More Moria, or: A classical 'Lost Dwarven Mine' terrain set

[Draklith]

Absolutely fantastic...the dwarven runes clay stuff is awesome bro...need to research your posts, apparently I missed that one 

Seeing a table top set up of your pieces with some minis would be cool    just sayin 

[tauster]

I started a set of dwarven scatter terrain pieces ...months ago. The cardboard was primed and stamped (same technique used as here), and then they gathered dust while summer went by. Now halloween is approaching fast and I finally got 'em finished.







The gears and butterflies are resin casts. I didn't glue the complete butterlies on the bases because I want to be able to move them around. The story behind them, in short:

As the party had entered Tethyamar from below, they will enter the deepest caverns of the fallen dwarven kingdom first, slowly and with great losses fighting their way out. And what's in the deepest caverns? The legendary Forbidden Forges: All those doomed projects that have failed catastrophically, with obvious results (stuff that is partially melted down or exploded)... and then there's spectacular works that seem to be just fine, crying out for the members of the Mithril Legion (the all-dwarven party's name) to use them. Of course those are the real dangers, like those metal butterflies: To the sages and smiths in the party, it is obvious that they are made by dwarves and elves in cooperation. They are highly magical, and it is clear that by strapping them on like a backpack, the wearer can fly. What will become painfully clear when they do actually strap them on is the exact kind of failure: Thin and sharp metal spikes bore into the flesh of the poor guy, permanently bonding with the wearer. Ouch.

Each round of flight will cost 1 HP, either automatically or after a botched saving throw. Depends on whether I feel cruel or not, or when the party makes too much progress too quickly.

[tauster]

The first batch of LEGO bionicle parts has been based in black:



Next steps:
- paint in metallic black
- silvery highlights
- orange drybrushing (rust)

alternative:
- paint in metallic copper
- a light green-blue wash (verdigris)
- dark brown or black drybrush (dirt effect)

Both variants should look good, as those dwarven smiths worked with several metals. I might paint some parts only with the metallic black, which looks like I imagine adamantium. Really, whatever metallic colors you have, you couldn't go wrong here.

[tauster]

not much difference visible in the pic, but I'm done with the metallic tones:

[tauster]

Took me a while to get 'em done, but I just finished this batch. And wow do I love them!


(without flash)

Close-up with flash:



This really belongs to an ancient dwarven forge. I will eventually experiment with other metallic colors, but I didn't wanted to overdo it and it just looked right, plus painting all pieces in one go saves time, big time.

There's already another idea floating somewhere in the back of my head for a very long time which will see these pieces used again after the encounters in the Forbidden Forges: For years I wanted to do a large set of scatter terrain pieces for a 'giant planar junkyard' setting.

What I have in mind is a half-dozen large and high piles of rusted junk, plus lots of smaller pieces. I have already filled several boxes with stuff that could be assembled into piles and painted (probably not in this direction, as it is better to first paint the individual pieces up and then glue them together, at least toe top layer). However I always had the feeling that the pieces I had didn't look convincing enough. With this LEGO bionicle stuff, I have the perfect pieces for the topmost layer of metallic junk piles. And I can use that texture rolling pin with the dwarven runes (see here, here, here and here) to throw some broken pieces into the mix!

[erho]

That rune roller is killer!!!!

[tauster]

I made a batch of paper mache castings in July...

 

...that had been sitting in a box, patiently waiting to be painted up.



Now that I have the LEGO bionicle items done, I can finally continue with the paper mache stuff.


Basepainted black...




...then a metallic black and two silver colors (the last and brightest one being Citadels Chainmail Silver).




From there I can go in two different directions: One would be drybrushing with Citadels Macharius Solar Orange for a rust effect, the other a wash with a very dark but watery purple. The latter will be used in a Forbidden Forge terrain set thematically linked with the plane of shadow. The upper left pile is still unpainted.




Detail shot
(without flash)


I haven't yet decided what the cross-shaped structures are going to be. Every idea is welcome!

For all newcomers who didn't read the previous pages of this thread: The context is a dwarven mine of Tethyamar in the Forgotten Realms, an ancient dwarven realm where the most skilled runesmiths worked together with the archmages of Netheril, supplying metalwork to their high magic projects. Some projects were failures, some were abandoned because they were successful, but the consequences turned out to be unacceptable to the dwarves. Some of these projects were not destroyed outright but locked away below the deepest halls of Tethyamar. All recordings of them were erased from official dwarven history and all participants swore to never mention them again (which was probably backed by powerful geas spells). Eventually a body of myths and legends grew around these Forbidden Forges, told only in whispers among dwarves, and (almost) never when non-dwarven ears were nearby.


