The new Legends of Darkshire 3D printable scenery range, currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, looks absolutely spot on for Dungeons and Dragons campaigns set in dark and gothic worlds. As big fans of the classic DnD horror setting Ravenloft, and the gothic grandeur of Dark Souls’ Anor Londo, everyone in the Wargamer office is drooling over this kit.
This is the latest Kickstarter campaign by DecoQuest Workshop, which makes 3D printable terrain sets for tabletop RPGs and miniature wargames. The components in the Legends of Darkshire set connect together using the common ‘Open Lock’ clip system, making them compatible with most other third party Dungeons and Dragons dungeon tile sets.
The basic pledge, for a personal license to print all the files in the ‘Heretic Monastery’ and any stretch goals, costs $62 (€59). The Kickstarter campaign runs until 5am PST / 8am ET / 1pm GMT on January 12. You will need your own FDM 3D printer, and a lot of filament, to actually print these tiles!
With the big caveat that we haven’t tested this set, it certainly looks well designed for gaming. There are plenty of flat spaces to position models, and the stairs are designed with slight step overhangs that will catch a model’s base and keep it from tipping backwards if it ends its turn halfway up the flight.
There’s a lot of useful cover, everything has removable roofs, and there are ways to travel between floors: you could construct a dungeon with a lot of vertical layers. There are gaps to mount LED systems if you want to give your terrain ambient lighting, too!
The rough stones and gothic ornaments will be easy to paint even if you’re not experienced painting miniatures: spray everything with your base color, then drybrush to bring out the edges of surfaces, use washes to deepen the shadows, and repeat those steps until you’re satisfied.
Theatre of the mind DnD is great, but playing with 3D terrain is a luxurious experience, and really highlights the differences between the DnD classes. The Fighter holds the stairs against oncoming enemies, while the Rogue leaps across a great gap for a better position, and the Wizard lights up a narrow alleyway with lightning. Admittedly, the DnD races that can innately fly, such as the Aarakocra, do remove some of the tension from that kind of game…
With how well Curse of Strahd sold, we assume that a new Ravenloft book for the 2024 edition of the rules will appear on the DnD release schedule before too terribly long… To keep up to date with the latest DnD news, follow Wargamer on Google News.
Source: Wargamer
