How many factions in your kingdom?

[Mythos]

Hm? Is it only historical factions? Maybe I am not looking hard enough but I did not see any of the lego factions.

He makes his own creations, making tunics and such for them, while he does have a bunch of the LEGO castle knights he doesn't show them off since they're nothing new or unique.

[ziljin]

He makes his own creations, making tunics and such for them, while he does have a bunch of the LEGO castle knights he doesn't show them off since they're nothing new or unique.

Well I always find it cool to see large amounts of minifigs. it's just if I recognize the factions its more awe inspiring for some reason. Perhaps nostalgia goggles. Like seeing a group of 5 royal knights = omg amazing. Seeing 300 spartans = meh.

[Mythos]

Well I always find it cool to see large amounts of minifigs. it's just if I recognize the factions its more awe inspiring for some reason. Perhaps nostalgia goggles. Like seeing a group of 5 royal knights = omg amazing. Seeing 300 spartans = meh.

Problem with that is how many people have you seen with armies of Royal Knights, or Lion troops or Dragon Knights? yet how many armies of Teutonic Warriors or Greek Hoplites, or Hospitaller's and such? He likes to be unique in that aspect.

but too each his/her own.

[Captain Blockbeard]

When I combine all of my Castle Lego sets, minifigures, and planned future-MOCs into one large display, I'm tempted to use a Red vs. Blue theme with the sides as follows:

Red:

Crusaders

Lion Knights (Original)

Dragon Knights (Original)

Lion Knights (Kingdoms)

Blue:

Black Falcons

Royal Knights

Crown Knights

Civilians and Rogues:

Forestmen (prior to recent official Castle sets, these were the civilians)

Wolfpack

Barbarians (what I grew up calling the villians from the Royal Knights subtheme)

Dragon Knights (Kingdoms)

[ziljin]

Problem with that is how many people have you seen with armies of Royal Knights, or Lion troops or Dragon Knights? yet how many armies of Teutonic Warriors or Greek Hoplites, or Hospitaller's and such? He likes to be unique in that aspect.

but too each his/her own.

Well that's true. But I see tons of those historical factions in historical miniatures and videogames and movies. They are everywhere. I remember those old cartoons and anime where the knights are all fantastical and unique and nothing like historical ones. Examples being King Arthur & the Knights of Justice, Berserk, Saint Seya, and Ronin Warriors. Well enough about that offtopicness.

So I recently got some old castle minifigures.

I think this is what I will do, not final but what I am thinking so far. Some factions I have zero or little of though.

Lion Kingdom - Crusaders, Royal Knights, KKI Lion Knights, and Kingdoms Lion Knights as Lords. Think HRE but to a smaller scale.

Dragon Kingdom - Black Knights, Dragon Masters, and Kingdoms Dragon Knights. Same as Lion Kingdom

Black Falcon Kingdom - Black Falcons

Crown Kingdom - Crown Knights, Dwarves as vassal

Wood Kingdom (essentially pseudo elves) - Forestmen, Dark Forestmen

Barbarian Kingdom - Wolfpack, Bull Knights, Fright Knights , Vikings

Undead Kingdom - Mindless (classic) skeletons, Sentient (Fantasy+NinjaGo) skeletons, Mummies (can use persian gear to make "egyptian skeletons" to supplement mummies)

Tainted (I want to say Chaos but Games Workshop would probably sue me) Kingdom - Shadow Knights, Evil Dwarves (Collectible Minifigures Evil Dwarf but that is a pipedream)

Persian Kingdom - Persians

Japanese Kingdom - Ninja and Samurai divided by their colors.

No clue what to do with KKII rainbow knights.

Might have to change things up to make Persian and Japanese Kingdoms less historical and more fantastical.

[Khorne]

[...]

Probably went into too much detail there, I just like giving them slight back-stories.

I also based quite a lot of it around this map.

