Two Year Anniversary!

Image: My hilarious mug and a reader-made, 3D printed, “Heavy Metal GM” D20. Jeff, this is the most amazing thing someone I barely know has ever done for me, thank you so much!

 

Up early on a Sunday, that’s the kind of guy I am. Anyway, hello! Thank you for coming to visit my humble abode! I debated calling this post the “State of the Blog Address,” but I think that’d be taking myself too seriously. Though, let’s be real, it wouldn’t have changed the informality of the content you’re about to read. As February 16th falls on a Friday (and is still some ways away), no time like the present to whip this one up! This one’s for you.

 

Surfing through all of my accounts this morning, Facebook had prompted me to write my story, how all this gaming madness came about. I wrote it, you can see it here, and it left me thinking a little. I started this thing two years ago! Already! That reality came like a slap in the face. Feeling like I haven’t done much, I’m a little disappointed in myself, but a closer look changes that feeling. For two years, I have been putting, what I like to call, “word soup” into the world; and by some divine stroke (probably not), people listen to me. As of the time this is being written, this page has seen 154 blog posts (this being the 155th, I’m weird about patterns of fives and round numbers), over 10,000 visitors, and an amount of experiences whose number and quality cannot even be measured. Because of this site, I’ve been employed for writing, experienced my first conventions (Gen Con 49 and 50, PAX East 2017), became a writer/editor for another website, met some beyond fantastic people, and have been recognized by some of the people I admire most in the industry.

That sounds like I’ve done a lot, though I’d disagree, but everything is owed to those who have supported me. And I don’t mean monetarily, the money that has been brought in by running this thing totals somewhere around like $200 since the start. That’s covered the one year, and the current one, of having my own web domain. It’s not a mound of loot I’ve produced over here, but I don’t need a mound. Never in my life have I been so proud of a little pile of stuff, this pile I liked to call my corner of the internet. People who read my content, people who reach out to talk to me about my posts, people who help me refine my posts by giving me input: you’ve built this site! All I did was provide the content to interact with. Time and time again, I’m humbled by the outright kindness and openness of this community. Of course, there are plenty of people who do the opposite, but every plank has its ugly side. Those interactions don’t matter to me as much, as they only rarely add something to my life.

In the coming years, I truly and honestly hope that this community will continue to be as awesome as it has been. From time to time I disappear, don’t post for a while on here or any of my social media, but know that it’s always on my mind. Fixing cars is no easy gig, and I’m in the actual process of switching into the office side of BMW service. Hopefully, fingers crossed, this will open up oodles of mental energy for me, as the physical wear won’t be so abrasive. Let’s make 2018 a kickass year for gaming. Together.

If you have the time and inspiration, I would love for you to comment, Tweet, or send me a Facebook Message about the first time you read this blog, first time you met me, the first time you played a TTRPG, whatever the hell you want. I just want to hear from you, so I can thank you for all the beauty you’ve helped me bring into my life.

 

Stay Metal \m/

Dogmight Adventure Case: A Year Later

In 2016, I received probably one of the coolest gifts I could imagine from the benevolent Fancy Duckie. The Adventure Case from Dogmight Games is essentially a wooden box to carry all manner of things for your TTRPGs. I previously did a review of this product, and in short, I absolutely loved it despite a few nit picks. For anyone who didn’t read the review or is visiting this post not knowing what to expect out of these  products, the adventure case has an insane amount of customization with some really quality craftsmanship to back it up. You pay for it, but you get what you pay for, without question. Also, Dogmight has a kickass policy when it comes to taking care of their customers in the unlikely event of any defects or shipping issues.  It’s been a little over a year of having this bad boy, and having been used every game night, so I figured it was time to revisit the scenario. Not much has changed in the scheme of it all, but there are a couple things I’d very much like to point out.

 

Metal Pieces

Overall, the metal pieces on the case have held up exceedingly well. A couple of the surfaces have some wear on them but nothing major. At a closer look, it almost seems like the polish is just being worn off from rubbing around in my backpack. An easy fix, if this is the case. Just run to the store, buy some polishing compound and get to work. Personally, I like the lack of flawlessness. It gives the whole box a bit of character!

The chape pieces on the corners are holding up nicely while protecting the wood. Pictured above is the only one that is giving me an issue, showing some signs of either dirt or a small amount of corrosion (too early to tell, methinks). Dogmight uses aluminum or brass for their metal decals on the lid of the box, I would imagine that all the metal fittings follow suit. This is good because both metals are pretty dependable and easy to take care of. However, I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure if the brass is actually brass or aluminum with a plating. They don’t really specify, and when considering the properties of the two metals, it doesn’t really make much of a difference for this application.

Pointing this stuff out feels really nit picky, as it doesn’t detract from the functionality of the case itself. The piece in the worst shape is probably the inside buckle. My best guess as to why is that damage likely occurs when opening the case, laying the top lid flat on the table, and opening the doors only to plop the faces down on the table while I transfer my dice from the top compartment to the lower. I could just open the doors with the lid upright, and let everything flood out into the lower part of the case. I’m not the chaotic type to let hell come pouring out of a storage container, but if you care enough about keeping this pretty, not a bad idea. I usually keep a lot of stuff in there. Both the hinges and the buckles squeak, but that’s nothing a little WD-40 can’t fix.

Inside buckle

 

Wood

This is where the real problem kicked in for me. For those who don’t know, I live in New England. We have a saying up here: “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.” It holds true, this part of the country seems to be in a constant flux of weather for whatever reason. To further paint a picture, it tends to be very humid up here in the summer months. My adventure case definitely showed me that it didn’t like all that extra water in the air.

