Tomb Thursday P14: Curb Appeal

Kicking off a new dungeon crawl or the next exciting chapter in your prewritten or homebrewed adventure module requires some extra scatter terrain zest so the DM can really lift the vibe of your game. So, let’s see what our 3D printer spat out above the sands!

Hobbyists certainly can create legit full-sized, playable terrain, but alas, that takes a lot of extra work and storage options to pull off. However, you can make reasonably-sized, smaller 3D-printed pieces that still set a fun and engaging tone for what’s to come next in your DnD game.

A great example of this scale-centric DnD immersion technique was a recent post we did for the lighthouse building crawl…an upcoming chapter in the D&D Beyond Acquisitions Incorporated free 5e module. We could never build a properly-sized lighthouse that could hold all our player miniatures, the monster miniatures, and the rest of the corresponding room scatter terrain. Instead, we can use a smaller DnD model version for some starting adrenaline…and even use the individual floors as a fog of war tracker as the characters move to the next level.

We’ll utilize this nifty DM terrain technique in our Egyptian desert series by using several fantastic STLs from numerous brilliant creators, featuring a variety of new 3D prints! We’re kicking off with this amazing Buried Tomb by Iain Lovecraft. This mysterious monument is from his Desert Adventures Kickstarter, which is a must-acquire if you and your players want to fully immerse yourselves in this fab TTRPG Egyptian-style setting.

Since we have our core sandy desert paint scheme (and even a handy alternative version) locked in, DM Ben painted this FDM beauty up with ease. Like, the most annoying part of the steps was priming it white. Adding the three layers of color was a snap! We hope you’re continously inspired to create some of these pieces from our Beneath the Sands series for your own game table!

In terms of scale, our Buried Tomb 3D print basically covers a 5×5 d20 square area. It also features a slick, removable stone slab entryway. The way this Egyptian TTRPG terrain piece rests on the table, the players will truly feel like they are headed below ground and into a mysterious resting place. You will definitely generate some player Oohs and Aahs when you initially drop down this beauty.

This sideview, coupled with one of our favorite WotC Monk miniatures, also helps demonstrate the size and scale here. DM Ben thinks it’s perfect – just the right size to convey the next chapter of the campaign while not being overwhelming to store. Pretty cool, right?!

Now, imagine this beauty resting quietly on a true desert game matte, along with all sorts of complementary scatter terrain pieces like towering obelisks, peculiar plant life, shady palm trees, ransacked ruins, and sand-soaked miniatures! This Buried Tomb entrance is ultimately gonna sing, baby! And we’re going to highlight allllll of these STLs in future posts. Good stuff, man.

Alas, we haven’t quite found our go-to desert mat…yet, so our surface choice in these pics isn’t the best. We’ve zeroed in on some cool desert scatter, though, so there certainly isn’t a 3D-print shortage, thanks to creators like Aether Studios, EC3D Designs, and Fantastic Plants & Rocks, just to name a few.

Until next time!