Kai NRG

We're working on the decoding as we speak. Dangerous Episodes of Rapid Pursuit? Discreet Email Review Police? Dill-pickles, Egg-salad, and Relish for our Picnic? NVM.

Just to clarify, this does not refer to tags alongside the post, as in, when you're ready to make a post you type the title, and then there's a section for "tags", but rather it refers to the words that are supposed to be put in the actual body of the post right after the Location section. (eg., Tags: aa, bb, cc - all that, including the tags label)

I really like the shape of your library, and for some reason that roof works really well! The interior is also very nice!

Great series of builds MKJ, though I must say that I wasn't too surprised to find out who the hero of the story is! I agree with those who have mentioned the third scene as being the best, but as I've already commented on that one I'll mention the fifth scene, which while simplistic also looks pretty good! The poem is quite funny as well!

Did I say something about oblivious scientists? You must have misunderstood, it was something like, obvious scientists or maybe omnivorous scientists... hmm... Thanks!

That's an interesting clause. What exactly does it mean? If I have a 32x48 diorama, does the land vehicle have to be a main focus? If I were to do an FP build, and put some blurry land vehicles in the background, would those not count? What if I also provided sharp pictures in with the other views?

The water here looks particularly good! Nice rockwork too, and I like your use of the curved bars for stairs!

And at last, my category D entry!

Amidst the cheers of the populace, the victory parade rumbled down the street. Flowers strewed the gold colored streets, and the flags lined the avenue. Up ahead, Ageven stood ready to receive the symbol of the Desert King's power, now in the hands of Ulandus! If only the actual power were there too. Anyhow! The parade marched on, figuring important characters from the previous campaigns. Lights and pomp flashed up and down the street. Ageven stood up and gave a long, victory speech. It sounded kind of eloquent. But perhaps it was merely evaporation. After all, that's the way to do it! Victory first, war afterwards! A complete overview: I tried to experiment with different kinds of lighting - thus the green hue in the first picture... I can't say it turned out overly well... I also would have liked to build something a touch bigger, but se la vie! C&C appreciated!

Very nice entry SK, the marching caravan looks excellent, good use of those face masks! Good job on the landscaping too!

Great job here LJ, looks very clean! I really like the arches on the gate, and the contrast between white and dark flesh (?) for the roof works really well! Nice work!

Quite an amusing story Garmadon, neat idea to give a take on the war from a mummies point of view! The doctor scene is especially amusing and of course that tower with the tunnel section is still awesome!

Very nice series of builds Halhi! Your landscapes especially are superb, I really like the use of dark red! Great job on the micro too! Good to see that there's another Ulandian still alive!

Yes, I had figured the math before. But at least it's not quite as bad as before. And the discount on tags is definitely nice!

My entry into Category B! Three down, one to go! ...and only about five hours left on my clock...