It’s rather hard to see, but the wood on the door, closest to the top of the lid, has some wear on it. There’s definitely no surprise here. Wood absorbs moisture from the air and swells, I deal with it in regards to my guitars all the time. What had happened here, though, is it swelled so much that the corner was contacting the upper part of the lid and wore the wood down a little. Thankfully, the case was never difficult to open or close, but you could definitely feel that contact only on the one door. Since it didn’t sacrifice the functionality of the case, and it didn’t damage the case in a significant way, this is expected and quite minor. Now that it’s winter, it’s not contacting any longer and has served as a comical quirk of the case more than anything.

Looking Ahead

In full confidence, I can say that this thing took a year of some not so nice treatment and help up just fine. I fully expect that it’ll last me for a long time, and If I’m being 100% honest, this thing is my favorite piece of RPG equipment I own. It’s so practical and functional that when you pair it when the overall beauty of the thing, how could you go wrong? Just like in the review, I wholeheartedly recommend picking up one of these if you have the dough to burn. If you don’t Dogmight has a range of similar products to fit your needs and wants. Thanks for reading and as always…

 

Stay Metal! \m/

 

Especially when it’s that metal on kickass wooden boxes.

Norzul’s Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures Review

Disclaimer: WizKids did not send me these minis, I had purchased them myself of my own devices. Enjoy the review!

 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with models and figures. I hadn’t found tabletop games until I was 17, though. Every now and again I would meander down to the hobby store (in the classic sense) to gawk at the various historical models of ships, combat aircraft and buildings. The very idea of taking something from the real world,  making it bite-size, and someone taking the time to paint and construct them was (and is) just so cool to me.

When I got into tabletop gaming, I had a sense of finances and said, “NOPE!” to the idea of painting miniatures for it. You can only hold out for so long, right? Alas, I broke, and now I’ve been painting minis because tiny, detailed things are freaking amazing. Not having started young, it’s been a bit of a learning curve; and though I’m no expert, I figured sharing my findings is always helpful. Nolzur’s Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures is a product line put out for Wizards of the Coast and their ever-growing 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons by Wizkids. Smart move on their part, since Wizkids has been doing amazing things for Pathfinder and Heroclix in the model department as well. Not exactly knowing where to start, the price point of these really grabbed my attention. So, I started here and with some Reaper Bones minis. Since we all know what to expect from Reaper, I figured talking about these made more sense.

Being a GM, I decided to start with some monsters. Hero characters are cool and all, but If my players want high quality, painted minis for their characters, do it your damn selves! That’s not to say that I won’t be buying some heroes down the road, however. It seems like these minis are packaged in twos, unless they’re smaller creatures, in which I’ve seen packaged in threes. I started with the Bugbears, Gnolls, and Kobolds. Seven HD minis total for around $12 US is pretty good, if you ask me. As I had mentioned, they’re packed in twos, but the Kobolds as three. The deal with these minis is that they come pre-primed (white) with Vallejo primer. As a new painter, I was skeptical with the white primer, as black is a bit easier to hide mistakes and make detail come out. In the end, it looks like it worked out okay though. So far, I’ve only gotten around to painting one Kobold and the two Bugbears, and there’s a pretty solid reason for that.

I decided to start with the hulking Bugbear with an ax. One thing about the packaging/advertisement that really irks me is the pictures of the models themselves. Instead of pictures of the actual minis, it looks like they’re computer generated images. This projects an incredible amount of detail, more detail than shows up on the miniature itself, I’d argue. When I unboxed them, although I could see them through the clear plastic beforehand, I was a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, they look really good, just not as good as they look on the box. Oh well, for the price, I still can’t argue.

Having thrown out the box after I ripped them open, I don’t recall if they told you to use Vallejo paints or not. Since they’re transparent about the primer they used, I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t have Vallejo paints. I had started by buying Citadel and Army Painter, as that’s what my FLGS has. Apparently, that was a bit of a problem. The Army Painter stuff didn’t have too much of an issue, but the Citadel paints simply didn’t want to stay on the model. I got it to work, and look pretty good (if I do say so myself), but it wasn’t that easy. I would put a bit of paint on a part of the model and it would just run in all directions. It was like it thinned itself, quite strange, really. I would say maybe I got some bad paint, but it had no trouble on the Reaper minis, that I primed with Chaos Black.

Excuse the noise, I was listening to a podcast (Tales to Terrify).

After a bit of a struggle, the Bugbear was done. Let me tell you, the frustration was worth it. I absolutely love the way this model came out, he looks a little like a Roman Legionnaire meets a Gaul. Another positive point for these is that they come with plain, round bases that you can glue the model to after you paint it. No paint on the base? Good in my book! What confirmed my suspicion about the paint vs the primer was my experience with the Kobold. The Bugbear made it easy, as the model is bigger. A little bit of running is no problem when you have room for mistakes. That Kobold was so damn tiny, it was a complete nuisance. The paint tolerated staying on the more textured parts like the scales, but the pants, or loincloth, or whatever you want to call it was smooth and almost completely rejected it. As with the former, it came out halfway decent,even though I’m not 100% done with it.

My hands are clean! I just work on cars so I’m forever stained.

