The road to hell is paved with filament

Clockwise from top left: Enchantment, Divination, Evocation, Black Magic. Photo by Devon Jones.

Sometimes a gamer just needs some circles full of magical magicalness. When that day comes, we’re here for you.

Maybe your players have run across a temple to Baphomet. Maybe they're having a unicorn BBQ. Maybe a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters accidentally opened a portal to hell. We won't judge.

We lied. We’re judging.

These tiles come in two sizes: 2-inch diameter and 4-inch diameter.

They’re perfect for dungeon dressing, scatter terrain, or for the arcane circles used in Frostgrave Ulterior Motives.

Grab the files

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MAKER MONDAY: A rose by any other name...

Roses are cut from MDF wood and spray painted. Photo by Monica Jones

… wouldn’t be called a rose. It would be called something else. This is basic vocabulary.

These laser-cut roses were a quick way to finish off our kids’ Easter baskets. I spray-painted them, but if you have more time than I did, adding more color would be a nice touch.

The 1/8 inch engineered wood I initially used was flimsy, so I tried 1/8-inch acrylic. It was was better, bit these are still fragile, so don’t expect them to last forever. If my kids really love them, I’ll try 1/4-inch wood.

Find the .svg files at Creative Fabrica. The bundle includes roses with different sayings, which you could use to make a bouquet if you’re feeling ambitious.

I bought a subscription to Creative Fabrica in a moment of weakness after I saw the 800th Facebook ad for it, but I have no regrets. Masterwork Tools gets a small commission from sales at Creative Fabrica through the link above, but I discovered we had an affiliate account after I decided to write this blog post. I’ve been using it for personal and commercial projects, since my membership gives me rights to use the designs in my own finished products. If that’s important to you, be sure to read the fine print. Sales rights end if you cancel your membership. You can also pay per design.

To infinity -- and beyond! -- in your OpenForge dungeon

Video of OpenForge’s infinity hallway from different angles. Video by Devon Jones.

This infinity hallway can be used for magical shenanigans, or as a simple way to indicate that a hallway goes on for a long time. If infinity is more than you need, our release includes files for building just the hallway.

This project has been in the works for years, literally. Devon first ordered some of the stuff he needed all the way back in February 2018.  Five years later, he finished nailing down the skills he needed to make this work well.

He made custom bases for hallways. While this tile is technically 3x2, if you print a 3x base, it won't line up well. Our release includes a new set of bases to solve this problem. The tile is effectively the same as a 2x2 tile with two separate walls attached. He also made versions of the bases with more space for electronics, and added space to all sets under 2x2 square bases. Finally, people have been asking for plain separate wall bases with the new flex magnetic holes in them, so he added those as well.

How to make the infinity hallway

For this print, you'll need plexiglass or polycarbonate. It must be 1/16 inch or smaller. You might struggle if it's larger than 1/20 inch (0.05 inches). In metric, 1mm or 1.5mm thick. You'll need a way to cut the plexiglass. I've included an .svg in case you have access to a laser cutter, but a plexiglass cutter will work too. You're cutting for just under 2 inches by 2.5 inches. Once the plexiglass is cut, you'll want to apply the window film cover, then trim it to size. Finally, paint the back of one of the pieces of plexiglass silver, and after it dries, paint it black.

How to make the torches

  • Print the wall you want, a base, and the matching floor that is cut for walls. Use the old base design to give yourself a little more space to play with if you're doing a 2x2 tile. Also print the torch. There are two torch versions. The textured one is better on a resin printer. If you have only FDM, both can work, but the older, untextured torch is easier to print on FDM.

  • Paint the tile and glue it.

  • Take one of the 2 pin dupont cables and cut it in half. Feed it through the hole. When the wire is out of the other side, pull it snug to get the connector fully into the wall. If you look at the photo above, you can see that the connector goes fully inside the wall. You will always want the cable to have the red and black wires the same on every tile you make. With the wall facing me, I put the red (power) on the left, and black (ground) on the right.

  • Strip some insulator off the end of the cable -- long enough that you can feed it through the holes in the lily pad battery holder. Red goes to +, Black to -. I tend to strip off about 1 inch so that I can feed the wire through and then wrap it/tie it to make it secure. It's better if you solder it, but you can get away with wrapping.

  • Test the LED in the socket. The longer of the two wires should go in the red side of the connector. Once that's tested and it works, feed the LED through the torch body, test it again, and glue it down. I prefer to file the plastic top to scar it up to make it better at diffusion. Finally. I like to attach the LED with hot glue and shape that into a bit of a flame. Test it in the socket again.

  • Once it all works, you can start trimming the wire from the LED so it sits snugly against the wall. Remember: You can't cut something to be longer, so trim it a little at a time and test until the torch can sit snugly against the wall.

  • Remove the battery holder, and glue the wall into place on the tile, ensuring the wire makes it inside the middle of the base.

  • Now, you can choose to feed it out through one of the clip holes, or trim it down and reattach the battery holder. There's a photo above showing how I fit the LilyPad inside the base.

  • Finally, if you have any problems, come chat in the OpenForge Discord. We should be able to help you out.

Recommended gear

Soldering

Useful but optional

  • Hot Glue Gun Used to cover LED and sculpt flame

  • Mini Files For scraping up the LED surface for better diffusion

Grab the files

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MAKER MONDAY: Don't fear the Reaper mins

Allow us to introduce the latest sound in death metal — the Rolling Bones! They really slay!

Devon brought these cute little guys to unlife with a corroded-metal technique (see below) that he learned from Monument Hobbies. Click this link for 10% off their paints.

The plastic mins are Barrow Wardens from Reaper. Seriously, don’t fear them. They’re tiny and harmless.

ChatGPT gives every player a +4 to INT and WIS

Disclaimer: The post below contains spoilers for Starfinder’s Attack of the Swarm. You’ve been warned, so please don’t complain if this ruins your life.

I probably don’t need to explain AI-assisted writing and art at this point. Many words have been written about the latest technology to compete with human creativity. If you don’t know much about ChatGPT, you can find a good explanation at PCguide.

Now back to the gaming.

Devon is GMing Attack of the Swarm, and our PCs were tasked with saving four dinosaurs from an imminent volcanic eruption. Our brainstorming lead to some good ideas, some terrible ideas, and some weird ideas. (Imagine a sexy dino hologram.) One player consulted ChatGPT and got the results in the image below.

ChatGPT used in Starfinder campaign

We were blown away by how much we got with so little input. It’s like if your dog suddenly wrote a dissertation on black hole formation.

This will lead to some angst about the end of gaming as we know it, but we’re not getting worked up over it. It’s easy enough to keep AI from dominating gameplay with some simple house rules. GMs can ban AI outright or allow limited use with a high skill check, for example.

With selective use of AI, gameplay can become more immersive by allowing players to effectively roleplay super-high WIS and INT scores. I’m not saying players are morons, but few people are rocking an 18 INT. In our game, the dude who tapped ChatGPT was playing a high-INT Android computer specialist, so it made thematic sense.

For fun, I took it in a different direction.