This went on for centuries until Netheril fell. In recent history, i.e. the last dwarven generation, about 250 years prior to our game (1372 DR, before the events of 3E), Tethyamar itself fell to the onslaught of orcish hordes backed by barghest sorcerers. There are still living dwarves who remembe the lost battles and, and their children and grandchildren dream of retaking the realm.

We're playing a dwarves-only campaign, where the Mithril Legion intends to use a series of well-prepared hit-and-run strikes against the orcs in key locations, weakening their defenses at critical points so that later a small dwarven army can retake the whole realm.

Their initial strike was against one of the lesser gates in the Desertsmouth Mountains where they stormed the gates successfully with about 30 dwarven veteran fighters, a small number of mages, clerics and thieves and two extra fighters (4 players, each playing 2 characters, plus 30 NPC). In the very first battle they lost about a dozen good dwarves because the PC were unable to help them when they became surrounded by summoned slimes and gelatinous cubes. That high loss of brethren was a real shock for them. Not only the characters wereshocked but also my players, who had never before seen the DM kill such a large number of allies (it was pure luck that no PC was among the dead). Used sparingly, killing allies en masse is a very powerful tool. It really drove home the point that this mission is extremely dangerous. The players decided to play it a bit safer from then on, but the swarves nontheless stepped in a teleport trap their thief had missed to find.

When they had blinked the teleport-induced daze out of their eyes, they found themselves in a cavern deep in the Underdark (thats what their dwarven senses told them)...  From now on they have to solve this dungeon from the deepest levels up. And we all now that the most dangerous stuff is in the lowest level, right?

Thats where the Forbidden Forges come into play: They are what the dwarves of old put in the lowest levels, so thats what the party will stumble upon first. They will be able to use some of this powerful weapons and artifacts, but always at a price, which won't always be clearly understood but will always turn out to have been too high.

They will discover flying devices that can be donned but never again taken off, at least two powerful tanks (see here for the idea), planar rifts (the Shadow Forge) that can't be controlled reliably, and so on. Without utilizing this dangerous stuff, their chances of fighting their way up from the bottom of the realm and through the masses of enemies is about nil, so they will realize that they have to pay whatever price the Forbidden Forges charge.

Again: Any ideas are welcome!


[edit]
Do these look like convincing scrap piles of dwarven high-tech to you?






I haven't glued them together for now, just tried to arrange them. Should there be more small parts between the large items? Any other ideas how to make them look more realistic/convincing?

[tauster]

I glued the bionicle pieces together, but I kept some parts single so I can use them with more flexibility on the table.



...oh, the black wheels in the background? Glad you asked!

I had found another cool-looking type of pasta. Seriously, could you see a bag of pasta looking like wheels and not buy them? Yeah, me neither.



I dipped them in watered-down black as a basecoat (I had spend the same amount of time for the first one with regular brush-painting that I needed for dipping all of the others), then left them to dry.



While drying, their lower side rested in a puddle of water & color while the upper part slowly dried, resulting in warped wheels. Every second of them split open, and many broke during the next painting steps. But that was totally OK, because I need them for heaps of scrap. I couldn't have made them so scrappy-looking if I wanted to. I painted a metallic black over the basecoat, then drybrushed a silver over, plus orange for rust.

I cut out some strong cardboard bases, took a few poker chips, based them black and stamped them grey with a hotglue stamp I had cast from a silicone moulding (stamping is a great way to make even larger terrain pieces btw!).



The wheels were arranged with battlefield tactics in mind (height differences, cover, plus several tight spots) and superglued together. A bit of orange stippled around them and over the rest of the bases and the whole set is ready for the table!

[tauster]

I rediscovered some old castings I had made two and a half years ago from a some Warhammer accessory, while searching for something totally unrelated.



I made the mold in November 2014 but used it only twice to cast those cool GCHoD's (giant clock hands of death). The large casting was made with a very sturdy material (can't remember what, probably a white fimo clay), the smaller one is a simple hotglue casting.

