ask and you shall receive BAAHSGDHSDGF here are my kpdh x thg arenas!! @tis-i-espresso-magpie :D
these are in order of when they win! celine's arena isn't mentioned here because it's the standard 50th, i haven't really changed anything there!
under the cut because good god it's long
jinu's weird freak arena (64th games):
desert, 75% of the oases there are NOT REAL :bangbang::bangbang: THEY WILL KILL YOUR ASS THE WATER IS POISONOUS!!!!!!!!!
trial run for the 65th games; the 64th games are full of pods, but they're lowkey and generally don't detonate into Insane Things. they're largely mutt-based, specifically scorpions, and only erupt / go off when made direct contact with or during a certain event (like going into the water at the oasis, touching something, picking something up, etc etc. not pressure plate-based or sensitivity traps like rumi's)
jinu gets poisoned. So Many Times. like SO many fucking times. like it's not even funny how delirious and out of it he is by the time he manages to win. he only really gets by and gets away with being so out of it because the remaining tributes are ALSO going through Scorpion Madness
jinu's main skill here is that he's adaptable and clever; he's able to figure out the pods fairly quickly, and he's also inherently distrustful of the oases, so he doesn't trigger a lot of them out of pure distrust. his #1 way of staying alive is relying on food and drink from backpacks, which he usually gets off of dead tributes. he's not so much a Killer as he is a Scavenger here
it's never fully dark out, perpetual state of Light? the moon is always full and it seems to Move depending on how you look at it. 64th games has some insane shit going on with the sky, deliberately modified to make the tributes more unaware and more panicked / violent during nighttime, especially since half of them are Actively Hallucinating
jinu recognises this fast, he avoids the weird arches where the moon can look at you like an eye because that always seems to trigger mutts going off. during the night, he usually stares really hard at the ground when he walks and prays that he's not going to fall into a giant pit or something; this is the right way to go about it. it's risky, but it keeps him safe from the Nighttime Horrors In The Sky, so it works!
looking at the moon directly doesn't trigger any pods or anything to happen, but it DOES freak the tributes out because There Is Something Wrong With The Moon.
desert seemingly never ends; lots of stretches of nothingness, a few canyons, some cliffs / rocky / mountainous areas scattered on the borders. there's some wreckage around but it's largely kept to one section of the arena. some sections of the arena are a little more Alive without being an oasis. most food can be found in those more alive patches, like rabbits and hares and birds. snakes are ALSO very common!
~5 total oases? maybe less? it's a BIG fucking arena but they need to be kind of pushed together so idk. maybe less maybe more who knows. not me!
water is poisonous to touch and drink more often than it's not. also. scorpion attack. ten billion scorpions.
arena definitely changes colour. just like btw. Nighttime Hell is already happening and then when there's like 5 tributes left suddenly the world is a very fun shade of orange and no one likes this. i do think so much of jinu's time is spent with him trying to figure out ways to navigate his arena with his eyes CLOSED :bangbang: kind of works out honestly since the entire arena is designed to Drive You Fucking Insane
he spends a lot of time in the canyons / caves. helps with the heat too! he does unfortunately get pushed out by ten billion scorpions but he DOES try really hard to stick to darker areas since they seem to be the least affected by the whole. disco party in the sky or whatever the fuck's going on there
desert temperature fluctuates Also for fun! days can be Scathing hot and nights can be Freezing Cold but sometimes it's the opposite! and you never know when it's going to happen! as a treat!
this is like one of the biggest reasons why jinu sticks to the caves as much as he's able to. the temps there aren't like…better. but they're a little more consistent and less Full Tilt to one side or the other
rumi's even worse weird freak arena (65th games):
ok so the images aren't even quite what i want just because they still have life and they're not completely grey BAHSDFGHDGF rumi's cityscape hellscape is ALL fucking grey. ALL GREY! ALL METAL! NO LIFE! NONE! AT ALL! THERE IS NO PLANT LIFE AT ALL!!!!! there are no plants, the only animals are rats and they get Stalagmited Often, and to top it all off, there is VERY LITTLE SUNLIGHT!!!!
