Midnight Forest Theme

[whitebeard]

A while back I printed a copy of my Midnight Forest Board and I finished the new set of outdoor "furniture". The board itself came out too dark and I need to re-print it. But it looks great in the photos which follow. I'm waiting for the heroes to complete the Game System quests and become champions before I start using all of this stuff, so there is still time...

The board looks like this (I printed mine at 30mm):


Here we find the Elf about to take down an Orc in a clearing of rustling autumn leaves. The trees are "TOOB Trees by Safari" which come in a pack of 10 for $10. The rest of the items are made from one $5 batch of "paper clay" which is just air drying clay. And I painted all furniture with cheap "craft" acrylic paints that we have around the house for my son's projects. The large stump is 2x2 (I only have one of those) and the log is 1x2. All trees are easily 1x1. On a side note, I'm always surprised how well the extra middle bottom teeth on my orcs come out! This photo does a particularly bad job of washing out all of my colors.


The Elf then moves on to a field of long dry grass and finds an obelisk marking some crossroad of days long past.


The Barbarian is not far ahead. He finds an unmarked grave and pretends not to see the Gnoll lurking in the corner. Here there is a second 2x2 log laying on the ground, two 1x1 stumps, and the grave is 2x2.


The Dwarf is off on his own investigating the smoldering glow of a campfire among the ruins of a henge. A werewolf startles him and he spills some of his ale, "Do you know how difficult it is to get a good drink out here!?" he roars. Vengeance will be swift. The henges are 1x3, the campfire 1x1, and the large rock is 2x2.


The wizard followed what the others insisted was the wrong path through the mushrooms and is now moving from cairn to cairn through thick fog. Having found the objective, the ancient well, "guarded" by an inanimate skeleton… He's expecting some kind of trap. Rock (1x1), cairns (1x1), mushrooms (1x1), well (2x2)


Here is my drawer of "furniture"

20 tree (1x1)
3 log (2x1)
2 henge (3x1)
4 giant mushroom (1x1)
3 stump (1x1)
1 giant stump (2x2)
1 well (2x2)
2 cairn (1x1)
1 grave (2x2)
1 obelisk (1x1)
2 campfire (1x1)
2 large rock (2x2)
2 medium rock (2x1)
2 small rock (1x1)

[torilen]

That board is way and above awesome. I might have to find a way to print that off. It'll
be great for running "trails through the forest" quests.

I love the clay pieces you made, too. It seems your skills in the clay arts are greater than
my skills. Good job, man.

And thanks for the picture with the TOOB trees. I've wondered how they would work with
HQ. They'd be good for baby trees and bushes and such. I'll have to get some of those.

[StratosVX]

Holy crap man! That's awesome!

[whitebeard]

I love the clay pieces you made, too. It seems your skills in the clay arts are greater than my skills. Good job, man.

Thanks! But you may want to re-think that statement about my skills being greater than anybody's. The cool thing about doing wilderness features is that they are not supposed to be perfect, so you can try for one thing, end up with something else and it all works the same and in many cases even better. And when it won't work at all, just mash it down and make another rock.

The campfire is easily the hardest element I have here. But my favorite pieces from a detail perspective are the jagged stump shown next to the Barbarian and the log behind the Elf. These are actually mostly features of how this particular clay tears. I just recognized how cool an existing piece of clay was and went from there.

[Sjeng]

Very well done! Amazing, man
Question: how do you handle the "rooms"? Do you place doors?

[Thantos]

Awesome i like the henge rocks!
Any plans to recreate Stone Henge in miniature? For the boss battle?

[Anderas]

I like it! Now i have the same question; how do you manage "Walls"?

[whitebeard]

Very well done! Amazing, man
Question: how do you handle the "rooms"? Do you place doors?

Thanks!

Walls and Doors pose a few minor difficulties.

(1) How do you handle doors? - Doors in the forest are "paths" so I plan to initially use "path" tiles like secret door tiles. I'm thinking "Dark" path tiles represent unexplored paths and you flip them over when they are explored. We can also change the door mechanic itself so that they are "opened" as soon as you stand in front.

(2) How do you handle secret Doors? - Secret paths would replace secret doors. So you can search for "secret paths"

(3) How do you explain to the heroes that they cannot walk through the walls? - Heroes and monsters CAN walk through the forest walls, but they do so VERY slowly and may take damage and/or encounter a wandering monster for each step taken. Some monsters (giant wolves, wolves, giant spiders, etc) can pass through walls without any penalty.

(4) What about "pass through rock"? - The wizard goes underground and comes back up. Unfortunately this gives him the power to move "through" an enemy like veil of mist. The other possibility is that "pass through rock" is actually "corporeal form" and the user can pass through ANYTHING. This would result in the target not being able to attack during it's turn, which is a fair trade. Or the wizard casting a second spell (with the wand) on his turn after passing through objects.

[whitebeard]

Awesome i like the henge rocks!
Any plans to recreate Stone Henge in miniature? For the boss battle?

No plans on my side for that. Like a wizard's library with "only" two book cases, the rest of the henge would be implied as complete (or not). My volume of outdoor furniture appears sufficient for now and comparable with the HQ indoor set. I do still need garbage/dung/equipment piles… something to indicate it may be worth searching for treasure in an area. In the spirit of HeroQuest, I believe a complete henge for a boss battle would be a custom room tile (and that room would be slightly larger than my biggest.

When your Kickstarter is over and your batteries are fully recharged, I'd really like to see you take all of this and run with it. I'm beyond my capability with the door design that I really want. I'd like to see forrest "arches" and have the ability to slip a black piece of cardboard in and out from the top. So revealing the path involve the game master just pulling out a piece of card stock. I know you can make that happen!

[Anderas]

Now that's an awesome Idea. You can also replace the door/path card with a trap or something else to be discovered.

The Doorframe could be some bushlike stuff so you really never know where you end up if the Game Master puts it on the table: Has this special piece the function of a niche with something evil/worthy inside, or the function of a trap, or the function of a door?