By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes...

Making dungeon terrain and DM'ing often involves the "pricking of ones thumbs."
They may even bleed a bit. Winter is coming....something wicked always rolls in over the mysterious western mountains we have here, and with it, I begin thinking of the creative energy and mystical call of the gaming table once more.
Case in point, storytelling vs. rules.

Rules don't make for good stories.
Here is an example. Based on a true in-game event (thank you Sam...).

Scenario #1: Rules over Storyline
"Remember that time I moved 5 squares and used an extra turn to move another square and rolled a 20 on the polyhedral die and as a result, was able to remove the main appendage from the level 10 adversary and thus, deplete the foes remaining hit points to zero effectively rendering him out of commission for the remainder of the game?"

See. Boring.

But here's the same scenario when you ask the player what happened after a good nights game, even years later:

Scenario #2: Storyline over Rules
"Remember that time I snuck around the corner of that massive cavern and using night vision, peered into the end of the hall and saw a massive Purple Worm emerging from the crumbling floor of the Underdark, then charged straight at it and rolled a natural 20 with my vorpal sword, and completely severed the entire head?! That was AWESOME!!"


Meet my nephew. Sam. And his brother. Alex.
They had some crazy first-run D&D (3.5 edition) characters. A Dragonborn Paladin with a Vorpal Sword and a Minotaur with a massive axe and a temper.
There was also a human fighter of questionable morals with a pension for Drow rings and a Human Paladin with a Dragon spear and the nickname "Sassafras" too. Both of whom were simultaneously devoured, and then soon after regurgitated by a Gargantuan green dragon by the name of Thraxus Mystcleave...but more on that some other time.

See a few years ago I decided I was going to start playing D&D again, just for fun, with my nephews on Sunday afternoons when we have 8 months of bloody-cold winter here in Utah.
We have this great family ritual where every other Sunday, we all convene like a swarm of hungry, laughing, loud family locusts on my Mother-in-Law's home and partake of too much food, too much noise, a bit of football, and a whole lot of creative little D&D scenarios.
But when Sam and Alex were younger, what I wanted to give them the "imaginative hook" that was D&D, was a good storyline, and the understanding that in this world, you can do, be, and create, anything you can imagine. there are no game borders. there are no "bosses" or "level quests" or strict roads to take to move on. I did not want them to think of D&D as a flood of rules and regulations of what you "could" and "could not" do in this imaginative world.

This is the only way D&D will ever be better than video games. EVER. Sorry fellow old-school role-players...but digital media is catching up. But....it still will NEVER ever truly catch up to our own imaginations and tangible, realistic, three-dimensional terrain and hand painted miniatures.
No amount of pixels, virtual reality, or first-person, point-and-shoot-interaction with complete strangers will ever hold a candle to the worlds and infinite landscapes of the human mind. And THIS is what makes D&D better...forever...than Video games. ANYTHING can be done in the D&D world. And there does not need to be a rule for everything....this is why 4th edition failed.
Our entire lives are governed by "rules."
Taxes. School. Jobs, Laws. Signs. Bills. All of it.
In the D&D world...in the world of the mind of every single DM, lies the potential to completely remove all of these blockages to infinite realms of wonder.
What there DOES have to be is a storyline...a purpose...a memory...and that is the weight and responsibility and job of a good DM.

Make memories. not rules.
Storyline. Memory. Laughter. Tongue in cheek seriousness.

And more cloaks.
DM's should wear cloaks.
Sorry. You just should.
Preferably green.

Like this:

...back to The DUNGEON!!!

BACK TO THE DUNGEON!

Some scale photos of recent projects utilizing the Caverns of the Undertable project...

(creativedungeoneering.blogspot.com/2015/01/caverns-of-under-table.html )

An overview of the general layout of the dungeon. Placing encounter miniatures within the gaming areas, while the most imaginative and enjoyable part, can prove to be a bit underwhelming if revealed too soon. Thus, much of the dungeon, while visible to players on a massive, wargame-like-scale remains empty at first view.  

