Castle Nocturnia is a key location in both the first and second seasons of LEGO Dreamzzz and, on-screen, demonstrates the typical adherence to physics that might be considered to rival the combined works of Salvador Dali and MC Escher. With six large towers heading off at right angles to each other and an increasingly inconsistent application of the laws of gravity, it is truly a place of fantasy, especially under the guardianship of the ferocious manticore, Phil.
This is all well and good in a story set in the intangible Dream World, but how does this translate to the reality of being constructed out of plastic building bricks and constrained to the standard set of earthly physical laws before being subjected to a collection of younglings at playtime?
There is so much to sum up in this location of remarkable design that compromises will have to be made.
With 1740 pieces, 6 normal minifigures, 4 dreamlings, a red panda and a raven, it has the largest part count seen in a LEGO DREAMZZz set to date. It has a recommended Retail Price of $AUD299.99 / USD199.99 /€199.99/ £169.99
This set was provided by the LEGO GROUP for review purposes. All opinions are my own
As the D2C flagship set of the range, this set has a lot to achieve: let’s take a closer look. If you don’t want the building process spoiled, jump down to my Thoughts, where I shall try to sum up the experience. There might be minor spoilers for the series – in which case, watching through to the end of season 2 will ensure I won’t ruin anything for you. But I hope not many of them will be critical to the plot.
The Elements
I am forever grateful to the Knoller-in-chief, without whose support we would not be able to showcase the elements in the sets we review. Our review set came with 17 numbered paper bags. Many of the internal ‘pillow bags’ were paper, although a few small internal plastic pillow bags were included. The rollout of paper bags is certainly progressing, but I suspect some factories are more advanced with the process than others. The two instruction manuals came in a cardboard envelope with two small sticker sheets. Each part of the build has its own colour coding, and we shall see this more obviously as we proceed.
There are a few transparent yellow elements, including 4 of the relatively new 1x2x2/3 curved slope. It is said that every time a transparent yellow element is included in a set, someone in Billund says “For the space fans” There are 2 of the 1×1 round bricks and 7 of the 1×1 round bricks.
The Minifigures
There are 10 minifigures included: Mateo, Izzie, and Mrs Castillo; a selection of Dreamlings: Root, wizard, bather, knight and the Never Witch with her evil doppelgangers of Izzie and Mateo, Dizzie and Madteo.
The Good Guys
Fighting on the forces of Goodness and light are with Mateo, Izzie and Mrs Castillo.
Mateo sports an aroured paudron over his flanell shit and Z-Blob t-shirt. He wears olive chinos with white basketball boots. Mateos face features a green ‘splodge’ near where we saw his vilitigo patch last year. He has the same hair mold as before, but with only one streak of paint in this wave of sets. He wields a sword that features a new hourglass-themed grip with a transparent bright green blade, The small Z-Blob is attached to the other end of the handle.
Izzie is essentially the same figure that we saw in 71481 Izzie’s Dream Creatures – with purple and orange wrap, and a Night Bureau belt. Her Blue and magenta legs feature side printing. I love her sword, which features the same handle as Mateos, with a crystalline sword blade and a gem in opposite ends.
Mrs Castillo has a similar figure to that seen in last year’s sets, but now has a painted face with new expressions. She has a new torso decoration, as well as arms that plug into a technic hole. She wears an earth-toned (?Medium nougat) dress underneath a white draping cloak. She has a medium azure stripe across her face, a wry smile on one side and a giggle on the other. Her backpack is fixed, with 2×2 studs on the back to attach the makings of the pack.
The (mostly) bad guys
We have the big bad: the Never Witch. Since her last appearance in 71477Sand Mans Tower, she has been given a little extra bling as well as a puff of smoke to float around on. This is the same mounld used for the Sandman’s swirl of sand, only in violet and black. She has a crown fixed on her vibrant coral hair. Again, this is another great torso/ leg design in violet and black.
Madteo is wearing a grey puffer vest, which is fitted as a neckpiece, with a stud on the back. He has the same hair mould as Mateo, except in black, with two streaks of violet paint in his hair. He has a blob of violet over the right side of his face. Unlike most of the doppelgangers, Madteo is based mainly on the most recent Mateo figure, rather than the original – with a scary skull belt buckle, grey chinos and black boots. He carries a black and spring green version of Mateo’s pencil and a tiny Doom-Blob.
Dizzie is another great figure – with a black and violet recolouring of Izzie’s hair, a scary neck piece, an magenta skirt. Her outfit is a black/violet/pale yellow version of the season one figure. She carries a short-bladed weapon.
