Grover

In generally accepted fantasy lore, drow are jet-black skinned with white hair, but if you look at the Book I drow builds, there weren't many black heads back then, so people used grey or white. I think it's kind of up to the builder and their parts. I'd love to get some custom printed black drow faces sometime, but that may be a pipe dream! I think that Wiki map is reasonably accurate, but the individual guild threads will have the most detail with cities being up to date, etc.

The borders are poorly defined, and if you look at the old Book I and Book II maps, the borders shift due to inaccuracies in drawing of the maps, so I don't think you'll have much trouble. The guilds are pretty fast and loose with things, leaving a lot up to the players, which I appreciate.

Welcome! Look forward to the first story about Oronér! Nice little vignette that you have there! I like the muted color scheme with a splash of color from the flowers!

I don't think there's anything in specific, but we try to localize our lore when we can so it leaves the story space open for everyone else. For instance, if I were to include lore about dwarves, it'd be fine to include generalizations such as having beards and short stature (generally accepted dwarf characteristics), but I would hesitate to make broad statements like "all dwarves are allergic to pumpkins", since that is pretty restrictive on dwarven characters and probably conflicts with lore already in place in someone else's region. However, statements like this are completely fine if they're local to your region, such as "All dwarves from [insert your region's name here] like the taste of rotten apples." If you are going to build in someone else's space, it would be worthwhile to contact the builder in that area if you can, to make sure your lore works with theirs, but most people don't do that outside of collaborations. As for the characters, there's no set color schemes outside of guild colors. Some of us use flesh tones for elves and yellow for humans and other races while other people use fleshies or yellow for everything. There's quite a bit of leeway, and if you state something that is at odds with some concrete lore (which is pretty sparse around here), someone will let you know and you can edit it to avoid the conflict. Let your imagination run wild! PS: It has been established in canon that minidolls are evil. Few people use them, but they are evil elves that have been twisted into their grotesque form by dark magic.

This is a really gorgeous build. I love the detail you have put in here while still retaining clean lines. I would disagree with suggestions to add in more colors, such as browns and blacks. I think these would distract from the structure you have here and make the building look derelict rather than worn. Besides, a cathedral was a well-maintained place of worship, not a fortress like a castle. I can see a castle having battle scars and more wear to it because of its function. There's so many great things to appreciate, but I will try to capture a few. I really like how you have created smooth transition lines on the rooftop, particularly at the corners (both the traditional and inverse corners). Those are not easy to do and you make it look smooth, especially with those large rubbery spike things on the transept roof corners. I like how you added some 1x1 clips at the corner seams on the main part to hold them together visually, and the inverse corners with the wedges are superb. The tone on tone dark grey on light grey is really outstanding and helps to bring out detail without looking like too much contrast. I really like that you have built this to minifig scale, or at least pretty close, since it makes the grandeur of the cathedral really come out. Kudos on brick built arches, too, rather than using the pre-built ones (not that they have ever made any of those large enough for your build), and the stained glass window is awesome, especially with the pic you have of it lit. I like the statuary in the alcoves on the outside, too. As for suggestions, unless you're basing this on a specific cathedral interior (which you said you were not in the original post), I would eliminate the medium blue plates and replace the statuary with either grey for stone or gold for ornamented (and perhaps to keep with the nano gold figs up top). I like the interior and even the white, dark red, dark blue, and gold, since it hearkens back to baroque times with marble, gold leaf, and some painted fixtures, but the medium blue (or whatever that color is called, its official name escapes me right now) and the colored micro figs clash a bit and distract from the realism to my eye. I really like the old space bendy connectors around the main doorway, too: very creative. You can only really see this on the Flickr pics, but a few of the off-colored tiles (like the dark orange) might be interesting to make more uniform and smooth all the way down the interior main floor. I'd like to see what this looks like with a clean tile floor pattern. Thank you for sharing this build. It is really magnificent and it's quite difficult to make an epic cathedral like this in such a stand out manner. Great job!

