Terrain Tuesday! Home is Where the Hearth Is

On this weekly installment of Terrain Tuesday, we take a look at a friendly building option for those DM times when you’re not up for a full-scale structure print-and-paint project.

We picked up this Weaponsmith Facade from a delightful Etsy shop called Walker Minis & Scenics. At times, it’s very difficult to be completely organic in our ongoing RPG endeavors. Thus, we actually enjoy acquiring well-crafted 3D print pieces from other marvelous artisans (especially when we’re in a session prep time crunch).

This STL here comes from Ec3D Designs Heroe’s Hoard collection: Buildings Facade Set 1 but we encourage you to check out all 3 sets. Hayland Terrain also offers a similar product if you’re like us and can’t get enough of these beauties.

Any 3D printer enthusiast will most likely agree that traditional town buildings can be a lot of work. They require much longer print cycles, use more materials, aren’t as easy to travel with, and can even be a little intense to paint at times. So, these slim facades check a lot of boxes, especially for those traveling Dungeon Masters out there.

You can see how skinny these guys are (not much wider than a pen) and they’re also light as a feather. Such a clever idea, wouldn’t you agree? The first time DM Ben encountered them on Etsy his jaw hit the floor in a bit of a, “Now why didn’t I think of that?” sorta moment.

Are a weaponsmith and a blacksmith the same shop? Well, they can be but it’s not necessarily a given, especially in larger cities. A weaponsmith is going to deal specifically in the buying and selling of equipment and is a quick in-and-out transaction. A blacksmith is going to be your dwarven go-to for getting something fixed or repaired and then come back later for the finished product.

Now what sorta metal will you populate in your shop with when those adventurers come a knockin’. DM Ben absolutely loves this clean and simple weapons list by D&D 5e resources Thieves Guild website…just bookmark it and pop the handy tables open on your tablet in a pinch.

We also have a simple D&D 5e merchant barter mechanic we like to utilize in our ongoing campaigns. A character can make a Persuasion check against a DC 15. Succeed and you get 1d6-1 gp off the price. Fail and it costs you 1d6-1 more. Or, you can also check out another “Life of Brian-esque” haggle approach by Eventyr Games.

Lastly, for a down-and-dirty shop owner NPC, why not let a d100 roll and adapt a trait or two from DnDspeak.com‘s “100 Interesting Shopkeepers and Merchants” table? We rolled a 78 and got “A fat man who yells a lot. He sells mead he homebrews himself. Is he deaf? Maybe he’s deaf.” Clearly, our portly proprietor has hit a few too many hearths during his blacksmith apprentice days.

Now who here can loan us some gold pieces til our next big score so we can buy this trebuchet?