That Pumpkin House on a Hill

It’s time for another let’s-do-better encounter gameboard reveal, as the extra time allows us to bring a beloved home-brewed NPC to life just a little bit more!

We’re revisiting an original home-brewed quest in our ongoing office campaign and reintroducing it into our family campaign. That means we can apply some fun learning lessons and improve the immersion even more! 3D Printers activate!

A quick recap: The group learns through the rumor mill of a peculiar farmer on the outskirts of Waterdeep who is in need of help. This oddball gnome goes by Ol’ Huckle Riverstone, and he mysteriously produces a topsoil that others would die to get their hands on if they could.

Huckle’s farm is constantly being raided by oversized vermin who want to devour his award-winning crops, and violent raiders looking to steal his miracle soil. Well, enough is enough!

Now, Huckle has heard stories of the Night Hag and her powerful mimic guardians protecting her lair inside The High Forest. He wants the party to locate some of her “pumpkins who ain’t pumpkins” mimics so he can combine their arcane seeds with his one-of-a-kind topsoil to build a farmstead security force.

In return, he will pass them a small bag of topsoil that the group can trade with other vendors like Keanu Leaves (who runs the “One, Two, Tree” store) for valuable arcane concoctions.

DM Ben wants to make a cooler farm gameboard centered around “pumpkins that ain’t pumpkins.” As they approach his spooky lands, the main focal point will almost certainly be his unforgettable house on the hill. And for that STL, we turn to Dutchmogul and his free Pumpkin House download.

There were no tiny eyeballs on this 3D-printed fantasy building, so DM Ben grabbed a brush and simply replicated the same paint scheme as the mimics in the earlier picture. 3DRPG loves a good slap chop base, which often makes prints a little darker, and that’s fine by us as we want this scatter terrain to look a bit dirty. Besides, Farmer Riverstone isn’t exactly known for his hygiene and minimalism lifestyle. 😉

Like most terrain buildings, actual play space is always at a premium, so we rarely try to kid ourselves about this. Instead, we’ll typically spin up a separate interior layout on a Terrain Tray for more miniature/scatter elbow room and better spatial gameplay. It is cool to hide a mini or two in there, though.

We also 3D-printed this wood shed to accent the farm vibe a bit more here. This smaller structure was a freebie on Thingiverse, but alas, it’s no longer available on their website. Gotta grab those files the second you spot ’em.

In a follow-up post, we’ll show you the rest of the new and improved farm layout with some other cool terrain pieces.

Until next time!