Challenge I: Aslanic Temple in Barqa

[Gideon]

CHALLENGE I: Aslanic Temple in Barqa

The Order of Aslan has a strong presence in Barqa, with both it’s clerical and military wings having numerous members in the city. The Aslanic faith is therefore one of the most widespread among the inhabitants of Barqa. Particularly in the growing community of migrants from Nocturnus, the faith in the Lion God seems to be spreading quickly.
Towering over the New Aden district, located within the outer wall of Barqa, the bell tower of the Aslanic Temple is one of the most recognizeable landmarks of the Barqa skyline and the tones of its bells are a familiar sound calling to prayer daily and sometimes to alert of fire or foes.

Aslanic temple in Barqa, next to a busy street in the New Aden district

Altar with the idol of Aslan

In the parched deserts of Kaliphlin and the fetid swamps of Nocturnus clean and fresh water is a well-known symbol of life, both literally and in a spiritual meaning. Barqa is fed by several aqueducts providing the city with fresh mountain water from the Zumrut Bluffs.
The Aslanic Order has made sure to connect the temple the water supply and have built a fountain where the depiction of Aslan is literally providing the inhabitants of Barqa with abundant life flowing from the mouth of the Lion God. Especially the majority of the city’s inhabitants who cannot afford to live in a house connected by its own pipes greatly appreciate this service, regardless of if they chose to put any religious interpretation in the water or not.

Contrary to widespread prejudice against “filthy orcs”, most are actually quite cleanly if given the chance. One might wonder if this is one of the explanations for the revival in the orcish population of the city.

An orcish child and his mother are fetching water from the temple’s fountain.

Bishop Sheyer, the highest spiritual leader of the Order in Barqa is briefing Lord Gideon about the progress of the repair works

Aslanic priest explaining to some of the cityfolk how the quite theoretical sermon preached by the bishop should be interpreted

A knight and a sergeant of the military wing of the Order

Lord Kfir, leader of the military wing of the Aslanic Order in Barqa

During the numerous recent conflicts in recent years the Order has not prioritized to maintain the temple. During the time when much of the Barqan City Guard along with almost all of the Order’s forces were in the field against Raavage, the temple has even been subject to theft of the copper roof which now has to be repaired. One by one the domes are now being repaired and one by one the walls are getting new plaster.

Workers are repairing the roofs and walls of the temple

Metalworker starting to repair the last of the damaged domes

Plasterer repairing the temple walls

The streets of the newer parts of Barqa are in most places depressed a bit to be able to collect the everyday filth and handle torrents of water from the infrequent but heavy rains, before being passed on to the extensive sewer system of the city ultimately washing everything out into the Arkbri river and the sea. To avoid having pedestrians setting foot in the streets they are equipped at regular intervals with stepping stones, with standardized spacing so that carriage wheels can pass unhindered.

Oxcart. Is the driver getting drunk on his own supply?

A veteran from some war long ago, somewhere in Historica, now calls Barqa his home.

The city also teems with other smaller creatures. Barqa is particularly well known for its numerous black cats, well liked by most people in the city since the cats are at least to some extent limiting the rodent problem.

Black cats of Barqa

The arborists of the city have been busy aiding the siege workshops for a few years...

The Temple Square is centrally located in the district and is always a busy place

More inhabitants of the city:

 

Faun

City Guard on patrol

Impoverished refugee from the fighting in Nocturnus

Clerk of the Aslanic Order

Old friends under a tree

The roofs and treetops of the city are commonly the home of numerous birds

A knight of the Aslanic Order

A sergeant of the Aslanic Order

More pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bell tower

 

Altar

 

Fountain

 

A spiritual leader from the early days of the Aslanic Order

 

A hero from the early days of the Aslanic Order

The ambition with this build was to continue building in the style of my old Streets of Barqa build, while still carefully updating the style with some of the new pieces which has been added to my collection. I also adapted the base to a Moduverse compatible standard to facilitate possible future collabs with my local LUG friends who are joining Kaliphlin too. The road is made up of two 16x32 modules which could serve as a standard for future Barqan road networks on some exhibition in Scandinavia.

I also wanted to give proper homage to @Mike S's original lore about Barqa and the Order of Aslan, from what I could find on the GoH wiki and in some old threads.
If there are any contradictions in what I’ve written I would of course be more than happy to update it!

Many thanks to @adde51, @Wineyard, @Zilmrud, @Peter S and @dalle for all the great feedback during the build process! It's been one of the most fun builds ever thanks to the collaborative process we've had  

[dalle]

I'm impressed with all that you have achieved @Gideon. The creation, photo, story all are really well done. I'm looking forward to see it somewhere in Scandinavia.

It also has been interesting for me to see how your work has been proceeding. 