 A player character's figure makes his way down the stone steps beneath Cahz-Caligh' into the long dungeon hallway. Visible past the rock walls and jeweled rock formations lie the ruins of an ancient temple.
I always try to keep pathways wide enough to give the sense of "expanse" or size, breathability or "realism." while some passages are perfectly designed to be narrow, single-line advances in movement, I wanted this section to provide room for combat at almost any point.
When creating the under table environment, I used a varied surface color allowing for various plot lines. this could be both a rocky stone floor, or a mirky watery tunnel, and colors could serve well for either purpose.

A brazier with flames - made from a wooden door pull and a bit of dried hot glue. I painted the barrel shape with a charcoal black and dry-brushed with a licorice for a more worn, "old-iron" type look. I then painted the epoxy in varying levels of intensity with both yellow, red, and highlights dry brushed in orange. I have found that when painting epoxy resin's such as this, starting with a thin base coat of yellow allows the clear surface of the resin to almost highlight through, giving the flame a sense of life and movement. 

Sentinel statues (or potential traps?) stand watch over a dilapidated stone archway, detailed with ancient runes inset. Each sentinel is a simple plastic "Cuthulu" miniature, painted in a stone grey and washed with a black before being dry brushed in a slightly lighter grey shade. The Combination of the three paint layers provides the look of old stone, mottled and dirty. The archway was sculpted from DAS clay available for an affordable price at local hobby supply shops, and then painted in various layers of stone shades. The runes were sculpted into the clay giving only a very slight hint at their presence. This allows the DM to either decide to use these or not, depending on storyline. Multiple options, multiple story hooks, and multiple game uses, all each potentially different and unique. 

 

From within the arch lurks in the distance, the larger main cavern, and a lurking black pudding, perched against a craggy stone corridor corner.

The old temple ruins at the far end of the main hall reveal a damaged sarcophagus and ancient pillars. Again, the cavern floors color variation serves well to give the hint of old stone, while allowing mystical color waves of purple-hues to come through, witch for my dungeon cavern set, matches the Gale Force 9 Underdark set well. 

In the distance of the cavern lies a large mound (War Torn Worlds, from their fantastic Places of Mystery line), past the crystalline stalagmites  (made from epoxy and painted in silver and amethyst metallic hues, sealed with a  clear gloss) and through a glistening stone floored chamber. This reflects the slightly "shiny" floor of the Undertable under dark cavern model, allowing the surface to replicate water or smooth stone with varying colors. 

Sentinels, in a larger scale, matching those of the early passage way made from Cuthulu miniatures. These are larger scale models, but serve as great statues for modeling, and in an Underdark setting, are eerily similar to the D&D Mind Flayers. these were similarly painted in a rough stone grey color, then washed with a light black wash and dry brushed with a lighter grey to create a stone look similar to that of the terrain used throughout. This "modular" effect initiated from the beginning of every project allows infinite combinations of all terrain of multiple varying size and form, and yet they can all be put together in one giant set as well, depending on game and module size. The stone mounds are from War Torn Worlds, and the base cavern is actually a re-purposed reptile tank accessory, dry brushed in grey and purple hues, again, to match the other pieces of terrain. 

Lurking around the corner crevice beyond the Gale Force 9 stalagmites set is a waiting Purple Worm. This si from the wizards of the Coast line. In the foreground is a series of crystalline stalagmites made from simple chunks of dried hot glue and a basic cardboard base, painted to match the GF9 counterparts. The large mounds beyond are from the recycled rubber line by War Torn Worlds. 

The top of the War Torn worlds Places of Mystery Altar serves well as the pinnacle of the adventure, where the Orcus cultists are bringing to life the Aspect of Orcus with the required human sacrifice. All minis by WOTC.
While the dungeon is fun to build, and even more fun to run adventures through, The sides of the dungeon need work. When players look "down" onto the game table I want the sides to reflect the environment they are in. Side walls will be an upcoming project to hide the room this is set up in.
Lighting is also something I am still working on. Dwarves Forge of course does an amazing job with their ads for their Kickstarter Terrain with music and lighting. Some of which I hope to emulate in future projects...

