Kai NRG

Parts One, Two,Three, Four, and Five are not essential to understanding this but might help. Crash! Crash! Crash! And even as the wall came tumbling down, Crash! The invaders - a motley band, all armed to the teeth, poured through the breach as soon as they could. But the defenders were not about to give in; they stood their ground bravely, and from all sides of the town men came running. Kalaflar and Gascoyne were at the farthest end, but no sooner did they hear the crash than they dashed through the city at full speed. But though the defenders fought bravely, and contested every foot of ground, it was impossible for them to hold out against such numbers. They were pushed back, slowly but surely, and it was not until the town's great cathedral that Gascoyne finally caught sight of the black knight, at the head of the orderless crowd. Spurring his horse forward, he chased the knight right through the cathedral doors. The few people who had taken refuge there scurried to the sides. Without hurry, but without hesitation, the black knight rode all the way to the front of the cathedral. Gascoyne paused as the knight wheeled his huge horse around, then they both galloped towards each other. Kalaflar, spellbound, watched from an aisle. He could not help but feel that it was hardly a contest. The black knight was seasoned by a dozen battles; Gascoyne had just begun to wield a sword. But there was nothing he could do; both knights sped on, their steeds foaming, and Gascoyne, with a shout, raised himself in the saddle and swung his sword straight for the knight's helm. He deflected it, with the tip of his shield, and gave Gascoyne a back-handed stroke as he passed. For one instant he stopped to look at his prostrate foe, then he turned, and left without a word. Kalaflar ran forward, but it was too late. Blinded, for the moment, by rage and despair, he swung almost violently at the nearest pillar, and then, mounting Gascoyne's horse, rode out of the cathedral. Comments are welcome! I'm not quite sure I should say so, but practically the entire tales of the past storyline was so that I could use this one build for GoH too... yeah... Thanks for checking it out!

Thanks everyone! I appreciate all the comments! Thanks! I like including lots of scenes in one build! Thanks! There wasn't much other than a mouse that would fit the story in every corner... Thanks Gideon!

Yeah, three tree techniques is good too. And my guess is there are ten or so active Kaliphlins... depending on how active. I haven't been commenting on MOCs lately. Also the one other thing - advanced SNOT (I think that's what you called it) - I really wouldn't know what that would be either, especially in an architecture setting... whole SNOT walls? or just details? So maybe we should get rid of that or specify more? Of course it could be left as it is. It would be an easy category then I suppose (unless your reviewers had a narrower view!). And that brings to mind another thing... what if, say, I'm reviewing a build and I think it passes two of the (say) three subjects it's trying to cover, but not the other one. What would I do? Thumb up those two but thumb down the other one? Probably to make that easier you should require every MOC topic to state the subjects covered at the top (before the build). Divide by 10. C'm on, I'm going to have to build all these...

Here is my contribution. As I mentioned in the topic, I was very loose in my interpretations of the tasks... I hope that's okay. I'm not sure I'd be able to get another task done by the fifteenth, but (if you're fine with what I built covering the first three), I can probably build one if you give me a little lee-way! An Eastgate Mouse's Story

