Has Been an Honor: If the timer on the nuclear bomb finishes its countdown without the crew killing the Captain Ascendant, whomever set the bomb off will quote the trope word for word.
- Lovecraft Lite: Yes, the creatures lurking in the Abyss are horrific monsters that can easily kill the crew of the Salem or drive them insane, but they can still be beaten back and killed by combat knives and spearguns.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: What the various mutations the crew can go through amount to. While quite a few only provide benefits, all are described as exceedingly unpleasant experiences, ranging from auditory hallucinations to various degrees of body horror.
- Mildly Military: As the story goes on and the crew of the USS Salem travels ever deeper into the Abyss, they can call upon benevolent Eldritch Entities for aid, scavenge supplies from Soviet caches, mutate themselves into monstrous humanoids with tentacles and a giant pincer in place of a hand...
- Mirroring Factions: Both the American and Russian submarine crews had superiors—Voronin for the Soviets and the Captain Ashworth for the Americans—who were obsessed with elder gods to the point of sacrificing their own men in exchange for boons that caused concerns and even protests among the ranks.
- Multiple Endings: During the final mission, the Crew of the Salem finds the body of Seaman Petrov, a Soviet sailor who attempted to destroy the palace with a nuclear bomb. Depending on if you completed the optional mission to recover the arming codes for the bomb, you are given the choice to arm or disable the device which leads to either:
- Bittersweet Ending: Arming and protecting the bomb until it detonates dooms the USS Salem and its crew. However their Heroic Sacrifice destroys the corrupted captain and the portal, protecting humanity from the terrifying knowledge of the eldritch abominations lurking beneath the waves. However remnants of the creatures from the Abyss end up washed ashore to be scavenged on by the local wildlife...
- Downer Ending: After disabling the nuke and forcing the corrupted captain back through the portal, the crew of the Salem finish repairing the sub and rise to the surface...! Where they are promptly arrested by their own military and thrown into institutions and laboratories, their accomplishments and warnings ignored and finally a series of newspaper headlines detailing capsized fishing boats, rising disappearances and birth defects along the Eastern Coast and lost contact with a naval base...
- Power Pincers: The end result of the Crusher mutation, which bestows on the subject a giant crablike pincer which greatly increases their melee damage, but leaves them unable to perform attacks of opportunity or wield a speargun.
- Shout-Out: A downwards journey that can end in using a nuke against an Eldritch Abomination? Sounds like Pathways into Darkness.
- The Symbiote: The Colony mutation infests the crewmember with a teeming swarm of invertebrates that passively damages any enemies adjacent that the diver ends their turn next to. The swarm can also be commanded to attack a specific enemy damaging and disorientating them, but removing the passive damage effect.
- Underwater City: Akoratya.
- Was Once a Man:
- The game implied that Murkfiend, Spine Skulkers, and Fathom Seers were inhabitants of Akoratya mutated from Eldritch beings.
- In late stage of the game, the divers from Soviet Expedition will appear as enemies with many of them having one of their arms mutated into crab claws or tentacles.