I made my LEGO castle kingdoms world a map based on all the maps provided by LEGO, such as the Kingdoms map on their website and the Knight Kingdom 2 map that used to be in the instruction booklets accompanying the sets. Here's my map. Still need to give the Vikings and Ninjas a piece of land, though. My list of kingdoms can be found in the description .

EDIT Atlantis is clearly an invention of mine, as there haven't been any maps published by LEGO to date concerning their Atlantis line.

Edited August 15, 2011 by KhoRne

[Magnus the Great]

I have one large faction and around 40-45 sub-factions (emperor, cardinal, dukes, marquis, counts & barons). Sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, always rivals. Only half of them are complete. The remaining are missing a few parts per faction. I'm trying to assemble a horde of barbarians, probably vikings. It is a slow process since I want a wide variety of torsos & equipment.

Five civilian guilds (masons, miners, carpenters, blacksmiths & hunters) may also ally with a sub-faction if necessary.

In addition to the above I also have 25-30 fantasy minifigs (trolls, deamons, undeads etc) which I don't know what to do with, since I'm not in to fantasy.

[ziljin]

I made my LEGO castle kingdoms world a map based on all the maps provided by LEGO, such as the Kingdoms map on their website and the Knight Kingdom 2 map that used to be in the instruction booklets accompanying the sets. Here's my map. Still need to give the Vikings and Ninjas a piece of land, though. My list of kingdoms can be found in the description .

EDIT Atlantis is clearly an invention of mine, as there haven't been any maps published by LEGO to date concerning their Atlantis line.

Awesome map dude!

[LandShark]

I made my LEGO castle kingdoms world a map based on all the maps provided by LEGO, such as the Kingdoms map on their website and the Knight Kingdom 2 map that used to be in the instruction booklets accompanying the sets. Here's my map. Still need to give the Vikings and Ninjas a piece of land, though. My list of kingdoms can be found in the description .

EDIT Atlantis is clearly an invention of mine, as there haven't been any maps published by LEGO to date concerning their Atlantis line.

It's nice to see that other people like sticking to the 'canonical' story as much as possible.

And I have the City of Atlantis set, I might just need to integrate that into my kingdoms, good idea.

[kibosh]

Are all the castle related maps Lego has produced available somewhere? I'd love to download them all and build my realm around them!

[Khorne]

Are all the castle related maps Lego has produced available somewhere? I'd love to download them all and build my realm around them!

Well, you used to be able to view the Kingdoms map on LEGO's website, but apparently not anymore. The Knights Kingdom 2 map was printed in all instruction booklets and the LEGO Castle (Fantasy Era) map was found in some LEGO Magazine. You can find most of these on brickshelf, though. I have them saved on my computer and I'll upload them to brickshelf later tonight, so they'll be easier to find. If I have uploaded them, I'll post the deeplinks here .

EDIT Brickshelf's down again . I'll just upload the maps tommorow then.

EDIT 2 I've uploaded them . View them here (once the folder is moderated, of course )

Edited August 16, 2011 by KhoRne

[ziljin]

I was thinking of a little backstory for my kingdoms.

Long ago in the distant past the first peoples populated the lands. Their history is lost and may never be recovered. (Aka I probably won't buy any of them)

The great kingdoms of the Crusaders and the Black Falcons were formed. The Crusaders are the founding father of the Lion Kingdom. As soon as they encountered each other they fought viciously. Some chose to fled the conflict and seeked refuge in the forest and became the Forestmen. They claim to found mentorship from the Elves but no one has ever encountered any and dismiss them as a myth propagated by the Forestmen (Probably won't get any elves but got to acknowledge them). They remain neutral but fiercely protect their forests.

The wars between the Black Falcons and the Crusaders were so frequent that they required mercenaries to field their armies. A new mercenary kingdom formed called the Black Knights. Their mercenary soldiers were on both sides of the conflict. (since the scale male and breastplate minfigures are found in multiple factions!)

Some of the Forestmen became tired of living in the woods decided to leave and formed the Wolfpack kingdom.

