Tag: Underdark

Strongly inspired by awesome idea presented by Runhammer right up here, I’ve created my own Stairs leading deep into the Underdark. Check out how to build The Shattered Stairs!

For this little one project, I’ve used my new iron dice found on local market in Cracow. Created in Chaos Forge by some… never mind, just check it out.

First we have to cut off nice sharp stairs. Long paper knife is perfect here.

You should end up with something like bellow.

Cut few additional breaks here and there. Stairs are old right, should look like old one.

Here my new magic iron dice come in to action. Let’s hit polystyrene foam with this heavy piece.

Nice. Now time for black base paint. I had to do it twice, since I had plenty of gaps after first – hope you will find it better. Furrows after the dice blows will appear in a moment.

Next thing is two layers of grey. First dark one and then lighter version to bring our stone to the shining.

Looks good right?

Let’s add little drop of white color on edges with dry brush. This hight light will add drama and contrast to the dark bottom part of our stairs.

Now we need to add little dark green / yellow bits. Kind of Underdark flora. Just little bits, not to much.

This little bridge in the middle will look as rescue for the team, at least until it will be destroyed by falling rock from some hidden ceiling.

Nice outcome when you drop a light on it. Finally step will be to play with this on dark board we’ve created at the start. This will introduce true sense of drop off.

The Shattered Stairs (second edition)!

Looking for nice base plate for your play ground terrain? Take pin board and turn it into two nice lands. Lets go to the forest. Find a cave. Then go deep to the Underdark!

First look at this scary dark board adds fear of falling right here:

This darkness around gives you focus, makes you stronger as a Dungeon Master!

Concept of dark base which gives you this nice perception of void comes from Drunkens & Dragons – cheers Hankrein, You are great man!

What we like to do here, is to extend the idea a bit, finding a way to have collection of base terrains like nice scroll-able box of vinyl records. It may help, when you don’t have much space in your home 😉

Fist we pick two-sided pin board. Go to some paper / office shop. You will find them in nice price for sure.

And those are two-sided right!

First we paint one side with deep dark color. Be careful, cork, which is a core material here, need to be painted with thicker layer of paint to hide cracks. Wait until it became dry.

And you have something like this:

x

Perfect and nice for dark places, caves, tunnels etc.

Ok, now flip it on the second side!

This one have 60 by 30 inches. Quite big one, you may have smaller for your collection if you like. By anyway this one will be our grass land for druids stone circle in the center. And we will have nice sword in center. Like Excalibur, from Legend of King Arthur. But this sword will be ugly. How ugly? You will see some day.

Anyway, to the point. We take sharp knife and add grid first. Very delicate. We don’t like to create holes, just to put a little lines, which will help us count moves during the game.

Now base paint. This time with a bit dark green color. Everything to hide natural cork color.

But this general dark green all around looks boring, right?

Fine, we will use sponge painting technique to add nice grass. Just mix green and white paint with a little grain of yellow ochre. Little grain means really little one.

Then we have to wait a bit until it dries.

Finally we have to deal with borders. I simply painted them with single layer of burn umber. And you have it my friend!