The wind gamboled through the trees, Swirling through the leaves, Tossing them around as it pleased. That last d is silent. But pardon me, I have yet to introduce myself. I am Sir Akute Liddel Studd. Personally, I find the name Akute rather too bizarre for my taste, so I go by Liddel. Or, if you wish, you may call me Liddie. I sign myself Sir A. Liddel Studd. It has a nice ring to it, I think. Well, the wind was being windy, as usual. The sun was sunny, and the grass was grassy. On the whole, it was a very nice day. A perfect day for spending a few minutes by my favorite stream and trying to see if I could make sense out of all the latest confusing happenings. It was weird. This giant island had just popped up out of nowhere. Literally! No one, except those musty old Petraea University doctors, even knew it existed until just days ago. Then, on the other side of Kaliphlin, this half-cracked nut strutted around and called himself the Desert King. The High Council didn’t seem to know what to make of it all. I was in the same boat. Everything was very strange. Meanwhile, I had to choose a side. Well, that wasn’t completely true. Of course, I could just stay neutral. But I didn’t want to stay neutral. There was going to be a war and I wanted to be in on it! Besides, I had a hunch – a strange sixth sense. Maybe there was more to this island then just a bunch of ancient historical tales. And more than that, it wasn’t reasonable for the High Council to treat the islanders – Ulanders or Ulandians, they called themselves – with such contempt, peremptorily refusing to recognize their part in Kaliphlin’s government system. And it certainly wasn’t reasonable for the self-proclaimed Desert King to expect us all to bow to him now. But so what? Who cared what was reasonable for the Desert King and the High Council? What was reasonable for me? There were really two options. Follow what my judgement told me would be the logical thing – keeping Kaliphlin the same as it had always been, with the High Council – or, throw reason to the wind and follow my gut. What good is reason? I followed my gut. * * * So that was how I got from a peaceful stream to an overhanging rock in the middle of the ocean, in training, fighting against mock mummies for the security of Ulandus. And not just that. I was at the important battle in the Witherwoods – or somewhere like that, I never was any good at place names. You may have read my dispatch. Ageven never did get me to understand how it got leaked, but somehow it did. Well, we won that battle. I’m right glad to think I had something to do with it. But… we lost most of the other battles. Even ones I was present at. We lost the battle to take over the sands of Kaliphlin. We lost the battle to keep dragons away from the southlands. We lost the battle to make a bubbling swamp into a recreational oasis. We lost the battle to keep our capital. And we really lost the battle to take over Kaliphlin’s capital, Petraea. I blame that on the fact that Ageven couldn’t remember my name. And on the fact that Maxersine – or Dratiphe, I’m not sure which one – messed up on the date of the battle. It’s a good thing I make a point of being early! But we didn’t give up! Not us! We manufactured this elaborate plan to sneak into the Desert King’s capital and kill off the highest official we could find. With our track record though, the result shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. We lost. And I started to think that my gut had been more or less totally wrong this time. * * * Still, just because we lost all those battles didn’t mean we had lost the fight. And it didn’t mean that all my hopes were back in the same place Ulandus had been before it rose from the ocean. But before we get into that, I should probably explain what my hopes were. * * * The fact is, I had a brother. Oh, I know, that doesn’t sound so impressive. But my brother was far older than I, fifteen years older in fact. I never knew my parents, and it was my brother who raised me until I was ten. He was a bit of a harum-scarum sort of youngster. At first, he was just playing pranks on everyone and everything, but gradually he became more and more adventurous. Early on, he would drag me around with him. To say truth, I rather enjoyed that. Once we spent a few days roaming around the Salt Sea. Then, another time we dropped by the Island of Gorr. Those were the good days. But then my brother decided that this was no life for a youngster. He wanted me to settle down, he said. Personally, I thought it was already too late. But I was left with a large family that had been friends of my parents. My brother went off on his own. I enjoyed my life there, it’s true. They were kind to me, and I was allowed to ramble around the countryside, as long as I was back in time for supper. I remember once when I got so excited exploring some ruins that I didn’t get back to my adopted parents until bedtime. Fortunately it was summer and still fairly light. But I sure caught it that time! Every so often my brother would come back, full of adventurous, exciting tales of his travels. I burned to be older and able to roam around like him. But one time, he didn’t come back. I waited. And waited. I must have driven everyone around me nuts by my importunate questions. One day, a passing merchant informed me that he had met my brother near what is now Auner. He was about to embark on a voyage to the “deep south,” the merchant said. He had tried to dissuade him – unsuccessfully of course. That was all I ever heard. Years later, when the threat of war became imminent, I told my adopted parents of my plans to fight for Ulandus. They shook their heads, but let me go. I had a bigger reason for fighting for Ulandus than just a desire to be in on it and to stick up for the underdog. I had a weird feeling that somehow, this island would provide a clue. Why had my brother disappeared? Where