I enjoy including those little anachronisms, and how else are they to get the replacement parts that they need during quarantine but Amazon? lol I thought it would be amusing to include some construction workers taking a break in the background. In hindsight, I'm thinking it might have been more amusing to make the workers some Dark Forestmen, but it's decent as is. Glad you enjoy the little details and humor! I always enjoy adding some subtle (and in this case not so subtle) scenes to the builds if I can.

True! Somehow, 'Bob the not-continuously-employed Avalonian plumber' just doesn't have the same ring to it! lol

The gold details here are great. I like the inverted curved slopes decorating the roof, too.

That build is huge! That's a lot of those Friends puppies! I like the heart shaped pond. The roller coaster in the background is impressive, too!

Fantastic build! You always manage to build these enormous projects, it's quite impressive! I like the interiors, too. The bright green against the dark stone makes me think it was carved out of mountain stone that hasn't weathered much, which makes sense because it's Mitgardia. Very cool to see the bedspreads inside, the oval table, and the various details you have put into it. I love that you have stuck with your character for so long and kept him going with this family castle. I think my favorite part is the 33° double slope roof. It's one of my favorite pieces and you make it look great here!

Awesome to see the drow return! That's a heck of a lot of figs, too! Love the tree in the middle of the courtyard.

Beautiful build! I love the detail of the blue and white window with the HP wands as window ornamentation. The SW planet dome is great, too, and blends in well with the other colors. Really great integration of all the techniques you've been pioneering, from the cracked earth to the whip trees and the leaves on the trees. I like the flowers in the bush, too. I have one question for you: are those goats that you put in every scene the same, or do you use new goats each time because you have 200 of them?

Bob the unemployed Avalonian plumber returns. https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/178359-book-3-challenge-v-category-c-aftermath/

The saga of Bob the unemployed Avalonian plumber continues... Bob stood ankle deep in water and looked at the ruined fountain, thinking about how he had gotten to this point. After he lost his job in Albion, he had gone from job to job, most recently fixing some ancient statue fountain in a cave in the middle of the woods. Having burned through his money from that job (mostly on beer), he had heard that there was work fixing up a rich guy's house across the sea in Vuhlaer.. Vayeiley... the place that sounded like it came from the Game of Thrones show that he had never gotten to finish after being stranded in this bizarre world. He'd puked his guts out on the boat ride over from Avalonia, but was happy when he had seen that this place seemed to have more modern conveniences. Of course, then all hell had broken loose and he found out these people were insane, murdering each other at the drop of a hat. Those weird plants and monsters in Nocturnus had been less scary than this! He made up his mind to try and get back to Avalonia, where it was a little more backward but he was less likely to be murdered in his sleep. A guard yelled at him, breaking him out of his reverie. He didn't understand the language, but he had been in his line of work long enough to have heard it many times before and knew what it meant: "Back to work, we're not paying you to be lazy!" He nodded and set back to work fixing the fountain. At least this place didn't smell like bear poop.

Really beautiful build. Sorry this is getting kind of buried right now from the challenge, so I'm hoping my bump will keep it on the front page for a while. The color scheme is great. It reminds me of a combination of an Indiana Jones temple and the sultan's palace from Aladdin (the cartoon, not that live action garbage). The mix of the flowers and greenery near the bright blue water implies an oasis to me, which would make sense for a palace location (nobody wants to have a palace in the middle of the desert!). Great job!

