Book IV - Prelude 3: Unjust Deserts

[Grover]

  

Book IV - Prelude 3: Unjust Deserts

Previously: Prelude 2: Royal Visit to the University of Petrea

The Desert King turned away from his crystal ball.  He had been scrying on the Queen, watching her success in uniting the Guilds. He fumed, angry that she now ruled over the same territory that had been his domain centuries before.  He wanted to rule all the lands again, but he needed an army. He would have difficulty raising an army of the living since he had been largely forgotten and disregarded (and those that remembered him did not want to be subjugated), so he would have to use magic to raise an army instead.  He paced the floor, pondering how to raise an army without drawing attention until it was too large to stop.  He refocused on the crystal ball and it glowed as he reviewed images of the maladies that had beset the Guilds over the past few years.

These unusual occurrences ranged from the almost innocuous oversized livestock grown from water contaminated with magical waste and rumors of secret alliances to demons appearing and lizard people wearing human skins and infiltrating governments.

All of these anomalies had drawn attention and resources away from the crown and had in many cases sown confusion and division between the Guilds.  He reasoned that rekindling some of the worst calamities and adding a few new ones throughout the guilds should distract from his magics long enough to raise an army.  His smile was wicked. All of Historica would once again be his!

Spoiler

Special thanks to @kahir88 for permission to use his picture from his build Rise of the Reptilians (this mirrored picture is one of my favorites!) in the crystal ball, and @Kai NRG for helping with the filtered red light for the photography!

 

[Kai NRG]

With the lighting and all this turned out really cool!  The gold braziers are great and it's nice to see the Desert King playing his role in the story again so we can finally starting fighting him again 

[jtooker]

The size of the pillars really sets the scale of the room, despite only showing a portion of it.

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Lovely lighting for this scene @GroverI also really like how the pillars are cohesive but one of them having other details with the scorpions! 
I will second tooker on how the pillars give a sense of scale for the room, nice one! 

[MKJoshA]

Yes, long live the Desert King!

[Brickwolf]

The plot thickens.