The Lay of the Thorn Moons

by FPOA

Something marvelous is happening underground, something we’re just learning to see. Mats of mycorrhizal and xylem cabling link millions of trees into gigantic, sentient communities spread across a hundred moons.

The forests of Crataegus mend and shape themselves through subterranean synapses. And in shaping themselves, they shape, too, the tens of thousands of other, linked creatures that form them from within.

The boreal moons and the forests than span them above and below ground are as much part of the living creatures that call the moons their home as the creatures themselves, like extended limbs, are part of the moons. – Cornelius Linnæusse XIIth

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The first pieces of terrain for the Thorn Moons Crusade are nearing completion!

While Migsula is crushing it preparing untold terrain sections that make up the core backdrops for the coming storm, participants around the world are building more detailed, narrative terrain pieces to be added to the boreal battlefields.

Here are a few sneak peaks of the two-piece terrain sections resembling an old Holloway, which Jakob Rune Nielsen of Golden Demon fame and FPOA has been building together for the last couple of weeks. Finished and painted by Jakob in a stunning effort to get it done just in time to ship to the other side of planet.

And in another country Kari is almost done with his two sections of boreal beauty!

With smaller bio-mechanical trees growing next to bigger ones (their parental trees?), like offshoots raising for the shimmering green light of the boreal night. When looking at them from a distance, a high vantage point far above the forest cover, they would look like a vast conglomorate of factory pipes belching carbon dioxide into the air, but when looking closer, listening, smelling, one would realise that they are made of organic matter and that they thrive off the very carbon dioxide in the air, turning it into oxygen…are they living or made by someone…?

FPOA

On a pilgrimage into the weathered worlds of Warhammer 40K. Exploring texture, narrative and atmosphere in miniature form.

16 thoughts on “The Lay of the Thorn Moons”

  6. That is wonderfully atmospheric and, needless to say, very inspiring. I also really like the narrative created by the Thorn Moons. Much of 40k is bleakly industrial, a horror future of man subsumed by machine, of nature inevitably ground out and smothered. When nature is mentioned it is almost always savage, out to consume the brave humans who battle against it, as on Catachan or Pythos. Yet find a crack in any city where no-one is looking and nature returns. After the wars of the 41st Millennium have ended, after the daemons have been banished and the last humans and xenos have battled to extinction, forests will regrow and survivors will gather beneath their leaves.

    These pieces merge perfectly the images of gothic-industrial ruin that encapsulates 40k and the peace and tranquillity of an old growth forest – which of course happen to be two of my favourite things!

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  8. I knew the scenery for the Thorn Moons would be good, but this is already looking exceptional! Eagerly looking forward to reading the next update (as usual!)

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  12. Amazing work, it always really nice coming back to this blog and seeing a hive of activity from people working together to create something new and original. Will this event be this year’s equivalent of ‘The Pilgrim’?

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    1. Thank you Marco! Yes indeed, the Thorn Moons Crusade is the sequel to the Pilgrym two years ago…going from a ‘small scale’ =][= campaign to full blown W40K battles in a distant corner of the galaxy – on exquisite terrain once again.

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  13. Oh wow, that’s some very effective looking terrain!

    I haven’t got anything outside of generic 40K terrain at the moment, but this sure has inspired me.

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