NiceMarmot

Yes, the lake and mountain shots really came out well. It's nice finally having a camera that allows full manual control, so you can really tweak pictures. I'm still learning all the features of this camera. As I said on Flickr, I like the mountains so much, I think I'm going to have to re-use them in other MOCs. So you all can look forward to a flurry of Rakath mountain builds! Thanks. I wanted to make the wall larger (wider), but my six year old son is using most of those bins in a Star Wars-esque "base" he's constructed, and he wouldn't let me have them! It was actually a lot harder to make the table and scroll (the scroll is attached to the table); I saw the technique a year or so ago on this forum (can't remember who did it), and thought it was cool. Sort of mentally filed it away, and was glad to have the opportunity to use it. Great! Looking forward to it!

I think I follow you. You talking about the 2x2 jumper plates? Looking forward to seeing how you do the roof. I suppose the plates that are attached to different beams will have to just overlap, and not actually be fastened to each other, because of the circular shape. How did you do the round white part in the middle of the dome? The standard technique of 1x2 bricks with 1x1 round bricks between them? How did you do the round towers too? (I don't have a lot of experience with round towers and walls, so I'm always curious about them. Will have to think of a freebuild that will challenge me to build round.) Thanks. I'm pretty happy with the way it all turned out. And very happy with the new camera. I think it's taking great photos. It's got a nice huge 1" sensor. It's also got a lot of features, and can be set to full manual mode, so I can really control what it's doing. And I'm finally really feeling comfortable using GIMP to clean up the pics, so it's not taking me two hours per photo anymore to edit out the backgrounds and stuff.

Thanks to all for the positive feedback! Glad you all liked the story. These days, I seem to enjoy these smaller builds with a more in-depth story. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time right now for massive builds. Anyone have any suggestions or enhancement ideas? Good point. I really didn't pose the minifigs very much, and that's probably a weak point of mine, and not just in this build. I'll have to remember to work on that. You'd have to ask the guild, but I'm sure they're always looking for new members. In fact, they're usually looking for people to volunteer for various leadership positions... Glad you liked it! You all did such great jobs with your chapters, that I felt that I couldn't just whip out a simple little build and a five-line story. The story went on probably a bit longer than it should have, but I kinda got carried away. I usually work out the storyline in the shower in the morning, and then hurry to the computer to type up the basic points. This one involved some long showers trying to figure out what would happen. Damaximus -- Hope you have fun with this again!

Great! I wrapped posting my RTD/ROS build last night, and looked at my half built Noccy tribe, and thought: oh well, missed that deadline. So very excited about phase 2 - will get on it right away.

Part 3, The Tongue of a Bandit, is up (finally)!

Gabe, thanks for posting! I love the WIP shots. It really helps me figure out how someone built something. Otherwise I'm stuck looking at some finished product photo, where half the time you can't really see the techniques used. I've finally posted the next chapter in the Retracing Our Steps linear community build (part of the Raising the Dead project). Take a look. Merith and Kylee at Skoll Lake, by nice.marmot, on Flickr