Finally Sneak – initially one of the Grimspawn of the Nightmare King, Sneak befriended Logan in season on (fun fact: voiced by the same actor in the animated series), and is ostensibly helping our members of the Night Bureau. He looks a little like a single-eyed cat, although closer inspection reveals many small eyes. The loop in his tail can hold a standard LEGO bar.
The Dreamlings
We have 4 dreamlings: 3 in aqua with small smiling faces; one in a knight’s helmet with a blue plume; one in a shower cap, carrying a scrubbing brush and a wizard, carrying a magnifying glass and wearing a blue hat! Finally, there is a ‘root Dreamling’ in medium nougat, with a reddish-orange leaf on its oversized head. We have examined the size and shape of these elements back here.
The Familiars
Most of these have been seen before: this is the third set I have seen with the red panda this year, while the small Z-Blob elements have become relatively common in almost any set featuring Mateo. The Raven has appeared in most sets this season – with a mixed black and transparent violet mould. Finally, Doom Blob is as far as I can tell, new in this set. This is much the same as the Z- Blob element, but black, with eyes printed on an evil angle.
This brings us almost all of the characters included in this set… but we will need to start the build to meet the final one…
The Build
Filippo Achaemenid Darius Cambyses, the Guardian of Castle Nocturnia
We start the building by constructing Filippo Achaemenid Darius Cambyses (call me Phil) – the Manticore who stands as guardian over Castle Nocturnia. He has a relatively simple brick-built body, with click joints forming the hips. Wings are fashioned using the ring element originally featured as Harry Potter’s glasses rims in the 76391 Harry PotterIcons set. Mounted in the centre of these is an inverse dish (6 wide) in satin transparent yellow, while transparent clips around the edges have a number of pentagonal shield elements attached – decorated with transparent stickers. His legs feature the yellow ‘maxaroni’ elements, and his feet are made of the claw element on a 1×2 hinge.
Phil’s head is brick-built and framed by transparent orange and satin transparent pale blue Nexo shields, as well as some satin ‘kite’ elements. His eyes are printed.
I have to admit, I prefer this build to the rendered version on screen, which feels too much like a close up image of a lion with an extremely wideangle lens. The transparent shield elements do a good job of approximating his on-screen appearance, and I found I did not miss the line-drawn detail on the yellow dish of his wings. While he is scaled reasonably to the minifigures, he is unable to fit anywhere inside the build. As the Guardian of Castle Nocturnia, he is an essential inclusion, however
The Common Build
From here, we commence work on the main build. We start on the corner part of the base. Zizaged along one edge of this cut off square, we add a bath, with a trap door, obscuring a coral frog. On one side we appear to be building a pool, and a throne room featuring a small podium on the other.
All of the vertical surfaces feature a run of studs, which will be used to hold the larger model together. We add a ceiling to the throne room, while a brrok flows over head – with frogs an lilypads in place, and a waterfall streaming toward what I presume is a bath, but I might be mistaken.
We add clips and bars to the stud-with-handle element along the ‘cut off edge’, forming bannisters for some stairs that are currently lying on their sides.
Above the throne room is another throne—or at least a resplendent bathroom with golden fittings. It took me a little while to realise that I had left off a 1×2 semicircular tile from the front of the sink. In an attempt to avoid controversy, no attempt is made to tell us which way the toilet roll is facing. This is undoubtedly the indoor plumbing that Dreamkeeper Shin organised to have installed way back in 1577.
An archway extends away from the roofline of the bathroom with a narrow pathway.
Let’s give that pathway somewhere to go: next, we add another floor above the bathroom, which features a beautiful stained-glass window, a sticker depicting Castle Nocturnia in its prime. The room contains a bookcase that opens out to reveal a pale blue gem. Could this be related in some way to the realm crystal from Ninjago? Could it facilitate travel between these worlds?
Finally, we decorate this tower with pale yellow foliage elements and bright flame orange leaf elements. The top of the tower looks like it is incomplete. I suspect Choices Will Have To Be Made!
We tip the white tower over and start work on this teal basr, with a curving pathway, thanks to arches and hinges. Tucked away in the basement is a small toadstool garden.
This part of the build plugs onto the side facing studs at the end of the white arch, and is continuous with this pathway. After putting it in place, we secure it with a plate, held down, in turn by a tile running at right angles to it.
The last phase of the ‘common build – before we explore the 2 alternative versions – is a more traditional castle tower: resplendent in tan with nougat masonry bricks, this tower runs at 90º to the main tower, but has a banner hanging from it, emblazoned with Lunia’s moon. There are arrow slits as well as some higher ramparts for the dreamlings to man.
