Darwin Reforged - Castle Contest 1st place submission (Medvedsky Hrad)

Castle made by Redranger (buildings + terrain), Vitautas (buildings), Patrixcraft (terrain)
Built on Darwin Reforged creative server using 1.12.2 Conquest Reforged mod and resourcepack.
Winning submission for the Castle Contest on Darwin Reforged, spanning the period between October 2018 and December 2018.

Check it out at /warp slav on the Darwin Reforged server!


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[ Lore ]

Medvedsky Hrad is a fictional castle located in a hilly region on the periphery of The Great Zubrowian Duchy which was built by a christian knight order in purpose of converting local tribe population into christianity.

Although the order had grown rapidly, Medvedsky Hrad would stay the most important castle of the brotherhood hundreds of years after its founding.

The name given to the castle came from the legend about order's founder, Saint Tomislav. The legend says that when St. Tomislav and his followers arrived at the pagan realm, they were attacked by locals at night. When St. Tomislav thought the battle was over for him, a bear appeared out of nowhere, attacking only the pagans. After the battle, the bear disappeared in the woods. Since then, the order would be known as The Bears, and the castle they would build was called Medvedsky Hrad, which from czech translates as 'Bear's Fortress'. The sheer cliff under which the battle happened would become a large spot of pilgrimage. After his death Tomislav was beatified and became a saint. Icons depicting Tomislav would have a bear near his legs. The Coat of Arms of the Order would include a bear on a yellow strip on a red field. (Based on Bern coat of arms)


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[ Historical parallels ]

The Order itself is inspired by Teutonic order and you can find many parallels with it, the most obvious one is coming to pagan lands in order to convert it to christian faith.

Although all the names are made up, we still decided to stick with Christian faith as it allows us to make some neat historical details.

Architecturally wise, the castle is based on Late Medieval polish and czech castles (circa 1300-1400), and interiors are inspired by the Malbork castle that belonged to the mentioned Teutonic Order.


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[ Facts ]

The faith would play a major role in the life of castle inhabitants.

Knight brothers were celibate and would regularly attend the chapel throughout the day and before having their meals.

Knights would live in common, sleep in large rooms and all eat in the refectory.

The authority of the order would've been split between Grand Master, who was elected by the brotherhood; Marshal, who would lead the Order into battle under command of Grand master; Grand Chamberlain, who would supply the knights with food, clothing; Accoutrements would manage servants; Treasurer, who would receive and pay all the money that goes through the hands of the Order; Grand Hospitalier, who would manage hospitals belonged to the order.

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[Detailed Credits & Technical Stuff]

The entire project started out as a random worldedit height brush snow layer test by Redranger on his private world. Patrixcraft textured it out of boredom, and the project took off from there.

The terrain layers, palette, grass/water biome coloring, random ground plants, random rocks, and some of the low level random birds are done entirely with worldedit command by Patrixcraft, almost no manual placing and brushing. The trees are made from only 3~4 templates for each kind and randomized the rotation/flip, the base height, and the leaves using worldedit. The terrain was expanded 128 block outward from each side by Patrixcraft later on because Redranger and Vitautas wanted a backdrop for screenshots and some surrounding environments. We set the season setting to late summer/early autumn so most of the farmlands are already harvested, but in truth it's just for avoiding doing crops on layered terrain.

Redranger and Vitautas planned and made most of the buildings and interiors, Patrixcraft helped with the wall & roof weathering, plus some of the roof support structures. The custom map textures in itemframes are pics gathered by Redranger and Vitautas from the game Kingdom Come Deliverance and various sources and converted/edited by Patrixcraft.