the arena is in a perpetual state of darkness, specifically early in the morning right before the sun fully rises. minimal light, Low Light, etc. very dark and very depressing, the shift from being In The Arena to being Out Of The Arena is very rough for rumi
the main section of the arena is obviously the city, but there are several pockets of ruins / scrap metal scattered throughout. those usually have some supplies hidden within, but they're also usually dangerous and have at least One Or Two pods, so it's a huge risk/reward kinda thing
lots of buildings have multiple floors; rumi utilises the rooftops a lot for travel because there aren't nearly as many pods on the fallen beams between buildings. there are in fact pods on the rooftops though so yk. you win some you lose a lot
65th game is FULL of pods! like. all of them ever! Every Single Pod In The World is in this arena in particular. for the most part they're the awful tar wire traps that mitchell gets to experience, but a lot of them also explode, there are others that release Stalagmites, some of them shoot knives / spikes out of the ground. basically the entire arena is a walking minefield
these pods are activated by pressure plates; you have to pay attention to where you're walking to avoid them, though a lot of them are VERY well hidden. it's not impossible to find them, you just have to. you know. get really good at it really quickly (rumi does, but her main solution is also keeping a handful of rocks at all times to throw ahead of her when she walks, purposefully setting of traps before she can accidentally trigger them)
once triggered, pods don't generally reset, but sometimes they do! depends on the pod! the stalagmite ones usually will reset, it just takes a few hours to days depending (hard to keep track of, a lot of the city deliberately looks the same so you can't completely backtrack or remember where things are)
lightning storms are incredibly common. best bet is to get inside somewhere and to just like. pray. given how literally everything is metal, there's no Real safety it is ALL vibes and luck BAHDGFHDG this is also one of the only chances to get water other than from packs, so you sort of have to weigh your options on if it's worth being out in the open
all food + water largely come from backpacks like the 50th games! there are a few pipes that produce water but it's not clean, and there are technically rats, but that's not really like. a great option either. packs are well-stocked, and it helps that a LOT of tributes die very quickly, so rumi is always stocked up on food + water (plus she's getting sponsors)
a LOT of tributes die on day 1, not even to the bloodbath, just to the arena. the 65th games are insanely short; like….3ish days? 4 maybe? CRAZY short, and it's entirely because so many of the tributes are dying to the pods. no one has any time to starve to death because they're all actively being Stalagmited
still, keeping track of the days is difficult because there's no day/night cycle. the sky never changes, rumi is somewhat convinced it's been between 2 - 5 days in the arena
no real mutts, sometimes there are distorted voices and cries coming from other parts of the city; are these real? who knows! whenever rumi hears them, she IMMEDIATELY flees
there is one whole fountain of water. this is a trap. it WILL tar wire trap you. rumi never interacts with it because she's so pushed into the city almost immediately, but she sees it in the rewatch and man. it's brutal!
mira's Mostly Nice arena (67th games):
infinitely nicer than rumi + jinu's arenas BAHDGSHFG the capitol really went "oh man :/ those last few games haven't been lasting very long. let's go easy on 'em!"
rolling fields, wheat fields, very open with very little high ground. there are a few foothills, but they're largely still open and visible. there is One whole river that loops in a circle around the arena with a few scattered trees + a meadow that kills you instantly (poisonous, full of tracker jackers + mutts. entices you in by seeming like a good place to rest, Instant Death.)
HEAVY emphasis on very little high ground. the fields are sometimes tall enough that you can't see other tributes, but in Mira's Case Specifically? she's pretty much always hunched over or staying low because she's so fucking tall that it's pretty much impossible for her to be entirely obscured from view
no real alterations when it comes to the sky / weather / time, but fires are VERY prone to striking and burning through the fields; this happens Several times, mira is always fine and is casually by the river with her 20 sponsored burn ointments, but she DOES watch it happen and considers using it as a way to kill flushed-out tributes (never can make herself do it)
other than the fires, the most naturally damaging thing in the arena is the constant sun during the day. there's very little shade, so heatstroke is common and a few tributes definitely die from not being able to cool down or have enough water. the river + trees are pretty much considered Bloodbath Spots because EVERYONE wants to be there, but the career pack is actively hunting and patrolling that section of the arena
fire 100% moves and spreads way faster than it realistically should. it's hard to outrun and acts like the segments in the 75th games where you kind of just have to get to another section of the arena since outrunning it isn't really an option
would be interesting if the fire caused both Normal Fire Burns and also Chemical Burns like the 50th games did when the volcano erupted! you never know which one you're gonna get! good luck! both are bad!