I'm going to take the time to comment on my fellow builders' pieces here, so that the rest of the forums can share in thoughts of their excellent work. @Aurore: You have a real gift for selecting colors. The tans here work amazingly against the purple and blue, and the dark purple naga is a perfect juxtaposition of all of the colors. The new figures, like Mychel, really stand out with their dark red as being 'foreign' to the scene, which works perfectly. The idea of a naga in the first place is really fantastic! Your plants are so creative, and their placement is very organic and realistic. Love the friends icepack on the egg to make a unusual desert flower. The coral piece blends so seamlessly into the other plants you don't even notice it at first, which is great. I like the idea of the cave, too. It adds a piece of height to the build as well as provides a place for some sort of shelter that makes a lot of sense. Your builds are always so gorgeous, it's been a real pleasure working with you! @LittleJohn: Wow. All I can say is wow. The throne room is really spectacular. I think you have set a new standard for the Kolgari royalty, and the use of the trans colors mixed with the browns is stunning. The level of detail you have put into the throne room with all the whips and horns is awesome. I love how the scene really brings out the Kolgari mixture of organic flora and crafted elf-built structure, just as I would imagine from an elven building. The background is nice, too, not the usual plain white or black. I love how you get the sense that this throne room is cavernous, despite it being only on 32x32. Fantastic work! @Basiliscus: Love the huge open battle scene. Portraying a battle cleanly is not easy, and you made it look easy here. You did a great job spreading out the battle over a larger area and keeping consistent colors for troops to delineate the sides to the viewer. I also like the sense of scale. It makes a lot of sense that this more rural (compared to the capital) area would be spread out, and I like the various buildings you have here and there to draw the eye to different heights. The birch trees are great, and your photography through them with the troops is perhaps one of my favorite photos! The rooflines are great, and you do a good job showing off the various purposes of the buildings through the architecture. The stone foot bridge over the stream is a very nice touch with good banks as well. Great job! Now the responses: @socalbricks: Thank you very much! I had a lot of fun building my part for this challenge! @mrcp6d: Thank you! When I realized that I was going to have to split my build from beginning to end, I wanted to find a way to differentiate the two times, so I junked up the shield and swords on the wall and set one of the vines on fire. I was worried about how it would look, but it turned out OK since it's not entirely in focus in the shot. Cramming everything into the interior was quite a challenge, though! I wound up missing a lot of the details, especially on the second floor, so I may post some more shots a little later. @Kai NRG: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the vines on the wall (the idea came from a previous build of @LittleJohn). @kahir88: Thank you! I had fun with my part of the build, and we wanted to leave the story open for the Rego, deposing but not killing him directly. @Garmadon: Thanks! I'm glad that you found the gold a little too much: it's exactly what I was going for. I figured rich jerks would not have not just an ornamented home, but that it would be gaudy. I tried to overdo the gold, so I'm glad that it came across! I built this with the staircase in mind originally, and wanting it to be the centerpiece, I wound up having to modify the fountain and its area several times (thanks to my teammates for helping with this!). I'm glad you spotted the flamingos! I threw in that guy looting in them in the background with a huge smile on his face for fun. @Louis of Nutwood: Thank you, sir! I had a blast with the rock creature. I had one sitting around and wanted to use it for a long time, then tried to tie it back into Book I, so I'm glad people picked up on that. I'm also happy to hear that the story was clear and well illustrated by the builds. That required some modification to make it all smooth. Thank you for the compliments on the build, too. It was tricky getting all the figures in there, but it was worth it in the end, I think. Keep your eyes peeled for the return of Bob the unemployed Avalonian plumber as he has to clean up the mess!

