Hello!

I was a proud nocturnian during Book II. My nocty character will live there happily ever after, and i would like to join Varlyrio with a new character, if it is possible.

You can call him Ein for now.

I let him tell the introduction.:

- Many- many tides ago, there was Erda. The dust dwellers call it Varlyrio, or was it Valrylio, or Varilyo? Well, it doesn't really matter! Erda it is named in our ancient tongue. Two lands, one with an inland sea, what was known as Kalypsō. That is where our ancestors were born, in the beautiful city of Tethys. The water was crystal clean, and warm. Full of life in it, and in its vicinity. The drylanders didn't bother us much. Our neighbours, and distant relatives the Kolgari lived close by. Sometimes dwarves came to trade goods, and news in return for the fruits and rare treasures of the deep. Other than that no two legged people dared to walk those lands, and swim or sail those waters. Life was good, because the water was good!

Then out of the blue, cataclysm hit! Erda quaked, cracked, and shattered, deadly gases leaked from the deepest parts of the underworld into the waters, and up in the air. Soon, Tethys was destroyed. As the ground opened, most of Kalypsō drained. Ran down into a cavern that might wasn't even there before. Many of our volk swam for the last time that day, crashed on the rocks by deadly currents, or swallowed by hazardous maelstroms, engulfed by the abyss. But others survived and just let the flow to take care of them. The water takes, but it always brings.

So, they found themselves in this huge new cave, in a subterranean lake fed by underground rivers, and hot springs regularly. Other survivors of the catastrophe arrived too! Even the Kolgari couldn't continue their lives on the surface. They moved into this great cavern, we call Horthol. Those were hard times on them, and on our volk. On everybody, who found refuge there. Magic was used on a daily basis to help establish a new life. The Kolgari built an amazing place, what is known in the legends as Sunken City. We built our new home, the magnificent city of Thalassa, on the bottom of the lake we know as Lorelei Loch. We were lucky. Very lucky to survive. Water is vital for all of the beings.

With the new place, came new discoveries. Ones that changed the fate of our volk forever. Found waterways which connected our new home with the vast water Ōkeanós, so some of our brave ancestors departed. Ōkeanós... The final frontier. Those were the longest voyages of our volk. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilizations, to boldly swim, where none one has swam before. To find new adventures, to meet never seen distant relatives. We also met new creatures, for example the Children of Ceto emerged from the depths of Lorelei Loch. Some of them were friendly, others are not so much. Water can be wild.

Recent times, the surface strollers constantly grew in numbers. Not just in Erda. Don't have much respect towards the land, towards anything! They spill, and drink the waters, even fighting over it! Kill, murder for it! Sometimes they contaminate the wells, springs, rivers, and oceans! Litter the whole world! All that matters to them, is what can they take, what can they destroy! Almost always at war, those dryskins! Want power more, and more. Want everything! It is never enough! They know nothing! Nothing yet...

Our volk are everywhere. We are watching. Where water is, there are we. Water is life, so we are! You cannot crush water, so you cannot crush us. We were here before you, and will be after you. We are the Elves of the Blewe!

 

I hope it is okay.

Edited November 12, 20186 yr by MaasEffekt

Very interesting backstory @MaasEffekt! A great potential point of conflict between a Gaia like faction, and the rest of us litter lout "strollers"! And welcome to Varlyrio!

********

I've not had a great week LEGO wise - slipped a disc in my back last week for which the pain is just subsiding, and now battling with an ear infection. Hopefully get a bit more time towards the end of this week, as we really need to get some freebuilds out or we are going to be left behind!

@Basiliscus just snooping on other guilds and saw your woes. Hope you feel better soon!

I also have a selfish reason as I want to see the next part of the Conzaga family story!

Hello again!

I came up with a few questions, if you don't mind.

How do i have to present a guild challenge moc? Does it need its own topic, named properly which guild's- which challenge is it? For example: "Ein the merman prince - Varlyrio Guild Challenge 1A, Book III."

Does a guild challenge build registers also as a free build for GoH?

Thanks in advance!

Edited November 21, 20186 yr by MaasEffekt

  On 11/21/2018 at 10:23 PM, MaasEffekt said:

How do i have to present a guild challenge moc? Does it need its own topic, named properly which guild's- which challenge is it? For example: "Ein the merman prince - Varlyrio Guild Challenge 1A, Book III."

