The ninth series of the BrickLink Designer Program is now underway, and LEGO Castle's 2025 faction additions are all the rage.
LEGO Castle has grown a lot this year, with two new factions as part of
LEGO Castle is unsurprisingly a hot commodity once again in Series 9, but this time, there's a breath of fresh air in that most of the models focus on one of the four new factions, with some diverse builds on show to fit into their lore. These are but a handful of the many Castle creations in Series 9, which you can view and vote on by clicking here.
Griffin Knights
The factions of
"The Griffins had specific inspiration that started as being from a Mediterranean kingdom, leaning more into mythological fantasy," explained LEGO Ideas design lead Jordan David Scott during a roundtable interview with Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media. "Our rough, not confirmed lore is that the Griffins live on the cliff sides."
The LEGO community online has taken this proposed lore in their stride, incorporating cliffs into many of the Griffin Knight castles, such as The Aerie Citadel by noahtavita and the more familiar grey landscape of Dragon Spire by TheThunderDeer.
Kraken Warriors
The Kraken Warriors are the other most popular faction in Series 9 of the BrickLink Designer program. They're proposed to be a seafaring faction, and also at war with the Griffin Knights, and that can be seen in dozens of the proposed builds.
"The Krakens' inspiration was kind of House Greyjoy from Game of Thrones, more or less, so more seafaring without being pirates," shared Jordan. "The Krakens are in the coastal areas, and then the Griffins live on the cliff sides, and they're at war with each other."
While this rough lore drop is up to your interpretation, it appears that fans like the idea of warring factions, and that the Kraken Warriors are seafaring, with much of their builds being on islands in the middle of the ocean. They also commonly appear on ships in Griffin Knight models, taking the fight to their sworn enemies.
Horse Knights
The Horse and Serpent Knights aren't quite as popular as the other two 2025 LEGO Castle faction additions, but they have their moments in Series 9. The fans have determined that the Horse Knights are a more familiar faction, with a standard-looking castle that incorporates a reliable white and blue colour scheme.
While not quite as exciting as the potential of the Kraken Warriors and Griffin Knights, the community has offered a more interesting take on the Serpent Knights.
Serpent Knights
The Serpent Knights have inspired a unique array of models inspired by their colour scheme and an intriguing proposal by Willcox_Design that they should be a desert-focused faction. This would pair well with the Bounty Hunter's Guild in Series 8's Dustmark Keep set in the sun-scorched locale.
Serpent Ruin by shikanoko1244 explores the fantastical element of LEGO Castle, similar to many of the Kraken Warriors submissions, while Shadow Stone Manor by j_hrvt keeps things simple with an outlandish but appealing colour scheme.
At this point, the BrickLink team would be wise to pick one of the models inspired by these new factions for the inevitable Series 9 Castle finalist (or maybe two to have the Kraken Warriors and Griffin Knights warring as intended). This would, in turn, make it easier to amass a decent number of the new faction's minifigures beyond picking up multiple copies of
We'll have to see what is picked, but for now, you can have your say during the crowd vote, which ends on October 17. Click here to view all of the Series 9 submissions.
Featured image: TrumanBrick
Thank you for supporting the work that Brick Fanatics does by buying your LEGO sets using our affiliate links!
Comments
Be the first to comment!