The Dragons Head...Completed...

A Busy project weekend....

Here is what this started out as in the previous Dragon's Head Post:

-A thrift store toy elephant - $.50 (unused for this project...I have a hard time creating fiends out of such beloved animals...)

-An incomplete thrift store toy catapult - $.75

-Plastic bicycle cassette holder - free/recycled

-Cardboard construction paper tube - free/recycled

-Additional elements included paint, glue, and an old thrift store plastic dragon ($.50). Everything else was from recycled or re-purposed bits of scrap, wood, metal, chain, and paper.

The key to this whole project really was the plastic bicycle cassette holder. I am an avid and long time competitive cyclist, and geek-crafts and table top gaming were always the perfect way to spend recovery time growing up. A bit vintage now, and no one would ever guess at my "secret life" as a hard-core D&D geek and collector, but its amazing what bits of plastic, metal, wood, and paper can be made into given a slight "twist" to the perception. 

Some background on the Dragon's Head project:

 At a recent thrift store scavenger hunt (which seem to happen almost weekly) I ran across this partially-intact catapult. While it's far too large for 25-28mm miniature scale, it did make for a perfect size massive" accessory. But it was needing one crucial element...a personality.
From the depths of the Ursus templars Tower I found an old plastic Red Dragon; chubby, a bit "fairy-tale" looking, and spouting a long plastic lien of poorly painted fire. The perfect candidate for "adaptation." Originally about $.50.

My compiled parts list then became a conglomeration of a discarded red dragon's head, an old plastic bicycle cassette holder, and a cardboard tube. When blended together with some old plastic decorative teeth beads, a few small wooden barrels, and some bits of discarded jewelry chain draped over a small wooden dowel of wood, the form of The Dragon's Head began to truly take shape.

 The plastic dragon head was added to the front of the "ram" made from a standard cardboard tube. The ram was needed to look like a massive heavy tree log, but shaped, scolded, worn, and sued for countless raids and sieges, not a freshly cut pine trunk, but an actual instrument of war and destruction.
The cardboard was first lightly sanded, then scored with a small metal pick to give the deep grooves of tree bark and wood grain.
It was then painted to look like a huge heavy battering ram with a  solid base of wood brown and dry brushed with a darker shade of chocolate brown.

An end cap of cardboard was added to the rear to flush out the base of the ram's trunk and the dragon's tail was adhered with epoxy to the back for a decorative effect. Perhaps to be used for pushing the ram forward into large wooden castle gateways and portcullis's.
When parted out, the front claw of the dragon also proved useful to add a decorative hook for the front of the ram as well. Again, decorative utilitarianism was the look I was going for here. A fantasy device to be sure, but one that had seen heavy use and some descent amount of ware and tear.

 With heavily detailed projects like this I always like to think "it's the little things that kill" or, at the very least, "it's the little things that make it real." A bit of extra rope hanging off a stub, an old exposed rivet in the side, chain dangling carelessly off to one side...the real workings of a piece of war machinery but in a somewhat more "industrial" style since this is primarily a dirty nasty weapon of Orcs and other foul things.

 The Dragons head, while menacing in it's red colored scales, needed to look as if it was made from the same gritty iron as the large frontal ram spikes. I used a charcoal/licorice colored paint and then added dry brushed silver to give the spikes, the dragon'ss head, tail, and even front claw hook a light shine, like the look of old iron. A thick layer of epoxy was allowed to drizzle and drip and flow around the dragons head making it easy to keep it attached to the front of the ram within the spikes, but also to give it the look of molten brazen iron welds as well.
Such minuscule details are thought out and planned, but oft do not come out as visible as I would like in the photos. But ideally, these contraptions are for players, in person and at the table, where these minuscule details can add a sense of realism and wonder to the tabletop universe when viewed with the eye.