Finally, we have the core constructed. Each of the 3 towers is ‘strapped’ in place, attached to the base. And there is no specific ‘Right Way Up’: the white tower, the Tan Tower or the Jade Caverns can be placed at the top of the building. Or the side. As you can see, there are a number of 2×2 round plates with a single stud, which will allow you to position a figure at just about any angle, regardless of how obtuse it might be.
And now, as with every DREAMZZz build, we have a choice to make. I personally prefer the look of build one, so to keep this build up, I built the second version first—something that had an unexpected consequence.
As always, in LEGO DREAMZZz sets, the instruction book presents you with a choice at this point: build the castle at peace or mount a defence against the invading forces of the Never Witch…
Version 1: At peace
The instructions suggest that this is a time for the Castle to be at relative peace:
We start this version off by adding a tiled roof to the tan tower, with a small brick wall on either side. As we have frequently seen recently, the roof is made of plates. This time they are layered, and placed on hinges to get the correct angle. In the final steps, we set up a crossbow like weapon
We follow up by adding a spire to the white tower. I love the use of and golden chevrons, conveying a sense of greater height. Just under the spire, we had an hourglass that can be rotated, pivoted around its frame.
After the White Tower, we build up a tree over the Jade Cavern. The tree features blue foliage and azure leaves. Hanging from the branches are the Dream Jars (or doom domes, if you happen to be trapped in one of the realms as it get captured)
This build no longer fits in my light box, so I took it outside with a large sheet of blue paper: perfect when the castle is suspended in the sky. This is how it looks with each aspect in the upright position:
Let’s add some figures to the castle, and see how they look, at all angles…
And then the Never Witch Arrives with her ravens and deppelgangers… that castle will need to transform in order to defend itself better:
Version 2: Under attack
Now I actually built this version first! – mostly because while I thought it looked pretty cool, I decided that I wanted to keep the primary model built for the time being. There are a few significant differences: the white tower is capped off with the golden chevron wedges, while the red roofed cabin is added to the side with the Jade Caverns on. The Tan Tower gains a ray gun (or is it a telescope?): Just right to defend the castle in the event of an attack by the Never Witch or Nightmare King.
This form of the castle features slightly fewer roof times on the outhouse above the jade caverns, but an additional heraldic shield – something which requires an additional sticker to be applied. Unfortunately, if you go from this version, to the previous model, you do not have enough undecorated red pentagonal tiles to complete the roofing. Its not a big thing, but it is a bit awkward.
Doom Domes
Mild Spoilers for Season 2 Pt2
During this part of the series, the Never Witch sets out to capture and imprison entire realms, for reasons best known to herself (it is explained on screen, but I thought I should leave some of it spoiler-free). Once captured, they are preserved in these Dream Jars (according to LEGO.com) or Doom Domes, as the kids call them on screen, as more and more realms are imprisoned.
The first three realms included in this set are (from left to right), the Candy Realm, the Beast Realm and the Cyber Realm. I suspect the next belongs to the Gnorfs, but I am uncertain about this final realm. Feel Free to offer your suggestions in the comments below!
My Thoughts
Castle Nocturnia, in its completeness in season one, looks very much like two of the final model joined together by the corner base, facing in such a way that it would be impractical to rest them flat on a table. Plainly, the model is a practical approximation of a location whose overall design is probably not so achievable in real life.
Full of switching staircases and variable gravity, it feels like a hybrid of Relativity by Escher and the Staircase from Hogwarts than rather than either Neuschwanstein or Windsor Castles. Naturally, this is not something that would be readily achieved in real life at a sensible price.
Does this set achieve what it needs to? Sometimes, LEGO sets need to compromise on multiple levels: scale, playability, and even similarity to the source material.
The two-in-one aspect of the set allows us to consider the castle at peacetime and when it is being defended against an invading force.
Castle Nocturnia is a massive structure with floors running in any of 6 directions at any one time. In order to make the interiors work at minifigure scale, the size would be totally impractical. By taking only three towers bound firmly together with plates, you can readily rotate the model so that any of the towers can point upwards. The model is remarkably sturdy: I rarely had any issues rolling it over, and when I did, it was at the expense of a few errant foliage elements and a couple of wall-mounted lamps. There is adequate scope for figures to be attached in each direction. Still, most of the rooms are too small to allow you to set up any significant confrontations – my pudgy fingers have a challenge getting more than one figure into any internal space other than the throne room.
Phil, the manticore, is appropriately sized in comparison with the minifigures but is unable to fit into any room of the castle. He is, however, great to swoosh around the house.
