First off,

Utterly ridiculous.

Now that we've got the self-upstaging out of the way, Here's what I've been working on:


The concept is sort of "Napolean on Elba" meets "Andean highlands" and they get jumped by a guy who builds towers. Originally, I just wanted to build towers, but ended up with far more cobblestone than I could ever use -- it's the most common byproduct of mining. (I've mined a lot, about 4ish scale miles; it's a complete mess, but I'll post pictures sometime.)


Here's another view of the complex. Napolean -- or whoever -- lives in the ivory tower; his guards live in the bulky gray mass. I liked the contrast; this idea that some nobleman gets to live in plush exile, but his scenic vistas were intentionally ruined with a hulking fortress to remind him that he's a prisoner. Quite a few of my screenies came during rain; it rains an awful lot in my biome, but it's awfully close to a large desert. It's a little odd.


This is my base of operations. The watchtower is on the opposite side of the (mountaintop) valley from the other screenshots; that bridge in the background was the first major structure I built on this map. The pond here is naturally occuring, but I added the waterfall (which I use to speedily reach my mine) and the sugar cane (which I use to make books). This is near the top of the map -- around Y=110, give or take -- so the drop to my mine is about 100 meters.


To the right is the bridge that leads to my base; the bridge in the foreground connects watchtowers two and three. The wooden structure in between the closest two towers is a rope bridge leading to an observation deck. You've probably noticed that I'm flying in these screenies; it's the only "cheat" I use. It slashes the time spent building by entirely negating the need for scaffolding; making proper scaffolding often takes more time than the actual building itself. (There's also the time cost of demolishing the old scaffolding, too.)


This is a manmade lake. It's about 20 meters deep at its lowest point; down below, you can see the underwater library (which I'm still working on). Water acts very strangely in Minecraft, so making something like this is a weird, nonintuituive process. Essentially, you've got to make a flood plain a meter deep then destroy it; otherwise, you just make raging, annoying waterfalls. That shadow on the lake is cast by the bridge to my base, seen in the last few screenshots.

Next time: My mines.