 An example of the small details that add this sense of "tabletop realism" is where the battering ram chain loops through a small ring atop the wooden swing arm, giving the impression of real function over form. The ring is actually a small removed bit of the same chain used for the pull chains on the front, but cut in half and glued to the wooden support beam, then painted to look as if it has been bolted into place.
The detail on the "wooden" ram made from the cardboard tube shows the effect of the dry brushing over the sanded and shaped cardboard beneath.

 The large "Dragons Claws" add a menacing look to the sides, and add some stark, angular features to the roundness of the wooden wheels. These are made from simple cheap plastic decorative bear claw beads, available at most hobby, craft, and even Scouting shops. They were cut flat, sanded at the base lightly, and adhered to the structures axles. The shiny black plastic was dulled with varying layers of silver paint to give the look of forged iron and rusted metal.

 You can never have too many small vats of fire when it comes to creating machines of war on an Orcish scale. The small wooden drawer pulls, turned upside down and field with epoxy takes on the shape of flaming pots of fire, ready to have arrows dipped and lit for the coming assault. Layers of alternating coloring in a yellow, and dry-brushed red and orange give each pot a flickering, almost unique and carrying feel. Also note that the epoxy was allowed to dry at a slight bent angle. This gives a slight sense of motion to the direction the device would be moving, with the flames arching ever so slightly backwards towards the aft of the machine.

 Just for size comparison, the device stands quite tall when compared to standard 28mm WOTC D&D miniatures. these three are a standard Aasimar Paladin, Redgar- human Fighter and a human Ranger.

The frontal chains fit eerily well into the raised slashing claws of two trolls from the WOTC D&D line, followed by the Human Torturer mini with raised whip. Background noise aside, the device is just a bit large for a small room tabletop battlefield such as this one, but creating story hooks from the advancing horde is easy enough...

From the outskirts of the small forest Castle, the Orc army begins to emerge from the barren hills beyond. 

Darnehelm Lord of Mur Crag balks at their initial advance, paying no heed to the hordes beyond, or their giant war elephant...

From Tentacles to Crystals to Puddings and Jellys...

Continuing the post on the Tentacles, Crystals and Stalagmites project, I finalized construction of the molded tentacles project recently to create modular crystalized bases from the scrapped tentacles project.

This project started as the creation of a form of mold for epoxy tentacles, but quickly deteriorated into scraps of hardened epoxy which made much better stalgmites, especially given the rough green foam residue from the molds.

Once a bit of crystalline purple was added along with a dark wash, the modular forms took on their own life and shape and augment the cave system I use already quite well. As I've discussed in previous posts, I use a purple-gray hue to my underdark modular terrain, and like the flexibility to add and subtract individual piecs as needed. 

The epoxy base is added with hot glue in a high temperature mix to a pre-cut fiber board base. The pre-cut crystals are then quickly adheared, allowing the epoxy to 'flow' and 'ooze' as gravity and shape dictate, thus giving them an even more natural look. 

When creating the three segments, I opted for rounded, almost kidney bean shaped bases to give a more natural growth pattern and randomized the crystals to add a sense of realism to the project.

Lastly, I added a thick varnish gloss to just the tips of each crystal, and allowed that to flow down into the recesses of each base, much the way nature drips mineral content over centuries in cave systems to create thevsane 'flow stone' effect. 

With remaining epoxy and hot glue, I decided to explore creating various oozes and jellies from the D&D world.

I always liked the odd, abstract, shapelessness to the Green slime, the Ochre Jelly, and the Black Pudding. but I also liked the idea that they, along with the Gelatinous Cube,  had some bizarre form of "hunting instinct" that called for arms of slime or ooze, reaching out for prey to dissolve.

I started with a fairly round fiber board base, to mimic that of other WOTC/D&D miniatures I use almost exclusively. From this base Ia dded a small "base" of resin, and began to adhere the armature. Because of the small size of this particular creature, I found that a simple paper clip, cut into various shapes and forms, made for a great armature.

From there, the arms were overplayed with layer after layer of epoxy in various states of drying.
The final result was of course, a clear mass of twisting reason, but when laid with layers of varying shades of black and purple, then dry brushed with a slight purple hue, the creature began to come to life. I added a thick coat of clear varnish to give the appearance of a "wet-like" surface and add a bit of sheen to the flowing jelly-like mass. 