First, let me say that I want you to win this competition just because I like the name Rufus. Like Rufus the 13th apostle from Dogma! Rego Rufus. Rufus the Rego. It's hilarious and awesome! Excellent work to all! I like the story! It flows well, makes sense, and is well planned. I like the ascent of Rufus the mad, too. His motivations are clear, the madness is a great touch, and you did a great job portraying the Baiamonte family, from the limited description provided in the Varlyian thread. I love the idea of a mad dragon-riding king on the throne as Rego. There are a lot of possibilities there! The only parts of the story that are not depicted explicitly are the golden armor as Aurore has pointed out (perhaps it could have been tied on the horse?) and then I'm a little confused as to why the dragon is eating Rufus in the last picture and not, say, Rego Amancio? Other than that, however, it's very well represented. On to the individual builds! @Louis of Nutwood: Beautiful mountain scene! I like how organically the dwarven statue blends into the rocks. The doors look particularly dwarven, and I appreciate how you made them actually large. So many times I see dwarven mines with tiny doors. How are they supposed to get their goods out? The other part I really appreciate is the pathway up to the door. It looks great! I had to build one of those for my shrine build a while back, and it was a pain. You did a great job with it, and it looks like a well used pathway rather than some overly blocky or overly smooth mess (things I struggled with on my path). I also like how you twisted the path around to add some height to the build, helping illustrate the steep slopes of the mountains. Excellent job! @Gideon: I didn't even know there was a 'Piraka' Lego beast (thanks for pointing that out @kahir88!) but you used it to outstanding effect! I love the use of the muted dark bley here to give that feeling of being underground without having to build a full cave. You have a great broken down feel to the build, striking the balance between polished and broken without leaving a cluttered feeling. You do a great job bringing out a bleakness to the build that is rather poignant. Outstanding! @Henjin_Quilones: As usual, your dragons are fantastic. Love the dragon dangling Rufus mid-air! While the dragon steals the scene (nice use of the wing piece for an eye by the way!), the rest of the scene is equally beautiful, and I love how you used the perpendicular street perspective to add significant depth to the build. The corbeling on the rooftops is fantastic, and I love the attention to detail, matching the color of the terracotta roof to the smaller dormer type windows beneath it. The stone archways are fantastic, and the low angle shot really shows off your attention to detail on the high rooftops (like the white building). In this case, I like the light blue water, too, so great job there! I love all the little detail, like the pier post that is slightly askew. Fantastic job!

Outstanding! Love the whole thing. You did a great job telling the story. I was wondering where it was going at first, but then you pulled it all together at the end and it was very well done. My only suggestion would be to explicitly state that the Rego had sent a letter when the messenger comes to the door. That wasn't clear to me until I read that the Rego had signed it, then I realized that he wasn't speaking. I like the idea of a natural foe (or perhaps unnatural) in the form of the werewolf, so the Rego tried to send something but the werewolf destroyed it. That wolf must have killed a lot of people for it to smell that bad in such a cold environment! The build is great. You've done an excellent job conveying the steep mountain sides, complete with snow caps, and the lowered mountain pass. The bonus of the cave with the skeletons is a very nice touch. The wolf, however, is really the centerpiece here, and is excellent both in size and quality. The all-black makes it both menacing and difficult to photograph. @ZCerberus has done a nice job before photographing some of the black Nocturnus builds, but I don't know how he did those, so if he's still around, you might want to PM him for photography tips. I'd love to see more of the detail on the wolf for sure. Also, good use of the shoulder cloth on the warrior (from that big Garmadon fig, right?). I will also say how much I like the muted color scheme. I think it really shows how bleak and desolate the land is, which is great. Very nice work, what we have come to expect from you. Keep it up!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I do like the story, I just couldn't follow it, which is why I wrote asking for clarification and a few suggestions for clarity. With the idea that Garmadon's story is interwoven, plus the background you provided in the intrigue thread it makes much more sense now. I had thought the two teams builds were unrelated and I didn't have the other background, so now it all makes sense! Thanks! As for the torsos, that makes sense. I'll have to dig through my collection and see if I have some of those guys to use in the future. Thanks!

