Khorne Posted December 13, 2023 Miroslav's Emporium is another fine addition to this series! As always, a great accompanying story shedding some light on a minor BOBS nation and its custom. These are always interesting to read. I like how the sparser interior and wood decorations fit the "poorer" status of Varcoast as a nation. I like how you made the bottles of rakija, simple yet very effective. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeff of Clubs Posted December 14, 2023 You've really outdone yourself on this one, key! Magnificent! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keymonus Posted December 21, 2023 On 12/14/2023 at 6:11 PM, Jeff of Clubs said: You've really outdone yourself on this one, key! Magnificent! Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! On 12/13/2023 at 10:03 PM, Khorne said: Miroslav's Emporium is another fine addition to this series! As always, a great accompanying story shedding some light on a minor BOBS nation and its custom. These are always interesting to read. I like how the sparser interior and wood decorations fit the "poorer" status of Varcoast as a nation. I like how you made the bottles of rakija, simple yet very effective. Thanks! My fear for this build was that it could look too empty (and upper floor of the physical build actually is rather minimalistic), but the close-up pictures really made their job! About the bottles, I was rather surprised by how well they turned out, despite the simple technique. I'll use it again for sure! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keymonus Posted December 22, 2023 (edited) Garvian League Guildhouse Since the very first days of the Age of Discovery, ships with the flag of Garvey were a common sight in the New World. When the ports of the Mardierian colonies were still closed to all the other Madrician Nations, indeed, the Garvian smugglers already visited them with regularity, mooring in hidden bays and eluding the hunt of Lotii patrols. Over the years, the Garvians strengthened their presence beyond the line, establishing their own settlements and even winning a colonial war against Mardier in 617 A.E. In the last years, however, they had started to fall a little behind the other nations: Freeport and Leopaldis remained little more than small towns, and no settlements were established east of Prio. The relations between Oleon and Garvey had never been hostile, but they never were particularly warm either. Everybody knew that the Empire of Light and Mardier were close friends, and that only reasons of political opportunity kept Oleon out of the Garvey-Mardierian War... in those days, everybody in Freeport feared to see a row of blue banners appearing on the horizon! International politics had its rules, however, and holding grudges with one of the most powerful empires never seemed a good idea. Nobody was therefore particularly surprised when the Garvian League, the powerful guild of merchants dictating most of Garvey colonial policies, asked to establish a seat in Fort Arltrees trading district. Due to the close relations between Carno and Garvey, several dispatches were exchanged every day between the Essian and the Carnite delegations... too bad for the messengers that the two buildings are almost at the opposite ends of the district! The Guildhouse was garrisoned by a little unit of Garvian marines, wearing the dark blue uniform of the infantry. Due to the tight connections between the mercantile companies and the government, the Guildhouse was one of the few buildings in the District guarded by a contingent of regular soldiers, and not by private guards or trade company troops. On the upper floor, the small office was largely occupied by a long table. Due to the corporative nature of the Garvian League, representing rich merchant families, trading companies, and the merchants' guilds of different cities, important decisions often required complex discussions among the different representatives. In Fort Arltrees, so far from both the motherland and the main Garvian colonies, the seven available seats were rarely all occupied, and most votes were delivered by letter. At the moment, the Garvian representative had just signed an agreement to supply Seawatch with food and other supplies coming from Fort Altrees farms: while the siege was over, the fields around the town were still largely abandoned and devastated by trenches and other earthworks. With the Lotii war junks still lurking in New Haven Seas, the ability of the Garvian smugglers could once again come to good use! Spoiler An additional view of the furniture: The lower floor of the building, instead, was completely occupied by a warehouse. Due to the absence of large distilleries in the growing settlement, the import of rhum produced in the Prio Sea Colonies was a particularly profitable business, even if the delivery journey was long and difficult. Garvian sailors didn't have particularly good fame in the colonies of the New World: they were considered excellent seamen, but also undisciplined, violent, and a little too eager to turn to piracy. They hadn't created specific problems in Fort Arltrees yet, but the city watch passed twice as often in front of the taverns where they meet than in any other area of the city! Another thing Garvian sailors were renowned for was gambling: differently from other navies, the Garvian one allowed cards and dice on board, even though the punishments for ensuring brawls were severe. Never challenge a Garvian in a game of card, if you want to keep your money and your shirt! Edited December 24, 2023 by Keymonus Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Khorne Posted December 26, 2023 Another fine addition to the district! Great work on the interiors once more, I love how it is so packed. Nice bit of background information as well, with the bit about the Garvian Leaugue. Where's the sailor's torso from? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yperio_Bricks Posted December 26, 2023 I can only second what @Khorne said. A fine addition to the Merchant's District and a great background story! I love the card playin' pirates, uh, sailors The marines look great too! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keymonus Posted December 26, 2023 7 hours ago, Khorne said: Another fine addition to the district! Great work on the interiors once more, I love how it is so packed. Nice bit of background information as well, with the bit about the Garvian Leaugue. Where's the sailor's torso from? Thank you! For Garvey, I only had a limited lore to base upon (in the old challenge, Garvey was never fleshed out as well as e.g. Carno during the El Oleonda War), so in this case I made up a lot of the story about the Garvian trade companies, but I don't think I stepped too much out the established aspects. About the torso, I honestly don't know. I bought it at a LEGO exhibition together with some other spare parts, but I've no idea which set it comes from! 2 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said: I can only second what @Khorne said. A fine addition to the Merchant's District and a great background story! I love the card playin' pirates, uh, sailors The marines look great too! Thank you a lot! The last part of the District should come out in the next few days, then the project will be finally complete. It was definitely my largest and most complex build ever, and I'm happy I received so much support from you all! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keymonus Posted January 5 Terraversan Commonwealth Rum-Runners Close to the southern end of the Foreign Merchants' District, the East Terraversan commercial delegation represented the greatest surprise for most of the inhabitants of Fort Arltrees. Only three years before, Terraversa and Oleon had faced each other in a bitter war, and only the military intervention of Corrington and Eslandola -both on the island and in other areas of the archipelago- prevented a complete victory of the Empire of Light. However, while not completely defeated, independent Terraversa itself didn't survive the war. The eastern region of the island declared independence from the capital, in open rebellion against Archduke Oldis, giving rise to the Commonwealth of Terraversa. At the moment, the Commonwealth was struggling to recover from the war and, despite its dreams of freedom, it had de facto almost become a vassal state of Corrington. Allowing a commercial delegation of the Commonwealth on El Oleonda, together with the ferry built between North and South Sillitholina, represented an important attempt towards the normalization of the relations between Granoleon and Westface, even if doubts and mistrust still existed on both sides. An official Terraversan consulate in an Oleonese colony or formal trade agreements between the two nations was still far too much for both sides. Instead, an office and a small warehouse of a trading company represented a less "official" step, but still allowed some informal contact between the governments. If things worked well, an RNTC office might have appeared in Tarlor or Westface, in the future, breaking the almost complete monopoly of Corrington on the trade of the young nation. The name of the company, the Terraveran Commonwealth Rum-Runners, seemed appropriate for a band of smugglers... and actually it had started as such during the Mardierian rule, before the Terraversan Revolution granted it some respectability. Quite unsurprisingly, the acronym TCRR (with the "C" added after the Westface Secession) was often preferred, especially in official documents. The uniforms of the TCRR guards were clearly inspired by the ones of Corrish soldiers, even though their training was not even comparable with the one of Her Majesty's Royal Marines: with the militias still in place, even the regular army of the Commonwealth lacked men with military experience. A couple of soldiers guarded the entrance, while a figure in black slipped through the door, with an envelope of papers in hand. A simple merchant or someone else? An Oleonese diplomat? Or maybe a Corrish agent? The core business of the TCRR in Fort Arltrees -despite its name- was not Rum, but vanilla. The only known source of this valuable spice was Jameston, on Cascadia Island, but small vanilla crops existed also on El Oleonda. Due to the huge distance from the motherland, and the limited amount of production, Fort Arltrees couldn't compete with Jameston in this profitable business (not yet, at least), but the profit margin was still interesting. The TCRR office was small and overcrowded: bags and cases of vanilla pods occupied any available space, together with maps and piles of documents. The flintlock pistol on the director's desk, a memory of his past in the Terraversan Revolution, tended to make all the reports particularly fast and concise. Even though the Corrish influence was starting to take place in some aspects of the Commonwealth administration, the influence of Mardierian culture was still clearly recognizable: for example, in the overly decorated uniforms, or the baroque still-life painting hanging on a wall. Only time would have told whether the relations between the Commonwealth and Oleon could sooner or later normalize, or if the business of the TCRR in Fort Arltrees was destined to last. Profitable trade between two nations, sometimes, could be a good reason to avoid unnecessary wars between them! Spoiler Additional views: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reason why the TCRR could only dispose of the lower floor was also the only reason why that small company could afford a place in the Foreign Merchants' District of Fort Arltrees. The reason had a name and a surname: Professor Alejandro Coronel, archeologist, writer, philosopher, and, as a hobby, occultist. This peculiar character was not interested at all in the vanilla trade, but had a desperate need to move on El Oleonda... something not easy, for a citizen of the Corrish-aligned