Polymathe

Polymathe, High Priest of the Order of the Holy Crafting Table, and co-founder of Sol. came to MC Badlands some time in late 2011.

He is currently wondering why he spent so much time writing the history of his badlands experience, and if anyone will actually take the time to read it.

Beginnings
Polymathe came to the Badlands some time in late 2011. When he walked into the badlands he immedietely entered a conflict zone, with a dangerous griefer laying siege to spawn city. In the confusion, he was swiftly deported. He petitioned for safe passage through the badlands, and the fair rulers of badlands let him through.

He struggled to find a footing, falling susceptible to a thieving murderers tricks early on, as the badlands was a much more lawless place at that time. Eventually, he crossed a sea and entered a desert, where he dug a shelter into the sand and surrounded the hole with a maze of cactus. He eventually expanded this into a small rustic fort.

Admiring the desert area very much, he built a large shrine to the desert gods, in the style of the arabs. He travelled far to gather wool from wild sheep, so that he could set up a tent camp for other members of the desert. However, none came to rent out his rustic dwellings. It was at this time that he came across apple_gran, builder of a great pyramid within the same desert. This was also where he first formulated a methord for constructing domes, which he built atop an underground passage which led to a giant underground creeper face. However, warnings of a great comet arouse, and the people of the Badlands were forced to migrate.

Camp
Polymathe followed the other denizens of the badlands to find a new land, joining up with the suspicious-looking peoples of the shark. He first settled on an island, aspiring to form a settlement with a man who may have gone by the name internet_guy or something. Yet Internet_guy soon disapeared, taking with him the investments for the settlement. So, Polymathe accepted the request of apple_gran to join a place only known as "Camp". There, tents lay behind stout wooden posts, overseen by a great watchtower. More homely wooden houses were also built, and there Polymathe set out to live.

Having seen his dome in the previous map, apple_gran requested that he build a dome for the developing settlement, as a temple or observatory of some sort. Polymathe looked across the stream near his house into an expansive swamp, where he began to lay foundations. Atop a square base with slatted cobblestone walls, he constructed a large smoothstone dome. At the portal of this building he placed lapis lazuli and gold he had mined from the earth.

This structure became an important building in the settlement, which included other members such as holl97, xboxy12, and LegitCreation. Apple_gran built an expansive fountain in front of it, and a courthouse and temple were built. Inside the temple was placed a dragon egg. Around this whole structure was built great cobblestone walls of immense height. A hole in the floor of the domed town hall led to a subway system, which was never smoothly configured.

Around this time, Polymathe gathered a herd of sheep within the same swamp. He built a dirt fortification around his herd, which he fashioned to look like an artificial hill. However, all his sheep contracted a fatal virus while he was away, breaking his heart. Also around this time Polymathe's neighbor LegitCreation was involved in some sort of drama, eventually leading to his departure from the badlands.

Camp slowly stagnated, and Polymathe spent much time wandering other areas of the badlands. He happened upon the land of Ashlar, quickly becoming a resident there, in the apartments. This Netherbrick-and-sandstone fortress was like nothing he had ever seen before, and inspired him. He even contributed in a small way, by building an ashlar armory in a ravine outfitted with a pneumatic lava hammer. He was also probably one of the few people to ever see and experience the parkour map built by dannyprkr beneath Ashlar, causing him to die hundreds of times in pursuit of cake. He never did finish the parkour thing.

And soon, another comet threatened badlands... and the people were forced to migrate again.

Rise
Anticipating the migration and staying late one night, he caught authorities publicly posting the IP of the new server because few people were there to see it. Following this location, he got a chance to see and be a part of the building of minehatten, with the badlands gods wielding their full creation powers.

Following apple_gran once again, he was drawn into the attempt to build a town with the aid of tctroz13. He settled with applegran in an underground shaft inside a large grassland biome.

Before even setting foot in the new map, Polymathe had been planning a structure of great glory that he realized could hold an important place in the nascent town. He saw the recent raising of Minecraft's height limit as the ultimate challenge, the challenge to build a tower that realistically sloped inwards and was much taller than anything else in the badlands. He combined this with his idea for a sort of artificial stone hill, to create the acropolis. He also adopted the tradition of carrying the same crafting table with you wherever you settled, which evolved into the faith known as the Church of the Holy Crafting Table, which lead him to build a temple in which he placed the same crafting table that he had been using since he had moved into a house in camp. He tried to make this temple a sort of gothic church, but the end result ended up more romanesque, though it did have a large dome with an open oculus at the top.

The tower was a success, made of stonebrick and eventually reaching the minecraft height limit. Later on, he made it so one could jump through the center of the tower and land safely in water at the bottom.

As tctroz, applegran, invisiblestamp and others worked on other parts of sol, polymathe joined in. He helped clear land, added a dome for the bank. Then he built a lot of stuff that is mentioned below.

Sol rose greatly, with tctroz, apple_gran, invisiblestamp, airaer, monstaman, skilaxjoe, krodor, the somewhat lovable and incredibly yet somewhat appropriately annoying IanTheEpic, and others. Eventually sol became the most populous town on the server, becoming part of the great nation of Eyre.

Polymathe wished for power, and during tctroz's brief ban absence, he vied to become mayor of sol, somewhat unsuccesfully.

He met Air_Neko later on, and during tctroz's summer absence, he co-ruled sol with him. By this time, Sol had been steadily stagnating, due to successive towny resets, and the rise of aggresively-recruiting towns such as jerusalem. Apple_gran's departure was a huge blow to sol and badlands, and key figures were gone for the summer. During a time when his minecraft time was limited, he built a steamship for sol. But as a whole, he turned more towards building projects far beyond sol's walls, such as r'lyeh, mroz, and the monastery. He spent a lot of time adding minute details to the town of mroz, something he never totally finished in his mind.

