GoH Book IV

[Grover]

The Guilds of Historica, Book IV

The Queen and the rulers of each Guild in front of the oldest watering hole in Historica.

Welcome to the Guilds of Historica!  The next Book in the saga of the Guilds of Historica officially begins the first weekend of  February 2026. Book III is now closed and we invite new and old medieval Lego builders to come join our collaborative storytelling and building of the world of Historica.

We plan on a steady pace which includes prelude builds and time during challenges for building, questions, etc.  Apologies this has taken so long. We are not only a little short staffed at the moment but also still trying to fix many of the technical glitches the switch to the new forum system brought, with changes in functionality and various broken links and images. We are working on these, even trying to fix some historical pages and links, so please let us know if you find dead ends that you want to explore and we will try to fix them.

We are currently short staffed on guild leaders, so several of us are pulling double duty with their main guild and acting leaders on the guilds anticipated to be the least active based on the recent survey.  Please bear with us as we move forward, and all of us in leadership will pitch in as necessary to help make this work. We will be considering leadership roles as the Book unfolds and activity picks up.  As of the opening of Book IV, Guild leadership is:

Avalonia: @Grover, deputy:@Henjin_Quilones

Mitgardia: Acting: @MKJoshA, acting deputy: @Grover

Kaliphlin: @Kai NRG, deputy: @jtooker

Nocturnus: Acting: @Kai NRG, acting deputy: @Grover, @MKJoshA

Varlyrio: Acting: @Garmadon, acting deputy: @Rogue Angel

Guilds of Historica Background

The bard’s song tells a tale of a world long forgotten,

Race against race, clan against clan, shields clashed with swords; long ago when human warriors of the Lion fought those of the Falcon, and human armies succumbed to Orcs and undead. Each group clashed with its neighbor for power, unleashing upon the world a great scourge, and the arcane land was thrown into chaos. When it all seemed but lost, a council of wise sages was summoned. From all the lands they came to convene in the old world’s great city; the fortress of Cedrica.

To settle the grievance and end a millennium of bloodshed, the sages declined all the treaties of old and joined all the clans into one mighty Kingdom; Historica. They founded the Four Great Regions- each one a realm in itself; - Mitgardia in the North, Nocturnus in the East, Kaliphlin in the South and Avalonia in the West, so that trade routes would spring up and clans would meet in the markets and not in the theatre of war. The sages chose a family of great honor to uphold the truce and to keep the four guilds from dispute.

But darkness and chaos had only been thwarted, not conquered.  Magic was unleashed upon the land, magic that fell into the hands of Victor Revolword. Only in union did the Guilds find strength to defeat him and destroy the Elemental Helm that gave him power. Yet the struggle was not over, for out of the chaos magic had bred there arose a new threat: The Black Spire.

Ravage the Terrible, of whom no man ever spoke save with bated breath and behind closed doors, ruled the darklands of Nocturnus with a rod of iron and resistance glowed only in scattered embers. Meanwhile Drow invaded Avalonia, Algus from the north swept into Mitgardia, and the resurrection of the ancient Desert King threw Kaliphlin into confusion. Slowly, the heroes of the Guilds realized the truth: the fire that fueled the powers of destruction and chaos throughout the land burnt deep in the heart of Nocturnus. There Ravaage sought for the ultimate power, the Necromancer’s Helm. Only by once again uniting, this time against Ravaage, could Historica be saved from ashes and the rule of the undead.

But who would unite the Guilds? The King had been slain by Revolword, his son murdered by Ravaage; no other family could command the respect of all the Guilds or ignite their loyalty and patriotism. Yet a rumor arose, a rumor of hope. An heir had appeared, under whose banner all who desired peace could unite. Heroes of Historica, rise up and fight the invader who brings discord to your realm!

And rise the heroes did. Throughout the land, in every corner, evil and chaos were subdued. Rivals pledged allegiance to the new, unknown King, and sallied forth to battle Ravaage together. Old jealousies were forgotten. All felt that it was the dawning of a new day for Historica.