Here’s where the frustration really starts for me. I haven’t even touched my Gnoll minis. I felt like I had to gear myself up to do it. The bodies of these models are stunning, with some really interesting little details on their person. However, the face of the chieftain looking dude is a bit of a jumbled mess. Maybe that’s because the model is white and doesn’t bring out the detail all that well yet, or maybe I just got a bad cast, who knows. But the fact that it’s so hard to see what I’m painting makes it intimidating to start. The other one? You can see his face a lot better, but instead of it being confusing to look at, it’s simply plain. He’s almost featureless, the eyes are nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the brow/face. Swing and a miss on this one. I’ll eventually try my hand at painting them, but I need to build up some confidence first.

Overall, for the price point they ask, these miniatures are fantastic. Even with my concerns, I do wholeheartedly recommend them for painters of any skill level. Don’t let the model defeat you, plunge in and go to town. I thought I couldn’t do it either, but it actually worked out pretty well. It seems like these miniatures suffer the same problem as their pre-painted counterparts. Detail doesn’t translate from picture to model, sometimes it looks a little wonky because of it. The plastic seems durable, though, so at least that can be said.

To sum it all up!

Pros:

• Good price point
• Pre-primed
• Very detailed
• Can choose base the mini on provided round bases

Cons:

• Citadel paint seems to dislike the Vallejo primer they come with
• Box art is slightly misleading
• Cast doesn’t seem to be the best on face details (on some models)

 

I really hope this review helped! For anyone that’s had a different experience with these miniatures, I would love to hear your stories. Reach out to me here, on Twitter, or send a message to my Facebook page. I look forward to hearing from you!

And of course…

Stay Metal \m/

Total Rickall Card Game Review

It seemed a little odd at first, but crazy Grandpa Rick wrote the number six on the wall and you only conviniently noticed it now. Turns out the house has been infected by brain parasites and th number was so that he could remember how many people were truly in the household. Total Rickall is a cooperative card game put out by Cryptozoic Entertainment. The game is based on the episode of Rick and Morty which, for anybody not in the loop, is a cartoon on the late night program, Adult Swim. In the episode, the familyis subject to brain parasites that puts fake memories into your head, forcing people aware of it to question whether anyone you remember is real or fake. 

The episode itself is a confusing mishmash of false memories that is ultimately hilarious, a vibe that the game captures extremely well. You don’t need to watch Rick and Morty to enjoy this game, but seriously, why wouldn’t you? The game features character cards and identity cards for the board. You set up a 3×3 grid of face down identity cards and then flip character cards face up on them. The character cards are the crazy characters from the episode like Baby Wizard and Amish Cyborg. Representing the uncertainty of the episode itself, each character can either be real or a parasite. Character cards are color coded to help the cards in the player’s hand of action cards be useful, as they allow them to interact with characters of a certain color. Whether it’s shooting them or simply peeking at their identity, players are encouraged to work together but they can’t explicitly say what cards they are going to use or have in their hand.

That little rule makes this game not only strategic, but a hilarious form of roleplaying that is simple and fun. Saying that you have a blue shooting card is against the rules, but saying that one of those red guys are going to get smoked next turn isn’t. There are cards to shoot, peek at character identities, swap identities around, or even force other players to shoot charaters. You have to be careful with the shooting, though, because when four real characters are shot, the team loses. This mode of the game is called cooperative mode and is good to get the rules down. When your group is looking to stir the pot, there’s advanced mode. Advanced mode assigns players identity and character cards, making it so that players can’t be completely trusted as they may be a parasite. 

Advanced mode makes the game hilarious as it quickly devolves into players with “real” identities only trusting themselves. When your identity card is parasite, you win by making the real characters lose. When you’re killed, real or not, you’re assigned a new identity and character card, continuing the game. Interestingly enough, when cards are played where identities are shuffled, it includes the identity of a player with a character card of that color. In short, trust no one but your ammunition!

A friend of mine picked up the game because it was really cheap (around $10 US) and simply showed up with it one day. Calling the Avengers to assemble, we had four Rick and Morty fans total to play the game and it was a complete blast. Being involved in RPGs normally, the roleplay part oft he game became a huge part of the game, giving us an endless amount of laughs throughout the duration. It’s a mechanically simple game that we were able to pick up in just two rounds of play, making it a quick game to play. The only thing that could make this game take long is an indecisive group, because the only way to win is to get through the character deck and kill all the parasites. It’s safe to say that this game has made it into our options list for off nights when we don’t have enough players for an RPG. It’s a pretty easy game to find, as it’s on Amazon. Pick it up, gather your friends, and trust no one.
Stay Metal \m/

Icons and Conditions Review

Not too long ago now, John W.S. Marvin over at Dread Unicorn Games released a book called Gods and Icons. It’s a supplement for 13th Age RPG with a myriad of new Icons, class abilities, player races, and to augment it all, player races. Well, Mr. Marvin is back with a vengeance, with the accessory for the setting, the Icons and Conditions cards. Just for full transparency reasons, John was kind enough to send me this copy of the deck specifically for review.

Just to describe what these are: This supplement is a deck of cards, but not just any cards. Some have the Icons from the Gods and Icons book, while others have the standard conditions for 13th Age (hampered, stuck, etc.). They’re made of similar material to regular playing cards and seem sturdy. Additionally, there’s a card in the deck telling you where to find licensing info. When I first opened these, I was a little underwhelmed, but only because I saw the back of the cards (as seen in the featured image). It looks cool, the blue is interspersed with some black with some shades in between. I mean, after all, it’s just the backs of the cards. When I flipped it over, I saw the face of Commander Tyrvek, the Icon that essentially replaces the Orc Lord, sneering at me menacingly. The art from the Gods and Icons book translates really well to this tiny format.