And so, we continue the story of Merith and Kylee, retracing Dugal's steps... "The tongue of a bandit? Gross! This quest is getting weirder and weirder," exclaimed Kylee with a shiver. "Oh, please, Kylee," responded Merith with a smirk, "an experienced Cedrica girl like yourself shouldn't fazed by anything!" Kylee just smiled back at her. "Let's take a look at Dugal's journal, and see what this is all about," said Merith. Turning to the journal, she paged through it until she found the section where he had been captured by bandits. On the third day since my capture by the bandits, I managed to hide away a small chicken bone, which I used to pick the lock on my cuffs. However, I didn't take them off, as I didn't see any immediate way to escape the bandits' camp by Skoll Lake without attracting notice. Later that day, there was a tremendous shouting, and all the bandits went running this way and that, picking up their weapons. Clearly they were under attack. My guard shifted uneasily, and rightly so, as I thought this might be my opportunity. The bandit known as Wadal Sandshifter, who appeared to also be a shaman-mage of some sort, approached us. "Go help defend the camp!" he roared at my guard. "I'll take care of MacLean!" He began waving around some sort of amulet, and muttering in a strange language. It was clear that he was casting a spell on me. Well, I couldn't let that happen. Unfastening my unlocked cuffs, I grabbed his dagger out of his belt before he realized I was free. I then lunged forward, attempting to slash his throat and stop the spell. Sandshifter however had tilted his head downwards, rolled his eyes up, and stuck out his tongue for the last words of the spell. I don't know why, but I suppose it was part of the enchantment. The dagger struck his outstretched tongue and sliced it clean off. He screamed in pain, and ran off in a frenzy. Dugal vs Sandshifter, by nice.marmot, on Flickr Moments later, before I could start running away, a strange large man, not one of the bandits, came up to me, blood glistening from his sword. "Dugal MacLean?" he asked hurriedly, "We're from Everlast. Watts Gorgon is the name. Let's get you out of here!" Dugal meets Watts, by nice.marmot, on Flickr Well, I certainly was happy to see those guys. Watts and I ended up becoming great friends; he's a captain in the IAMS. Later he presented me with Sandshifter's tongue, which he had picked up that day, as a gruesome memento. "Dugal sure lived an adventurous life!" remarked Kylee. "I suppose we should check out the Skoll Lake campsite, and see if we can figure out where those bandits ended up. Although I'm still not sure how we would get one of their tongues!" After a short journey, Kylee and Merith arrived on the shores of Skoll Lake, a turquoise body of water in the Rakath Mtns that has the shape of a deaths-head. They easily found the old bandits' camp, but it had clearly been deserted for a long time. There weren't any clues to where the bandits had gone, until Merith noticed a white marble historical marker. Merith and Kylee at Skoll Lake, by nice.marmot, on Flickr She read it out loud: "Historical Site - In memory of the Razcari's Rakath Rascals, whose banditry achieved great heights and fame, until their untimely demise at this site at the hands of the dreaded IAMS - placed by the Kaliphlin Thieves Guild Hall of Fame, Messahmuk" "Hah!" snorted Kylee, "How's that for historical revisionism?" "I'm amazed they put up a historical marker so quickly," smiled Merith, "This guild must be on top of things. Perhaps we should pay them a visit, and see if they have any more information on these bandits." So our intrepid heroines traveled to Messahmuk, halfway across the Siccus, via the Lick of Salt river and canyons, and thence overland through the Dune Sea. A week later, they walked up to the imposing entrance to the Thieves Guild Hall of Fame on Lizzard Lane. It's quite grand, although effect was somewhat diminished by large banners in the plaza advertising auditions for a new amusement park just outside the city, WadiWorld. Thieves Guild Hall of Fame, Messahmuk, by nice.marmot, on Flickr "Think they're compensating for something?" giggled Kylee. "Now, now," said Merith, "Although they do seem eager to impress." "What's that motto over the doorway mean?" "It's in ancient