Was anyone going to tell me you can just PUT textures on LIGHTS in Blender? Or was I just supposed to Google that myself after watching an unrelated video about CG caustics and wondering if something like that could be done?
TURNS OUT IT SURE CAN.
So yeah! I played around with it for a bit, got a good underwater-y effect, and just kept adding to it until something like this came out. Then I thought "sandy river bed" was kind of boring, so I threw in my One Ring model for the heck of it, and it became another piece of LOTR fanart.