[adde51]

An amazing build @Gideon and as @dalle said, it’s been a lot of fun watching this whole thing come together. The angles are very impressive and the colours match beautifully! Very nice to see you expanding Barqa and I’m looking forward for Tabib D’Odo to have a chance to visit . 

The story behind fits great and I love that unfinished dome with the exposed inner structure. Class all the way throughout the build! Best of luck in the challenge buddy 

[Kristel]

Stunning build, Gideon!  The things that stood out for me were the doors, the section of the tower where you can see the bells and how you've created the decayed look at the back of the building.

[Legogal]

Gideon, 

Wow! This is eye candy for sure! The design and story are outstanding! The focus on the role of water is crucial to the story. Congrats on such a magical build!

(On a side note, I've never met a Gideon, but a good friend became a grandma for the first time this week, and they named her grandson Gideon. His nickname is Giddy, which means feeling crazy happy in the US. So now we all are Giddy About Giddy!)

[Tezclatipoca]

Impressive build, as always ! A great entry for sure !

I really like the details of the repairs : The roof structures being made and the plaster being spread on the walls !

Great job !

[Drawd]

Fantastic build! You really got attention to details. I specially like the repair of the copper roof.

[MontyPython]

What a stunning build! I simply cannot stop looking at all those details - the roof in repair is one of my favourites too. Great!

Edited October 7, 2018 by MontyPython

[halixon]

Gideon.... I feel strongly compelled to swear to emphasize just how amazing this build is! The copper domes are perfect, the architecture fits so so well, and you pulled off both the religious and construction aspects very well! Honestly one of my top favorite builds from you!

[Angeli]

I saw it on faceboo, so I had to come back to EB to see what is going on :)
Imagine the empact of a good creation :)
great job, friend, masterfully done. You can see the amount of love for building when you look at pictures with details

[zoth33]

Really awesome build.  The Temple is just stunning the gold, green and white really work well together.  I like the use of the gear pieces on the main tower.  All the little details are great.  The statues are nice.  I really like the fountain great job.  The bells inside the tower just wonderful.  The fact that you have people working on the temple on one of the dome pieces with black skeleton arm pieces is brilliant.  The domes give it a nice polished look also.  Great job I'm really blown away.  

[Basiliscus]

This model is brilliant both when viewing it overall and add the detail level. Love the plasterers at work and the dome under construction, a great way to fulfil the challenge requirements. The colours really pop and you've dressed the scene with figs well, I can almost hear the hustle and bustle around the template.

Great work!

[kahir88]

This buidl is awsome, I like the crowd, how they massing around the almost finished temple.

[W Navarre]

Wow, stunning build.  I love the action with all the minifigs, and everyone of them seems to have a life. Also it's great to see the road like that, keeps the continuity with the rest of Barqa, and on top of it all the shrine inside is sweet, I love the printed parts for the wall!  Well done! 

[Garmadon]

Now that's an impressive build!   Loving all those domes and circular shapes, and the sand green fits the color-scheme so well too!  A masterful entry - I think you've done a pretty nice job accomplishing your goal with this one! 

[Kai NRG]

Superb build here Gideon, lovely round architecture!  Of course the domes are amazing, and brilliant job demonstrating the repair work.  The arab/byzantine look of the temple is fantastic, I particularly like the trio of long windows on the wider sections of the second story.  Great to see so many minifigures too, gives the build a lived-in feel!  

[Ayrlego]

Beautiful work as always! Great colour palette and the whole structure looks very curved. The sand green domes give you a sense of how huge the overall build is and the framework for the missing dome is wonderful. Fantastic entry!

[TheLordOfBricks]

Awesome! Great colors and textures here, also loving that dome under construction! Quite and impressive overall structure! Keep it up! :)

[Grover]

Stunning!  The level of detail is awesome.  I love the creative use of the SW planets for domes, and think the color is really good with the tan, white, gold, and sand greens of the rest of the structure.  I like the clean, smooth lines and the new feel to the whole thing.  LOVE that fountain, too.  I assume those are some fairly recent pieces.  I need to look into some of those.  I could go on and on about how awesome this is, but I will refrain except for saying that the Aslanic iconography is fantastic.  Great job!

[soccerkid6]

And Gideon is back...
Stop making the rest of us look bad

The temple can look deceptively simple at first glance, due to its large size and clean style. After looking closer though you can see all the subtle textures included, especially in the run down areas, and admire the flawless handling of way too many angles Absolutely stunning architecture with just the right balance of detailing and color

It's also apparent that you spent a lot of time on the minfigures and their activities to really bring the model to life.
One small detail that I really admire, is the tree with roots breaking out of its stone planter

[Mike S]

A very beautiful build!  I was really surprised by the size as I had seen your first WIP pic and was expecting something smaller. When I saw the first pic, I thought at first that you had given up on the dome being rebuilt but having it at the back is brilliant as it makes perfect sense both display wise and story wise since the copper thieves would pick an area that was more secluded than the front. Thanks for the shoutout and as for my thoughts about the lore, there are no contradictions that I see needing revising. Even though there may be a few slight theological and observance differences between the Order in Aden's Gate and Barqa, they can easily be accounted for by the different cultural influences of the two regions as well as the personal uniqueness of the leaders of the regional Orders on the religion. (and I totally support the differences) 

[Muakhah]

This is such a beautiful temple. It makes me really envious as I wish I had one of those green domes.  It really shows the grandeur of Kaliphlin and the Aslanic order, the importance of religion in people's lives and the multi-cultural nature of kaliphlin.