Erduwan. It means 'Respectability at last!'" answered Merith. "Hah! The closest the thieves are going to get to respectability is when they rob some rich politician!" chortled Kylee. Merith chuckled, and then asked the nice young Serpentine receptionist how to find information on Razcari's Rascals. "Oh, pleassse go to the ressssearch library," he hissed. "Assssk for Sssylvessster. Down the hall, to your left, and up the sssstairsss. And watch your pursssse around him!" "The Thieves Guild has a research library?" asked Kylee wonderingly, but Merith hurried her down the hall. In the musty old research library, they quickly found the librarian Sylvester hunched over some old scrolls, intently reading. They introduced themselves, and asked about the bandits. In the Research Library, by nice.marmot, on Flickr "Oh yes! Razcari's Rakath Rascals!" exclaimed Sylvester excitedly, quickly pulling some scrolls off the shelves and perusing them as he talked. "One of our bigger success stories of the past few decades! A fascinating bunch, and they had tremendous success. Did quite well with a multi-pronged strategy: banditry, kidnapping, extortion, smuggling, and protection rackets. Pioneered the use of the threat-evacuate-pounce technique, the theory of which is only now being fully developed. We're also doing a statistical analysis of the impact of their extortion racket on the north Rakath caravan economy." "Um, yes, they were quite the crew, weren't they?" answered Merith, "But we're really more interested in what happened to them all." "Ah! A biographical sketch! I get it, sort of a where-are-they-now? Razcari's Rascals Revisited!" "Yes, kind of like that…" "Well, unfortunately, that will be a bit of a short work," the old researcher said gloomily, "They were mostly wiped out by Everlast's IAMS in the battle of Skoll Lake. Terrible to lose such a promising group so early in their careers. Razcari could have taken them all the way; he was brilliant. They shot to stardom, and then burned out just as quickly." "Oh, how awful!" said Merith, not very convincingly (but Sylvester didn't notice). "Aren't there any of them left at all?" "Only two survived the battle. One was Wadal Sandshifter, their mage. No one knows where he is now, but there are rumors that he's in Nocturnus, and is now mute. The other was Herbius van Slyck, Razcari's right-hand-man, and the one responsible for the kidnapping side of the business." "Where's Van Slyck?" asked Kylee quickly. "He's dead; killed recently by a disgruntled investor." responded Sylvester. The women's faces fell at this news. "But you can visit his remains at the Shrine of Noble Elocution here at the Hall of Fame. His specialty was as a con-man, and all great con-men's gifted tongues are enshrined there for safekeeping." Merith and Kylee had to suppress their glee at this. They asked the researcher for directions to the shrine, and thanked him for all his help. Arriving shortly thereafter at the Shrine, they were greeted by a strange man dressed in a bunny suit. Behind him were many rows of small drawers set into the wall, each presumably with a dead superstar con-man's preserved tongue. The Shrine of Noble Elocution, by nice.marmot, on Flickr "Welcome to the Shrine of Noble Elocution! I'm Yephet Tolmet, the guardian today. How can I help you?" said bunny-suiter enthusiastically. "Hello. You're the guardian?" asked Kylee incredulously. "Yup. The cat is on holiday for five weeks. Union rules. I'm just a temp." answered Yephet, in all seriousness. "OK…" said Merith, wondering why things like this always happened to her. "I see, the cat has the tongues…" Kylee, covering her face with her hands, suppressed a huge giggle. Merith wondered how they were going to get past the guardian. "We're here to pay our respects to Herbius van Slyck." "Great!" exclaimed Yephet, his ears perking up. "One of our newest inductees, but a fabulous con-man apparently! His tongue is in drawer 487, right over there. But of course, you're not allowed to open it." "Oh no, of course not. It's just a privilege to stand here and look at!" responded Merith winningly. After they stood dutifully admiring the closed drawer and trying to think of a plan for several minutes, Merith, dropping seamlessly into an imitation of Yephet's accent, said, "You're from