Gideon

Looks great! I have not had time to review it all, but a minor spelling correction is that the major river flowing to the sea by Barqa is called the Arkbri river. Based on how the Arkbri river has been described over the years since the original maps were made, it would actually not be bad to draw it quite wide on the maps. I think it probably is the largest river in Historica, fed by tributaries both from the snowy mountains of Mitgardia as well as a large part of the northern Rakath mountains.

Thanks! It feels so great to be back in GoH, looking very much forward to Book IV! Especially great to see the large turnout in this challenge, despite the hiatus between the challenges.

This is a perfect "world building" type of challenge, that has been so successful in GoH before. I hope we get more of these Lovely to see both old and new builders turning up with a lot of great builds! (Sad myself that I was so bad at checking the subforum nowadays that I only discovered the challenge less than 2 weeks before the end, would have loved to contribute to both categories...)

Congratulations! Well deserved TBB mention: https://www.brothers-brick.com/2025/09/02/an-elvish-bard-makes-merry-on-the-streets-of-dandelume/ Great to see that we are keeping up the GoH tradition of having challenge entries mentioned by TBB 😎

Nice little build! I like the subtle use of older color palette parts, especially the armor seems very fitting as an old heirloom or similar gathering dust The bookshelves are also good, but I'm wondering what part has been used at the bottom of the left one for the potions...?

My entry to category B:

Welcome to Historica!! Great scene, it has a very fitting splendour to the great hall of a major lord! The hammerbeam ceiling, the details around the windows and the wooden chandelier are my favorite parts of this build, of course together with the fun minifig and "captured motion" in the front As I've nitpicked a bit in some other builds already (and in the classic GoH spirit of trying to give constructive critizism), I think the focus of the photos are a tad off and that in the "overview" shot would have been nice to try to have most or all of the build in focus. (In closeup shots of a particular minifig, it is however a great way to emphasize the figure to have a short depth of field, but it requires the focus to be spot on in that case) Looks like there is some nice vegetation detailing on the other side of the cuved wall too, but I would have loved to see more of that

Great with a brick-built character! Really like the vibrant and immersive scene too, especially the lighting!

In the south of Historica, travelling bards known as ashiks is an age-old profession. The ashiks' songs and stories often have themes of love, wars, or both. Sometimes the stories survive from many centuries or even millenia ago. At the university of Petraea, scholars invite these custodians of ancient knowledge to capture their stories on parchment. By letting students reenact the story of a battle as the ashik is singing, this scholar is trying to see through the flamboyant poetry and figure out how the tactics and weapons of old really worked. I took the opportunity to try out some of the new "Kaliphlin tiles" of which I may or may not have bought...a few...

Nice carpet, it steals the show of the build The mix of details in the background is doing a good job creating a setting full of stories...! Some tips on the presentation is that when you are taking the photo this close with a wide-angle lens, the front of the build gets "magnified" compared to the rest of the build - making it easy for that part to become very pronounced. So I would suggest either moving the camera back and zooming/cropping to improve the perspective or to use the "magnified" area a bit more.

Lovely setting, with a lot of nice details telling small stories in themselves The sand green works very well with the snow and wooden details, and the uneven rock base looks great! A photography nitpick (it is GoH after all, so I need to start finding some positive constructive feedback for builds I comment on again?) is that it would have been nice ta also have the front of the build a bit more in focus. Either by using a smaller aperture, moving the camera back a bit more and zooming in or by putting the focus point a tad closer to the camera (or a combination of these).

Great use of that small footprint, I especially like how the house is placed and photographed in a way which makes it seem much larger while still staying within the limits of the build. The semi-studless sloped ground looks much more interesting than it would have done with a more classic approach. Interesting choice of background too, it almost makes it look like a painting on canvas 👍

Very nice building! You really nailed the curved shape, making it much more interesting 👍 The atmosphere inside the hall is top notch, I can really hear the singing and laughter, in the dim light and smoke from the great fire pit!

Lovely build, and great presentation! I especially like how you have managed to create a variety of interesting lbg shapes, subtle but elegant and with great contrast to the figs and the red leaves. Of course, the minifig compositions are stellar too 👍

Lovely build! I love the concept of Mitgardian music culture with ties to its wild past 👍 The details in the build are just top notch, great use of the small footprint.