 

It really looks like a living, breathing temple to a higher power.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Muakhah
I keep misspelling kaliphlin...

[The Last of Nergoue]

The use of the planet pieces is really nice! The overall architecture is very nice as well.

[Gideon]

@dalle & @adde51: Thanks to both of you, and especially for all the feedback along the way which definitely has had an impact on the result  

On 10/7/2018 at 7:13 AM, dalle said:

I'm looking forward to see it somewhere in Scandinavia.

The build will definitely appear in Borlänge and Örebro next year, and maybe Skaerbaek too 

On 10/7/2018 at 8:13 AM, adde51 said:

Very nice to see you expanding Barqa and I’m looking forward for Tabib D’Odo to have a chance to visit . 

I think I have all the parts for your sigfig now, so in some upcoming build he is welcome to visit Barqa if you (likely?) outbuild me and MOC the visit yourself.

On 10/7/2018 at 10:21 AM, Kristel said:

Stunning build, Gideon!  The things that stood out for me were the doors, the section of the tower where you can see the bells and how you've created the decayed look at the back of the building.

Thanks! The "half-stud" crumbling plaster and the skeleton of the dome were a couple of the reasons this build happened in the first place  

On 10/7/2018 at 2:31 PM, Legogal said:

Gideon, 

Wow! This is eye candy for sure! The design and story are outstanding! The focus on the role of water is crucial to the story. Congrats on such a magical build!

(On a side note, I've never met a Gideon, but a good friend became a grandma for the first time this week, and they named her grandson Gideon. His nickname is Giddy, which means feeling crazy happy in the US. So now we all are Giddy About Giddy!)

Thank you! I tried to come up with something which fit in the setting but also aimed for the "original concepts or stories" part of the challenge evaluation  
Fun story about the name! Gideon is not my real name, but the nickname has stuck with me since my youth when I more or less randomly picked some cool Bible hero as my gamer nick when playing Starcraft with some friends. It then followed into the AFOL world when I registred on the Swebrick LUG forum back in 2009.

On 10/8/2018 at 4:43 AM, Angeli said:

I saw it on faceboo, so I had to come back to EB to see what is going on :)

Happy to do what I can to pull you back into the guilds!  

@Faladrin, @Drawd, @MontyPython, @Windusky, @Angeli, @zoth33, @Basiliscus, @kahir88, @W Navarre, @Garmadon, @Kai NRG , @Ayrlego, @TheLordOfBricks, @Grover, @soccerkid6, @Muakhah, @The Last of Nergoue Thanks a million for the nice feedback all of you!!

 

On 10/9/2018 at 8:36 PM, Mike S said:

A very beautiful build!  I was really surprised by the size as I had seen your first WIP pic and was expecting something smaller. When I saw the first pic, I thought at first that you had given up on the dome being rebuilt but having it at the back is brilliant as it makes perfect sense both display wise and story wise since the copper thieves would pick an area that was more secluded than the front. Thanks for the shoutout and as for my thoughts about the lore, there are no contradictions that I see needing revising. Even though there may be a few slight theological and observance differences between the Order in Aden's Gate and Barqa, they can easily be accounted for by the different cultural influences of the two regions as well as the personal uniqueness of the leaders of the regional Orders on the religion. (and I totally support the differences) 

Thank you very much for the support! Even though I'm probably taking Barqa quite far in the direction of my own thoughts of the place since a quite long time already (What?! Has it been 4 years since I built "Streets of Barqa"?!?), I still try to at least not contradict the lore originally written back in Book I  
Good call to explain any differences in the depiction and description of the Order with theological and observance differences

 

Here are all pictures (both public and private) of the build: https://www.flickr.com/gp/jonas_wide/Ji64J5

[mccoyed]

This is just a showstopper, Gideon. I love how you can turn it around a little and really emphasize the Challenge 1 criteria, while also being able to make it look like a building that is old but still strong. I think the coolest part of your "under construction" parts is that you've really created the feel of a building being in a long-term, regular state of repair and reconstruction. Anyone who's had to walk under the scaffolding and tarp in a city for the same street/building over a season or longer knows that feeling and you've got the middle ages version down pat.

I'm impressed that you included some printed elements in the shrine chamber, too. Don't see the greats doing that very often.