An Eastgate Mouse's Story So there I was. My nerves were all in a titter as I slipped through an opening in the city wall. I crept across the desert sand. And then, suddenly, my mouse instincts told me there was danger nearby. I looked up. Across from me, up on the next small dune, stood a soldier, clad in heavy black armor. He looked grimly up at the city walls, and I forgot the cat for an instant as I held my breath. Swinging around, he marched off and soon disappeared from the scene. I glanced behind me. To my horror I beheld the cat slipping out of the wall just the way I had. In a state of nervous excitement I rushed to another hole, back into the city. Through the opening I caught sight of the a pair of the city guards. And then, before I could blink, there was the soldier again! He had startled the guards too; with one mighty blow he knocked the younger one down, and sent the older guard running down the street. "This will do excellently," he muttered to himself. "A perfectly secluded spot to set up a base of operations." The black knight glanced back and forth and then disappeared into a nearby doorway, and I was left in possession of the desolate scene. But not for long! A noise behind me caused me to tremble in my boots. A fluffy white head poked itself out of the hole. I jumped my height into the air, and scurried over to the same doorway where the dark soldier had vanished. But I was not safe in the corridor. I spied a little hole and crept through. I slipped into a corner before I realized I had snuck into a meeting of the town's officials! "They've cut us off here, here, and here," one commented. "But this spot is still open. I say we take it as soon as possible. We'll start shipping in supplies from there." The official's companion nodded. "Excellent. They'll never think of looking in that area. Let's go ahead and contact..." The door swung open and the same guard that had just escaped came bursting in. "Sir!" he exclaimed. "The enemy - one of them at least - has made it into the city! He was almost on my tail!" I edged cautiously round, but there was no tail to be seen. "He must have been very close indeed!" I thought to myself. "Have the guards doubled. Reinforce any weak points! And command a detachment to proceed to the North Point immediately. We'll be smuggling our resources in from there now." "Yes, sir!" The guard left to execute the orders. But no sooner had he turned the corner when the black soldier sprang in! One of the officials yanked out a short dagger, but one touch from the soldier's spear sent it flying across the room. He took one good look at the map and then chased the officials out. The knight seemed to be in a dreadful hurry. A grim smile played about his lips. "North Point, eh? We'll catch them yet!" and he swung around and disappeared through the yawning doorway - and once again, I was left in possession of the scene. ​ For story purposes, I decided to do a rotating vig, so each successive part of the story requires a twist and a minimal amount of scene changing! A cat shot (see if you can spot him in the first two mouse shots!) And yes... I know, I took a very loose interpretation of the tasks... especially the third one but I'm not up to building magic and what not. And I was in a creative mood... so I hope you don't mind the mouse perspective! (At least that kept it short...) Comments welcome!

It sounds good to me. I would say that five Kaliphlins to approve and three disapproving would be a good number. If we make the approving number too high we'd run the risk of making it too hard for some worthy builds to pass. For the trees, I would suggest you don't specify techniques. Most advanced tree techniques are quite parts intensive (pieces that I don't have! ), so it might be best to leave that up to the discretion of the builder? Something like; demonstrate proficiency in at least two different tree techniques/designs? I agree that cliffs is unnecessary. Mountains isn't too close to rockwork. You can't build a mountain without rockwork I guess, but you can do rockwork without a mountain... (mountains are good for FP too). You also didn't specify how many categories you could hit with one build. Four sounds good, that would make at least 10 builds (including the four advance placements). Also, maybe you could copy and paste the wiki info when you change it and put it under spoiler here (on EB)? The wiki uses up a lot of internet bytes, and I'm having to watch those this month.

Excellent job, I really like that water technique. The black underneath it really adds to the feel. Great work! I only wish the fishes didn't have to swim laying down!

Thanks all! Thanks Legonardo! Yep! Lol, I hadn't even thought of that...

The Time SHIP - going through space with time. The SHIP is modular (and for that reason not particularly swooshible!), so it is possible to make a smaller version: The full SHIP features (from left to right) the Garden of Eden, Antediluvian Civilization, Flood, Pyramid, Moses, Greece, Rome/Julius Ceaser and Brutus, Cross, Medieval Period/Castle, Exploration, Cannon, Desk/Computer, Futuristic Space Racer. Below are a few close/ups: Over 120 studs, no exterior (at least not one worth viewing!), 6000 years of time. As I mentioned, it's not particularly swooshible. However, we did get a "let's hope it doesn't split in half now!" shot! Lots more pictures in the Flickr Set! The entire build was a collab between me and my brother @Garmadon. I did the front, the two sections that connect at the river (which splits in half), and the back. C&C welcome! Thanks for taking the time to check it out!

Okay, I think I understand now. I was kind of thinking that you could only build for one discipline at a time (though you could cover multiple subjects in that discipline). My main concern with doing four is that it would just be quite a challenge (and maybe turn off some potential builders) to have to go through a huge list of 50+ subjects and mix and match up to four. It does seem like there are plenty of different subject potentials though. Maybe we could have, say twelve disciplines and for the "Master" or whatever a student has to complete seven. Each discipline could have however many subjects we could come up with (some could even overlap, but if so those should be marked so that they aren't done twice) but a student only has to pick four or five to complete the discipline. My main concern here is that this could get very complicated... with the say thirty subjects necessary to finish, a maximum of four for one MOC, and over fifty to pick from, keeping track of everything might be tough!