I've already responded to part I in that thread, so I'll save my comments from that. What are the torsos of the guards around Staffen from? I don't recognize them. I think your pics here are out of order, too. Overall, these builds are beautiful. The canals are fantastic, the overall feel goes together nicely, and the color choices are fantastic. The story is, well, another story. I find it somewhat difficult to follow and the reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The story does not seem to flow well from one build to the other, and the numerous characters with similar names are confusing. It took me a while to figure out that the Conzagas were used, then betrayed, then the de Fioris were used and betrayed, and who was doing the betraying. I enjoy complex stories, but the more complex the story, the more clear they need to be. Perhaps more perplexing is the motivation. Why would the de Fioris, the second ranked house, help put the di Carlos in as Rego, in the first position? Or did the di Carlos put themselves there through massive betrayal? If so, how? A powerful family like the de Fioris would likely not have risen to where they are had they been naive about being betrayed particularly by lesser families, so there needs to be some good explanation of how conniving and devious the di Carlos are to be convincing, particularly since the di Carlo and di Cioto families have nothing written about them, so there's no history in the Guilds for anyone to read for backstory. Also, what happened to the Rego Amancio? He has been 'dealt with', but there is little detail here, especially surrounding the conspiracy. It's definitely action heavy, but there are a lot of unanswered questions here that lead to confusion, and the beautiful builds do not illustrate some of these aspects of the story. I think there's a lot of good ideas here and plenty of excitement and only wish it were more clear so I could enjoy it more easily. I do like the use of the Italian words thrown in to spice things up, and I think they add a very mediterranian/Reniassance feel to things. On to the builds! Part II: @KevinyWu The canal scene here is gorgeous! The color choice blends into the 'canon' of Varlyrio very well, and the ornamentation with the lions is well done. The architecure is great, especially the roofs, and the little touches (the lamp, the seagull, the street sweeper, the growth on the water) are very well done. I also appreciate the consistency of the stone wall of the canal with Part III. I like the closeup of the attack and the demise of the assassin, with his body in the water. I'm not a big fan of the photoshop job to get him in the air, I guess because it feels like a bit of a dodge. What's to stop someone from photoshopping in a lot of a rare part or changing a color? Maybe there should be some agreed upon rules for photoshop in builds. At any rate, the build itself is brilliant, and I do understand the use of photoshop to get the action. I really like the darkness, too. It's dark enough to make it feel like night but light enough that it can be seen. Well done! Part III: @ZlatanXVIGustaf Wow, this is a monster of a build! This whole thing screams Varlyrio. The colors and architecture blend well with Part II and the level of detail here is insane. The arch in the background is beautiful but I am unsure of its architectural or structural use. The vines coming up the wall with the flowers are done very organically and look great. The closeup shot of Capri being dragged away is fantastic. Part IV: @mrcp6d Wow! This blends right in with the build from Part III, so much so that it could be connected! I like the use of the new raven shield on the walls, and then lantern hanging. The figs are very clear and well posed for the chase. Your use of the baseplate at an angle really maximizes the area to work with and is a great idea. I like the little gold statue in the alcove behind the guy with the ruffled collar too! Some of the little details, like Peaves as a statue, and the decoration of the arches are very nice. Also the wings on the viking helmet are a nice touch. I would not have thought of that! Again here, the plants on the water are well done and consistent throughout. The staggered layering on the roof of the brown house looks good, too, and your use of color blocking helps delineate the structures. The angles you chose for the houses are very good and lend a sense of depth to the build, plus a sense of a densely packed cityscape that hearkens to Venice. Great job! Very nice work to all of you! You should be proud of the builds, and I hope to see more of these Varlyrian builds from all of you!

