Another smaller off the bench post. This time, we’re looking at dwarves and tokens. Or, well, Rockmaws and tokens.

These saw play in our recent game. The idea for adding to them to the dwarven faction for Desiderium came from a simple mechanical need: the dwarves are slow, so how can they compete for objectives without losing every time just due to transit speed? I reasoned that they either needed a way to be fast or a unit that was fast. From there, I went through a few ideas: fast moving dwarves, mounted units, helicopters. None of those quite did what I wanted. They’re mountain dwarves, so mounts didn’t quite make sense. The dwarves themselves are intentionally slow, but I suppose I could have gone with rangers of a sort. Helicopters were higher tech than I wanted.

Then I thought of what they might make use of in the mountains.

It occurred to me there must be underground critters they could tame. I bounced around a few ideas, including some rock themed dinosaurs (which I really liked), but worms felt like they worked best to me. They were unique, but not out of place. I went looking for models and, well, these are just awesome.

Next on the list is tokens. I’ve been experimenting with multi-color printing. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it creates a simple impact that really lands.

I won’t lie: I used ChatGPT to generate these. They’ll go up for free once I’m confident they’re the final style I want. I really like them already.

I still need to print the measurement template and paint up the dice cups I made with GPT. I’ll circle back to those another time. It’s not the very next part of my AI usage series, but I will go over using AI to generate simple STL files for things like tokens. I think it’s a super handy and accessible use case.

Next on the docket? I’m hoping to show off some gladiators next week. I have them partway done and I’m preparing them for a round of Sons of Mars I’m hosting at work next week. It’s such a simple, fun system. I’m really looking forward to seeing my team try it.

I just, uh… have to reread it before then… alongside all of homework reading. And also A Clash of Rhyfles before a game day I’m helping host this weekend.

No rest for the wicked, I suppose.