The Dragons Head...

Let's see what we can do with all of this....
Thrift store toy Elephant  - $.50
Incomplete Thrift store Catapult - $.75
Plastic bicycle cassette holder (free-recycled)
Cardboard construction paper tube (free-recycled)

Tentacles to Crystal Stalagmites...

This project started out as an effort to create epoxy tentacles in a mold carved from a hard styrofoam.I created the molds in curling, twisting shapes, filed them with the epoxy, then allowed to dry. Easy enough.
But when I removed the epoxy from the carved molds, the foam stuck to the tentacles, creating a form of "flatness" or lack of shape to one side (visible along the top edge) as the epoxy settled into itself on the outer-most edge.







As a result, my "tentacles" came out 3 sided. More or less.
Lacking in the "roundness" and shape I desired to really capture the form of a twisting, reaching form. What the epoxy did do very well however, was form into useuable shapes that could easily be converted into stalagmites.

Peeling each tentacle from it's foam cocoon created a deep interior hue of green (from the foam) but also allowed bits of the foam to settle into the mass itself, giving the now shaped "stalagmites" various molds, growths, and bacterial lifeforms clinging to their crystal sides. A completely unexpected, and brilliant result.
By placing the various shaped stalagmites into random groupings, and adhering to a generic baseplate for use in dungeon terrain, I was able to create a series of small crystal growths that have an eerie, under dark otherworldly look and feel.

 

The small stands of stalagmites defy the standard "straight up and down and jagged" look by literally taking the crystalize-shape of giant quartz crystals jutting from an alien surface. 

By surfacing the ground structure each crystal was adhered too, the crystals take on even more depth by looking as if they are literally growing right from their own organic ground surface. 

While the epoxy was still hot, I sued a small tool to poke, mix, drag, and churn the hot epoxy into a series of undulating shapes and curves-think lava or underground flowstone. 

In the next update I will add color to just a  few spots to bring in a form of "cavern consistency" with the color palette I use on my own Underdark campaign world terrain, and to try to match these growths to the same realm from which other creations have come. I find that a touch of grey-blue or purple to the crystalline shape gives a magical sense of "glow" from each quartz crystal, and also unites these individual pieces to other modular terrain as a whole, adding even more possibilities for fantastic fantasy realms brought to life on the tabletop. 

Recreating Darkness...

One of my all-time favorite movies has always been Legend staring (unfortunately) Tom Cruise.                                                                    I'm not really a hater of Tom Cruise per say, but his "stardom" took a bit away from the films potential. But the movie, in every-single way, is exactly how I always pictured Falannessia - my campaign world, especially the Flanaes, or Oerth from the Greyhawk D&D realm. The forests, the light, the old-world fantasy feel...everything. That sense that shadow and darkness and trouble existed just beyond sight. Much like any good D&D or table top RPG storyline.

The lighting effects of the movie, the shadows and even the beautiful fairy forest scenes always appeared like something out of a dream. And i think I saw this at just the right time and place and it buried itself deep within my psyche of what a fantasy film should be. 

I re-created a module for two friends back as a high school kid where we essentially entered the Great Tree and attempted to free the Unicorn and destroy darkness, but fortune was not in our favor. As a result, it was our party's "Tomb of Horrors" and none save a very small few made it out alive. 

I always wanted to re-create a true rig table top miniature in the proper size for Darkness, the evil villain demon of Legend. 

I started with the Reaper miniatures greater demon and gently contorted, bent, and shaped him onto a subtle, albeit "first attempt" at creating Darkness. Creating the forward facing horns was easy enough through a bit of gentle nudging of the metal.

Creating the unicorn horn in his right hand was done through removing a single shaft from an actual unicorn toy purchased at a local thrift store and painting in a  golden-hued black to match that of the movie version. 

I immediately encountered two main problems, perhaps 3, with finding and converting this miniature into a true replica of Darkness.

