Hirst Arts Castlemolds For Dungeons & Dragons

I am always looking out for new ways to enhance my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. Things that might help immerse the player and keep everyone excited. One thing people can do is buy miniature environments that player characters can use  to explore. The most popular of these are made by a company called Dwarven Forge.

My Fiancé Testing Out The First Castelmolds

The Dwarven Forge sets are very well made and are pretty much the cream of the crop when it comes to miniature environments. They are a bit spendy and if you can afford them, then by all means knock yourself out. But I have been looking around the Internet for something in-between a battle mat and a Dwarven Forge set.

Personally I hate Dungeon Tiles. So they where not an option in my mind. I would rather just use graph paper if it came down to it.

What I have found is a product called Castlemolds from Hirst Arts.

When I found the Castlemolds sets on-line I showed them to my fiancé who immediately thought they where a good idea. As excited as I was to have found them, she is the one who really pushed me to order a few.

Dried Molds

Casted Molds

As the name implies Castlemolds are molds. They are made from silicone and according to their website they will last for years and hundreds of casts. I suggest reading the “How it works” page on the Hirst Arts website to get a sense of how much work and money is going to be required for building a miniature set. When you factor in the cost of the molds, Plaster of Paris, Paint, and time the whole project can become quite spendy and time consuming rather quickly. But in the end I find it still costs less then going out and getting a Dwarven Forge mini set. Your mileage may very

Painted Molds

As soon as our first order of Castlemolds came in the mail my fiancé when right to work on creating the first set of molds, then another, then another, and so on and so forth. At one point she became quite the little multitasker, popping out hardened molds one moment and painting dried molds the next.

It took about three or four weeks of this before we had enough floors and walls made that we could use them for a full encounter. My fiancé even went as far as to glue felt under each of the completed Castelmolds peaces. She really did an amazing job with them. For the most part now she does the painting and I do the mold casting.

First Game With Castlemolds

Before long we were ordering more molds and expand the look and the feel of the Dungeons we can create. There are still times when I will use my battle mat and wet erase markers to lay out an area of battle. But as much as I can I try to use the Castlemolds sets.

Make Things Smarter

I often find myself thinking about how things could be improved in the world. How to make life easier, and more time efficient. Let me give you an example.

Have you ever been in a public restroom having to look under each stall to find an empty one? Why don’t they put the little “occupied” or “not occupied” sign on the door handle of public restrooms like they do on air planes? You lock the door be hind you and the sign switches from un-occupied to occupied. It just seems like it would make sense and save time doing it that way.

ATMs are kind of the same way. Up until I switched to my latest bank, just about every ATM I have ever used spits your money out before giving you your card back. I can’t tell you how often I have walked away from an ATM after taking my money and realizing all  to late that I forgot my ATM card. My latest bank spits out the ATM card before the money. I am not going to leave an ATM with out my money. That’s why I went there in the first place. But I will leave without my card because that is not where my mind is.

Dink

Dink,

You were great. I will miss you everyday.

More Pictures From 4th Of July Weekend In Juneau

Fireworks In Juneau

Like last year the city of Juneau put on their fireworks show at 12:01 AM, July 4th. They do the fireworks at that time because it’s dark enough to see them. Just about any other time is to light out. For the first time since I have lived in Juneau the weather was great this independence day. My pictures turned out a lot better then last years also.

What’s Going On Behind My Dungeon Master Screen

From the pictures I took of my Dungeons & Dragons game last week, I got a pretty good shot from behind the Dungeon Master Screen. I thought I would explain a little about what I have going on here.

View From Behind the DM Screen

1. The Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 Screen
2. Bottle caps I use to indicate if a player is prone or bloodied for example
3. Funky looking pencil sharpener
4. Dice
5. A Full pencil box.
6. Monster Tokens from the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Helps represent monster locations on the battlemat
7. Miniatures used for represent good and bad guys.
8. Wet erase markers for the battlemat
9. legal pad used as scratch paper for notes and initiative order.
10. Gridded notebook containing Maps and notes of a particular adventure.
11. A box containing index cards. On the cards will be written items in a particular store or even in hidden treasures.

To Be Continued…

The First Game I Ever Ran

This last weekend I ran my first game of Dungeons and Dragons ever, and it went so well! I don’t think it could have gone any better.

Six of us, including Hannah and myself gathered at a near by friends house to setup and play. Snack food was being layed out as I setup the battlemat (I wrote about this battlemat earlier) on the dinning room table along with my Dungeon Master Screen, note books, scratch paper  and dice. Soon everyone gathered around the table to play.

I began the game by telling the story of Sir Robert Tembelton who was protecting the small village of Crowking. The adventures in my group where hired by Tembelton to help him protect the village from a growing evil. But when my group of new adventures arrived that found that Sir Tembelton had left to investigate a local cole mine as reports of undead threaten the farming community.

The game lasted two days. The players even used a mine cart with the dead Sir Robert Tembelton strapped to it to plow through the mine.

I had so much fun and there was so much roll playing!

To Be Continued…

Playing Dungeons and Dragons

With all the Dungeons and Dragons talking I have been doing (not only on my blog but with my friends and co-workers) it’s not supprising that some of us would finally get a game started. For the last couple of weekens I have been part of group of friends playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. I am not DMing this game. Just playing as a character. (A half-elf rouge actually) It’s been a lot of fun hanging out with friends, laughing, joking, and just have a good time in general. Some of us have never played D&D before, and some of us have.

Playing the game as a player character has really been helpful to me in answer questions about DMing. It’s helping me understand  how the game is played and how a good DM should act and tell a story.

Since I have been playing with this group for a coupld of weeks now, I have started filling notebooks with Drawings and notes for the game I will eventually lead. I can’t wait to get started but am also glad to have as much prep time as I do.

Here are some pictures from the game i have been involved with currently as a half-elf rouge.

To be continued…

Juneau’s 9th Annual Auto and Cycle Show

This last Sunday Hannah, Carley, and Myself went to Juneau’s 9th Annual Auto and Cycle Show at Centennial Hall. The event had two main sections. One of model cars and one of restored, new and old cars and motorcycles. The three of us maybe spent about an hour walking around checking out the cars and taking pictures with my iPhone.

We have been enjoying a Sunny week with temps hitting the 70’s. But when Sunday rolled around it started raining and this was one of the things we did to keep our Sunday moving.

William Stanly

While I was at work last week, I came about an old Harper’s Weekly newspaper. The paper was framed and dated August 7th, 1897. I found on the back side, an article about an Anacortes man named William Stanly who went to Alaska during the gold rush. This peeked my intrest because I grew up in Anacortes. The artical reads:

William Stanly, of Anacortes, left his wife only $20 when he went north two years ago. Since then she has supported herself by her own work, sometimes by picking blackberries in the woods. As soon as he could reach  the telegraph office after landing he wired her the welcome news that he had brought back $90,000.

That the new fields are as rich as these miners say there can be no doubt . They pre sent incontestable proof of it in the form of nuggets that vary in size from a pin-head to a $5 gold piece, with occasional ones that are much larger. If there is finer gold in the gravel, they have not taken pains to save it.

Here are a couple of pictures of the framed paper I took with my phone.