By trickery, the mages of Historica defeated Ravaage and destroyed him, sealing the chamber of the Necromancer’s Helm forever. Leaderless, Ravaage’s army has crumbled, his plans and power vanished. Disorder remained, but the worst appeared to be over. All eyes turned toward the throne of Cedrica, where the new monarch, Queen Ylspeth, reigned and rebuilt. Much needed resolution, many questions remained to be answered, but at last, Historica breathed free.

But alas, the peace was fragile. The civil wars had sown deep distrust that had been temporarily overcome by the need to unite for the defeat of Raavage to avoid utter destruction but finally bore its poisonous fruit of paranoia and distrust.  The young Queen had her hands full placating the populace, rebuilding, reigning in the newest Guild of Varlyrio, and healing the distrust. By rooting out the underlying evils that sought to tear the guilds apart through sinister schemes and evil whispers, Queen Ylspeth was finally able to heal the guilds and bring all five guilds together for the first time.  Exhausted, she sat back and watched as the guilds slowly reopened and worked together, for the first time since the beginning of her father's reign, and prosperity returned.  

Current Story Status

Queen Ylspeth has cemented her seat on the royal throne, and the wayward guild of Varlyrio has been brought back into the fold. The destruction of Nocturnus in the Book II civil wars has been rebuilt, and all of the Guilds are now functioning and prosperous. With this newfound prosperity, the people have sought out new entertainment, new opportunities, and ways to improve their lives.  The Guilds are entering an age of learning, enlightenment, and advancement.

Guild Allegiance

With the transition from Book III to Book IV, all existing Historica members have the option to remain with their existing guild or choose a new one.  New members should choose a guild. Please declare your allegiance by posting in this thread below.  You may include a picture of your sigfig if you wish, although your chosen Guild thread will require one.  If you are keeping your current guild and character, you can the keep your current sigfig makeup, but you are encouraged to update your sigfig in the time that has passed in Historica by providing a new picture of your character (this need not be huge spans of time or changes, and could be wardrobe, station/rank, or family changes if you wish, or you can make large changes, up to you).  You may also create a new sigfig or switch to an old abandoned one, but you may have only one official sigfig for the Book, and once declared, it remains for the Book.  Individual guilds will also request 

With the opening of Varlyrio in Book III and the rebuilding of Nocturnus now nearly complete, all guilds will be open for membership.  There is the possibility that one of the Guilds may be retired for this Book if there is not enough interest.  If this happens, any existing members of that Guild would have the option to remain in and build within that Guild, but a retired Guild will not be able to accrue points with Challenges or Free-builds.  (Please don't ask for clarification on this, because we don't know if it will happen yet.)

We ask that allegiances for current members must be posted by the end of the day 8 February 2026 for the official Guild count to help us with logistics.  As always, new and existing members that have not pledged their allegiance by this point will be able to declare after the 8th, but the official membership count may not accurately reflect Guild membership. Allegiances may not be changed for this Book once declared here.

Historica Lore

The lore of historica is slightly daunting to review, although we are trying to write synopses (adding backward chronologically so you have the most current information first) in this thread. You are welcome to review this, but be aware that not all the links have been fixed yet. If you find broken links, please PM me and I will fix them.  There is also a Guilds of Historica Discord server if you care to discuss things there, but the forums here are the official story and canon.

The Age of Historican Learning

As between Book II and III, there has been a very large gap between Book III and Book IV.  Real life has (as usual) gotten in the way, but we are ready to move forward.  After some discussion amongst leadership, we are trying to get back to some of the original feel of the guilds, which is to say we want the Guilds to be a place where Lego medieval fantasy builders can share tips, ideas, and encouragement, and we can learn from one another and grow as builders while we create a shared story in a collaborative way.  In order to accomplish this, we will be implementing several new ideas and changing the way some things work:

1.     We will have some guest ‘professors’ who will teach courses in various building techniques. We hope to have an encouraging atmosphere in which we all can excel.

2.     The Historican Settlements will open to include challenge builds. This will be retroactive, so if you have previous challenge builds that need to be added to your current settlements, let us know in the HSS thread and we will work on getting these counted (we will be doing this ad hoc per request to save time since many of the older settlements are from inactive members)

3.     The University of Petrea will be revamped, allowing faster approvals, and hopefully encourage more participation. Previously awarded degrees will be honored, and if the new requirements/courses allow for you to achieve a degree that you did not have under the old system, it will be awarded (whatever provides the greatest benefit to the members will be upheld).  We are working to update techniques and organize classes, etc.  This should debut around the time of the first challenge.