Each card is formatted like a normal playing card, with the figure depicted on them both right side up and upside down. This serves a function though, as Icon relationship points aren’t so black and white as a king of spades. We can have a five or a six relationship rolled with each Icon, and depending on which way the card is facing, you can remind yourself of what you have.  I honestly thought this was a brilliantly simple idea that makes them utilitarian but still visually appealing. There is one minor gripe that I harbor towards these cards, and it’s that only two of the Icons on the cards have a backdrop. This is probably due to the original art, but I wish that every Icon had something interesting going on in the background. This easily makes Tyrvek and Aurum Rex my two favorite cards out of the bunch.

In the realm of practicality, these cards simply make sense. There’s two copies of each Icon card included in the deck, which is reasonably priced at about $14 US for the entire shabang. While this may immediately seem to fall a little short, it’s sensible in the light that you don’t have overlapping Icons between players too often. The only time I could see this happening is when my players decide to collaboratively create a party, which is honestly never. If that day does come, however, I can just pick up another deck. There’s a reason why I’m so quick to jump to that conclusion, and it has to do with conditions.

The conditions cards are a tad boring to look at, but they serve their function one hundred percent. The layout of the information makes finding the condition you’re looking for to hand to the victim player easy. Being one to quickly overlook things, it’s convenient that the title of the condition is in big letters to see while hastily shuffling through the deck. I keep track of conditions using the little rings from plastic bottles to place on miniatures, which is great, but I often have to remind players of what the conditions do. This makes these cards invaluable, as I can take the heat of running the game off of myself a little by handing the affected player one of these bad boys.

If you’re a sadistic GM like me, and enjoy stacking up the conditions on players, the number of which may be problematic. There’s three copies of each condition included in the deck. In my group, I have six players. If each of those players end up getting the same condition, two players will have to share a card. Much like the situation with the Icons cards though, I feel like most groups don’t have the same condition going out over the whole party. My group is a little special in that regard (no offense, guys), so this could very well be a rare problem for people. In the first play-through I had using these cards, it never came up; so this problem is strictly hypothetical as of right now. Watch my Twitter account to see if it ever comes up.

All in all, the condition cards alone pretty much make this worth picking up. It saves you an insane amount of table keeping by thrusting some of your job into the hands of your players. Hopefully when my campaign wraps up, I can explore the loose yet deep setting presented in Gods and Icons to take those cards for a spin.

You can find this deck for sale at DriveThru RPG here and the rest of the Dread Unicorn’s horde here. Happy gaming, and as always…

 

Stay Metal \m/

Make Your Own Luck

So this is a couple years over due, no? Make Your Own Luck was 2014’s Free RPG Day offering from Pelgrane Press, foreshadowing the upcoming supplement at the time Eyes of the Stone Thief. It’s a prequel adventure to the massive campaign book that Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan so masterfully put together. Last night, for my Tuesday gaming group, I had the honor of GMing a game for once. It’s rather rare I do that, since that group is mainly comprised of veteran gamers that have been playing since the dawn of the RPG. It was both exciting and nerve wracking, and since I’ll be running this adventure at Gen Con 50, it was a learning experience.

The bad part? Well, I was pretty ill-prepared. The past week had been, well, interesting to say the least. I had only read half of the adventure, reading the other half while sitting behind the screen before game amongst the chatter of my three (a typically low number for this group) players. Thankfully, this adventure is straightforward enough that I was able to get away with it. By the end of it, I was nagging my players continually, trying to figure out if they genuinely had a good time or not. My performance was received positively, and my players had come up with really interesting characters to waltz through the horrors of Harrowdale.

Overall, the adventure seemed to be lacking depth. Not because of the content written on the page, gods no! But because I subconsciously rushed it along to reach the satisfying end. There’s three combats throughout the adventure, the last one being very tough. 13th Age has always excelled at keeping combat on the move, and this further solidifies that. Our game lasted about 4 hours, a little shy. Combat greedily consumed the bulk of the session. Dice rolls were rough, which certainly contributed to it. The role playing that did occur amidst play was very rewarding, albeit short. My PCs took one of the goblins scaling the wall and demanded he show them where the nightcandle was. They couldn’t see it (duh), so our water genasi bard use an Icon relationship point with the arch mage to make an elixir from his blood, in an attempt to attune herself to the nightcandle. The downside was that she was -2 to all defenses on the next combat for two rounds. Not a bad trade off to keep things moving.

With the bard, we had a necromancer and a paladin, Quite a strange bunch to be traversing through this adventure but it was certainly a blast. Stripping away all the personal touches that made this adventure fun, what about as it stands? Make Your Own Luck is solid, to say the least. The combats are interesting, there’s many avenues to take to solve the issue at hand and the GMPCs/enemies have just enough info for you to run them but put your own personal twist on them. The adventure has the potential to be very dark and horrific, though the Tuesday group doesn’t carry that atmosphere along so well. For that reason, I very much like it for what it is. The combat tables, as always, are immensely helpful and the rules tips sprinkled throughout make this a very easy adventure to run.

I honestly think it could benefit from being used as a vignette before you run your group through the entirety of Eyes of the Stone Thief. That probably seems a little obvious because, well, that’s what it is. However, not doing this as a one shot could give this dimensions that likely weren’t intended when written. This could easily be a two session game, giving your players a huge amount of personal investment in Harrowdale and the people within. This adventure is awesome, no matter which way you run it and I’m excited as hell to take some of you through it at Gen Con 50!

