Season of Scenery/Dungeons and Dragons Master Forge Complete

I got the Master Forge done in time for the game.  Now that's over, I'll show it here. 

You might want to refer to the adventure playthru for more details of what things were and how the heroes interacted with the terrain.  I gave more details on the construction and planning in an earlier post, which, again, may prove useful to review.

The Master Forge

I built four levels of the forge and mapped out the remaining levels and the surrounding cavern and a little bit of the mines on dot and cross paper.  The roll I got last year is still going strong.

The four levels have two entrance/exits to the cavern surrounding the Forge. They are connected by stairs or ramps, and a lift shaft also links them, giving explorers options when moving through the structure.

Basement 

The basement

Basement from the other side

Steps lead up to the ground floor and the lift platform rests on the stone flagged floor. 

The base of the furnace occupies one corner. 

Four pillars surround the centre and wooden walls block this area off. 

Ground Floor (casting floor)

The Ground Floor

Ground Floor from the other side

Doors lead out into the cavern (though they were unusable in play due to the water pressure behind them), and a wooden ramp leads up to the mezzanine level. 

The centre of the room is a pit of sand, used for casting from the furnace, which can pour molten metals into it.

The heroes never fully drained the cavern, so didn't enter through the main doors.  If they had done, this is the view they would have seen.

The view from the door

First Floor Mezzanine 

The mezzanine level

Mezzanine viewed from the other side

There are large voids in the wooden floor, effectively making the ground floor and this floor one space. 

A wooden ramp leads up to the next level.

There are two doors in the furnace at this level, with flooring allowing the dwarves to access them (for hand pouring of the more precious metals).

Second Floor (ore loading)

The Ore Loading area atop the lower levels

And from the other side

A door leads to a bridge over the cavern, ore was brought in on carts when the Master Forge was in operation.

The top of the furnace is here, with shuttered openings for loading the ore and other substances for the smelting process.

A wide flight of steps lead up and then divide, both arms end in locked doors on the next floor, the Crafting Level.  This level had previously been explored by the heroes, hence it had a low priority when it came to building the terrain.  In fact, it never got beyond being drawn out on paper.

Construction 

As mentioned previously, I used the Crooked Staff method (using corrugated and thin card with the textures printed on paper and stuck to the card) on Fat Dragon EZ Lock Dungeon terrain including the Hall of the Mountain King set.

This did lead to some changes; the original map had stairs and ramps that ascended at 45°, but the card terrain sets have a shallower angle, so I had to account for that. Initially the floors were 20 foot apart, but this would have meant a lot more space for stairs, so the ceiling height became a mere 10 foot. Mind you, it is a Dwarven building.

Walls and Corners 

Initially I wanted to craft sections of walls that could be removed as required. As time ticked by I decided to manage without.

But the upper floors had a tendency to sag, especially at the edges, so I built corner pieces to act as supports and a visual reminder that there are ten foot walls around each floor.

In play, with the floors separated, the corners can be removed.

The Furnace 

I wanted the furnace to look impressive. There's a nice one in the Halls of the Mountain King set (partly why I decided to use it). In the end, though, it wasn't really what I wanted, so I used some of those textures on a Pringles tube cut to size. Other features on the PDF were repurposed to make the fittings on the structure, such as the little doors and the chute.

The Vault of the Fang

The climax of the adventure took place in a strange extra dimensional space. This was simply drawn out (mostly because this was a late addition to the adventure and I didn't have time to do the concept justice in a rushed 3D build).

The tooth was a plastic fang from an old Halloween necklace, trimmed and mounted on a clear base. 

The crystals were taken from a piece I made for the 4E campaign, dismantled for the purpose.

And that's it.

I probably put a bit too much effort into this, but I do want these occasional sessions to feel special. 

As I was building the forge, I was aware that it might be a fancy setting for a mediocre adventure. Fortunately those Fornits seemed to do their job just in time.

What's Next?

Well there's still some time left for the Season of Scenery challenge, and I do have some (lots) of unfinished stuff.  Hopefully I'll get round to finishing some of this off.

Season of Scenery 26: The Masterforge, Planning and Progress

Warning: this is another one of my long rambling posts where I go through various options and choices prior to actually doing anything. Hopefully it's interesting to the reader, it's certainly useful for me.

A Bit of Background 

The online D&D campaign is currently set around the Dawnforge Mountains, site of Nentir Vale's largest settlement, the dwarven city of Hammerfast. 

