Garmadon

Took me way to long to get caught up, but I've finally finished reading up on your story, bro, so I'm back around to comment now! I'll echo the others on the light yellow and the color-scheme of the lower story in general - really gorgeous stuff there, and the lighting, together with how expansive you managed to make this look, makes for some excellent scenes! Fantastic job getting the most out of the limited space you had. I actually like the nougat and white, but yeah, the curtains and the sparkly bricks on top of all that is a bit much for me! But the shields and inverted tooth pieces are superb, though I wish there was some way to do those without the gaps, particularly since otherwise you have quite a clean build here (especially for you! ) Very nice posing in your pics too - I know that was work with no studs on the floor! Story-wise - humph man! Didn't I tell you Alesio said he'd leave it to you and wanted nothing to do with it? And I expect the De Fiori's will agree with me that Arama is quite a snob saying she "let Alesio wound her to look noble," I must admit I had no presentiment of the cold steel I'd be swallowing in your team's entries, though, so great work with that treacherous backstabbing. Way to thank the family that put your team on the throne! The Varlyrian way to thank 'em, anyhow, Very nice job all around!

That well is fantastic! Beautiful work with the flowers and vegetation, as we've come to expect from you - and I'm a fan of that hidden iguana! The dark green layer adds some great detail to the base as well!

Lovely lighting and mosiac, adde, and that green is just fantastic! Such an unusual color choice in the context, but it works, and very well as that! The arches are excellent as well, as are the little domes up top; awesome way to top it off and keep the visual interest strong throughout the build. And I honestly did not notice it was tri-color too, seeing it on Flickr - way to go, man!

Lieutenant Horatio Hillsboroughbergmachier, "retired of the ETWC Elites", and Willoughby walked into the council room together and sat down at their seats. One of them had made them late... again... and the other was smacking him with his tail. "Alright - my apologies, but whatever is up that is of such importance as to drag me out of my comfortable house here again?" inquired the lieutenant. Willoughby leaned over and whispered in his ear for a moment. "Important? Humph!" exclaimed the lieutenant, leaning his cane down against the side of the desk, from which it slid right down to the floor, and stayed there. "Whatever." Willoughby whispered animatedly for another minute. "Fine, fine!" There was an instant stir under the desk, as of someone knocking their head against it, and Agent Gilles Guelds emerged from beneath it where he had slipped down last time he'd fallen asleep about a year ago, rubbing his head, but suddenly wide awake. "Fine, fine!?! What, not again!!" Willoughby and the lieutenant just stared at him for a minute until he calmed down and found out, to his immense relief, that they had not just been fined again for non-appearance. And then Willoughby had another few minutes of whispering to do to let him know what was up. Then there was a stir of subdued but heated conversation between the members of the ETWC delegation. "Well!" exclaimed Agent Guelds, "I believe this is one of those times in which the case is very clear, and there can be nothing else to do. This means war, and no doubt about it!" "War, indeed!" ejaculated the lieutenant, rubbing his hands in delight; "but with whom??" Willoughby looked back and forth between them in subdued fury, and quickly scrawled off a note and sent it to the ETWC headquarters by a swift, mounted courier of the company. "Against Corrington of course, who else!?!" burst out Agent Guelds, rolling his eyes at the lieutenant. "Oh right - that will do very well; most evident indeed, and just what I was going to say!" exclaimed the lieutenant, grinning, "Shall I move a vote?" Willoughby pulled him down and whispered to them both again for a moment. "What about the other letter? Oh yes, we can send out a fleet against the pirates with them, that should be no problem," said Lieutenant H., waving it off with his hand. "Sure, whatever," yawned Agent Guelds, pushing back in his seat. Lieutenant H. went back to rubbing his hands. "Now how about that war proposition?..." Willoughby sat back with a sigh and glanced toward the door as if in expectation. ... *to be continued*

That is a great little waterfall and a great large plantation you've got here, Professor! The layers in the green areas are really nice too! And @Professor Thaum, too bad you couldn't get the doc in there with his golf stick - that's a hilarious idea!

