Any trap good enough to scare Indiana Jones is good enough for Castle Meatgrinder.  Obviously, these little gems won’t make an appearance until they are triggered or disabled. I debated with myself over whether markers for traps were even necessary for Castle Meatgrinder.  They are, after all, single events...

Not exactly sure what the deal is with this stone tree.  It could be a statue of a tree.  It might have fruit of pure gems and jewels that can be plucked.  That hole in the trunk might be the lair of some seriously creepy crawlies.   I’ll figure it...

Another quick hit for Castle Meatgrinder.  It only looks like an obsidian sacrificial slab.  It’s actually a mysterious altar of doom, a manifestation of pure chaos leaching through into our universe as a trap for the souls of the foolhardy and unwary. Heh.  Altar-ation.  I keel me!...

Another cheap version of an idea originally promulgated by The Crafty DM today.  Two enormous stone firepots resting on massive wooden frames.  These are, of course, cheap electric tea lights bashed and painted for appropriate dungeon ambiance.  The LED lights in these things aren’t very bright, but they flicker...

On the road this week means there’s no chance to work on my little projects, but there is a chance to get out and see a bit of the wargaming wilderness in other parts of the country – the greater San Francisco metroplex, to be precise.  Up in Concord,...

The only thing worse than adversaries attacking you from elevation is when you can’t immediately access that elevation yourself.  The half-a-level rooms of my dungeon were designed to allow for one room to overlook the room below.  Open doorways dropping ten feet to the room below are against fantasy-OSHA...

One of the nice aspects of the half-a-level pieces shown in the last post is that it gives you a chance to incorporate even more three-dimensional challenges.  Flat painted with deep pits shown in perspective are nice – need to do some of those some day – but nothing...

In the grand old D&D tradition, going down a level in Castle Meatgrinder means going up a quantum step in difficulty.  You won’t find black dragons or pit demons on level II.    One of the few sops to metagaming tolerated at my table is that understanding that you...

One cheap and easy, and light on the storage requirements, method to add more flavor to the 2.5d dungeon is to use inserts.  So far my dungeon has five of these clever little devices.  Rather than an unending series of black floors, these pieces of cardstock can be dropped...

There are few things more certain to distract a party of dungeon plunderers than a strategically placed statue.  A statue pointing to something with a sword, on a half-circle dais, and holding a glowing blue lantern?  That’s like crack for adventurers.  There’s got to be some treasure or a...