A new kingdom arose called the Dragon Masters. They are the founding faction of the Dragon Kingdom. Now the three kingdoms fought against each other and formed alliances with each other and then broke them.

The Lion Kingdom grew and the Royal Knights faction was formed to govern and protect the new lands. The Crusaders and Royal Knights helped each other in times of need but were mostly independent. The Lion King was losing power to the local lords but that was the price to pay as the kingdom expanded.

More later.

[LandShark]

Very interesting back-story.

Their history is lost and may never be recovered. (Aka I probably won't buy any of them)

This did make me grin, very clever.

[kibosh]

Well, you used to be able to view the Kingdoms map on LEGO's website, but apparently not anymore. The Knights Kingdom 2 map was printed in all instruction booklets and the LEGO Castle (Fantasy Era) map was found in some LEGO Magazine. You can find most of these on brickshelf, though. I have them saved on my computer and I'll upload them to brickshelf later tonight, so they'll be easier to find. If I have uploaded them, I'll post the deeplinks here .

EDIT Brickshelf's down again . I'll just upload the maps tommorow then.

EDIT 2 I've uploaded them . View them here (once the folder is moderated, of course )

Awesome. Thanks!

What's the blank map from? The one with no words?

[Khorne]

Awesome. Thanks!

What's the blank map from? The one with no words?

That one is from LEGO Kingdom, the latest castle line. On the official website the sets and their names were superimposed over the map, but other than that there were no names on the map.

[ziljin]

Thanks LandShark

This is where it gets sloppy and convoluted as I add in every other faction without removing any of the older ones.

Some of the Forestmen have become warped by the bloodshed the various kingdoms inflict among each other. They have become like the violent oppressors they hate. They are known as the Dark Forestmen. Although the Forestmen do not approve of their methods, they are still brothers and united as one. Forestmen focus on defense while Dark Forestmen are more aggressive.

Amidst all of this fighting the more primitive peoples unite under the Bat Lord who calls his warriors the Fright Knights. Night raids are their specialty.

Even more chaos ensues as armies of Ninja and Samurai arrive from distant lands to join the fray.

The Lion Kingdom is now the dominant power and has grown even larger than before. A new faction the Leo Knights are formed to govern and protect the newly conquered lands.

More primitive peoples unite under the banner of Cedric the Bull. They are known as the Bull Knights. They naturally formed a Barbarian Federation with the Fright Knights realizing how outnumbered they are.

Magic portals open across the land as KKII Knights (WIP) and their enemy the Scorpion Knights from an alternate universe are warped into the area.

Vikings arrive from the north and wreak havoc. Their ships destroyed by storms they have no choice but to join the Barbarian Federation.

Wizards attempt to tap into the power of these magic portals result in chaos as hordes of trolls and skeletons flood into the universe.

Lords who no longer believe in the power of the Lion King of protecting the realm leave and form the Crown Kingdom. They happened to settle near massive mountains and to their surprise an entire dwarf civilization is discovered. Learning of all the madness, the dwarves readily forge an alliance with the Crown Knights to defend against these new terrifying armies.

A massive fleet of the Persian Empire reach the beaches. They are more interested in trade than conflict as they have their hands full fighting against the legendary Spartan Empire. Luckily for the knights the Spartans do not have any ships to reach their lands (AKA I am too cheap to buy some Spartans, too historical for my tastes, also I regret the Persians now).

The Dragon Kingdom have long been a weak power. Taking advantage of the chaos they expand their lands. They form the Dragon Knights to serve as the main battleforce while the Dragon Masters are the elite forces and come swooping in the battlefield with their dragons.

The Lion Kingdom respond to the Dragon Kingdom’s gain in power. The Lion King establishes a national army the Lion Knights. Now the King has regained some power as he has direct command over this army, while the Crusaders, Royal Knights and Leo Knights are still independent they no longer have the influence they once have.

Edited August 17, 2011 by ziljin

[hanzocloud]

In the west:

I have 3 sizeable factions from fantasy era and kingdomgs line. ie. the crownies, lions, and dragons.

