[OL-Challenge III-Cat A] The universal language

[Bodi]

Captain Surlecoup, a corsair working secretly for Oleon, received a letter from la Royale, requesting him to try to establish contact with the Kingdom of Lotus, and inquire the cause of their recent raids, if possible. Konwing he'll be paid handsomely upon his return, he set the course of his ship to east. 

After a long and uneventful voyage, he and his aide-de-camp Mr. Fish arrived at a coastal town in the southern part of Lotus.

They walked straight to the gates, and not surprisingly, the guards refused to let them through due to their "barbaric manners". Both sides don't speak the language of their interlocutors, and some sort of tension began to appear on the faces of these oriental soldiers. Mr.Fish gripped nervously the handle of his sword, getting himself ready to pull the blade if things go wrong. Then, he saw his captain produced a gold coin from his large pocket and handed it to one of the guard.

And it was enough to make the guards happy, they stepped back and let the two corsairs walk through the gates of the tower. "You know, Mr. Fish, you know I can't speak Lotii, but I do know what sound they like to hear, the tinkling of gold."

The whole scene:

 

[The Sarge]

Very nice! I like the building on top of the gate a lot.  The soldiers feel more European medieval than Eastern Asia to me though. Maybe it's the helmets?

[Bodi]

3 hours ago, The Sarge said:

Very nice! I like the building on top of the gate a lot.  The soldiers feel more European medieval than Eastern Asia to me though. Maybe it's the helmets?

Thanks Sarge. Speaking of the eastern minifigs, I have a few from ninjago sets, but I want to keep them for the next episode of Surlecoup's adventure. It's true that we used to see ancient chinese militarymen wearing cloth armour and bamboo hat. Instead, scale armours were the standard equipment for more than a thousand years. Cloth armours were mostly used by Mongols and Manchus, so I rather prefer not to use them as reference. Conical helmets were also frequent in Chinese armies, though I'm not sure if they have that protective piece for the nose, probably not. I think some old castle torsos could also be used to represent eastern soldiers, especially those with scale armour printed on them.

[blackdeathgr]

Nice build! I am in love with the Mr Sourlecoup's minifig parts (especially his torso!)

[Keymonus]

Nice looking fort and interesting storyline! We are not Eslandolans, but probably only a few problems can't be solved by a couple of shining coins!

[Bodi]

On 3/16/2020 at 3:05 AM, blackdeathgr said:

Nice build! I am in love with the Mr Sourlecoup's minifig parts (especially his torso!)

Thanks BD. That torso comes of the pirate ship of the LOTR, I think.

18 hours ago, Keymonus said:

Nice looking fort and interesting storyline! We are not Eslandolans, but probably only a few problems can't be solved by a couple of shining coins!

Indeed, and I'm not discrediting deliberately the Lotii here, if you are interested in that part of history, you may search for the Portugeses in Macau in 16th century.

[Faladrin]

Cool fort.

I would have gone for a more Snoted wall but It's doing the job

Nice job !

[LM71Blackbird]

A very nice entry for Category A! My only advice would have been to change the headgear on the guards. I would have used either the conical hats or the samurai helmets. But overall, a great build with intriguing story! 

[Maxim I]

Haha, am I the only one who thinks Mr. Sourlecoup just entered a prison?

Mostly interesting to see it took me ages in my AMRCA to be in the Lotus Empire and nowadays everyone is able to get there in a minute

Anyway, I love how you made the building. It gives me a classic Ninja feeling :)

[Bregir]

Good looking gatehouse, Bodi! For your path, a suggestion could be to depress the tiles into the ground rather than on top, but it does take more bricks, of course. Nice minifig selection too, and surprisingly, the background actually works out quite well. And it is no surprise to anyone that (villainous scheming) Oleanders make their way through the world by bribes!

[Bodi]

On 4/5/2020 at 9:26 AM, Bregir said:

Good looking gatehouse, Bodi! For your path, a suggestion could be to depress the tiles into the ground rather than on top, but it does take more bricks, of course. Nice minifig selection too, and surprisingly, the background actually works out quite well. And it is no surprise to anyone that (villainous scheming) Oleanders make their way through the world by bribes!

Yeah, I ran out of bricks when building this one, the base deserved more efforts. And bribing used to work surprisingly well in Lotus, some people may even get annoyed if you don't bribe them.