Awesome! - you're welcome; I'm glad you've enjoyed the feedback, and I assure you I am enjoying your work! And you are definitely right about your stories and the challenge fleshing out and enriching the guild, so a thanks is in order to you and to all who have entered! Henjin is right about the words I was talking about - if you'd like, though, I'd be happy to send you a PM about it. But as I said before, keep up the good work, my friend, and I am looking forward to your up-coming builds and stories!

Excellent. This is a great and hilarious story, and as all the others have said, the minifig posing and expressions are awesome too! You've got a bunch of very nice details and ornaments into the build too, like the statue and busts, golden railing and bookshelves and crossed swords, and I might just have to steal borrow the legs of that table and the desk mosaic! Great job tying your mercenary band and the de Fiori family in to the story too, mate! - a very nice entry from you!

Excellent arches and floor designs, adde! The wallpaper and cheese slopes are great too, and I'm a fan of those blue flowers!

Fascinating story and excellent builds, team Baiamonte! The background and character you've infused into the family is fantastic, and I really like the way you've come to this with the story-telling potential in mind and unraveled an entire complex plot-line for your entries, at the same time doing an excellent job meeting the theme and requirements of the challenge (although a side assassination or something with one of the other families would not have been amiss But really, you were clearly right about the other teams, and this is definitely a way to make yours stand out!) Now, very much like Kai, I am not a fan of the fantasy/magic side of the Guilds in general - although dragons are awesome! - (and those parts were infused into Varlyrio against my suggestions, I assure you ), and so I did not appreciate the latter third or so of the story as much as the first section; but your beginning and was quite excellent, and you do an awesome job capturing a scene and atmosphere with your writing. I must admit, though, that the whole of it was certainly a way to think outside the box and incorporate a lot of the details of Varlyrio into your storyline, rather than sticking to the eastern cities, which I'll applaud! There were also a few words I do not enjoy coming across in the stories/books I read, and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave those out of your stories, as I really do enjoy reading them overall and am delighted that you're going the extra mile and clearly putting a lot of effort into them! And I love that, even with details you didn't fit into the story, you've got the whole thing figured out in your mind - that's the way a writer thinks, sir! Keep it up!

Those eyes certainly are clever! - but I think it's the Varlyrian architecture and colors that you've hit on so well that really steal the show here. The arches, water, and stairway down to the gondolas, along with the decaying statues and the roofs are all excellently executed and make for a very full and life-like scene And all the more impressive considering how quickly you managed to build this massive thing! But that said, I do think I like you're vacation version better, haha!

Those skeletal remains and ruined columns are just fantastic, and do such a good job setting the mood for this scene! I don't feel like the studs around the border quite fit in the otherwise very smooth scene, but other than that this is really a very good build! Very glad to see you were able to get an entry in too!

Excellent rock-work and pathway, mate - carving those ways up a hill is no easy work, not even when it's built out of plastic! I'm intrigued by the snow distribution/placement too, as it seems quite realistic, but I'd never quite thought of doing it like that Very nice minifigs and excellent photography too, and I'm looking forward to reading over the whole story!

Very nice ship, Captain B! The plates used to narrow the sides look really good, and that aft castle is excellent! And I see Capt Wolf has beat me to it, but if by any chance that offer gets turned down, the ETWC would love to own such a fine vessel! Let me know if it is still available, and I will shoot you a PM as soon as the pigeon lands!

Excellent fortress and fantastic firing effect, mate! The minifigure activity and details like that chicken in the background are getting me itching to build some more pirate MOCs as well - great job, and keep it up!

Gorgeous ship, mate! Rigging and curves are spot-on (and that "tile-bending" technique works so well; I'll have to give it a try sometime), and the colors and flags are excellent as well! I really like your choice of dark red for the deck color too (or are my eyes playing tricks on me? Looks dark red though, and it looks fantastic!), and I'm going to have to remember your ship's bell technique to pirate someday Excellent job, my friend!