Does a guild challenge build registers also as a free build for GoH?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, it should have its own topic. Your suggested title works well, though I might leave off the "Book III" part of it, as it is unnecessary. 

All builds that are not official challenge builds (and we've only had one challenge so far in Book III) count as free builds for your guild. 

Thank you!

Here it is. My vignette for guild challenge 1A.

So, @MaasEffekt has done a nice little scene as a freebuild for this scoring round. How is everyone else getting on?

I've had a few family issues to deal with so haven't done much building recently. Hopefully change that this week!

I've been sick lately and busy with work (for once). Also, RDR2 and Fallout 76 coming out within weeks of each other has taken a toll on my free time. So has a new casual writing gig for an upcoming site.

I just did a big clean and sort, though, so I should have something new soon. This Flickr business has kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. I have to decide where I'm going to be putting my new stuff before I can really get a complete build up again.

  On 11/27/2018 at 8:51 PM, mccoyed said:

I've been sick lately and busy with work (for once). Also, RDR2 and Fallout 76 coming out within weeks of each other has taken a toll on my free time. So has a new casual writing gig for an upcoming site.

I just did a big clean and sort, though, so I should have something new soon. This Flickr business has kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. I have to decide where I'm going to be putting my new stuff before I can really get a complete build up again.

What's wrong with flickr? 

I think he means, Flickr will limit the free user space to a 1000 images soon.

https://petapixel.com/2018/11/01/flickr-limits-free-plan-to-1000-photos-upgrades-pro-members/

It's going to take all of us contributing MOCs if we don't want to end up last after the next round! The other guilds have all built a lot of freebuilds.

I'll definitely be posting something in the next couple of weeks!

 

  On 11/28/2018 at 2:15 PM, MaasEffekt said:

I think he means, Flickr will limit the free user space to a 1000 images soon.

https://petapixel.com/2018/11/01/flickr-limits-free-plan-to-1000-photos-upgrades-pro-members/

Yeah but he doesn't even have a 1000 photos. I had 2000 and I deleted enough to bring me down to 1000 and don't think I'll have any trouble with that for a while at least. Anyway I hope he finds a solution.

Edited November 30, 20186 yr by W Navarre

Yeah, actually, I did have over 1000 photos. But definitely not as many as you or many others, not that it really matters. Last weekend I had to whittle that down to below 1000 so I can avoid whatever Flickr is going to do to accounts that are over the limit on their deadline. If you have any tips on what stuff you got rid of, I'd be interested. I took down all non-Lego pics, got rid of alternate shots and redundant shots, and still only just got below 1000.

I am going to try Bricksafe for future stuff, with Flickr being left as a kind of archive so my old posts don't have broken links. If anyone has anything better than Bricksafe, I'm all ears, but it looks pretty good.

 

Edited November 30, 20186 yr by mccoyed

A belated welcome to the guild, @MaasEffekt!  Nice to see somebody taking advantage of the underground part of Varlyrio 

  On 11/26/2018 at 11:36 PM, Basiliscus said:

So, @MaasEffekt has done a nice little scene as a freebuild for this scoring round. How is everyone else getting on?

  On 11/28/2018 at 3:40 PM, Basiliscus said:

It's going to take all of us contributing MOCs if we don't want to end up last after the next round! The other guilds have all built a lot of freebuilds.

I'll definitely be posting something in the next couple of weeks!

I've got one family vig that just needs to be photographed and another which grew a little beyond its original intention... and is taking correspondingly longer   We definitely do need to get on the ball if we don't want to fall behind, though - I'm thinking about sending a few peeps some PMs to get something going once I'm done with these builds   Looking forward to seeing what y'all have got in the works, though!

  On 11/30/2018 at 10:15 PM, Garmadon said:

A belated welcome to the guild, @MaasEffekt!  Nice to see somebody taking advantage of the underground part of Varlyrio 

I've got one family vig that just needs to be photographed and another which grew a little beyond its original intention... and is taking correspondingly longer   We definitely do need to get on the ball if we don't want to fall behind, though - I'm thinking about sending a few peeps some PMs to get something going once I'm done with these builds   Looking forward to seeing what y'all have got in the works, though!

Sounds interesting, count me in! I'm thinking: Varlyrio: Knife's At Work 

  On 11/30/2018 at 11:46 PM, Basiliscus said:

Sounds interesting, count me in! I'm thinking: Varlyrio: Knife's At Work 

  Noted! 

