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By GAMER - Dec. 31, 1969 I tried to come up with all sorts of cool names for this project, but the one that kept being used was the "Spinny Dungeon of Doom". The vertical dungeon idea so impressed me that I've always known I would put it to use. I wish I could remember who did the first one so I could give him credit. I toyed with the idea and even drew some plans, and then the idea came to make a four sided one. From there the idea to make it spin took off. The basic plan was to build a piece that could be used to display miniatures. The vertical dungeon theme allows for multiple rooms and the spinning board allowed for maximum use of space. The lower levels used the fieldstone molds, plus a couple custom pieces. The mausoleum on top was made with gothic chipped blocks and pieces from the gothic molds. Pieces from the gothic floor tiles mold were used in both areas. The first step was cutting out the 18" base from 1/2" plywood. In the center of the board I built up 6" squares of pink foam as filler for the center. On three sides I started laying out floor and on the last side I made a large cavern area. The only specific room I had plans for were the snake worshipers burial chambers and some kind of pit trap. The other rooms came to being as I built the layout. The issue of shadows on the lower two levels were pointed out to me by Rastl. To help compensate for this I tried to make the upper levels so they didn't extend all the way to the edge of the lower piece. There are still dark areas, but I think this makes a nice effect. The lowest level was attached directly to the board. The cavern area was also attached fairly early on. The upper levels were made by cutting a piece of pink foam to fit, then building the room on top of it. These were not glued into place until the end. This made painting much easier to do. I ended up with three sections for the second level. The top level was cut out all in one piece. Some areas needed extra pieces of foam to fill in space on top of the second level. Once I got the top level fitted I had to figure out where the stairs should finish up. Once this was cut out, I built the mausoleum around the stairs. I kept the mausoleum pretty basic. My concept was that this was built for some forgotten good hero type. Since nobody recalled who he was, few people paid attention to the burial site. The evil snake worshipers used it as a secret entrance to their dungeon. One of the last steps was to add pine bark wood mulch to represent stones between the levels. These pieces were glued on with tacky glue. Painting of the mausoleum was pretty standard. The roof was dark gray highlighted up to medium gray. The tombstones were painted various shades of grays & sand brown, then given a heavy black wash. The fieldstone was more involved. I started with dark gray and medium gray. A black wash followed that. This shaded all the stones and also darkened any light spots of unpainted plaster. After that I painted individual stones with five different colors. These ranged from a very dark blue to light gray and khaki. It looked pretty awful with all those distinct colors once I finished, but a dry brush of a medium gray slightly lighter than the medium gray base blended everything just right. The cavern and trim stones were painted dark brown, then highlighted with a khaki brown. For the floor of the cavern I sprinkled sand onto the dark brown before it dried, then highlighted over that. The furniture and tapestries were made by me. The furniture is balsa wood. The blankets and tapestries were made with tissue soaked with diluted white glue. Once the glue dried I painted them a base color. The tapestry designs were drawn on with flat colored sharpie markers, then given a black wash. The barrels, boxes, weapons and such are from various companies, including Armorcast, Dwarven Forge, and Reaper. For the lit torches I decided to make my own flames. I used yellow air drying clay. I drilled a hole into the torch sconce to give the clay something to help hold it in place. I pushed it in and then made a cone shape. With a toothpick I started at the bottom and would poke in and pull out. I worked to the top until it looked right. After the clay dried I washed it with a rust color and then highlighted it with a bright yellow. The project took five weeks to complete. I already had most of the bricks cast before I started. I managed to put in a whole lot of hours during that time. The days before GenCon I was desperate to finish it, but with burning two days of comp time I managed to pull it through. Being a gamer at heart, I had a lot of fun trying to add extras. The spikes at the bottom of the pit trap have the skeleton of a victim still impaled on them. In the dungeon's entry room I used a tapastry to conceal the door to the rest of the dungeon while the door to the pit trap is clearly visible. On the graveyard level I added a cutaway coffin in the ground below a grave. The four tombs along the edge in the main burial chamber also have skeletons laying inside them. In the torture chamber the cell doors are just glued flat against the wall pieces. To try and add depth I made an impression cast of a fig's face and hands to have a victim looking out of his cell. The comments received at GenCon were very supportive. Receiving praise from Bruce Hirst himself was very flattering. I already have a place where I plan to put it in my bedroom once I pick out minis to put into it. In the long term I would probably sell this one so I have an excuse to build another one.
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