Mophet, right? Wasn't your mother Nala Tolmet?" "Oh yes! We lived on Tarpit Lane! Are you from Mophet?" answered the surprised bunny-suiter. "No, I'm from Mazbit next door. I used to buy date tamales from your mother at the Oil Road Market, where my family sold hand-woven prayer rugs. I think I remember playing with you in the tarpits as a kid," Merith continued. Kylee watched wondrously as the two of them chatted away like old friends. Soon, Merith was scratching the bunny suit ears as she talked, and was practically cooing at him. The young Yephet was eating it up. Kylee sidled over to Merith, and surreptitiously slipped something into her hand. Looking down at it, Merith saw that it was an authentic gold-level Thieves Guild membership badge. "So were you at the amusement park auditions earlier today?" Merith asked, guessing the truth behind the bunny costume. "No," groaned Yephet. "I got all dressed to go, and then found out I had to work here today. It's awful; it's my life's dream to be the bunny at a theme park, not guard a bunch of desiccated tongues." "Oh that's terrible," said Merith sympathetically, while nonchalantly pinning the membership badge on her dress in a prominent location. "I was just over there auditioning for a princess role, and they mentioned they're desperately short of bunnies and marmots." Yephet's face brightened at this news, and then fell again. "You know what, Yephet, dear?" Merith continued soothingly, "Why don't you run over and audition really quickly? I'll watch the shrine for you. It'll only take a few minutes." "Really? You'd do that for me?" asked Yephet, gazing at the membership badge on her breast, and then back up to her eyes. "Oh yes, us ol' Mophet folks have got to take care of each other! It's the least I could do. My mum would whup me if she found out I didn't help out Nala Tolmet's son!" "Oh thank you so much! Thank you, thank you! This is a dream come true!" gushed Yephet, as he rushed off. The Tongue of a Bandit!, by nice.marmot, on Flickr "How did you ever think of that?" asked Kylee. "Well, you know, to get people to do what you want, you've just got to hold out the right, er, carrot!" answered Merith with a snicker. "Oh, jeez," groaned Kylee. Merith grinned. "Now let's get that tongue out of drawer 487, and get out of here before Mr Bunny gets back!" "OK," said Kylee, looking for the correct drawer. Continuing in a terrible imitation of a Mophet accent, she chuckled, "I declare, you're lil' Miss Mophet! Where did all that come from?" "I've always been good at imitating accents," answered Merith with a smile, "and I've been to Mophet once. It's a small town, and produces only oil, dates, and rugs, and all the women seem to be named Nala or Yasmin, so I just put together a few educated guesses… And what about you? Where did you get that membership badge?" "Oh well, I've got some skills of my own," said Kylee mysteriously, "and the research librarian won't miss it until later today." "Oh poor old Sylvester! We'll leave it right here on the desk for him." They opened the drawer, and took out the desiccated, grotesque tongue, wrapped in silk, and deposited it in Merith's bag. Then they hurried through the Hall of Fame, and walked quickly out, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. At the entrance portico, they were suddenly accosted by a ghost. The Ghost of Herbius van Slyck, by nice.marmot, on Flickr "Congratulations!" moaned the ghost, as the women tried to evade him and flee. "You have obtained my tongue; now I can speak to you!" "Your tongue?" asked Merith. "I am Herbius van Slyck, and that was a very worthy con." "What do you want of us?" demanded Kylee. "I come with a message from Dugal's ghost," the spirit answered, "For your next task, you must obtain the still-burning blue flame of an ice dragon's fiery breath!" Well, this ended up being a much longer build than I thought it would be. But I got carried away with the story, and really wanted to illustrate it well. I apologize for keeping Ska and Damaximus waiting for several weeks! I'm probably happiest with the mountain backdrop for the Skoll Lake shots. It really looks nice, even up close and in focus. Here's a wider angle shot of the Skoll Lake camp; you can see the shore and mountains more clearly. Skoll Lake shore, by nice.marmot, on Flickr

