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.

Great news to hear that the GoH story is progressing to another book! (Still turning the pages way faster than A Song of Ice and Fire ) I actually really love the smaller challenges and other initiatives like AoM, where we get to do some world building and flesh out the settings of Historica. The minifig challenges have been particularly good in this sense. Challenges emphasizing the everyday nature of Historica, such as trade or the life/backstory of a character is particularly suited for this type of world building. It was also very nice to revisit an old build with the new skills and bricks accumulated over the years. Of course, I also love the big storytelling challenges 🙂 My least favorite challenge over the years was actually the Kaliphlin civil war, where quantity ended up being prioritized over quality. A good mix of challenges probably would contain at least a couple or perhaps more of smaller challenges in between every big challenge, especially in order to not overburden the leadership so the challenges end up being too far apart. Generous time slots for the challenges are however appreciated by those of us who are otherwise very busy with real life challenges... But that also means that challenges are a great way to actually get around to producing some builds! I overall like the freeform RPG nature of GoH, with limited or even no formal gameplay mechanics - just building and telling stories, and sometimes being able to compete for influencing the overall direction of the world by excelling in those skills. Regarding the setting, I think the high medieval/high fantasy with some but not too powerful technology (siege engines are ok, but no reliable cannons for example) has been successful and fits very well to build high and beautiful fortifications (rather than the squat walls of early modern/age of sail fortifications). Similarly, I'm ok with fairly ubiquitous magic, but prefer if the magic elements is not overpowering compared to traditional medieval warfare. Great that we can have different preferences on which settings we want to build in, I have actually always found it harder to be innovative in the classic "green and gray" Avalonian settings (so many other great builders already building in those settings). I would therefore love to return to Kaliphlin - both building in the Mediterranean-ish setting of Barqa and would also love to build a bit more Oriental/Egyptian builds further south or deeper in the desert. Not great myself at the more Far East settings, but the Rakath mountains and especially their eastern side have as far as I remember been established over the years as a suitable place for those who want to build in that style in Historica and that could probably be better emphasized in the future. Of course, incentives to "visit" other guilds are nice so one can get to build in other settings than just the home guild. (I'm particularly drawn to build some more Varlyrian builds again) Maybe a new "embassy/trading post in another guild" type of challenge or some (other reason to visit that setting) can make some of us better at doing those kind of excursions from our home setting. Long live Historica!

Great to see another major location in Nocturnus rendered so gloriously in bricks! Impressive amount of towers and crenellations, and great detailing all over

@Tayaya Congrats to a very well-deserved win!! 👏 Many thanks also to everyone who cast a vote for my build! 🥰 It was great to see GoH spring to life again like this, and to be part of a classic world-building style challenge. Hoping for much more of this in the years to come 😊

Captain Flint - 1 point Aurore - 1 point soccerkid6 - 1 point

Thanks! 😊 Yes, so far I have most of these builds in one piece and I have some idea to display them together as a large harbor layout at some point! I'm however a bit uncertain if this build turned out to be a bit out of scale with the older builds (the temple etc), but next to the lighthouse it will still look small 😁 I had some thought about that it should be in order to be able to do their business (or else get on the wrong side with the City Watch! 👮‍♂️)

Nice little build, I particularly like the use of the curved panel piece and the dragon heads on the shafts

Another great piece of worldbuilding from this challenge! It really makes me want to see more of the city of Meborin

Excellent almost cartoonish look, in a very suitable theme for Avalonia 🧚 Best use I think I've ever seen of those "tree trunk costume" pieces.

Nice bustling feel in the entire build, with lots of details to discover! The overall immersive feeling is strengthened by the "all Lego" photography/presentation Good job incorporating all the animals 🐐🐑 Only nitpick is probably that the ground and the roofs are a bit too similar.

Lots of great detailing! I see something new everytime I look at the pictures Good job incorporating some nice vintage minifig parts in there too 👍 What is that printed window(?) piece with bottles...? (A nitpick on the presentation side however is that I think the black roof would have looked better if it would have gotten a few blasts of air or a brush prior to the photos)