animals are common! deer, rabbits, birds, mice, etc. most of the animals stick to the river and the foothills, but some venture out into the actual fields, specifically the mice. there's less food + water in the backpacks since the arena generally provides enough for the tributes to at least manage to get by
mutts are somewhat common, probably like….bears?? i think some weird fucked up mutated animals fallout-style could be really cool and bears would be INSANE. yeah get it 67th games! bear attack! 20 billion bears Arriving At Your Location Imminently
most of the fields are short enough that you need to stay low, but some are so high that you can't tell if you're going to run into someone until it Actually Happens. with the fires, the fields are warping and ""regrowing"", so the positioning changes very frequently. it goes largely unnoticed because most of the tributes are constantly on the move, but it's definitely still happening!
even the "high ground" isn't that useful, and it's sort of like a win-lose? you get to see the tributes in the fields, but then you're also very obviously up high and visible to everyone else, and there's not very many options on Where To Go from there
river is NOT poisonous! it's actually totally fine and normal you just have to boil it as you would normally
definitely has fish, that's another good food source if the river wasn't such a spawncamping spot BAHHAHAGDFHD
rain is less common, still happens, but it's infrequent. they REALLY want those guys to go to the fucking river. amen
the river is most accessible by the cornucopia; it DOES go all the way around, but it gets progressively further and further out, so it's a lot of walking, which is more exhaustion, which is in fact Deadly. Amen.
zoey's really fun arena that is specifically evil to her and her alone (68th games):
mountainous, rocky cliffs with a wide, vast beach! the rocky cliffs slowly fade into a deep forest that gets Darker And Darker the further you go (day/night cycle slowly stops existing, mutts run rampant, the entire point of that is so the tributes stay close to the beach and aren't lost in the deep forest)
THE OCEAN IS FAKE IT'S EVIL IT'S WRONG IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE AN OCEAN SHOULD!!!!!!! admittedly this is largely only a problem for the d4 tributes, but it is OPPOSITE!!! when the ocean recedes, sometimes it's fine! sometimes it's not! sometimes huge waves crash onto the beach and sometimes they Get Really Close To Tsunami Height. the ocean is always doing SOMETHING and it's never what it SHOULD be doing!
zoey is plagued by this. this is the worst thing that could have ever happened to her. like ever. she's freaking out and frantically getting to high ground only for the ocean to do ??? nothing at all ??? AND THEN THERE'S A HURRICANE!??!!??!
she still figures out the ocean VERY quickly; adapts insanely fast, pays a lot of attention to it, does her best to throw out any previous knowledge she had of Her ocean in favour of trying to survive this one, and she does a Very good job at it
lots of animals + food + water! the main sources of water are winding rivers throughout the forest, but those are admittedly small and more Creek-Like than anything; a lot of the tributes don't know that you Do Not Drink Ocean Water, so that's a pretty big issue
lots of berries + flowers + forageables, lots of rabbits and deer! there are ALSO a lot of wolves and bears and MOOSE. MANY MOOSE. AT LEAST ONE TRIBUTE DIES TO A MOOSE. there are also crabs + fish + weird freak fish mutts in the ocean that like to attack when you get too close to the water. the beach also has beach snakes littered around hidden in the sand
genuinely this arena is like. so normal. there's a lot of food! there's water! the day/night cycle is normal! there isn't any insane weather! the ocean, However. lots of mini tsunamis / hurricanes, trees falling are very common due to the aforementioned mini tsunamis and hurricanes. there aren't many forest fires or like…lightning storms though! so. you know. we take what we can get
at most it's like…rainy more often than not? so it's usually cold and foggy, but hypothermia is only a real threat a few days in and depending on how deep you are in the forest. making fires is harder but not impossible because of this, and wearing wet clothes day in and day out is a problem, but some of the backpacks have tarps / extra jackets / layers in general to circumvent this problem
even in the Deep Forest there's not a lot of weird weather, there's just. you know. mutts. mutts and everything there is poisonous and will either kill you or make you severely hallucinate
most tributes stay out of the deep forest and stick to the cliffs and beach. the coast is fucking HUGE and the beach goes on for a while, so there's plenty of space to sort of just….exist around. there's also a handful of caves before the cliffs and right by the beach, which also act as good places for tributes to stick around / rest in
dying from being pushed off of a cliff is common i fear. zoey is definitely pulling that at least once or twice. drowning is ALSO very common, whether by accident or because of someone else! bet she's doing that one too! sorry zoey!
honestly there are so many more ways to die in this arena and most of them come from Other Tributes for once rather than the environment. there are definitely still a few tribute deaths that come from accidents, but largely most tributes do die because of another tribute
the animals also act wrong! they will lead you to Death. they are not afraid of you. The Deer Will Fight Back. The Rabbits Bite. The Birds Swarm. Good Luck!