 

Stay Metal \m/

Artisan Dice: Jack Daniels Oak

“Sean,
We apologize for the long wait on yourhandcrafted dice.
Included is a complimentary assorted wooden d20 for the wait.
We appreciate your patience.
Thank you and Best regards,
Artisan Dice”

 

So this is the very late follow-up to my post about the ancient bog oak die I had received as a gift for Yule. My overall impression was extremely positive, and now that I’m using it more often, not being able to see the numbers can be a pain in the rump just a tiny bit. That doesn’t keep me from using it because, well, I’m 22 and haven’t suffered enough in my life yet. First impression of these guys? That’s not going to be an issue anymore.

Now before I get too ahead of myself, I need to address the most important part of this whole gift receiving thing. These were ordered well before Christmas Day, by Jessica’s father as a gift to me. I hadn’t received these until late February/early March (if my horrendous memory serves). That’s a long wait time, but it was clear that wood supply was short and from Artisan Dice’s constant Facebook updates, it was blatantly apparent that they were having some machinery issues as well. Simply put: I was not in the least bit upset about how long it was taking. I don’t mind waiting some time for a truly quality product, and sure it would have been nice to have them earlier, but I wasn’t wiggling in my seat in anticipation. Now, I did order a set of purple heart wood dice for Jessica that arrived around the same time and having not sent a complaint email, Artisan Dice made an incredible gesture on their own. The featured photo is the tin of purple heartwood dice, the small tin is one of their assorted wood d20s as a good will gesture for the wait, and a hand written note to put the icing on the cake. I was shocked, and asked Jessica’s dad if they had done the same thing with the order he had for me (I had an assorted d20 too) and he confirmed my suspicion. From what I know, Jessica’s father did send an email to them asking about the long wait time, but I’m blown away by this company’s generosity. It warms me that there are still companies that are hellbent on giving the customer a quality experience.

Now that that’s over; let’s talk about dice, shall we?

I’ve never had one of the wooden boxes that Artisan Dice offers, but even these little tins are well put together. As you can see from the small d20 only tin, the lid is fitted with this foam insulation on the inside to protect the face of the die. The housings for the dice themselves are made from some type of unfinished wood. It’s seemingly painted black and looks really good with the color contrast of my dice. The image doesn’t show it, but between the d4 and d8, they have etched into the housing a little maker’s mark (it’s in the shape of the state of Texas). It has no bearing on the product, but it does make for a nice presentation piece.

So, what’s the story with these? Turns out, Jack Daniels doesn’t retire their barrels until seven years after their whiskey has been aging in it. My thoughts on limited product supply were correct, for sure. The inside of whiskey barrels are very often charred, to give the whiskey a sweeter or vanilla taste. Any whiskey that comes out of America definitely utilizes charred barrels. Based off of logical assumption, that’s why the d6s have one black side; they utilize the charred inside of the barrel. The charred inside of the Jack Daniels whiskey barrel on the 6th side looks cool. These are the only parts with that charring, but the percentile d10 also has the slightest amount of it. It’s pretty clear this wasn’t intentional, but it still does look kind of nice. One thing I actually do enjoy about these dice is that the d6’s have pips instead of numbers. This shows off some complex layering of the wood inside the pips and is really pleasing to the eye.

Anybody who has worked with it knows that wood lacquer is really smelly. What’s incredible to me is that, though these dice are sealed with lacquer, you can actually still smell the wood itself through it. It’s a little odd that I smelled my dice, sure, but I’m a whiskey guy. Can you blame me? Beyond that, the charred sixth side smells different than the other bare wood dice. A rather trivial detail but, man, do I love it.

Sadly, the one thing I didn’t find in the note is exactly what kind of wood my assorted d20 is made out of. I’m no wood expert, but if I had to guess, I would say its some kind of walnut. The rich brown color really falls in line with my general taste in wood color and really pleased me. That didn’t sound like I intended…

I store these guys in my Dogmight Games adventure case, I take advantage of the felt lined rolling tray in an attempt to preserve these Bad Larries as long as I can. Sadly, this is where the bad stuff comes in.

One of the tips of my d4 took a hit, likely just from transport. The wooden doors on the adventure case aren’t lined, unlike the rolling surface. Therefore, when it’s in my backpack as I walk, everything is jostling around. Definitely not the die’s fault, but noteworthy. Also to note, the edges of all the dice are extremely pointy. This means that they’re sort of a target to become dulled or chipped anyway. I like how pointy they are, it’s certainly not a flaw. The die still functions just fine, but if this can happen during transport, certainly be careful while rolling. The points will likely wear over time, it’s just the way it’ll work. Bummer. Based off this alone, I would highly recommend you transport your dice in the provided containers to eliminate the risk of damage.

What didn’t dawn on me until I plastered this picture in the post; You can sort of see the pattern I was alluding to when talking about the d6. The wood naturally has this strange criss-cross pattern that looks really cool. Inside the pips of the d6s, you can see that they’re more like strands almost woven together. Nature is an amazing thing.

From this point of the review forward is going to be the cons of the dice that aren’t things that I could control (like my storage). The geometry of the d20 and d12 are pretty damn near flawless. The other dice, however… well…

Granted, this is a bit of a nit pick but if you look, you can see that the top point and the bottom point of the d8 aren’t aligned. They’re slightly offset from each other, which means the die isn’t fully symmetrical. That’ll without question affect the way this die rolls, and from what I’ve seen so far, not for the worse (heh…). I certainly don’t mind rolling well with it often, and thankfully my game group is lax enough to where it doesn’t really matter either. For some people, this may be a huge issue however.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, this asymmetry is extremely apparent with the d10s. It certainly won’t keep me from using them but I feel this is important to note. Quite honestly, I’m not too upset about this. It does bother me that the dice aren’t true and that they won’t roll well, but this is the risk you run when buying hand crafted products. Human error is a real thing, and although there’s likely some sort of quality control in place, sometimes things slip.