4.   We want to be clear about judging challenge entries, so we will release a general rubric for scoring. If there are specific challenges that use modifications to this rubric (e.g., a song, a collab build etc.) they will be announced before or alongside the challenge announcement.

We have spent some time hashing out a plot outline for the book so that we (hopefully) have a cohesive storyline as we move forward, which will of course be dependent on the input of all of us as members and some of the challenge builds that will dictate story canon as we have had in the past.  The ongoing challenge events like the Age of Mitgardia, Albion-esque City building and the HSS will remain.

Guild specific details will be in individual threads for Book IV.

Thanks to all of you who have continued to post and contribute during the "dark ages" of Historica.  It is our opinion that the Guilds have some of the most talented Lego builders and we are proud to provide a space for everyone's creations, fellowship, and shared story. We want to make the Guilds a fun place to post fantasy builds, share ideas, and make friends that share your interest in building with Lego. We welcome any feedback, questions, or comments and will try to continue to make the Guilds thrive.

 

[Aurore]

What an excellent news to kickstart this year! 

I hereby declare allegiance to Avalonia and will soon post a photo of my sigfig Alrune d'Embervale in the corresponding thread.
She already has quite an extensive wardrobe, the challenge will be to settle down on one specific outfit for this Book! 

[SimWies]

Great news to start the year with!

I have been looking forward to this and a huge "thank you" to the guild leaders, their deputies and all the people involved for their work behind the scenes!

I hereby declare allegiance to the migthy guild of Avalonia and will post a corresponding post in the Avalonia thread of my sigfig Sam Weatherstone, commander of the troops of Everwater.

[Grover]

8 hours ago, Aurore said:

I hereby declare allegiance to Avalonia and will soon post a photo of my sigfig Alrune d'Embervale in the corresponding thread.
She already has quite an extensive wardrobe, the challenge will be to settle down on one specific outfit for this Book! 

Outstanding! Great to see you back!  I'm now worried... your single figure picture is going to make all mine look terrible by comparison! 

7 hours ago, SimWies said:

I hereby declare allegiance to the migthy guild of Avalonia

Woo hoo!  Welcome to Avalonia!

[TalusMoonbreaker]

Yayy!! This is exciting. I declare allegiance to Varlyrio and will make sure to post a photo of Ilazio Moccenigo in the corresponding thread. Thank you to all of the guild leaders and organizers for all of your work!

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Great news and top notch descriptions/text here guild leaders and so on! I continue to swear my allegiance to Avalonia and Erdil will be posted in a new outfit in the correct thread! 

[Henjin_Quilones]

20 hours ago, Aurore said:

She already has quite an extensive wardrobe, the challenge will be to settle down on one specific outfit for this Book! 

I mean, no one’s saying she can’t change clothes until Book V… I think Henjin had at least 3 outfits last book. Traditionally your sigfig post was in full armor ready for participation in the Flight of Dragons (for Avalonia, at least) but everyone also had civilian clothes, too. And by everyone, I mean me. 

[Aurore]

@Henjin_Quilones Thank you for your input! Given also the description of the Second Task for Avalonia, I will then use in the sigfig post an "everyday" outfit (travel/light armor) that would be representative of what the character may be wearing in a mundane/mild crisis situation in Avalonia. And happily keep princess-y ballgowns, dramatic sorceress dresses and painfully basic lab robes for when I represent her in appropriate moments.

[Zilmrud]

How wonderful that it's time for the next book. It's long awaited. And for my part, it doesn't matter that it's taken a little time because I myself have had setbacks now and then in my building. But GoH is always what draws me back to the Lego room. I have so many ideas and stories that I would like to build.

Thank you to everyone involved for your work. It's very much appreciated, you should know! 

Parzival af Drachen will continue to swear his allegiance to Avalonia. And an update of SigFig will also be coming soon.

I look forward to building for GoH and also to receiving all the rewarding and constructive feedback that you are all so good at giving!

//Z