Then I never really used the two for anything, because no idea popped up what to do with them. During the last weeks my favorite projects were those for the Forbidden Forges, so I thought of a room with a giant set of clock hands with a strong necromantic aura, matching the sculptings of the hand. I also want to have more 3D terrain for battles, so they got elevated with cardstock and textured with hotglue. I used up about a dozen long (20cm) hotglue sticks, beathed more fumes than was probably healthy and got a nice little cramp in my right hand. Sacrifice for the craft god, I guess.




My first though was that the hands would sit on giant rock supports, but the hotglue texture looks more organic than rocky, so I am trying a beige/toffee colored as basepaint, followed by a whith drybrush (maybe) and a dark brown and/or black wash to simulate bone. No, there is probably no animal that could have provided bone material for this large a structure, but that just adds another riddle to the heap of mysteries.



What this whole thing was? No idea really. Something related to death, undeath, the afterlife and similar magic I suppose. If it was a project approved by the ruling elders of Tethyamar's forge council (something I just made up) - and projects of this size couldn't have been hidden, so it is safe to assume the council knew of it - then it couldn't have been something outright evil. Unless of course it was a desperate means to some unthinkable end, i.e. there was something even worse that the dwarves wanted to prevent or defend against.

What's interesting is that the imagery is definitely non-dwarven: That's not a dwarf swinging the scythe but a human reaper figure. Which might point toward yet another commission the dwarves had taken from Netheril's archmages. If the hands themselves were made of metal, it would have required casting the a giant colck hands, which is more a dwarven speciality than something humans would be good at. Have to consider this when I decide how to paint the hands...

[tauster]

Made some more Forbidden Forges stuff.

Basepainted (black, then metallic black). The melted cubes are styrofoam that was carefully blasted with a heat gun.




Silver drybrush, then orange. The small cube on the left got a purple wash over the metallic black instead of silver&orange drybrush.



The story behind the melted cubes is that they were part of a higher-dimensional prison that was busted by a similar higher-dimensional entity, perhaps from the  Far Realm or some place where different natural laws apply. When it broke free, the cube disintegrated into lower, 3-dimensional (and partially melted) parts. The smaller cube is infused with essence from the plane of shadows (I have a complete terrain set colored like that, so the players will recognise what the metallic purple means).


Plus, I made more magnetized hotglue walking boards.




The neodyms melted into the outer boards are impressively strong:

[tauster]

Those hexagonal Smarties rolls... don't you dare throw them away when you emptied them!



Hotglue a bit of metal on the top and a neodym on the bottom, then hide the seams with hotglue. And resist the temptation to texture them completely with hotglue. Not worth the effort; even a medium paintjob should do well enough to give them some visual interest. I used the leftovers of craft knife blades but you can also cut old twist-off caps to size, or whatever you have around.



Basepaint them black, then paint them as stone pillars, using pieces of foam to stipple on some grey. Or do the 'rusted metal' version with silver and orange drybrushing. More pictures ahead.

The great thing is that you can put them on all kinds of magnetic bases and even stack them. Also, put magnetized statues or monsters on top. Magnets and metal are both hidden under a thin layer of hotglue and can be painted over, making them completely invisible.

[erho]

Are those smarties containers available in the US?

Nice!!

[tauster]

No clue. Maybe members from the US can answer that..?

[factoriatabletop]

"Those hexagonal Smarties rolls... don't you dare throw them away when you emptied them!"
hahahahaha

i know what you mean!
nice project!

[tauster]

The rusted variant doesn't look too bad, although I don't really like the combination with the hotglue. Either find other quick ways to add light texture or paint something different on. Or scrap texture altogether. Iron pillars should be smooth anyway.

Some other rusted objects for comparison, and mushrooms for more visual interest. One of them probably sentient.




Did I mention that magnetized pillars stack well?



...not that it would make sense in game, just to prove my point.

[erho]

[factoriatabletop]

erho...hahahah!


i dont know exactly why but add some magnets to our crafts is something nnnnice
keep it up Tauster, like your style!
Cheers!

[tauster]

Jan 5, 2018 21:32:20 GMT erho said:

I've seen this guy before but I don't know that meme. Who's this and where's this scene from?

[Caspan Edrogoth]

Jan 6, 2018 19:33:02 GMT tauster said:

Jan 5, 2018 21:32:20 GMT erho said:

I've seen this guy before but I don't know that meme. Who's this and where's this scene from?

knowyourmeme.com/memes/ancient-aliens

[erho]

TL;DR Aliens did everything that ever was