had he gone? At the outset, my inquiries weren’t very helpful. Thanks to the introduction provided by Ageven Deraim, the First Centurion did interest himself a bit on my behalf, but no one seemed to know what had happened. So I gave up the quest – for the time being – and went on my way to fight Ulandus’ battles. * * * Well, as I’ve already stated, we pretty well lost the first campaign. And things weren’t shaping up too well for the next three. For the matter of that, I had pretty well lost my brother’s scent. And things weren’t looking good about getting it back! But in the interim, and despite the Desert King hordes, I did a little poking around. I discovered that, in fact, my brother had taken a voyage to the south. And I discovered that the ship he had voyaged in had never returned. Not only that, but a ship that answered pretty closely to the description I had was found wrecked on the Ulandian coastline, near the brand new Serpent’s Crawl. But there my information ended. No one seemed to know of any survivors. In fact, one of the peasants nearby assured me that he had visited the wreck the very day it arrived and had counted out 24 bodies, which had been buried the next day. In fact, I could still see the 24 little mounds. But there had been 25 people on the ship. What were the odds that the missing one was still alive? And what were the odds that he was my brother? In any case, obviously the best place to look was right around the wreck. So I started there, and gradually expanded my search, until I had visited every house within a three day’s walk. Nothing. No one knew of any shipwrecked voyager that had passed that way three years before the crawl was lifted. One day, dispirited, I walked along the crawl itself. Suddenly a deceptively secure looking patch of moss gave way. I found myself tumbling down the steep, muddy banks, clutching anything that looked like it might offer a handhold, rolling down with gathering speed, like a snowball. Only I think I looked more like a mud ball. I landed splat in a pool of water. I wiped the mud and leaves out of my face and looked around. Right in front of me I spotted a rather dirty and disheveled individual. To say truth, at first I mistook it for my reflection. I dare say that was about what I looked like at the moment. Before we go any farther, I may as well as put you out of suspense at once. It was not my brother. And I should also mention that, back in Xerxia, the capital, the victory parades were being celebrated – rather prematurely, I thought. But then, if you’re doomed to lose, you may as well as have the victory party first. You won’t get much of a chance to later! Besides the customary pageants and finery and whatnot, they were also going to honor some nincompoop who had spent three years on a super-secret underground task and finally discovered the key to raising the Serpent’s Crawl. All that was part of the reason I hadn’t had trouble getting permission to poke around down here. Anyhow. To return. Naturally, I asked this man the same thing that I had been asking everyone I saw for the past three days. “Did you see a sailorly looking young man with blondish hair, kind of like my own, and dark eyes – also kind of like my own – in or around this area, about this time four years ago, having just been shipwrecked and being the sole survivor of a crew of 25 – 24 of whom lie buried near their ship yonder – and who had just come from Kaliphlin’s mainland?” (The first few times I had just said, Kaliphlin, and nearly got ducked into the ocean for it. These Ulandians are very staunch on their identity as Kaliphlinians!) To which most people replied, “Would you be so kind as to repeat that?” This particular individual was no different. After I went over it two or three times, he said that unless I was talking about the nincompoop who had raised the Serpent’s Crawl, he hadn’t seen anyone. I made some sort of disagreeable navel sound and prepared to climb back up. Suddenly I stopped. It was like a brick hit me on the head. Maybe this nincompoop – er, hero – was my brother! Well, there’s no use dragging it out. He was. So, despite my complete dislike of camels, I rushed back to Xerxia. And we – well, I wish I could say that we lived happily ever after, but we’re not dead yet. So I don’t know. For what it’s worth, so far, so good! The builds under spoilers are the ones that were also category C entries. 7 of them, and 7 other builds. I'm afraid the size doesn't quite match up in some cases but I was rather running out of time there toward the end! Comments are welcome! If you read the whole story - I'll give you a round of applause!

Hurray, those were a bit overpriced I thought!

Very nice micro in the distance Brickcurve, and the decorated arch looks fancy too!

40 credits to Bob!

Great little build SK, your snowscape looks really pretty as always!

Thanks everyone! Thanks Kodan Black! That's an interesting title for sure... Thank you! I don't know about that though, with Guy in there trying to measure soap... Thanks Garmadon! I have tried to use a spinner several times before and was quite pleased to finally manage it!

Thanks guys! Thanks MN! These definitely did work out well, I think I'll have to try out something similar sometime! Thank you! Yes, the top part is a bit surprisingly intact! I built it without quite remembering about the ruins below, I'm afraid, and then I remembered and tried to mess it up a touch, but it is still a little too solid looking... Thank you dG!

Thanks Mike S!

I really like your eastern style house, Garmadon, and the first shot captures the "going away" feel very well! I also like the flowers scattered about the lawn and the mix of red and brown for the house works really well! +1 for the roof.

Very nice landscape! Also a really sweet looking vehicle, even if it is kinda the wrong colors. Great touch with the dust coming out the back!