Train Tuesday Part 89: What’s Behind Door Number 1?

Who wants to know what’s behind a mysterious door in a DnD game? Why, everyone, of course. Small problem – we didn’t have the right doors for our industrial Forgotten Rails campaign setting…so, let’s fix that.

We adore Gnome Tinkerers and everything they can bring to our RPG games. And while The Forgotten Rails is the brainchild of three unique founders, none of them fall into that race and game class. Instead, we have a grumpy Dwarf, a peculiar human Wizard, and a rich, portly human Financier. Still, Hovertrains are sparking a whole new industry in Waterdeep, and we need scatter terrain to set the scenes! Might as well start with some cool doors, right?!

Here at 3DRPG Studios in sunny Chandler, AZ, our 3D printers have been hard at work pumping out all sorts of different Construct-style scatter terrain for future DnD gameboards. Certainly, there will be a ton of gameplay on our glorious Hovertrains by Aether Studios, but we need to ensure we have the other relevant RPG pieces at the ready for events leading up to and after a specific train encounter.

Doors are the perfect starting point. They’re pretty essential scatter terrain in any gameboard, so why not make ones that are cool as all get out?! Thankfully, beloved Cast n Play had a fab Kickstarter a while back, and one of their slick subsets was their Steampunk Workshop. Their sorta interlocking walls weren’t for us, but praise Pelor, their freestanding doors are so darn good!

A great DnD door is one that is freestanding and can be easily mixed with our 3D-printed and off-the-shelf terrain. To us, no one does this better than good ol’ Dwarven Forge. We’ve always been in love with their door sculpts, and naturally ordered an extra pack from their Dungeons Reforged Gamefound campaign. Hirst Arts also follows a similar model with their casted molds, and we still use some of their doors to this day.

DM Ben was the brush man on this terrain. He decided to try out one color scheme on the single version and then a slightly different palette on the double door. We primarily use Army Painter Speedpaints, Fanatic paints, and some Citadel Contrast pots. So Army Painter Speedpaint metalics were the jam here. We adore Aztec Gold and use it almost too much. We’re cool with the results, but don’t think we’ll replicate this one for other versions.

For the double doors, DM Ben wanted to simplify things and just use good ol’ Enchanted Steel. The key, though, is to place a Soft Wash over the top so that the grime level is at its peak. These are zoomed-in photos, so be kind and remember that our doors look wonderful when employing the ‘Arm’s Length’ table rule of thumb. 😉

This is the likely color scheme that will be utilized for additional doors: clean and simple for the win.

Gnome Tinkerer rooms need Gnome Tinkerer doors, right?! Problem solved. Now, let’s start filling these DnD rooms up with even more cool stuff!

Until next time!