In blatant contrast to the bog oak d20, these dice are incredibly easy to read since the burned in numbers are dark where the wood color is light. Even when rolled in the darkness behind the screen that my adventure case makes in front of the roll tray (invest in the LEDs, people. It’s a good idea), I can still read the numbers very clearly. The assorted one, on the other hand, does suffer the same fate as the bog oak.

To wrap it all up, I do absolutely love these dice. They’re gorgeous, fragrant (not something you hear every day) and just feel absolutely stellar to hold in the hand. This set runs you 167 USD, which is pretty expensive. Like I had mentioned in the last review, you get what you pay for. Having dice made out of a moderately rare and certainly interesting material is going to cost, it’s a simple fact of life. The one thing to certainly expect going in: these are going to take a while to get to you. Be patient, you’ll be happy you were.

 

Stay Metal \m/

Artisan Dice: Ancient Bog Oak

With the holiday season just passing, I got some pretty cool gifts. Among them was a single D20 from Artisan Dice, a company out of Mesquite, Texas that makes normal and polyhedral dice out of a plethora of unconventional materials. All of their dice are crafted by hand and come with a guarantee. They don’t offer refunds but will replace any damaged dice, so long as you pay shipping. Pretty good deal, if you ask me. From desert ironwood and deer antler to  amber and titanium, Artisan Dice has no shortage of options for unique and splendidly beautiful products.

This (now concluded) holiday season, it seems like great minds have thought alike. I had ordered Jessica a set of the purple heartwood dice, while she and her father ordered me an ancient bog oak d20 and a set of Jack Daniels barrel d6’s. I swear, we didn’t collaborate. Today I’m taking a look at the ancient bog oak, seeing how that’s the only one I have on hand at the moment. No worries, though, I’ll be talking about the other sets when they come.

The packaging to endure the long trek here was stellar. Inside of the packaging, the die was wrapped in a 1/2″-ish thick foam, held around it with some tape. This keeps it from jostling around during the shipping process and potentially damaging the points or edges. It proved to work, for sure, because when I opened the package I was gobsmacked.

Right off the bat, the first thing I noticed when I unpacked this thing is that it was stunningly beautiful. The grain of the wood showed really nicely in the light, the numbers were engraved almost flawlessly. The “12” on it was a little off center, but nothing to really gripe about. The color of the wood itself is what really catches my eye. Darker colors are my favorite in wood, I’m in love with things like black walnut and ebony wood, and this fits my taste like a dream. What was shocking was how light it was, especially considering the material. It’s just about as light, if not, lighter, than most polymer dice that you see for sale everywhere. The edges and points are very acute, making this thing bounce and tumble like a stone down the mountainside when you roll it.

Here’s where the honeymoon wore off for it, however. I had rolled the die on my coffee table, also constructed out of wood. The good word here is that the die seemed to be balanced, not favoring a side. I didn’t do a salt water test because, well, wood. Apparently there was some debris or something on it (you know, as is wont to happen in most households) and it pocked up a couple of the faces and points on it. I hadn’t thought of it before I rolled, but it does make sense. If you’re rolling this particular die on a surface that is harder than it, it’s going to get a little chewed up. No biggie, that much makes sense when you think about it. However, that happening when you make the first roll is a bit shocking. I’ll definitely be rolling this in my Dogmight Games adventure case from now on, seeing how it has a felt bottom. I sense myself cashing in on Artisan Dice’s guarantee at some point.

With the beauty of this die being unquestionable, the weight of it being surprising, it’s only appropriate to talk about the size as well. It’s the size of most standard d20’s, which I personally prefer and am very comfortable with. This’ll sit nicely with my other dice that I keep in the adventure case. While the color is immensely satisfying, the numbers are a bit difficult to read, especially with the lack of overhead lighting in my game room. Not a huge deal to me, but certainly noteworthy. Some metallic paint would add some contrast and look killer, in my opinion. Perhaps a gold or a silver would help make them stand out. As far as voiding the guarantee, well, who knows.

I’m not sure when it was ordered for me, but on the website, the expected delivery time is between 6 and 8 weeks. That’s acquiring materials, making it, QC-ing it and shipping to your door. Not a bad turnout time, especially considering how popular this company appears to be. The shipping price that they slap on it ($12.00 priority mail from TX to MA for the full set of purple heartwood, in my case) seemed immensely reasonable, and paired with the time, I was very satisfied with what I’ve been quoted. With the single d20 weighing in at $63, it’s certainly not on the economical end. In fairness, it is hand crafted and a domestic company, which I personally love about them. Craftsmanship always has a price, this is no exception.

So, to shorten things a bit:

Pros:

• Stunningly gorgeous
• Hand made, quality craftsmanship
• Reasonable manufacture/shipping time
• US crafted
• Seemingly balanced

Cons:

• Expensive
• Soft material (in this case, can’t speak for any other materials)
• Human error (one slightly off center number)

 

Personally, I would definitely sink money into more that Artisan Dice has to offer. Even with some of the drawbacks, I am more than satisfied with what I have. The pictures that they have on their website doesn’t portray well enough exactly how beautiful this product is. I recommend this product, wholeheartedly.

