EXT: Wizard's Knob

 

More improvised scenery!

My wife knows the kind of rubbish I like, so kindly bought me a mysterious glass orb in a pewter dragon foot that she found at a jumble sale a couple of years ago. It looked like it used to be attached to the end of a staff, it had a black plastic cap over a metal stud at the bottom. I knew I wanted to use it for something, but wasn't quite sure what. 

It's big and heavy, and it was thicker metal than I could cut or manipulate at all. So for ages, it sat in my cupboard while I wondered what to do with it. 

Initial build - the foam cut and sliced and stuck to a card base

No longer! I have embedded it into a stack of distressed packing foam slabs, and it has become some sort of ancient scrying device. The hill, known locally as Wizard's Knob, also has a nice comfy chair to relax in as the orb beams visions of a hellish future directly into your hindbrain. 

The batteries are kept downstairs, inside a little power chamber under the hill. Nobody can get in, the dwarves who made it were underpaid and refused to provide the access runes. But that's okay, the cheapskate wizard who commissioned the whole place went mad and died years ago, so nobody uses it any more. 

There was a bit of a discussion with my youngest daughter, who was very fond of the Orb as a thing to fiddle with. She wanted the hill to be done in Jungle style, with palm trees and greenery, because she likes playing with that more than the boring old frosty ruins. It would have worked, too, the foam I'm using has a good rough pumice look to it. But I don't have any palm trees left, which I reckon it would have needed to sell that Tiki volcano god vibe, so after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I stuck to my original plan.

It's coated with PVA, sand and a mixture of birch seed case (the leaves) and the very last of my wonderful Krycell snow. I shall miss that stuff, it's brilliant. There wasn't quite enough for a proper layer this time, so just a very gentle scattering. The plastic bits are from various old projects - the dwarven throne is Mantic, the door at the back is Dungeons and Lasers and the shield is an original GW Chaos Warrior. Black spray paint, drybrushed with various greys, some flock, that was it! Pretty quick and easy, overall. 

Have to use it in a game, next!