He aspired to lead other badlanders to participate in town-unaffiliated massive building projects, and simply wanted people to come together to build epic things. Mroz was an experiment at this, but it eventually just became his own project with limited help from outsiders.

Soon, on another planet known as earth, Polymathe knew changes were coming. In the previous year, he had adopted a strategy of sophisticated slackerism, where he did the bare minimum of work required to get an "A", barely slipping by with As as the year drew to a close. This was largely in part to his terrible habit of extreme procrastination. It was a habit that had long developed, starting with pretending to work while playing simple internet flash games, moving onto a taste for a roleplay-based custom mod of Starcraft II. Minecraft was simply a continuation of this, though minecraft's particular addictive quality probably didnt help.

Perhaps I should go back a bit. You see, when Polymathe was eleven, he decided he wanted to save the world. This crazy dream continues to shape his life in some way. He figured that throughout history, someone ended up saving the world, so why couldnt it be him for this century? In some ways he was more likely to do this than the average person, or so he believed. He believed that if he focused totally, he could achieve great things. Yet he had the terrible procrastination problem.

What was coming up on the planet known as earth was the Junior year. At his school, junior year had a legendary status: the year when those capable and those uncapable would take and impossible amount of Advanced Placement classes and somehow, somehow make it through to the next summer looking more attractive to colleges. It was here that Polymathe saw a sort of chance: he could go cold turkey on his procrastination habit. He would take a ridiculous amount of difficult classes, an amount so large that if he continued to procrastinate he would fail miserably. Thus, the prospect of failure would force him to focus, maybe. He's still not sure if this will work, or if it was completely necessary.

But either way, in the pursuit of saving the world, he knew he would have to give up minecraft, at least for the larger part of this one, intense year. And thus he began to prepare.

He built a parkour/adventure map in the badlands, involving books, stretching across the map, mostly involving books in the middle but parkour at the beginning and end. He took every single block he had in his chests that were able to be placed, and placed them in a giant wall. Then he built a giant triumphal arch out of dirt. And wrote his name in giant letters.

Then he began to work on APUSH, APW, APCalcBC, APBio, HnrsBioLab, APCompsci, HnrsSocialJusticeEnglishIII, and Studio Art.

If you want, imagine him as searching for deep cosmic secrets on vast and unkown planets. But know that someday, the templar of the great crafting table shall return to this hallowed blocky land, hopefully with somewhat batter box office returns than 2006's Superman Returns.

The Acropolis
This construction, the first of Polymathe's on the most recent map, encompasses the Temple of the Holy Crafting Table, The Vaults/Treasure Room, and the "Tall Tower", all set upon an artificially constructed hill with crenelations and surrounded by fire to deter invaders.

This "Tall Tower" is 140 blocks high by itself, which plus the artificial hill places it about 170 blocks above "sea level", and 224 blocks above bedrock. It is most likely the tallest tower on the badlands, as the spawn cloud of the badlands is 140 blocks above bedrock, in comparison. Through a mechanism, one is able to jump from the top floor of the tower through all the other floors, landing at the bottom floor safely.

The Temple of the Holy Crafting table was built to house and protect The Holy Crafting Table, which, according to legend, is the very crafting table with which Notch created the earth.

The Treasure Room contains the personal Wealth of Polymathe, in iron, gold and diamond blocks.

Sol's Town Hall
Polymathe contributed to the town hall by building the hall's large dome, and the tower placed on top of said dome. This building also contains his office.

The Zamek
This is a castle-Like structure, surrounding The Powder Gate, a large spired tower used to house gunpowder. The whole structure uses eleven spires, counting the mini spires on the powder gate. This build also contains the Hall of War, a wooden hall meant for official declarations of war.

The Temple of the Feathered Serpent
The temporary banning of tctroz13 coincided with a lack of building ideas, and thus, a mausoleum was started, assuming that tctroz13 was permabanned. tctroz13 ended up being unbanned, and thus the entire building needed a new purpose. Eventually it was made into a temple to the Feathered Serpent diety of Mesoamerica (known as Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan and other names).

It takes the form of a mesoamerican step pyramid, on top of which is placed a classical temple with a tall dome, which is topped by a ring of fire. Its sides and interior are decorated with sculpted depictions of serpents, and the dome contains murals depicting scenes from Sol. At its center lies a flaming altar, with a mysterious hole.

Public Mine
Outside the walls of Sol lies a hole that reaches bedrock. Its a public mine, with some fancy things, and some fire. Fire...

R'lyeh
One day Polymathe was walking along, when suddenly he found a book lying on the ground. "Oh boy" he said, "I wonder what this is". After a few minutes of reading, he realized that he had picked up a copy of the Necronomicon, and had accidently summoned Cthluhu.

R'lyeh is a depiction of the sunken city from H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming.

Ships
The Helios and Aeos, currently harboring in Sol's docks. The Helios is an attempt to build a ship with a steam engine and paddlewheels, in addition to a number of dispensers and a fire-breathing dragon figurehead.

The Aeos is supposed to be a galley, or oar-powered ship.

Mroz
Mroz is a village built for snow golems, filled with numerous snow golem houses of different trades, a few ships, a walled defence system, an aqueduct, a drinking hall, and an inn.

The Monastery
The monastery, located north of Mroz, is a floating structure built to house the monks of the Holy Crafting table, and holy relics. It has accomadations for visiting pilgrims, various farms and structure for self-reliance, and defence systems for protecting the monks.

Famous Quotes

 * Back in the good ol' days, diamonds only cost me 100... and I had to walk uphill to Minehattan... BOTH ways!"
 * ​May 6th 2012

Trivia

 * He really, really likes domes.