Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was the main Astral Brotherhood base from August 2022 to April 2023. It housed 55+ players, lasted almost 8 months, and contained many detailed builds.

Foundation
Dubrovnik was founded by Joey_Coconut, LordGalvatronMC, and smcz19 on August 23, 2022 as the next Lunarium base for the Astral Brotherhood following the short-lived base Palmyra, and the grief of Lidenbrock. cpybara joined them there the next day. Together, they planned and set up the initial base plans. Having spent the last several months working continuously on fruitless large group projects (such as the excavation & dome at Lidenbrock, and terraformation at Palmyra), they opted to build a base comprised of many detailed, smaller builds, with the aim of the base being a short break from large long-term builds, while the group planned its next move. As such, the location was chosen to be as accessible as possible, being under 1000 blocks away from the nearest nether ring road. All building materials were also provided. The base was named after the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, which also served as a major inspiration for the base's palette and style.

Initial Construction
After building the town and docks around the signboard, as well as the main canal nearby, the four original builders invited the rest of the Astral Brotherhood members late on August 24. With the invitation of about 25 players all at once, as well as the accessibility of the base and readily available materials, the base exploded in size, largely thanks to efforts by the original 4 members, as well as Atket_, _chiekn_, HURTLOCKERBECK, and YoMoBoYo. The area between the ocean and an artificial lake near base center was completely filled in only a week. The base members gradually decided to stay at Dubrovnik permanently instead of the base simply being a break. A month in the base extended back to Joey_Coconut's Octagonal Church, and also saw the construction of his meteor with YoMoBoYo, as well as YoMoBoYo's castle. The original part of the base was decorated for the base's 1 month anniversary, and saw a base-wide celebration held that resulted in smcz19’s promotion to the Astral Council, the leadership of the group.

Swamp District
Shortly after Dubrovnik's foundation, a group of the members headed up by cpybara decided to build a neighboring settlement in a different palette in the swamp to the south of the base's center. Most of the area was built early in the base's lifespan, and included various houses, as well as cpybara's gnomes which were fishing, carrying a lantern, and riding an astral bird from Vega. Aresyl came to the base in December and built a large tree in the middle of the swamp to tie the area together. The swamp remained mostly untouched after December 2022, although FuzzyBiskits later built there as well. Immediately to the east was the beta-themed area, built by borkiee and Ranlen.

Continued Construction
Following smcz19's promotion celebration, base activity slowed down, with Hovecs, VBence1, Warske, and YoMoBoYo continuing to extend the base to the east with additional builds, while LordGalvatronMC and Joey_Coconut cleared terrain and added builds of their own. The base members took a short break to build at the Spawn Migration before another wave of fresh invites in November which resulted in SCR3WBALL7030's return to the group, a large housing complex by 7___k & Legendbake, the construction of Lunch_Katsu's unfinished windmill, and the construction of several noteblock Music Machines by EnigmA_008, which played the Game of Thrones intro (as the town represented as King’s Landing in the show is Dubrovnik in real life) and the sea shanty Wellerman. Also started in November was xrayessay's cathedral, one of the main builds at the base. It was modeled on Westminster Abbey, and was built on 2b2t from the completion of its design in late November, to its final completion on the server in late January 2023 by xrayessay and SCR3WBALL7030. Between December 2022 and mid-February 2023, there was a general push to try and 'complete' the base, which resulted in the construction of many new houses, Joey_Coconut's base factory (largely in part to SCR3WBALL7030's efforts), and half of a planned circuit of walls on the inland side of the base. This was further accelerated by the addition of AnimeTidde, Osmobyte, RICELAND1, and Universin to the base following the grief of Stellaris. The base members increasingly tired, and took a month-long break building there, excepting RICELAND1 starting his large collection of ocean builds centered around the massive Serpent named 'Son of Veles' (after the water diety Veles in Slavic mythology)', and a number of smaller builds by smcz19.

Revitalization
In late March, an anonymous base hunter found Dubrovnik and stole all the materials from the base. As a result of the 2023 April Fools Map and general inactivity at Dubrovnik, this was not noticed until April 4th. After discussion among the basemates, they decided they probably didn't have long left at the base and opted to invite all active Meteorites in Astral, as well as a number of friends of the group in order to give it a proper send-off. This resulted in the addition of about a dozen additional base members, with the goal of building as much as possible as quickly as possible at Dubrovnik, while also focusing on the completion of RICELAND1's 'Son of Veles'. This resulted in the construction of a variety of builds around the base, such as AnimeTiddie's museum, Phosph0lipid's garden, about half of a dozen houses, Joey and smcz's lock canal, and the continuation of YoMoBoYo's sewers started several months before, by Galvatron.

Grief
More base hunters arrived at Dubrovnik as a result of opened nether portals being left in the base's area by some of the new members, as well as a result of the original base hunter. The base's location near the highway made it highly unlikely to be found when its nether area was kept clear of portals, but it also meant that open portals were especially risky. The second base hunter to come, Windeth, assisted in cleaning up nether portals after seeing the base, while the third came on April 9th using a burner alt named JDB2411, which had no recorded playtime and immediately logged out after coming into render distance of one of the base members. This caused immediate suspicion among the base members, who decided to make a last-ditch effort to complete RICELAND1's 'Son of Veles' late that same night in advance of a self-grief.

Near the end of the day on April 9th, Dima788 contacted Galvatron and Joey with proof that Snippykeegan_ had been trying to sell the base to him in exchange for a month of priority queue. They thanked him, world-downloaded the base, moved out the remaining materials, and self-griefed from April 9th-10th along with HURTLOCKERBECK, YoMoBoYo, RICELAND1, and Universin. Owing to Snippykeegan_'s membership in other bases, they also self-griefed Elsweyr and Aeolus in order to prevent them from potentially being sold after word about what had happened became public. Following the base's grief, xrayessay released a unique animated video of the base.

Main Area
The style base-wide was in homage to Dubrovnik, and was therefore built in a vaguely Baroque style. The main palette was inspired by both the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and also by Scribblefoxx’s builds at Mu and Smibville. It consisted of stone brick foundations, quartz walls, terracotta & brick roofs, and various wood types for detailing. While there were some variations to this palette across the main area, it was fairly consistant throughout the main area of the base. Nearly all builds throughout the base were made with interiors, and many were made as tradesbuildings, such as a blacksmith’s or a bakery. Much of the base was also decorated for an in-game celebration of smcz19’s promotion to the Astral Council.

Other Areas
The swamp district’s style was much more free-form, although the central theme revolved around nature, and the palette contained many green and brown blocks to better fit the location. There were also many fantasy builds, such as cpybaras giant gnomes, and Aresyl’s giant tree.

The beta district to the ast ofthe main area was built by borkiee and Ranlen using only blocks available in Minecraft Beta

Iron bar Sky roof
Dubrovnik’s Sky roof was made of iron bars, a common feature of Astral Brotherhood bases which is meant to limit usage of glass, while also protecting from lightning. At just under 280,000 iron bars used in the sky roof, Dubrovnik’s is the largest iron bar sky roof constructed on 2b2t to-date, and the second largest sky roof overall, behind Sky Masons’s.