Commonwealth. Therefore, he paid a significant portion of the settling taxes for the TCRR, and personally financed the construction of the building. In return, he occupied the whole upper floor and obtained from the company a passage to the island, as well as the promise to support him in all his future enterprises. The studio of this peculiar character was completely occupied by a variety of "findings": a variety of idols, ritual masks, maps, scrolls written in ancient languages, and many other objects. In an (apparent?) chaos, Atwi idols were positioned side by side with antiquities from Tellvok, Tyree'De artifacts, and ancient codices written by the first Mardierian explorers. Professor Coronel had heard about the ruins of an ancient city on El Oleonda, and hoped to finally prove his extravagant theory. Indeed, he firmly believed that an ancient civilization once existed in the East, far before recorded history: after ruling most of both the Old and the New World, that Empire had somehow disappeared, leaving mankind in the darkness for thousands of years. Even the Great Pyramids "of Tellvok", according to Professor Coronel, were actually an artifact of that ancient empire. How could all the other archeologists not understand this truth? Despite the plot of the Order of the Faith to conceal the truth, the signs were hidden in plain sight, if one just looked for them! Even the tarots, considered by many a senseless superstition, also told a part of the story... the Rising Sun, the East; the Broken Tower, a clear hint to the cataclysm that had destroyed the ancient empire. Little mattered if other symbols didn’t have an obvious meaning, all of them must have been in a way or the other allegories of the ancient disaster! Most of the academics laughed at him, but he would have proven all of them wrong! He only needed to find the proof of his theory somewhere in the archipelago, possibly even there on El Oleonda... the large islands of New Haven Seas were clearly part of the ancient continent, swollen by the merciless Ocean millennia before! He would have laughed last, he was sure… Even if most considered him a lunatic, and the TCRR guards hoped never to be chosen to accompany him in his expeditions (actually they had placed bets on how soon he would have disappeared in the jungle), Professor Coronel had actually done some important discoveries, down in Tellvok. Only time will tell if the Professor will be able to discover something about the ancient civilisation of El Oleonda, despite his weird theories, or if he will get lost in the interior. For sure, you will probably hear about him in the future! Terraversan Commonwealth Rum-Runners Close to the southern end of the Foreign Merchants' District, the East Terraversan commercial delegation represented the greatest surprise for most of the inhabitants of Fort Arltrees. Only three years before, Terraversa and Oleon had faced each other in a bitter war, and only the military intervention of Corrington and Eslandola -both on the island and in other areas of the archipelago- prevented a complete victory of the Empire of Light. However, while not completely defeated, independent Terraversa itself didn't survive the war. The eastern region of the island declared independence from the capital, in open rebellion against Archduke Oldis, giving rise to the Commonwealth of Terraversa. At the moment, the Commonwealth was struggling to recover from the war and, despite its dreams of freedom, it had de facto almost become a vassal state of Corrington. Allowing a commercial delegation of the Commonwealth on El Oleonda, together with the ferry built between North and South Sillitholina, represented an important attempt towards the normalization of the relations between Granoleon and Westface, even if doubts and mistrust still existed on both sides. An official Terraversan consulate in an Oleonese colony or formal trade agreements between the two nations was still far too much for both sides. Instead, an office and a small warehouse of a trading company represented a less "official" step, but still allowed some informal contact between the governments. If things worked well, an RNTC office might have appeared in Tarlor or Westface, in the future, breaking the almost complete monopoly of Corrington on the trade of the young nation. The name of the company, the Terraveran Commonwealth Rum-Runners, seemed appropriate for a band of smugglers... and actually it had started as such during the Mardierian rule, before the Terraversan Revolution granted it some respectability. Quite unsurprisingly, the acronym TCRR (with the "C" added after the Westface Secession) was often preferred, especially in official documents. The uniforms of the TCRR guards were clearly inspired by the ones of Corrish soldiers, even though their training was not even comparable with the one of Her Majesty's Royal Marines: with the militias still in place, even the regular army of the Commonwealth lacked men with military experience. A couple of soldiers guarded the entrance, while a figure in black slipped through the door, with an envelope of papers in hand. A simple merchant or someone else? An Oleonese diplomat? Or maybe a Corrish agent? The core business of the TCRR in Fort Arltrees -despite its name- was not Rum, but vanilla. The only known source of this valuable spice was Jameston, on Cascadia Island, but small vanilla crops existed also on El Oleonda. Due to the huge distance from the motherland, and the limited amount of production, Fort Arltrees couldn't compete with Jameston in this profitable business (not yet, at least), but the profit margin was still interesting. The TCRR office was small and overcrowded: bags and cases of vanilla pods occupied any available space, together with maps and piles of documents. The flintlock pistol on the director's desk, a memory of his past in the Terraversan Revolution, tended to make all the reports particularly fast and concise. Even though the Corrish influence was