Great job everyone! This is a brilliant collaboration. I really like how you all put a single story together coherently, and you lined up each twist of the plot clearly. The rise of Luca DiCarlo, from a 4th ranked family, to Rego, deserved some explanation, and you did just that with the de Fiori family now as the shadow power behind the throne, which also preserves some of the complex political machinations. Not really sure what all the excitement is with teams wanting to put Luca di Carlo on the throne, but great job with the explanation! As for the individual builds: @Puvel: The outside is quite lovely with the stonework and canal. I particularly like the opening in the canal (a sewer perhaps?) and the 33° corner slopes on the top (they are some of my favorites). The door looks a little boarded up and might have used a handle, but it's not really the centerpiece of this build so it doesn't distract much. The interior is very nice, and I particularly like the floor. The bar is well done and I like the tables askew from the grid of the baseplate. I'm a little curious how they get to the second floor, or if that's supposed to be a cutaway? I would like to see some more decorations on the wall, as someone else noted, but I do like the texturing and the open floor space (usually interiors are cluttered due to lack of space). Well done! @Ayrlego: You really killed this one. I enjoy the wall textures on your buildings, and this is no exception. You strike an excellent balance between texture and polish that comes through as an aged wall. The arch over the canal looks great, and I love all the vegetation. The assassin hiding in the corner is great, and you got the lighting perfect. My only suggestion might be to vary the texture of the street a little more, as the round tiles are a bit too much for my eye after a while, but that's a matter of taste. Love the use of the wine and grapes sign over the tavern, and you did a great job choosing your colors. It's very recognizable as a Varlyrian build. Excellent work! @kahir88: Love the boats! The black and red is probably my favorite, but I like the golden snitch on the prow of the white one, too! I like the choice of colors and minifigs to help the reader understand who is who in the scene. I read your story before you had posted your pictures and you matched well to what I had imagined. It might be nice to cover up the backs of the plates on the white ship, but I don't know how you could have done that. A few of the pictures are a little dark, too, so some more lighting might help that. I'm really glad you included pictures of the whole ships in the spoilers, because I really wanted to see them, and the closeup shots of the figs, while good for the story, didn't let me see the whole boat, which I really wanted to! My hat is off to you, as building ships and ocean scenes like that is tough. Great job! @Garmadon: Gorgeous execution! The white on white tones of the cathedral(?) walls and dome work well to suggest relief carvings, and the cracked glass looks great. The floor is the real show stopper, though, and is quite impressive. It looks like it was really frustrating to put together! The lighting looks good through the back window, though there is a bit of bleed-through on the back wall and it necessarily made some of the other areas darker, but the white walls help a lot. I like all the figs and their posing too! Well done!

No need to retaliate. Any family members not named are assumed to have died from venereal diseases contracted only from goats.

Really nice! I think one of my favorite parts is that door shape in the last picture. Really captures the style. You put the CMFs to good use, too, and they are uniform enough to look like an organized guard force. The shape of the temple with the long curves looks great, and I like how the temple to the sun god has gold at the top! If you have time, I'd get a couple of small LED lamps or flashlights and aim them at the build. This is definitely one that could be flooded with lightning and look spectacular for it. One other suggestion would be to look at ornamenting the space above the doorway with the orange haired guy. A tan technic gear, or some of those tooth pieces that are vertical in tan, or even just some bricks with studs on the side to put some 1x1 tan plates there could ornament the build a bit. Really nice work, though, and good use of those new tan ornamented pieces on the top underneath the gold.

Very cool! I like how you kept the color palette reduced. It really brings the low-contrast swampiness in, while the rest of the build is open enough that the low-contrast with the shadows doesn't entirely lose the build. You mention that you are getting some better pics soon, which will be cool, but this is one build I wouldn't over-light (though I usually recommend this), as I think the shadows are pretty cool here. In some ways, this reminds me of the official Weathertop set. Nice work!

The eye level shot is much more clear to see what's going on. I agree with @mrcp6d, too, adding some height to the canopy would help. To scale, if a mini is average human height (about 1:42), then a 70' tall oak tree (a fairly big one) is around 19" tall when made out of bricks to scale (an amazing 51 bricks tall)! Of course, Lego sets are not to this scale and are significantly smaller, but the short canopy is probably even smaller than that, so it cuts down on the view of the figures and isn't exactly what we think of when we walk through the forest and look around. Finding the right scale is pretty tricky, especially with natural settings (I struggle with this a lot!). I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with the snake people, but I loved your interpretation!