In the middle-east:

I have prince of persia soldiers as my army and also arab/indian looking soldiers from orient expedition sets.

In the far east:

I have the various classic ninja factions. And a large chinese army from the orient expedition sets

[Beefbanana]

[deleted]

Edited January 15, 2021 by Beefbanana

[Khorne]

Seeing ziljin posted his background fluff, here's mine (with an introduction) .

I have several castle factions, seeing as I've been a fan of this line since I was a kid. These are kingdoms I have figs of:

Black Knights

Royal Knights

Dragon Knights (old ones)

Wolf Pack

Fright Knights

Knights Kingdom I and II

Bull Knights

Lion Knights (new ones)

Dragon Knights (new ones)

Crown Knights

However, since those are really a lot of factions, I decided to include only the post-2000 factions in my LEGO-verse, for easiness' sake. This leaves me with:

Knights Kingdom I

- Bullknights

Knights Kingdom II

- Scorpion Knights

Lion Knights

Dragon Knights

Crown Knights

- Dwarfs

- Elves

Evil Horde

- Necromancer + skellies

- Greenskins

For these factions, I have created a map. The plan is that eventually each on these nations will have its own map like this one (Sublime Kingdom of Ankoria).

I've also been working on-and-off on some background history for my world in general and each of the Kingdoms. I have a rough timescale to place all this origin stories on. The scale is based on the Sinking of Atlantis, the greatest "Empire" Humanity ever saw. The Atlanteans were the only ones in history who were able to unite most Humans (except the Ankorians and other barbarians) under one government: the Serene Republic of Atlantis. Anyway, my world was created long before Atlantis sunk. I'll post the first part of my story here (the stuff I already kind of finished).

First, a bit of explanation to do. My world is part of weird cosmology thing existing out of several worlds. The Humans name these worlds as following:

Upperworld: world where the Gods reside. Main well-known gods are (Ankorian names will be given, but the gods are omnipresent in all Humans nations and tribes): Ozora, god of war; his wife Nizari, goddess of magic. It were their parents and uncle who created the world.

This World/Our World/[The] World: The World all non-divine races inhabit.

Netherworld: The realm were the Dead go. It is a failed copy of the World, created by Ozora's uncle. He was banished there after creating the Orcs and now rules this realm.

Otherworld: This is the realm were spirits dwell after their corporeal husks have died and before they can travel to the Netherworld. Necromancers tap into this realm to resurrect the dead.

Long ago, the World was a barren place devoid of all life. Then suddenly the Gods discovered it and decided to shape it akin to the paradise-world they inhabited. Shaping it was easy, the hard part was in creating life. First, the Gods created normal creatures, such as horses, chickens, etc. But the Gods wanted to create sapient creatures, like theirselves. So, they first created the Dragons. The Gods were pleased, but not really happy. Dragons were too wild and too powerful. Long story short, they then created Elves and Dwarfs. Last came the Humans. The divine uncle was jealous of his brother's success and tried to create his own creatures. He made the Orcs, a failed copy of Humans. For this he was banned to the realm he had created.

Anyway, Humanity prospered on their native continent and its numbers grew. No longer able to sustain themselves, they started to emigrate. They first arrived on the island of Thallasa. From there they went to Ankoria. In Ankoria, they learned how to control magic from the Dragons. Dragons and Humans co-existed, until, once again, the land could no longer sustain the two species. A long war followed and the Dragons were driven away, nearly extinct they fled North.

Ankoria prospered and many city-states came into existence. The most powerful one was Ozora, named after the god of war. This warlike state conquered all others, uniting Ankoria. People from opposing states fled, going back to the island of Thalassa. There, they mixed with the native population (who had remained there the first time, not going further) and founded Atlantis. Atlantis grew and eventually conquered the entire island.