You, my friend, have a very intense story here! Excellent job - the rocks, cave, and the gentle curve and change in color around the edges of the path are all top-notch, along with the mix of textures in the ground and rocks, and you've really been showing what you can do with your large brick-built creatures lately! The (were)wolf is very well done, and the eye is definitely a stand out! If there are a couple of critiques I'd have they would be that the peak on the right would probably improve with a little more variation on the color change (I mean, more jagged instead of almost a straight line for half of it), and that I think (without having hardly any experience or talent for brick-built creatures ) that the head of the wolf should be higher up towards the top of the back rather than lower down where it is. That and a couple of pointy ears would give a more instantly-recognizable wolf-ish look - depending on the angle, right now it looks either a little humped-back or very leonine to me; the last picture in the story, at any rate, is giving me some definite and awesome lion vibes, which would be great except that it's supposed to be more wolf than lion, it seems I would like to see some more pictures of it too though, and maybe it will have more of a wolf-ish look with a different pose As I already mentioned, excellent job with the story as well - very well-written (I can tell you've been really working hard your stories recently!), and terribly, chillingly gripping. Excellent stylistic choice in waiting until the very end to bring it back around to the theme of the challenge and answering your readers' question, "what does this have to do with the Rego not sending troops??" which they've been looking for the whole time, and all the additional details (like the lean meat from the overcooked squirrel) really make the story alive and keep the interest strong. If anything, though (before reading your Cat. B stories) I'd actually suggest trying to make your stories slightly less intense - throwing in some humor or pleasant randomly occurring thoughts in passing (though that wouldn't have really worked here, haha - a bit of more direct humor would have lightened it up a bit though). As it is, you almost feel like you're dying or about to die the entire time, until you get to the end and everyone actually is dead; which is exactly what you were aiming for here, of course, but it leaves your reader feeling almost oppressed by the conglomeration of disasters upon each other. It's not bad for a story or two, but after that it gets to be a little too heavy and starts getting hard to read. But I love that you've gone the extra mile and obviously put a lot of time and thought into your stories recently, and I think it's certainly paying off! There were a few things that are put a little differently in English, and a few words that aren't quite right (like cornering - in English that means "forcing something into the corner," either figuratively or really, when what you want is "skirting," which is moving around the edge of a corner), but you've definitely got an impressive vocabulary and a good hold on the grammar too. Keep it up, mate! And sorry about the long rant - that's just the writer in me not being able to help it You have quite a solid entry here - great job!

Nice job guys! And posting the whole thing all at once was not a bad idea - definitely easier than having to have each person posting theirs in order in the same topic like we did! I'm going to go ahead and follow the new trend of comment formatting here, @Aurore, Great job with that little cave tucked away underneath the mound/escarpment! The others have already commented on the plants, but I'll also mention that I like how you managed to keep the terrace and signs of civilization hidden away until they were revealed in the story And I'd never seen those double-arms before! - they seem to be from some SW minifig? @LittleJohn, I'm loving those twisted trees, and the walkway and throne are fantastic as well! Excellent use of whips and horns throughout (especially at the back of the throne ), and the trans-pinks and purples do a great job capturing the Kolgari atmosphere. I do feel like the build/picture is a bit cramped though, and really wish you could have been able to make the scene wider and more full/with more depth between the foreground and the back wall, but obviously size limits were against you there. Very nice job though, and very NPU with that printed winged part above the throne! @Basiliscus, That tower and the minifigure posing are definitely the stand-outs of your build (no puns intended ), and you've done an excellent work with each of them. The roof is fantastic in particular (and those are not easy to do) - I really like the fact that you went for anti-studs on the corners; they do the job very well! I think I tend to agree with Kai that the in-and-out border is a tad distracting, and I probably would have gone for simple A roofs on the smaller buildings to avoid the gappiness (the colors are great on those though!), but the birch trees are spot-on, and the build and posing does a great job illustrating the story here @Grover, Nicely done! The gold and white color-scheme definitely gives the build an extravagantly rich feeling (in fact, it's a little too much gold for my eyes - I really do like those tassels and flags dangling from the ceiling though), and the curved staircase is great, especially where it opens up in front. I'll echo the others re: the plants on the back wall and the change in colors there, and from my own experience, busting the build up for the story must have been pretty fun! And the flamingos in the last picture are hilarious as well!

