I wanted to show off some of the cool sets that my husband Rory built for the Dungeons and Dragons campaign he has been dm’ing for the past few years. We use miniatures during battles to help map out where people are, what the bad guys are doing, etc, and usually we use dry erase boards or mats. Rory takes it a step farther into awesomeness by building 3-D playset type things out of cardboard and whatever other random fragments he can find in our basement. Here are a couple examples:

Above is a temple to Vidamae Rory crafted a year ago (? maybe longer? I can’t remember) where a big nasty battle happened and it was all kinds of epic. Those pinkish looking balls in the second picture are push-pins meant to represent these magic orb things that we had to gather whilst being attacked mercilessly by Kax cultists. It was crazy!

And another epic battle was fought two weeks ago. This set represents this underground tunnel deep beneath the desert city of Azzyrhus, where there was also a crazy follower of Galara who had poisoned the entire water supply of the oasis. We had to race back up that spiral ramp while the toxic water kept getting higher and higher, and oh, did I mention the nasty ghouls and worm guys who were beating us up at the same time?

All in all, these cardboard fortresses make DnD even more fun to play. If you’ve never tried the game, I highly recommend it! It’s not as dorky as people say, and it makes me sad that it’s so taboo.