In the meanwhile, Humans had ventured to the West in all manner of directions and had settled most of the lands on their way, driving the Orcs living there East, or into the mountains. These Humans also had their own distinct culture and were predecessors to many later Kingdoms. Here's a list (names are links to pictures and description on flickr):

Given names are what the Atlanteans call these peoples:

- Tauri --> Bull Knights

- Draci --> Dragon Knights

- Morciani --> Knights Kingdom II

- Brodicani (no picture/info yet) yet --> Lion Knights

Again, long story short. Atlantis conquered many. The Republic even managed to ally themself with the Dwarfs and the Elves, establishing one of the most powerful entities. The Sinking of Atlantis, however, destroyed the political powerbase and killed most ethnic Atlanteans, giving rise to rebellion and instability in the provinces. Outside powers saw their chance to reap the rewards of the rich Republic and invaded its realm en masse. This caused several provinces to proclaim their independance, because they could counter the invasions easier alone, without having to wait for orders from Atlantis. During this time, many of the "modern" Kingdoms have their roots.

- Lion Knights

- Crown Knights (Kingdom of Couronne): established by Titus Belflora, an Atlantean general

- Knights Kingdom of Morcia: succesor state to the short-lived Empire of Atlantis. It was founded by Orlan

Phew, that was a lot . Got carried kind of carried away with it. I just love inventing background. I even have more, but it's still a very rough, unpolished version at the moment. Besides, I think I already kind of caused an overflow of information . I even have an exlanation/legend/story about the origin of Necromancy. It involves Amset-Ra, the antagonist of Pharaoh's Quest. I love to include characters already established by LEGO .

[ziljin]

BY THE STARS!

That was incredibly epic. And the nice pictures to go with it. I was thinking of doing something like that but you did it much better than I could have. I will have to rework my storyline but yours is way better. I was going by the chronological order of the factions being released but I think that might be silly and difficult to make a solid history out of. It can still work but I have to rework some details.

Also nice custom minfigs.

[Khorne]

BY THE STARS!

That was incredibly epic. And the nice pictures to go with it. I was thinking of doing something like that but you did it much better than I could have. I will have to rework my storyline but yours is way better. I was going by the chronological order of the factions being released but I think that might be silly and difficult to make a solid history out of. It can still work but I have to rework some details.

Also nice custom minfigs.

Thanks! This is just a really short and not so epicly told version of the story, though, I have it written out longer on my computer, but I didn't want to clutter the thread with it . I wanted to create my own Wiki or website for all this once, but it's just too much work to do and I know nothing of making websites . Maybe I could start a topic here someday, containing the full background fluff and all the pictures in one thread.

I'm really glad you like it, though . I've really spent ages on creating my LEGO-vers, making new maps over and over again, until I finally came up with something I liked. The pictures detailing the nations are also something I only recently started, but I really liked how they came out . Here and here are some pictures containing information about non-Human races. I plan to make more of these series, eventually giving some information about Dwarfs, Elves and Dragons, too.

Another series I want to do is about significant people inhabiting my LEGO-verse (I don't really have a good name for it yet ). A bit like this one. One character I'd really like to have good photo of, is Amset-Ra the arch-Necromancer (and later Dark Druid). Here's some concept art I did for the guy. Plus, more concept art: wizards and Orlan.

Again, thanks for taking your time to read it all. I really, really appreciate it .

[ziljin]

Yea I saw those too. I love reading this kind of stuff. Normally I hate reading books, but stuff like that were its a backstory/history is awesome. The Starcraft and Warcraft manuals are great because they have a little background fluff for every race, and then every faction and every unit. Even the neutral and non-playable ones. I also look up those wikis for warcraft, warhammer, and lotr.

[Khorne]

Yea I saw those too. I love reading this kind of stuff. Normally I hate reading books, but stuff like that were its a backstory/history is awesome. The Starcraft and Warcraft manuals are great because they have a little background fluff for every race, and then every faction and every unit. Even the neutral and non-playable ones. I also look up those wikis for warcraft, warhammer, and lotr.