  On 11/30/2018 at 8:20 PM, mccoyed said:

Yeah, actually, I did have over 1000 photos. But definitely not as many as you or many others, not that it really matters. Last weekend I had to whittle that down to below 1000 so I can avoid whatever Flickr is going to do to accounts that are over the limit on their deadline. If you have any tips on what stuff you got rid of, I'd be interested. I took down all non-Lego pics, got rid of alternate shots and redundant shots, and still only just got below 1000.

I am going to try Bricksafe for future stuff, with Flickr being left as a kind of archive so my old posts don't have broken links. If anyone has anything better than Bricksafe, I'm all ears, but it looks pretty good.

 

Well, I didn't want to delete my very first posts, even if they were far from impressive MOCs, but I just deleted extra shots.  I had way to many of them in some really lame builds I'll be honest, and I also had some really worthless privite pictures, and some extra CCC resized images.  No more tips, just that I would recommend doing it thew other way around, don't you think that would be better: using bricksafe to archive the photos you have on flickr and uploading new builds to flickr?

  On 12/1/2018 at 1:52 AM, W Navarre said:

using bricksafe to archive the photos you have on flickr and uploading new builds to flickr?

That's basically how I'm starting to do it, though it is quite a pain to update old posts with new links.

  On 12/1/2018 at 1:52 AM, W Navarre said:

I had way to many of them in some really lame builds I'll be honest

Have you just finally admitted that you built some lame builds way back when??   Wow, never thought I'd live to see the day. 

I don't think I understand why anyone would want to go to all that trouble. Seems a lot easier to just cap your Flickr account around 1000 pics and migrate all new photos elsewhere. Is it the community aspect of Flickr? I have to admit that doesn't impact me much since I'm not that active socially on Flickr.

Anyway, finally shook off the cobwebs. Here's a new entry to the Lion's Eye story:

 

  On 12/1/2018 at 8:20 PM, mccoyed said:

Is it the community aspect of Flickr?

For me that's what it is, I'm fairly active in that community.  Obviously I could continue to comment/see other's builds without posting more of my own, but as I've built up a significant following I'd hate to just walk away from posting my own, especially to somewhere like Bricksafe which doesn't have anything like the same following options.

Edited December 1, 20186 yr by Kai NRG

Hello!

Thanks for the welcome @Garmadon!

My vignette for guild challenge 1B.

  On 12/1/2018 at 8:41 PM, Kai NRG said:

For me that's what it is, I'm fairly active in that community.  Obviously I could continue to comment/see other's builds without posting more of my own, but as I've built up a significant following I'd hate to just walk away from posting my own, especially to somewhere like Bricksafe which doesn't have anything like the same following options.

Yeah, makes sense. I have followers but not that many and I don't use Flickr as a platform for Lego stuff very much. That makes it easier for me to let go of it, I guess.

Yeah, flickr was the first place I ever went, and I'm very used to it, add to that the fact that there are a good deal of contests there, that the majority of LEGO builders probably have accounts there, and the fact that I'm popular there, and I really wouldn't leave it unless something really insurmountable came up. Glad to see a build from you though!

  On 12/3/2018 at 3:17 PM, W Navarre said:

Yeah, flickr was the first place I ever went, and I'm very used to it, add to that the fact that there are a good deal of contests there, that the majority of LEGO builders probably have accounts there, and the fact that I'm popular there, and I really wouldn't leave it unless something really insurmountable came up. Glad to see a build from you though!

It was my first place too and I'll still be visiting it to see new builds, fave stuff, etc. I never seemed to hear about the contests before they were already well underway. I feel like it's easier for me to keep track with EB. Can't blame you for sticking with what works, W!

Also, here's a new freebuild on the Knights of Sana Argenta and some more development of my ideas for how and why there are new knightly orders in Varlyrio.

 

Edited December 9, 20186 yr by mccoyed

Another great build @mccoyed, and a badly needed freebuild.

I've posted the first of my build trilogy on Flickr, one is photographed and ready to upload and the final one needs a bit of post processing. I'll get them all up tonight so they're counted in this freebuild period.

Hopefully that will help us with points. I hope you all have cleared your schedules over Xmas, and have challenge 2 entries in the pipeline (once the category is revealed).