Keymonus

I think his position is between the king and the council (plus all the shady Order businesses)

Amazing job @Justsomebrix! These minifigs have a unique feel, but at the same time are coherent with their original version! As I've started a parallel storyline with nougat characters, this is something I'll attempt myself with e.g. my main character to insert him as a cameo. May I ask you where "my" character's head comes from, if you know?

Chapter VI - In the ship's hold After the first weeks of smooth sailing and good weather, the expedition had met rough waters for the first time. And, as the High Priest had predicted, the Captain's resolution was showing the first cracks. Father Leonard could understand his point: after all, his companions believed that the only aim of their expedition was finding Montcalm (or, most likely, his frozen corpse) and were not particularly enthusiastic about risking their lives for that. They didn't know what was at stake. "I'm telling you that our supplies are utterly insufficient for the expedition ahead!" The captain took a deep breath, then continued, with the tone of an adult explaining something to a particularly dumb child. "We still have a margin, Father, this is true. If we remain blocked in the pack for longer than expected, we'll end up as that poor fellow, Crozier... or as Montcalm, for what we know. Weathered bones on some frozen shore. We must resupply!" Leonard knew he had to be very convincing to change the Captain's mind... also because the man was perfectly right. They had planned to resupply in Tam and sail North with a completely stocked hold. However, the islanders had set unreasonable prices for provisions. With the price they had to pay for their recalcitrant guide and Montcalm's dispatch, they could only afford some rye hardtacks and some half-spoiled dried mutton. Now, the most reasonable thing would have been sailing back to the mainland, and restocking in a Corrish port. Leonard himself would have suggested this course of action, but the traces of Montcalm's expedition were already fading... even worse, the longer they remained in Madrician ports, the higher the risk of attracting unwanted attention. "Sir, Captain, I acknowledge that some aspects of our plan didn't develop as planned. But now, thanks to the papers we recovered and our guide, we now have a starting point. Setting sail directly to that old whaling station, we will spare weeks, even months of navigation. Slightly reducing the rations we could easily buy even more time." "Reducing the rations? Have you ever met a sailor? The food on board is terrible, but less of that terrible stuff will make the crew morale drop in no time. What's next? Do you want us to throw the grog overboard?" "Well, at least we have partially improved our situation on this side. The Corrish garrison had some surplus rations that we could buy at a reasonable price. It's not as much as we needed, but this canned meat doesn't spoil and, according to the cook, tastes far better than our usual salted beef. If you fear for the sailors' morale, this could help!" "Corrish government-issued supplies. I hardly trust those red press-ganging bureaucrats to procure half-decent stuff for their men! I'd prefer to chew the leather sheet of the main mast. And we'll end up doing it anyways if we don't find a way to resupply before sailing North!" The captain didn't seem particularly convinced. If only Leonard could have revealed to him the real meaning of their mission... but it was too early. The Captain would've not believed him, not yet. Leonard could still try to make his position weigh, but this would've irreversibly undermined their relationship, even in the remote case it worked... "Sirs, forgive me if I step in..." The two men winced, as none of them had heard Archambeau entering the ship's hold, nor getting close enough to listen to the discussion. Leonard didn't know anything about that man's past, but he was almost sure that, in a past life, the next step for him would have been stealing a purse or slitting a throat... after all, you didn't get in the Penal Legion for your devotion and sense of honor. "Please, Officer, go ahead!" From the flash of anger in the Captain's eyes, Leonard understood immediately that he had made a mistake. On a ship, nobody else gives orders if the captain is present. Too bad. Like Kerouac, Leonard didn't like Archambeau at all... that man always had a strange light in his eyes. If he had a viable option, however, Leonard had no time for the Captain's pride or his own prejudice. Only the mission mattered. "Well, Sirs. Several lives ago, I was a whaler, here in the North. If we continue North, we'll soon reach a whaling point... we are headed there, I think, and the other fella, Montcalm, must have passed there too. Well, I know some chaps there. Merchants. You will not like those guys, I'm sure, but they sell Corrish military rations for a fair price to the passing ships... they always have plenty of them, and are very keen on offloading them. Apparently, they might not be exactly legal..." Leonard immediately felt uplifted. Legal or not, those smugglers offered a fast way to resupply their ship, and in a moment of extreme need! They were even in the same whaling station they were already sailing to and, possibly, they also had news about Montcalm's expedition. He silently pronounced a prayer to Poseidon. That hateful man had just saved the expedition. If his providence had placed Archambeau on their ship, the God of the Seas was clearly on their side. If he had ever doubted, now Father Leonard Theriault was sure: his mission was dictated by divine will, and he had to fulfill it. Whatever the cost. -------------------------- Without minifigs: With the first transition challenge, this build took a little longer than expected. Anyways, here you read about three of our four "heroes", sailing from the Isle of Tam to a whaling station somewhere in the Northern Ocean.