I appreciate the tributes to Dreamkeeper Shin and his efforts to install indoor plumbing in the castle and bolster the castle’s defences with the Lumitron Blastoria (essentially a great big light gun)(ref: Season 1; Ep17, The Light of Nocturnia). It is good to see both of these aspects demonstrated in this set. I especially appreciate the effort made to avoid yet another ‘There I fixed it!’ meme on the interweb, but ensuring the lavender toilet paper is directionally agnostic!
As I mentioned, some of the internal play areas are a little challenging to get into with grown-up hands. But as a backdrop to play, it is magnificent. You might not be able to easily set it up as a tableau of life within the castle, but the external stairs and walls and the plaza by the pool all make for fun locations to set up, both in daily life or under siege…
The design of this set is unique.
Over the last 60 years, the LEGO Group has released close to 300 sets containing castles, parts of castles, palaces, towers, gates, strongholds, and dungeons of varying cultures, which is saying something.
But how would it work as a regular castle? Part of me is wondering how Castle Nocturnia might look if you attempt to move the towers around so that they are all vertical. While this might not be very Castle Nocturnia-like, it might well be an alternative location for a roleplaying game, after completing the Dungeons and Dragons: Red Dragon’s Quest. It might require a few extra pieces to get it all together, but combining it with the 40657 Dreamling Village and the 21477 The Sandman’s Tower would provide some additional locations for traders, artificers, and people of importance might make for an interesting Fantasy Realm.
Both Castle Noturnia and the Dreamling Village are LEGO Exclusives for the time being. As such, significant discounts are unlikely. Combine these with a bit of figbarf here ard there and you might set up an interesting scenario to play. While you don’t have a Dragon, there is a manticore!
Would it produce a better outcome than the Red Dragon’s Tale with 3475 pieces, and a retail price of $499.99? Probably not without a significant investment in further elements. The D&D set works because there is room to place your minifigures, with monsters and creatures – something we don’t have much of in Castle Nocturnia. However, it could be extremely interesting as a background for the story-crafting.
Conclusion
Castle Nocturnia is unique amongst locations realised as LEGO Sets. I really enjoy the individual aspects of this set: the figure and creature selection, the manticore build, and how the castle itself comes together both at piece time and when under attack.
Of course, compromises had to be made from the point of view of scale and overall structure, with only half of the castle included in the model. That said, there are a number of easter eggs included -relatively deep cuts for fans of the series. While the space within the towers is relatively small, there is plenty of scope for minifigures and dreamlings alike to walk up the outside of the walls in different ways.The Dreamlings are more easily placed in the smaller spaces than typical minifigures, and it makes it a little easier to play with the castle at the scale that it is.
The overall concept for the model, being able to rotate the castle with 3 different upright positions, makes this a particularly unique set. But it occupies a significant amount of space: 31cm x 31mc x 41cm high—this is quite a bit larger than the space required for a modular building (25x24x25 for the 10185 Modular Green Grocer)—particularly given that you are likely to approach it from the diagonal—and that measures around 43cm cm between the points.
The scope and ambition behind this model is massive and goes a long way towards achieving what it sets out to do, within the realms of Physics and Economics. Indeed, to do the source material at an appropriate scale would take four times the bricks and the associated price stage. I don’t think anyone really wants to spend as much on this location as they do on Rivendell. Still, the build is imaginative, and it is great fun to pose the figures in either configuration. I was a little bothered by the way the second build placed a sticker on a tile that is undecorated in the primary build. Would it have been so hard to include an extra?
A great opportunity was missed with this set: if a dark blue space helmet and airtanks had been included, it would have sold out the minute we discovered the new dark blue classic space torso in Build-a-mini. Such is life.
This is a big, complex, and interesting set, and the model is aimed at a market of 10+. It would certainly be the better part of a weekend’s work for a 10-year-old, so expect to be invited to help out. If this course material appeals to you, I’d give this set 4 out of 5 arbitrary praise units. If not, I’d give it a 3: there are several distinct colour clusters within the elements, and I think it could be converted into a ‘Proper’ Castle set with a bit of time…which I seem to be short of this year.
LEGO DREAMZZz set 41786 Castle Nocturnia is on sale now from LEGO Branded retailers for $AUD299.99 / USD199.99 /€199.99/ £169.99 If you are looking to buy it, consider using our affiliate links: the Rambling Brick might receive a small commission, while it costs you nothing.
Have I piqued your interest about Castle Nocturnia? Does it achieve the initial goal? Does it create a playset of a building suspended in space, where your feet stick to whatever surface you step onto? let me know in the comments below.
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Until Next Time,
Play Well!