starting to take place in some aspects of the Commonwealth administration, the influence of Mardierian culture was still clearly recognizable: for example, in the overly decorated uniforms, or the baroque still-life painting hanging on a wall. Only time would have told whether the relations between the Commonwealth and Oleon could sooner or later normalize, or if the business of the TCRR in Fort Arltrees was destined to last. Profitable trade between two nations, sometimes, could be a good reason to avoid unnecessary wars between them! Spoiler Additional views: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reason why the TCRR could only dispose of the lower floor was also the only reason why that small company could afford a place in the Foreign Merchants' District of Fort Arltrees. The reason had a name and a surname: Professor Alejandro Coronel, archeologist, writer, philosopher, and, as a hobby, occultist. This peculiar character was not interested at all in the vanilla trade, but had a desperate need to move on El Oleonda... something not easy, for a citizen of the Corrish-aligned Commonwealth. Therefore, he paid a significant portion of the settling taxes for the TCRR, and personally financed the construction of the building. In return, he occupied the whole upper floor and obtained from the company a passage to the island, as well as the promise to support him in all his future enterprises. The studio of this peculiar character was completely occupied by a variety of "findings": a variety of idols, ritual masks, maps, scrolls written in ancient languages, and many other objects. In an (apparent?) chaos, Atwi idols were positioned side by side with antiquities from Tellvok, Tyree'De artifacts, and ancient codices written by the first Mardierian explorers. Professor Coronel had heard about the ruins of an ancient city on El Oleonda, and hoped to finally prove his extravagant theory. Indeed, he firmly believed that an ancient civilization once existed in the East, far before recorded history: after ruling most of both the Old and the New World, that Empire had somehow disappeared, leaving mankind in the darkness for thousands of years. Even the Great Pyramids "of Tellvok", according to Professor Coronel, were actually an artifact of that ancient empire. How could all the other archeologists not understand this truth? Despite the plot of the Order of the Faith to conceal the truth, the signs were hidden in plain sight, if one just looked for them! Even the tarots, considered by many a senseless superstition, also told a part of the story... the Rising Sun, the East; the Broken Tower, a clear hint to the cataclysm that had destroyed the ancient empire. Little mattered if other symbols didn’t have an obvious meaning, all of them must have been in a way or the other allegories of the ancient disaster! Most of the academics laughed at him, but he would have proven all of them wrong! He only needed to find the proof of his theory somewhere in the archipelago, possibly even there on El Oleonda... the large islands of New Haven Seas were clearly part of the ancient continent, swollen by the merciless Ocean millennia before! He would have laughed last, he was sure… Even if most considered him a lunatic, and the TCRR guards hoped never to be chosen to accompany him in his expeditions (actually they had placed bets on how soon he would have disappeared in the jungle), Professor Coronel had actually made some important discoveries, down in Tellvok. Only time will tell if the Professor will be able to discover something about the ancient civilization of El Oleonda, despite his weird theories, or if he will get lost in the interior. For sure, you will probably hear about him in the future! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NOD Posted January 6 Excellent! I really like the Foreign Merchants' District! It is very interesting to see the different construction methods of the buildings. The inside view is great and the stories about the different nations are told in an interesting way. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keymonus Posted January 7 On 1/6/2024 at 9:02 AM, NOD said: Excellent! I really like the Foreign Merchants' District! It is very interesting to see the different construction methods of the buildings. The inside view is great and the stories about the different nations are told in an interesting way. Thank you! I'm happy that so many people liked this MOC, considering the time and effort it required... for sure, this was by far the most ambitious project I've built up until now. ------------------------------------------------------------------ The East Terraversan building was the last part of the Foreign Merchants' District, but I think I'll build a part 2 in the future, even if I have to figure out which nations I could include in the future... any suggestion would be appreciated! The only problem is that I've almost run out of NPC nations. Some ideas: -Corrington and Eslandola (I'll contact the appropriate people in the future). It's not ideal, as both nations have colonies in the New Haven Seas, and the three empires are in open competition for colonization. I think a consulate, or a seat of one of their trading companies, could be more appropriate. -The FTA. Same as above, but free traders would be more appropriate than hosting our competitors. -Other Carnite cities, such as the Capital (Aden), or other settlements not fleshed out yet. -West Terraversa. Former enemy of Oleon, but we have one building from East Terraversa, so... -Namere. Very little about the nation has been defined, apart from @Mesabi's old AMRCA and some vague reference to Italian city-states. -Mokolei, Tellvok, and Pan: not particularly present in the New World, but with a well-defined lore. -Some of the Southern Nations? As I won't complete the project within the next (several) months, I don't exclude a delegation from one of the Lotii vassals Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