Wow, this is really cool. Very innovative. Creepy too. Great job with the lighting.

Pretty quiet in Kaliphlin this weekend. Everyone home celebrating the Great Sandfly Festival with family? Hope to take a few more photos of my latest build tomorrow, and hopefully will get them photoshopped (GIMPed?) and posted Monday night. This will be the first lego pictures with our new camera, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out. We splurged on a Sony DSC-RX100, which so far has been a fabulous camera. Hopefully it does its magic on LEGO too. On another note, I'm thinking of doing a community advent calendar build this December, kinda like last year's. Anyone interested in participating? Be great if we could make it an all-Kaliphlin event. For those of you who weren't around, I posted one pic per day (unless we ran out of steam) of a small GoH build. The builds were little micro scale vignettes, or some small minifig scale creations. It's great for getting some quick microscale experience. Anyone interested?

Take the long way home, after you have breakfast in America

Gex consulted with Prof Gefren Jeograf, esteemed head of the Geography department at the University of Petraea. Here's what they came up with: I think it was actually calculated to be the size of Texas, a bit bigger than France. See previous discussion here and here. I don't think it's official or anything; those were just calculations based off Avalonian and Kaliphlin maps. Examining the entire Historica map with GIMP's measuring tool, I think it's more like 350,000 square miles, which is about the size of Nigeria (Texas is 268,000; France 247,000), or the size of France, the UK, and Denmark put together. By those calculations it is about 850 miles (1368 km) north to south, and 735 miles (1183 km) east to west. Historica certainly isn't any smaller, but maybe it's a bit bigger. Too much bigger, though, and we'd never see each other. Also, a rough estimate based on the Historica map shows the guild land sizes as: Kaliphlin is about the size New Zealand (or Colorado), Mitgardia is the size of Utah, Avalonia is the size of Washington State (or a bit bigger than England + Wales), and Nocturnus is the size of Arkansas (or a bit bigger than Greece). That doesn't sound too off the mark; I wouldn't have thought Avalonia was much bigger than England and Wales. As for the very wide climate range over a small area, well, it's a different world!

Wait until you have to fight with the kid for the bricks you need! That's what I'm always doing now. "Hey, where'd the chains on my castle drawbridge go?" "I needed them so Yoda and Laval could chain up Lord Garmadon, Dad"

Yurobrycka? Yurobrix? Yoorobriks? I like Yurobrix the best.

OK. I'm going to "claim" the university tavern/pub as my build. If anyone else wants to beat me to it, go ahead, but that's what I'm building.

Gabe, that's looking pretty epic. Can't wait to see the finished product. Where do the students sit however? On the stairs? Sounds good. I already know what I'll be building -- the MOC I planned but never got around to building for the first challenge!

OK, Angeli's number of parts multiplied by amount of free time available must be about 100,000 times as much mine. And he's in a country with no LEGO store.

For anyone interested in using ravens in their upcoming Nocturnus builds, Amazon US has the 70003 Chima: Eris' Eagle Interceptor set on sale for $21.60 (down from $34.99; it's got 348 pieces, so that's $0.06 / piece). It's got two raven minifigs, and a whole bunch of those neat wing pieces. I'm buying two.

Ah, the Hardiels are back! Excellent! Welcome back. I think that book 2 is shaping up to be pretty awesome.

Quite right. As does the phrase "don't like beer". And "out of beer" is a synonym for "end of the world". Whereas here in Kaliphlin, we have 287 words for sand. And our word for crazy is the same as our word for Mitgardian.

It has? Seems like a pretty good location. Maybe we should reserve it for someone who joins later? Damaximus already has Mpya Stedor and Everlast. DM - what do you want to use it for? Could you instead build out a town near Mpya Stedor for the same purpose? But if you really want it for a good purpose, I'm cool with that too. There are plenty of unbuilt areas on the map...

Uh oh. Bar the doors!

NiL_FisK_Urd -- That's a great first impression! And CBB -- Great second impression. The Loki helmet totally works. But are you chained up?

Exactly why those Mitgardians have 472 words for snow, and 195 words for ice! I think they have one word which covers all plants and trees, and no words for hot or warm. They just use the phrase "not cold", which in their language, also has the meaning of "nonsense".

Don't worry Z, even though we're sticking with Kaliphlin, I think we can show you that there's plenty of evil, deviousness, cunning, and monstrosity lurking down here, just below the sands... In a somewhat related note: I bought three of the Halloween Accessory sets on sale ($10.48 each), just to get ready for Book II! Fairly good deal as each one includes a witch, zombie, ghost, spider, frog, bat, rat, two snakes, and a bunch of creepy foliage. BL prices out the parts at $24. Discovered how to evade shipping charges -- just went to my local LEGO store and asked for the set; since they didn't have it in the store, they'll ship it to you for FREE!

Might go to the store this weekend, and if so, will pick some up for you if I find any. If you get any before then, PM me, and I'll check before I buy some for you.