 

 

Stay Metal \m/

Adventure Case Review

I’m not too big on receiving gifts, I’d rather buy it myself or watch other people open them up with glee and enthusiasm. It makes Yule a very tough season for me sometimes, and this time, I was definitely over-gifted. This year for Yule, I had received something special from Jessica, my significant other: an Adventure Case from Dogmight Games! It’s my first entry into the many accessories that exist for role players, even more-so into the “wooden finery” type sub-genre. There’s a long list of stuff from that sort of family of accessories that I’ve had my eye on for a while (I’m looking at you, Wyrmwood), and with this now in my possession, I’m even more excited to journey down this road. Just for transparency, she did actually purchase this. we did not receive a review sample of this product.

Dogmight’s Adventure Cases seem to be one of their most high quality products. I don’t mean that from a craftsmanship perspective, but from the sheer complexity of what it is. The Adventure Case is a wooden chest with a felt (or suede for some extra dough) lining for rolling dice. From there you can choose a whole plethora of things: A wood carving or metal design on the lid, the type of wood, felt/suede color, whether it has a bi-fold compartment on the inside, you can even order a custom design for the piece on the lid. Me? It looks like Jessica got me the dark walnut wood with a handy-dandy Mjolnir on the lid.

At first glance, this this is impeccable and when you decide to look closer, the details stand out. The intricacies of the Mjolnir design is mind-boggling, the fact that someone made that with the two hands they were assigned to is insane to me. The metal fittings of the clip on the front, the chape-like pieces on the corners of both the lid and the base, they all look stunning. Not only that, they are all neatly and securely fitted with screw of either the same metal, or the same finish at the very least. You can’t see it all too well in the picture, but those same peices (minus the clip) have this really nice scroll work either stamped or etched into them. The overall finish of the piece is very smooth, the only rough spots being on the surface of Mjolnir itself. Hey, what can you expect? If you sand that thing too much, it’ll lose all of the magnificent work on it.

Right off the bat, this worth the $120 or so that she probably paid for it (I’m making an educated guess off of the “Custom Case” section of the website). Before you go buy it though, there’s more inside! Wonders to be had. When you first open this puppy up, you’re greeted by a dice bag. Yep, they include a dice bag. It appears to be silk with some sort of polyester lining on the inside, but I’m not sure.

Immediately, you can see that I got the Adventure Case with the bi-fold compartment in the lid. The one that comes without that compartment is called the “Classic Adventure Case” can can be purchased for a little less than $100. Moving on, the felt on the inside is neatly secured, no signs of glue stains or anything like that. Not sure if it’s due to an incorrect measurement when cutting it, but on the left side it does climb up the siding for nearly 1/4″. Honestly, I almost wish they had lined the walls as well as the bottom of the case, just to protect my dice from being rounded when rolling them. Especially since I have some wooden Artisan Dice on the way! A very minor thing though, in my opinion. The clasp on the upper lid is identical in quality and finish to the one on the outside.

Opening that sucker up reveals some compartments, also lined with felt. A good call, I honestly think. It helps keep the whole piece looking consistent. The thin slot at the top appears to be for a pencil, a good lesson some people I know need to learn when coming to an RPG game. The longer side compartments are seemingly for dice, and since I’m a little particular about things, I separated my D20s and other types of dice. This feature very much falls in line with the way I enjoy organizing things. The bigger compartments in the middle are shown on the website to hold Pathfinder Critical Hit and Fumble card decks, but I don’t use those seeing how I don’t play Pathfinder. I’m more than confident that there’ll be a use for them that I can find. As a 13th Age guy, index cards seem satisfyingly sufficient.

Looking at the case open like this, it seems like it takes up a lot of space, and it does. Leading to probably one of my favorite parts about this thing, it almost never should be open like this during play. You can lift the lid to a 90 degree angle with the bottom and use the covers on the upper compartment to create this mini-GM screen with it to hide your rolls! It shows off the logo on the front to people on the other side, and the felt makes it not so noisy to use.

 

 

 

 

 

Using the case this way takes away the functionality of the dice sleeves in the lid but it is a very nice way to use this case. I have the 13th Age GM screen and I find that it’s not always wide enough to fit my open books and where I roll my dice. Before I’ve even used this at the table, I can already place a value on the utility  it’ll hold for me. Now that I’m done praising this product, it’s time to look at some of the drawbacks.

Firstly, it’s heavier than having just a dice bag or the plastic Very Useful Box for miniatures. It’s not cumbersome by any stretch, but it is a bit heavy. Sticking this in a backpack or something is the way to go, but make sure you have something protective between it and your books. Since it’s made of wood, this’ll without question mar up the front of your hard cover books. Also, it’s a bit noisy. The clip on the front of mine is a bit loose. Not loose in the sense of it won’t hold the case closed, but loose as in it’ll rattle around when walking or what have you. Everything has a bit of noisiness to it, but it doesn’t end with the clip. With hard plastic dice on the inside, it makes a lot of racket against the wood. If the inside were completely felt-lined in the storage compartment, it’d probably be a bit better but definitely not as visually appealing. Not something that’s deal-breaking for me. Taking this a step further, looking at the images, there are no rubber stops on the lid. If you’re not paying attention when you close this, it could be horrendously loud. More importantly than that, you could wear out or damage the wooden surface. Utmost care and attentiveness seems to be the key here.