Same here ! I'm not much of a reader (but once I do get started on a book that's good, I read through it like a train), but I am familiar with the stuff you posted. I'm not much of a gamer either, but my brother is. He's really into Warcraft and Warhammer and stuff like that, so I got the opportunity to read through some of his books. It was stuff like that, that prompted me to begin flesh out the background of my LEGO Kingdoms.

[ziljin]

Same here ! I'm not much of a reader (but once I do get started on a book that's good, I read through it like a train), but I am familiar with the stuff you posted. I'm not much of a gamer either, but my brother is. He's really into Warcraft and Warhammer and stuff like that, so I got the opportunity to read through some of his books. It was stuff like that, that prompted me to begin flesh out the background of my LEGO Kingdoms.

I only played Warcraft but I still like seeing warhammer armies and reading about their factions and units. Oh yea and the unit information cards in the Total War games. Which is where I copy my spear phalanx formations from. But I am sure that is fairly common in miniatures.

And I didn't say this earlier but great map. I could never do something like that but I was thinking of reworking the story so that the factions are from specific regions. And locate the factions by region. Some historical basis. Like Ninja army from the eastern kingdoms, and Vikings from the north. And have dwarfs and vikings allied because of norse mythology with dwarves and vikings. And if they make Marvel Thor minifgure I iwll get that any any Aggardians as part of the Vikings army! And probably have trolls to be in the north as well, since I know Norse mythology has trolls. And crown knights have similar torsos to vikings/dwarves so maybe they can be more advanced northmen and allies of vikings/dwarves.

Bull Knights, and other barbarian factions can be from the west inspired by germanic tribes.

I am thinking South Kingdoms would be Crusaders/Royal Knights, old and new Lion knights since lions live in warmer climates? And I guess persians can be from near the south too with the deserts.

Other factions can be filled in later. That would be my alternate story not taking chronological release of themes into account.

[Khorne]

And I didn't say this earlier but great map. I could never do something like that but I was thinking of reworking the story so that the factions are from specific regions. And locate the factions by region. Some historical basis. Like Ninja army from the eastern kingdoms, and Vikings from the north. And have dwarfs and vikings allied because of norse mythology with dwarves and vikings. And if they make Marvel Thor minifgure I iwll get that any any Aggardians as part of the Vikings army! And probably have trolls to be in the north as well, since I know Norse mythology has trolls. And crown knights have similar torsos to vikings/dwarves so maybe they can be more advanced northmen and allies of vikings/dwarves.

Bull Knights, and other barbarian factions can be from the west inspired by germanic tribes.

I am thinking South Kingdoms would be Crusaders/Royal Knights, old and new Lion knights since lions live in warmer climates? And I guess persians can be from near the south too with the deserts.

Other factions can be filled in later. That would be my alternate story not taking chronological release of themes into account.

Glad you like the map! Your alternative story sounds great. I especially like the relation between Crown Knights and Vikings, based on their stories. That's something I hadn't thought of before. Maybe I could work that into my realm as well . In the time between when I uploaded that map and now, I have already designed a place for the Vikings to live, so that rules them out as homeless people. I also have a map for the Ninja dudes, it's based on the map LEGO provided for Ninjago . I'd post it here, but the file is freaking huge (forgot to downshrink )!

The link between Vikings and Dwarfs is also a nice touch. I have a similar thing running in my storyline. The Dwarfs taught the Vikings how to write (that's why the Vikings use runes), how to do metalworking, stuff like that. They both share a similar mentality and regard creating intricate things as higher than magic. They do know how to wield magic however, but they don't really use it that often. I have a lot of stuff already worked out about hte Vikings, but I rather wait to share it, since I developed it mainly for future Heroica Quests and I wouldn't want to spoil anything for the players .

As for the Lion Knights, they don't really have to be South. The lion could be a symbol for their courage and not because there are lions living in the country. That's how I explain the emblem of the Lion Knights. It the personal coat of arms of the Lionheart family which rules the country.

Be sure to post your story here, once you've fully updated it! I always like reading things like this .