Dunjon of Death

[kitrok]

Hi.

I've been very busy recently trying to build out enough terrain for my Dunjon of Death "dungeon crawl" effort. The idea is to create modular terrain so that I can host dungeon crawls for myself and also bring it to gaming conventions. This is an effort that I've been planning for several years and finally got start just last year.

At present, I have an on-going series on my blog but once it is done, I'll bring all of the photos here as a giant pic dump.

In the meanwhile, please visit me at;
Dunjon of Death, part One

[PhilB]

This looks like a great project! You're off to a good start.
Why not post a pic or two directly to the forums here?

[Elk101]

Yes, we always encourage photos rather than just links to blogs, though I did notice that you said you intended on doing just that.

[kitrok]

OK. So I have some time now, and the first arc of my Dunjon of Death journey is completed; the one where I build my basic tiles. This is primarily a picture dump with some captions.

THE LAYOUT RANDOMIZER
Preface
This is what it started as a few years ago; the desire to have something modular for a dungeon-crawl game.  The tile identifiers are shown within each tile and its orientation. Start and End locations are shown too.



Which then became this;



Which became these tiles which I can shuffle and draw at random; the dice help me determine the "security rating" of the tile as a factor of distance from the Start tile.



The resultant layout I can then record on a grid here and add a bit more for notes;

[kitrok]

THE BIG PUSH
Overview
I have been planning this for maybe 4 or 5 years, and gathering components for about 2 or 3. In my industry (software), I find myself with very little free time except between projects at work. Recently I was between jobs and so I had some time to actually build these out.

Materials

• I had 8 x 4 foot MDF boards cut to 12 x 12 inches (or so). This gave me roughly 24 tiles.
• I also wanted the floors to be dirty but not with "flagstone" tiling .. and so I got a bunch of cork-lined shelving paper.
• And, I wanted the walls to be rough-hewn stone but not by cyclopean walls. Therefore I got a bunch of pink foam and a featherstone to add texture
• I wanted the walls to be relatively straight for modularity purposes, and so I purchased a hot-wire foam-cutter table.
• For the doors, I wanted a bunch of them. And so I purchased the kits from Zombicide and also from Dungeon Saga. I made the doors set into the pink foam and this allowed them to be modular.
• I wanted the walls to be black and gray to match my "in-world" blackstone materials (magic absorbing stone). Therefore, lots of gray and black paint. I also purchased some black primer paint to cover the MDF boards.
• To ensure that the black paint would properly cover the pink foam, I decided to mix the black paint with Elmer's glue. I bought the clear kind.
• I needed a T-square to measure things
• I also wanted some wall sections to be affixed using magnets, and therefore I purchased a bunch of tiny magnets
• All the other stuff; hot-glue gun. Lots of hot-glue gun glue sticks. And some artist's sponges.

I wanted the tiles to have 3-inch wide corridors so that I could place 2 to 3 minis (28mm scale with 30mm bases) across them.

Process
I do everything in batches; about 2 to 6 hours of effort for doing the same thing; measure (twice), cut, glue, paint. 

O' THE PHOTOS
And so here is the photo dump.

The Doors
Here's the bunch of doors.





















The Tiles
Here are the tiles. Measure twice, cut once!




This is my "measuring tool" for setting up the corridors and tile entrances;













I added these to the bottom of each tile to allow them to slide better.

[kitrok]

Setting up the wall sections
I decided to cut a bunch of randomly sized wall corners. I had already labeled each of my tiles to match my overall plan, and so these corners were mostly added to make the layouts interesting.



And then I cut a bunch of walls and labeled them. I squished them with a featherstone to add texture.















The Progress Thus Far







Need to Paint Stuff Black
This is the mixture I used.

[kitrok]

Dry-brushing
Brush up from the bottom. Dark Gray. Medium Gray. Light Gray. White on the edges.
















Add Texture
I added some lime green and brown as textures using an artist's sponge.













Numbering the Tiles
Just to make things look nice. These indentifiers are placed at the bottoms of each removable wall as well.






The Tiles All Together
This is what everything looks like together. I took this while standing upon my dining room chair.

[kitrok]

The Terrain and Obstacles
I wanted to have stairs, columns, and removable walls.












THE FINAL RESULT
Here's the result of everything added together.

Reminder
This is the plan.



This is the result.



The Game is Afoot
This is the view from the start tile. The start and end tiles are rectangular in my set, but any tile can serve that purpose as well.


















Within the Halls
These are the same layout as before, but the pics are from within the layout.

[kitrok]

If anybody wants the tile cards that I created, attached here is an early access version. I have a "The Game Crafter" version in the works, but I'm still adjusting it.

[grant]

Just amazing. What a project!

[Tungdil]

Great project!

[Sunjester]

That is seriously impressive, well done on a great looking project.

[Munindk]

Very impressive project

One thing wasnt clear to me, are all the walls on magnets or are some glued down?

[Gallahad]

Very cool! The walls turned out very nice!

[kitrok]

Very impressive project

One thing wasnt clear to me, are all the walls on magnets or are some glued down?

The majority of the walls are glued down. Except for the 3 start/exit tiles, all of the other tiles have one removable wall which is held in place with magnets.