What is a large drawback to me, however, is the fact that there are no feet on the bottom. No rubber, no felt, it’s just those metal chape pieces digging into your table. I’m likely going to add some furniture feet to the bottom of this thing at some point, but since I have a plastic game-table, this isn’t an immediate problem. For you card players out there, a play mat could be a quick and easy fix for this issue. It looks fantastic but those little bumps on the fittings will easily do a number on somebody’s table and ultimately themselves. I was a little confused by this, especially since their Dice  Chest products have legs that lift the entire wooden part off of the table. From a portability standpoint, this makes a lot of sense, for sure. However, as somebody who plans on getting a Geek Chic table somewhere down the road, this’ll be an issue.

This one’s definitely a nit-pick but it did stand out to me; You can see where the nails are driven in the hold the box together. I’m not saying that there’s just blatant little metal heads in the joints of your Adventure Case, have no fear. They did rub some sort of compound in there that matches the color of the wood to hide them, it’s just something I noticed. Importantly, they’re not on the top of the case, but on the sides. This makes them not as noticeable, which is great. Not a drawback to me, but perhaps important to know.

Finally we can look at the cost. The Classic Adventure case is pretty economical when compared to other products of a similar design/utility. At around $120. I’m not sure I would have ordered this for myself anytime soon, not because the product isn’t worth it, but simply because I was not losing out on anything without it. Okay, sure, I was losing out on bragging rights and gawking at its beauty, but I had other cheaper stuff that did the same thing albeit in different spots and ways. The Adventure Case as a sort of modular storage system is incredibly useful, make no mistake, but it’s not a 100% needed product by all gamers.

So let’s sum up:

Pros

• Immaculate craftsmanship
• Quality materials
• Clean-cut finish
• Customizable
• Very detailed
• Utilitarian design
• Simple yet elegant
• Portable in size

Cons

• Relatively heavy to transport
• Noisy to transport
• No rubber/felt stoppers on lid to ensure quiet and safe closing
• No legs for the case to stand upon
• No rubber/felt on the bottom of the case to protect the table
• Felt lining on rolling surface does not climb up the sides
• Expensive, but not without good reason

 

At the end of the day, I cannot recommend this product to you guys enough. If you have the money to spend and are looking for something nice for yourself to carry small bits of gaming gear, go pick this up. It seems as though intense care was taken into the design of this case from a utility standpoint, working within the limits that using wood as a material presents. As a person who values craftsmanship and appreciates a good piece of furniture (I suppose this falls in the same family), Dogmight’s adventure case is far beyond a pleasure to own. Even with the drawbacks as presented above, I encourage you to go out and have one made.

Dogmight doesn’t only make Adventure Cases, however. They do make a few other utilitarian type things with the same amount of customization and, seemingly by the pictures, quality. They have a website that you can go visit here. You can also find them on Twitter to receive promotional deals, photos of other products, limited time offers and the like.

 

 

And, of course, before I forget…

 

Stay Metal \m/

Moonsorrow: Jumalten Aika

Some of you may have noticed but for those who haven’t, I’m totally biased in the realm of Scandinavian, folk and/or black metal. I just love the shit and I love Moonsorrow, and although I’m late to the party, ’tis why I’m reviewing this album.

I have to start with my first impression, which was with their single Suden Tunti. All I can say is, “Holy fuck” simply because of the sheer volume this track brings. It’s a six minute track which is decently sized for a single. Once I decided to listen to the whole album, I realized I was sadly mistaken in regards to the length. The first track, Jumalten Aika is a whopping 12:43. That’s insane. This makes the aforementioned track seem like an interlude in comparison!

Now the album is only five tracks long. That was shocking for me to look at, at first glance. Once I decided to dive in, I started to understand why they did this with the album. The sound is absolutely HUGE! Their potency as a band has only refined itself, sounding better with each release. This album, although I’m impartial to Kylän Päässä, is probably one of their best yet. They very much carry that Finntroll-type of black/folk medley. It’s astounding how they make the two genres mesh, more black than folk. The minor choir presence in Ruttolehto incl. Päivättömän Päivän Kansa is atmospheric to the point of pure ecstasy. It also has a very nice interlude in the middle of it that reinforces the folk roots of Finnish tradition. A sentiment I am very thankful for. To tell it true, you can find these oases of traditional music throughout the album and it serves as an intimate reinforcement of what the artists believe in.

The first half of the album, Suden Tunti being the middle ground, captures a lot of the elegant nuances of the northern mindset. Whereas, the track mention in the lat sentence, brings that fantastical metal sound and does not fail to get the blood pumping. Standing alone, it is a fine track, but hearing it in the middle of the album completely changes the context and makes it a hundred times better. Not to mention, that freaking guitar riff. Damn.

The juxtaposition posed by the intro guitar of Mimisbrunn is very refreshing and atmospheric. I keep referencing Finntroll, but it just reminds me very much of their style. The track explodes into a similar riff, though with the electric guitar, that carries the same melancholy of the acoustic. However, this transition is more urgent and emotional in sound, passionate, perhaps.

Lyrically, the album almost seems conceptual. Playing heavily on both Finnish and (presumably) Nordic myths, it makes for an interesting medley of ideals. For the English translations of the original Finnish lyrics, it almost seems as if it is written in the Kalevala metre. Such a fact would be interesting, especially if done on purpose. It slips up here and there in regards to that theory, but still interesting to think about nonetheless.

 

In conclusion: I think this album is great. Musically and lyrically, it demands your attention tenfold. The length of the songs are definitely not for the faint of heart. But for those with the ears and the patience, it will pay off. Jumalten Aika is an album well worth your time.

 

Stay Metal \m/