Those Essen troopers are fantastic! The Totenköpfe commander is excellent as well - as Kai mentioned, I would never have thought of using that torso, but it works quite well (and I've got a few of them, as my username might suggest... ), and I honestly enjoy it every time your Société de Héracles shows up, and this is no exception! The ruins and temple are quite nicely done too, and I especially like the line of bar holders along the top. A few small-ish green tiles mixed in would help break up the larger bits of green studs (esp. right there in the front of the scene), but I definitely know the feeling of going for something that is on the larger side for your collection and just having to work with the parts you have! I must admit though, I was shocked to read that this was one of your largest builds ever - your polished style and excellent vigs and minifigs for BoBS had me convinced you were a very experienced and long-standing builder! Keep it up, mate!

New build and challenge entry from me as well! Don't forget to check out the story and all the builds for the De Fiori team here! (picture linked to post in the story thread) Excellent point, done! In fact, I'm thinking I should probably go over the build index and bring it up to speed as well here soon, and the first page could probably use a thorough clean-up/update once the challenge's results are in. Thanks for the reminder, I'm going to have to get back on the ball here!

And it's a wrap! Awesome work, guys - great job flooding the forum with Varlyrian builds! This I like to see! I've made a list of all the entries in this thread and linked them here for leadership so they can go ahead and get started on the judging process - let me know if I've missed anything though, please. And once again, fantastic job y'all, and I'm looking forward to checking out everybody's builds and stories in detail! Category A: kahir88 - The Missing Letter jtooker - Off-Course Contingent Louis of Nutwood - Howling in the Mountain Category B: Team Baiamonte - Rise of the Baiamontes; Louis of Nutwood, Gideon, Henjin_Quilones (and full story thread) Team di Carlo - La Conspirazione; W Navarre, KevinyWu, ZlatanXVIGustaf, mrcp6d (and full story thread) Team Conzaga - Downfall of the Rego; Aurore, Basiliscus, Grover, LittleJohn (GoH full story thread) Team de Fiori - Fall of the Amancios; Puvel, Ayrlego, kahir88, Garmadon (also full story thread)

The drow are back, with a bang! And a ton of them! Really nice work, Angeli, the white lines on that tower are superb! The pink leaves actually remarkably well with the rest of the color-scheme, and the outer walls and towers are great as well

Team de Fiori! Puvel: Ayrlego: Kahir88: And Garmadon:

The crowd broke out into a thunder of cheering and applause. It was a glorious April day, and the sunbeams shown gaily through the windows of the Royal Dome of Illyrian and on the golden hair of Luysio Chiaro as the boy - the young scion of the family best of Varlyrio's kings - according to time-honored custom, approached the center of the circle with the crown upon its velvet cushion and presented it to the new king. Luca di Carlo glanced around the room, and at the sight of all the power and wealth of Varlyrio assembled to witness the coronation - how long had he thought of this chance, this far-off possibility of power as the rich but almost unknown son of the olive merchant. But now it was a reality - he breathed in an attempt to draw it all in, and a glint of a smile flittered across his face. Yes, Rego! Alesio de Fiori leaned back against the wall across from Luca and scanned over the crowd with his sweeping, penetrating gaze. Luca Rego! Indeed, and mostly through his conniving. Di Carlo was just such a young, vigorous, and daring leader as Varlyrio was in desperate need of - no stuffy old Supano to be fouling up relations with the Queen and ruling Varlyrio with his hand of iron. And, of course, Luca di Carlo happened to be a member of that certain alliance, where old de Fiori pulled the strings... Alesio smiled as he winked over at Aureo, standing in the crowd. Luca stepped forward to receive the crown, and a dangerous thrill of exhilaration and power passed through him. He gazed once more around the room, and his eye rested for a moment on the face of Alesio de Fiori, before taking the crown from the boy before him. The crowd burst into shouting once again. "Luca di Carlo, Rego!" My contribution to our teams' collaborative entry! And that would be it for our team, so the thread is now open to any and all commenting! Thanks for viewing, C&C are welcome as always!

That, my friend, is some fantastic lighting! Stunning build and presentation, and your work planning out the layout really paid off Congrats on the well-deserved front page; you even pulled me into this forum to check it out (don't know that I've ever been in Star Wars before )!

Welcome to the Guilds, LHF, and the most intriguing of them at that! Looking forward to you character's adventures in Varlyrio (and anywhere else he may roam)!