Nice scene! Essential, but the combination of the different colours works very well! For your next builds, my suggestion however is to create a separated post and link them here… otherwise it will be very difficult to find them in the future, if you will ever want to recall them! Just a side note: the war with the Lotus Kingdom is now taking place on an island of the New World, colonised by bough us and the Lotii, not in the Lotus Kingdom itself… unless we want to solve the issue attacking directly the enemy motherland (which could be an interesting idea, btw…)

Thank you guys! I think I had never realized before that the transparence effect could work well also with solid objects, I had always used it only to create shades of colors by putting different plates below the clear tiles. Thanks! With the Western settlements getting too "civilized" (meaning lines of "monotonous" line infantry), I love the idea of troops in frontier regions with more distinctive feels, as the ones on El Oleonda, or the New Oleon desert troops. Thanks! When I have a chance, I always like recalling old things myself or other people have introduced before

South of Seawatch, El Oleonda, April 624 The cannon emerged slowly from the murky water, one centimeter after another. Despite the time spent in the water, the barrel seemed in a good state. With a few blows of a shovel, one of the engineers removed the remaining pieces of the wooden carriage, buried too deep in the mud. Soon, that cannon would have been cleaned, inspected, and most likely mounted on a new wooden support, in the military workshops of Fort Firmo. A cannon barrel was too valuable to let it rot in a bog: that Lotii weapon would have become instead part of Seawatch port batteries, or maybe of a field artillery unit. After their defeat in the Battle of Seawatch, the Lotii had quickly withdrawn toward the Eastern settlements, leaving traps and ambushes to delay the pursuit of the Coalition forces. The attacks of hostile native tribes and guerrilla operations of Jiangkai troops, together with bad roads, terrible weather, and mass desertion of mercenaries, however, had soon turned the orderly retreat into a complete rout, and countless cannons and heavy carriages were abandoned along the way: what had started as a brilliant disengagement had quickly turned a desperate march for survival. The Lotii had lost a quarter of their army, and an immediate new offensive seemed unlikely. Therefore, that represented an excellent moment to reorganize the coalition forces in Seawatch, repair the town fortifications, and, indeed, salvage as many as possible of the abandoned Lotii cannons... better to have them in safe hands, than to allow the enemies -or the armies of other allied empires- to recover them! With the help of workhorses and mules, the military engineers of Oleon towed the cannons out of bogs and rivers, or out of the mud of the jungle trails. In most cases, the carriages had been damaged, but only a few artillery pieces had been spiked or blown away... a few days of work, and most of them could have been put easily back in battery! Other units, scattered all over the jungle, were recovering cases of ammunition, gunpowder barrels, small arms, and other abandoned equipment, and occasionally also accepted the surrender of stragglers and small Lotii units left behind during the last months. Even though no organized resistance was usually encountered, some Lotii soldiers had resorted to banditry or had chosen to continue the war on their own. Therefore, all the salvage expeditions were accompanied by chasseurs and soldiers of Fort Arltrees militia, who knew the jungle as their own pockets. A small MOC set on El Oleonda, with the military engineers of Oleon recovering a Lotii cannon from a bog. Build inspired by @Ozzy_4321's MOC about salvaging/capturing abandoned Lotii cannons.

I had never seen them… shame on me!

Nice fort @Ozzy_4321! It would be nice to see more angles of your build! I particularly like the uniforms you used for your bluecoats (are they custom prints?) and the use of the leather apron torso for the engineer!

Thanks! I plan to have another build in this character’s past and then to move to El Oleonda in current days! About the Juniper War: the only thing which is canon is that Oleon invaded and conquered the Juniper province during a short war. Myrph was a small independent state occupied by Corrington during a previous war, and from the maps it should be nearby: While it is not canon, I thought that having a small (actually only a couple of border villages) rebellion during the war could’ve been reasonable…

Welcome on board @Ozzy_4321!!! Nice minifig and introduction! Without any doubt you chose the best faction in the Brick Seas!

Thanks! The burning roof is the detail I’m most proud of! I also had indeed something similar to the Colonel of the Patriot in mind for my character’s nemesis, even if I don’t plan further parallels between the stories. This part of the past story is partly canon (there was a recent war, in which Oleon annexed a western Corrington province; the Corrish province of Myrph was independent until 30 years before our timeline) and partly not (this specific revolt and repression). I like sometimes digging a little into the past events, as I did also for my main character’s backstory! Thanks! I also try to avoid unchanged minifigs (unless they are in the very background) even if they aesthetic fits well. For Luke I had thought about a little cameo I forgot to mention (the Jedi master losing his last fight). Flitch instead was a very last second addition (as I was taking the pictures one of the corners seemed too empty), therefore I “stole” it directly from my HP set without opening my minifig box