Back in 2010 WotC released a sourcebook covering the city and the region, incidentally mentioning three further dwarven settlements and various adventure sites.  One of these was my original plan for the session, but various side quests and distractions mean that the focus is still very much on the dwarven side of things, the Valley will have to wait.

I've taken one of those settlements, Highpeak, and developed it to tie in with Tharnak Thunderforge's (dwarven paladin of Kord) background. The heroes are seeking the ancient forge of the Thunderforge clan and are attempting to reclaim it, hopefully discover more of its history and uncover the truth behind disquieting rumours about the clan.

The Master Forge 

The forge is multi level, in fact the party have already explored a couple of them. Some areas have walkways, giving the potential for 3D encounters, and there's plenty of smithing type equipment lying around.

Initially I'll focus on the large ground floor room with the walkways as being a good place for action, and the space that translates least well to a 2D floorplan.

If time allows, I'll expand further to other levels.

How to Build an Arcane Forge

The Crypt of the Vampire Knight used Crooked Staff's Dungeon in a Box, with a few additions. It's a great system, and has lots of uses beyond the adventure. 

The Master Forge, however, is quite specific, and is unlikely to be used beyond this adventure. 

I much prefer multiple use terrain so I'm hoping to keep this build pretty simple; no point in putting a lot of effort in for one game (yeah, right).

I'm was going to use some of the Crooked Staff Print and Paste terrain; it's quick to build and produces a pretty sturdy result. It also uses mostly scrap materials (apart from printing off the textures and standard hobby consumables such as glue), and Kris has recently done some very nice dwarven textures.

But then I remembered that I already have Fat Dragon's Halls of the Dwarven King EZ Lock set*.

I've used Fat Dragon stuff in the past, most notably for the Lost Library (a truly epic build, if I do say so myself), but I found the thin card construction was prone to damage and the whole thing was fiddly to assemble and used quite a bit of white card for printing. 

If only there was a way to combine the two???

Of course there is; it's easy. 

Simply print off the Fat Dragon textures on paper, cut out the bits (ignoring any tabs etc), then proceed using Kris's method of corrugated cardboard and cereal box card.

The end result is much more robust than the original Fat Dragon builds, and quicker too.

I do need to get a bit neater with the hot glue gun though.

Once I got going, I got quite inventive with the textures, and even used some Crooked Staff stuff (Episode 51, Broken Wooden Floors) to build the ramps that connect some of the floors.

Current Progress with Spoilers

(While I don't think there's too much sensitive stuff here for the players, there will inevitably be stuff that you might rather be surprised by. I'll try and keep any spoilers to a minimum).

I've got the basic floor plans of four of the levels done now. There's still the walls (which will be removable for ease of play), should I decide to do them and if time allows, and a few more pillars and steps.

I also want to make some bits and pieces to help show the purpose of the building; benches, tubs or carts of raw materials, possibly an anvil or two, if I get as far as the Crafting Level. 

The furnace, heart of the structure, is also important, hence the following...

True crafters want the container, not the contents 

Textures ready for application,  plus a few other bits and pieces 

The furnace takes shape

I toyed with various designs for the furnace. There's a rather nice one in the Dungeons of the Mountain King set, octagonal in section**, but I wanted something bigger. My original map on Dungeon Scrawl has a round icon about fifteen (scale) feet in diameter. That's three inches; roughly the diameter of a Pringles can! I'm not personally a fan of the contents, but they're slowly being eaten. 

Then it's just a case of applying suitably dwarven textures and some greebles to indicate some sort of functionality and control.

Hopefully I'll get enough built for the game.  There'll be a report on here afterwards, and I'll share pictures of the finished forge afterwards.

What's Next?

Well I've also been assembling minis for the game, though there seems to be less required than last time, and many of those are already painted.  

Scenery-wise, there's still a good chunk of time left in the challenge, so I might take the opportunity to finish some stuff off.

*Fat Dragon Footnote

I haven't linked to Fat Dragon's stuff.  I do like to do this as I believe that we in the hobbysphere can help promote buisnesses that we find useful.

However, Fat Dragon no longer produce 3D card terrain sets, having moved over to 3D printing quite some time ago.  

I've nothing against 3D printing, but I don't think I'll ever invest in one.  I note that they now do files for printing some of the Halls of the Dwarven King set, those dwarven statues look great!

They still sell files from printing off 2D paper tiles (Copper Dragon), which are worth a look, though there are quite a few other options for this, the 3D card stuff was far harder to find back then.

P.S. if anyone can find links to legitimate sources for this stuff, I'll happily add them here.

**Dwarves love octagons.  Peter Jackson taught us that (or rather Alan Lee did)