Train Tuesday Part 128: Big Deterrent

Greetings, fellow TTRPG saboteurs! Taking on the Corporate greed of The Forgotten Rails is no easy task, especially when you start running into some of their shock-and-awe weaponry. Let’s see what technological terror came off our 3D printer this week!

Even though today’s STL is made for Hovertrain rail cars, this rapidfire magical monstrosity can be used in all sorts of DnD encounters. And that’s the type of dual-use 3D print that all the gold in the kingdom can’t buy. So, keep your head down, as we’re going to spotlight this 3D print from both sides.

The game concept here is simple. There will be certain high-value facilities and critical infrastructure that The Forgotten Rails must protect at all costs. Construct soldiers are great, but their combat intelligence isn’t the greatest, they still can’t take out large numbers quickly, and they’re rather pricey to produce. New tech takes time to evolve. Remember your first computer and cell phone? Not great, right? So, the 3M  founders decided to create some purely horrific machinery capable of firing a high volume of shots in a short time.

Today’s creator clearly shared some of these same “bring in the heavy artillery” vibes with us while designing this epic DnD Arcane Blaster scatter terrain piece. While gleefully scrolling through Toadstool Weaver’s slick library of free STLs (tips encouraged), this TTRPG rendering just jumped out at us. DM Ben recalls letting out a literal gasp. We rushed it to the slicer as if we were performing a critical organ transplant.

Imagine the players’ reactions when they see this mechanized terror for the first time:

• WTF is that thing?!
• Is that a medieval chain gun?!
• Well, whatever is here must be pretty important

What do you think your own game group would say? The aniticipation is killing DM Ben.

We’ve come up with a really solid metallic paint scheme, so DM Ben didn’t mind applying those same paints he used for our previously featured heavy Hovertrain chains. He added some FAN True Copper, ASP Dark Wood, and a few different FAN blue bottles to complete the overall look. We wanted this heavy machinery to have that same mighty, steel-armored vibe.

Also, we envisioned a surprise encounter in which these mighty arcane blasters are mostly initially hidden from plain sight, and then their vicious turrets would suddenly rise from the ground to deploy and lock onto unsuspecting targets. For that visible circular slot, you could cover that with a clump of green sponge tree flock if its housing mechanism is first spotted by the party. It’s another DM Ben’s classic mini/scatter terrain switcheroo!

Our first 3D print was upscaled to entirely cover a 2×2 set of d2o squares as DM Ben wanted this to look super imposing. He envisions these as part of a villain’s hideout or a crime boss’s base defense. He also superglued the turret to the base.

Still, he wanted to see what the artist’s default scale was, which, while still taking up a 2×2 space, left some wiggle room around the edges. With this second version, DM Ben is also leaving the top portion detached so he can swivel and point it in whatever direction makes the most sense. He can always reach for some sticky blue tack if he needs to temporarily secure a gun to its base.

We’ll use these two smaller Arcane Blasters for our Hovertrain cars. They can sit on any of the Aether Studio Hovertrain roof options, on a flat car, or even inside a traincar (peeking out through a window or cargo door). This use-case is one of the reasons we want a set of arcane gatling guns that can quickly swivel to counter multiple approaching threats.

Toadstool Weaver even crafted a DnD 5e stat block for his maniacal Arcane Blaster, which is something we’ve mostly seen STL Miniatures do for its 3D prints. Our screenshot is a little tricky to read, but don’t fret; a crisp image is included in his file download.

DM Ben plans to somewhat tailor its stats to the players’ level at the time of the encounter. He loves the 20-foot radius but doesn’t think it should be limited to up to three creatures (which could be due to its thumping damage). Instead, he thinks it would be way more fun if he pulled out 12-20 different d20s and had each arcane shot deal 1d8 damage while rolling a +6-ish to hit on each blue bullet. There’ll be some fun experimenting with this one ’til we find its sweet spot in stats.

Until next time!