Limerey, Occupied territory of Myrph, September 608 The village was burning, all around him... a funeral pyre for their dreams of freedom. They had lost, and soon they would have been dead. Jacob clung to his musket, as the ground below his feet started to tremble. He heard some yells coming from their first line of barricades, followed by some musket shots. The final assault was coming, and they could do nothing to stop it. Only a couple of weeks before, the odds seemed on the rebels' side: with the army of Oleon advancing in the Juniper Province, and the Corrish troops retreating eastwards in disorder, they had taken their chance. The bells of the temples rang the tocsin as the old uniforms of the Myrph Guards emerged from attics and cellars, and muskets were recovered from their secret hideouts. For the first time since he was born, Jacob could finally see the glorious flag of Myrph, his nation, flying over the buildings of his hometown. The rebels quickly took control of Limerey, Tonglare, Stonemill, and a handful of smaller towns, and forced the Corrish garrison to retreat into the Castle of Gueverey. They also took their revenge against the occupiers: the hated bailiff of Tonglare was hanged in the main square, together with other Corrish officers, and some captured redcoats were brutally murdered in a nearby hamlet. But the tides had turned, and the rebels knew they could expect no mercy. If the army of Oleon had ever been on their way, indeed, the soldiers of Corrington had arrived before! A new series of shots and screams came from the eastern barricades, and then a squadron of cavalry burst into the main street. Jacob tried to aim his musket, but it was late... the horsemen were too close and too fast, and they were already upon them! Some of the rebels tried to brace for the attack, but most of them started running for their lives, or remained still, paralyzed by fear. Something hit Jacob, throwing him violently to the ground. He rolled, trying to get away from the hooves, but he was hit again, and everything got dark. When he woke up again, several hours later, it was late night. His head hurt terribly, and so did his right leg, bent in an unnatural angle. Something warm was making his hair wet... weird, Jacob didn't remember it was raining. He vaguely realized that the houses around him were burning, but this didn't seem important... nothing seemed, actually: he felt so tired... "Hey, Leonard, come! This one is still alive!" -A voice yelled, seemingly from several miles away- "He is messed up, but he's still breathing! Get him on the cart!". Jacob tried to talk, but words didn't come. As the two men got closer, he realized with relief that they were not redcoats... wait, redcoats? Memories started to flash in front of his eyes: the horsemen setting his village on fire... ...his friends falling around him, slashed by the sabers of the enemies... ...and the enemy commander leading the charge. As the two men started to move him, and Jacob started to faint again, he could almost hear him yelling again, in the language of Myrph: "Give them no quarters! They are all traitors! No mercy for the rebels!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello guys! As Era III is approaching, I felt the need for a darker secondary character… someone I could make sail under a black flag and get involved in less honourable businesses! This first part is set during the Juniper War, during which I imagined some (revolts) turmoils in the Corrish occupied territories could have occurred. As I will clarify in later builds, the brutal officer (who will appear again) is also from a loyalist Myrph militia unit (hence the orange epaulettes), but feel free to ask me for any changes. Differently from my main storylines, I will use flesh-coloured minifigs (I don’t plan Jacob to meet my more reputable characters).

Unit name: Legion de Mardierennes, 1ere Terraversan Regiment Type: Line infantry Uniform description: Blue coat with white facings and white leather collar. Yellow trousers and tricorn with yellow plumes. Commanding officers wear a dark blue coat with gold facings, yellow trousers, a yellow cloak, and a morion helmet with elaborate plumings. The commander's guards are equipped as heavy cavalry, and wear a cuirass over a dark blue coat. Equipment description: Standard issue musket for the infantry. Heavy cavalry sword and wheellock pistol for the commander's guards. Recruitment center: All the territory of Terraversa under Oleonese control, even if recruits from Nola Mar (already trained before the war by Oleonese advisors) are often drafted into regular army units. Unit history and description: When Mardier lost most of its Empire, during the Catastrophe of 617, many Mardierians sought refugee in the nearby Oleonese settlements: notables and merchants, but also commoners, who preferred to leave their homes than live under the Eslandolan occupiers or, even worse, the new tyrant of Terraversa, the rebel Archduke Miro Oldis. Among them, hundreds of soldiers and officers, from garrisons and units that had ceased to exist. In 620, a first company of expatriates was formed in Breshaun with veterans of the Mardierian colonial wars: the Mardierian Legion was born. In the following years, many more Mardierian and Terraveran recruits enlisted in the Oleonese army, and the Mardierian Legion became a usual presence in the Grande Armee of Oleon. During the Second Terraversan War, the Legion fought bravely in the Battle of King's Port, reaching the Archduke's Palace among the first vanguards. Soon after the war, a new regiment of the Legion was created on the island, with the Loyalist militias and other Terraversan volunteers being trained and organized by Oleonese military advisors. At the same time, the former Terraversan officer corps -which had largely deserted to the Loyalists- was similarly reorganized, according to the Oleonese military doctrines. The Terraversan Regiment of the Mardierian Legion is now ready to fight for the glory of the Empire of Light and -if the time will come- to finally overthrow the hated tyrant, and reunite all the island under the same banner! Campaigns: Second Terraversan War (not as an organized unit) Motto: Credit to @Ross Fisher for the picture and the idea.

Congratulations to all the other winners, and thanks to the organizers, who re-activated our little world with this challenge! A great thank also to @Jeff of Clubs and @evancelt, for making physical prizes available for the first time in a very long time!

Cat A “Sunken Ship” by Imcpicture ”Storm Chasers” by Bricksbypidy Cat B “The Conclusion” by Fraunces “The Orders” and following, by Professor Thaum