First was his size. He really needed to be larger. 30+ mm instead of 25. While Jack from the movie was likely a standard Human or half-elf size, Darkness (played by Tim curry) needed to tower over a standard human miniature. The square Reaper base adds a bit of "eye-height"a s I call it visually on the field, but the miniature itself is still a bit on the smaller side. 

The second problem I encountered was the clothing that Darkness wore. 

In many scenes he is seen with a form of tattered black leather pants or disheveled armor of some sorts. His long draping black cloak looks to be the leather of some long forgotten beast, but almost had a "wing-like" look to it too. As a result, I went with a draping piece of black "leathery" wing draped over one shoulder. Better than I expected, but not ideal. 

The third problem was the skin tone. Throughout the movie Darkness is seen in a glistening red skin tone. Shiny, sweating, draped in blood, flickering in the firelight.
Achieving this would be relatively easy, BUT....it can also look very poorly painted and finished too.
It lacks the faded mate finish of so many professionally done miniature styles. Purposely making him "glisten" looked almost like it was simply poorly painted, when in fact painstaking efforts were undertaken to ensure that his skin did in fact have that reflective quality but his clothing, armor and cape did not.

All in all, a good representation for an ongoing campaign in the Dark Tree of the land of shadow, but I am constantly on the lookout for a proper D&D/tabletop RPG size Darkness.

A bit of Treasure, Cauldrons of Jewels, and Barrels of Evil

Depending on which artists rendition you prefer, be it Peter Jackson's (above) or J.R.R. Tolkien's (below), Smaug's Horde was a fairly sizable amount of wealth. 

Sometime ago I set out to create a tabletop roleplaying terrain version of a massive treasure horde (Smaug's Horde!) akin to a smaller, more "portable" version of Smaug's. 

Without an entire set of Dwarven Forge or similarly fantastic and awe-inspiring miniature terrain, there would simply be no way to capture a literal "room" filled with treasure...although I have something "brewing" in the works to do just this...future material for this blog for sure. 

After creating the Smaug's Horde project, I was left with a bit of extra epoxy, and opted to make a smaller more "believable" treasure pile. After all, if EVERY time players saw this same miniature as the token "treasure pile" it would quickly lose its splendor and the "curse of the dragon sickness upon this great horde" would fall victim to it's own splendor and eventually be for naught. Not to mention the great task at constantly adding up all the experience points, jewels, weapons, magic items, and coinage that every player would suddenly have from constantly finding such a massive horde.
This was done much the same as the larger horde, but with a much smaller pile of epoxy and less large-scale wondrous items. Costume jewelry still provided the majority of the light-catching splendor, along with a  few glass beads, and of course, the token "gold circular glitter of doom" which made for perfect 25mm gold coins.
But a true stolen dwarf horde should be far more than just gold coins and jewels the size of grapefruits (25mm grapefruits that is...). Cauldrons of jewels, gold, silver, and gems needed to be added in massive overflowing loads to truly capture the mens of awe.

This was done by first injecting epoxy into the open wooden cauldrons (A pack of 12 was $1.99 at Hobby Lobby, unpainted solid wood), then before drying, piercing the epoxy in hundreds of small holes with a small metal tool. I use a set of old walnut cracking spears, as these have a steel end that can easily be sharpened and were found both plentiful and cheap from a local thrift store chain. Once done, I let the epoxy dry, and bean dabbing single drops of multiple colors in layers: first red ruby's into the holes, followed by blue and even white for diamonds.

For solid colors, like in vats of gold or silver, I found that piercing the epoxy also worked well to create the sense of "texture," although leaving smooth like "liquid" would also work, giving the appearance of melted gold or silver cauldrons as well. Finally I painted the outside of the cauldrons in a black charcoal color, with a light faded grey stain to give the appearance of weathering and age. And since I was at it...I need a solid flaming cauldron, and of course, one with boiling hot lava and acidic green poison. Perfect for traps, dungeon dressings, and various evil plans.

For the fire, the epoxy was allowed to cool in layers upside down, then simply painted in alternating layers of yellow, orang, red, and clear coat gloss.