Yes, 21 might be too few. Something around thirty sounds like it would be good. I'm not quite sure I understand that... I kind of thought that the idea was (say for history, with say three subjects), something like, Minifigure Posing, some sort of landscaping technique (say, building at different elevations), and something else (all building techniques). Then you would build something that fell under the History category that would qualify for at most two (that could of course change) of the techniques. Art is certainly a good one. I had forgotten about that. Music could fall under that as a subject too. And yes, Geography and Agriculture are definitely different, but I would think the subjects (or building techniques) would be very similar - though maybe not?

First, I really like the idea. It sounds like a great way both to give some incentive to free-building and to push members to try out new techniques. 12-15 MOCs to finish sounds like a good number as well. However, I'm not sure we need so many sub-divisions. What if we only had say seven disciplines with three placements each? That way there wouldn't be so much pressure to combine techniques quite as much; if we had 56... that just sounds like a huge chunk and really would make it hard to focus on anything less than the max. amount of placements allowed if you ever wanted to get done! If we only had 21, we could say that you could combine a max of two which gives way more incentive for doing just one every once and a while. It still allows for a minimum of 9 if there are three advanced placements possible. If we really weren't able to cover every thing we wanted then we could have a second year or something. 2. Your list sounds good. I'm not sure we need Landscape Design, Geography and Agriculture (though they are different, build techniques would be similar, since it all has to do with landscaping). History (could incorporate a wide variety of builds and techniques; at least one focus on mini-figures and posing), Business (Trade might be a better name? - this would focus on bazaars and busy scenes), Law (Court manners/technique - focusing on interior scenes), Architecture (interior/exterior), Geography/Agriculture (one of the two - this would be the exterior/landscaping category), Hydrology (water techniques), the last one could be something a bit more technical/abstract (but what would the sub-divisions be?), or it could be military training - battle organization, duel scene, and something else. I would suggest though that when we focus in n three, don't make it anything too specific - round tower is fine, but I wouldn't want it to be more specific (like tower with round 1x1s) using pieces someone might not have. 3. I have several ideas for the disciplines I listed, but maybe it would be better to zero in on a discipline list before spewing subjects out? 4. As I mentioned, if we go with 21, two per build would probably be good. If we go with 56 though... 5. I think it might be better to pick a few 'judges' (maybe the council?) and get say half of them to give you a thumbs up (because probably not all of them will see it). Veto sounds like a good possibility. 6. Three-Four would be a good number. Up to six months back maybe? Or four, it doesn't matter too much.

Then we'll have to divide it up, because Garmadon is teaming up with Kaliphlin!

Yeah, that was certainly a good part of it! I'll try to participate then. I should get internet access but probably not much building time during that period so as long as it's okay if I upload ahead of time and then post to GoH between mid-Nov and mid-Jan that should work out!

I think some members have treated it that way, but I'm not sure if that's really offically true. But I don't think they have a name for their world.

@Gabe, Looking great! I never was a huge fan of sand green but I do like the architectural details! Do we have to wait that long to start? By the looks of things I'm going to be quite busy November through January at least. Maybe we could start Nov 1st?

I haven't been able to use the internet much lately, which is why I've been pretty silent, but that will hopefully change next week. It's great to see some returning Kaliphlinians though! Welcome back! Ska, you're welcome to use any of my builds you think are good enough!

No, I was just kidding. Since I had referred to grabbing DaMaximus's sig-fig off my brother's build (I think?) I was actually surprised no one else seemed to know...

Oh no, all our plotting has been revealed...

Sounds great! And I see which guild colors are at the top there... Well, at least Kaliphlin's second. Poor Mitgardians!

I'm also staying in Kaliphlin! On another note... hehe, I'm at the top of the list... (Good thing Ska didn't organize by last names...)

Mich Maxersine get's my vote. What good are roads if not covered with snow? And what good are Prime Ministers if they aren't funny?

Thanks! Yeah, the leaking water is very nice for those who live along the way! Thanks! I don't have enough to tile the water I'm pretty sure, but I will keep the idea in mind for next time!

Thanks to everyone! I actually kind of like the studded blue plate water, though there are some other techniques I prefer. But there's not too much I could change it for in this instance anyways. Thanks SK! I get to practice sand-scaping alot I guess! Thanks dG! I was hoping to add a few twists and turns to the aqueduct but ran out way too soon... Yes, for some reason the first picture didn't turn out very well, even though I took them all at the same time. Every time I tried to brighten it it only looked worse, so I decided to leave it at that.

Thanks! I'll try to get one done then after the third or fourth is announced!