It's been a while since I made a post, but here is the most recent project I did for my weekly Pathfinder (1st Edition) game. The campaign is pirate-themed (rated Arrr,) and a recurring threat has been a band of Northern barbarian raiders (Vikings) that have been plaguing the Sea of Fallen Stars lately. They strike out from an unknown base and raid coastal settlements, including the pirate island of Port Nowhere, which the party calls home base. Recently, the party was shipwrecked when an enraged whale attacked their ship, a former whaling vessel. The party had to build a raft and island-hop to try and get to an island with better resources and access to tradewinds so as to make it back to civilization. In doing so, the party stumbles across the hidden island base of the Viking threat! This would allow them to steal a boat (a knarr,) and eliminate the vikings in the same stroke.
So this meant I needed a viking village, which I do not have. In addition, time was a factor, and I only had so many hours I could devote to this project before game day, so they needed to be quick and dirty constructions. I could have cheaped out and just used some generic Medieval houses, possibly with some suitably 'vikingy' details added on, and indeed, that was my fallback. But I really wanted something more impressive, so I kept thinking. Looking at images of Scandinavian architecture, I honed in on the idea of sod-roofed structures rising out of the ground like hillocks with doors and windows sticking out. I toyed with the idea of making base structures out of oatmeal canisters or something and covering it with flock or cloth, when I remembered that I have a shitload of these:
These are the wonderful quonset huts from Dust Tactics, a game I never play, but whose minis are super fun to collect for my own nefarious purposes. I ended up with about two dozen of these little huts during a great clearance sale a few years ago. I could connect two of these, paint the ends brown like wood, and cover the top with flock. I could then still remove the flocking later and use them as quonset huts again if I so chose. Easy peasy.
My first plan was to cover the top with some green fabric, perhaps a fur or velvet texture that I could paint up in patchy colors to mimic grass. I even considered astroturf! But when I go to my local craft store, I found this product:
This was a grassy turf texture (and color!) that you just peel and stick. Freaking perfect! So I bought it (more than I needed,) and set up to make quick work of this project. It was a fucking nightmare. First of all, this shit is MESSY. If you ever plan to use it, spread a tarp down, brothers and sisters, because this thing sheds like a German Sheperd with a high-stress job. Little green moss fibers got EVERYWHERE. In the end, I tried to do all my measuring and cutting inside a plastic bag just to contain the shrapnel.
Next problem I had was that this stuff is inordinately sticky. Like, super sticky. I measured out the right size sheet to cover my quonset hut, and then peeled off the backing of the self-adhesive sheet. This proved to be a fatal mistake, as it was a little too self adhesive. The thing folded onto itself and bonded with a strength equal to one of the fundamental forces of the universe. There was no way short of using an infinity stone that could separate the parts, so I had to just throw that piece away. And there was much cursing.
Luckily, I still had enough for the project. The second time, I just peeled off the leading edge, and carefully applied it to the edge of the hut, slowly peeling away the backing as I rolled it across the top. It worked out fine, and looked good, but it was still shedding like a Christmas tree in February. So I mixed up a batch of every crafter's favorite elixir, mother's milk to terrain builders, a 50/50 mix of PVA glue and water. I brushed it on with a chunky paint brush and let it dry outside.
It cut down on the shedding, but didn't eliminate it altogether. I had some overhang of the moss mat, but rather than trim it, I just folded those parts down to make them look overgrown. I did not do anything with the end pieces other than spray them brown, since I was not expecting a lot of scrutiny on these pieces, although I did think about decorating them with Viking details or replacing the door with a more period-appropriate one. In the end, I think they look fine.
In addition to the two sod longhouses, I knew I wanted a larger meadhall. My first thought was about using this:
I picked this up many years ago (such great buildings, those Ertl Farm Country sets!) and always planned to use as a Viking great hall, because of the round roof. But it is quite big, and would take up a lot of real estate on the table, all for a piece of terrain that they were never expected to even go inside. In addition, I was pressed for time as I mentioned before. So if I could find a smaller option, that would be aces. I even considered using the Puzz 3D model of the Shining Hall of Edoras from the Lord of the Rings, which my daughter built and sits on her desk. But it was not a good fit all things considered. In the end, I found my solution in an unlikely place: elsewhere in the Ertl Farm Country family of playsets.
Behold; yet another of my past purchases, the Longhorn Ranch Log House Playset. I have used this very versatile structure in Western games, as farmhouses or a ranger's cabin in Fallout games, as a cabin in the woods for modern monster-hunting games, and even as houses in fantasy RPGs. But could I really make it work as a Viking longhouse? Obviously yes, but here's how I did it.
To start, I removed the chimney, since they did not have chimneys of that type in the look I was going for. A common architectural detail from the period buildings I found online was crossed staves above doors and along roof gables. So I decided to make some out of tongue depressors that I trimmed off with a craft saw. To decorate these, and to cover some of the front windows (which made it look more log-cabiny) I decided to make some oversized, decorative shields. These were 1/2" wooden disks I got from the craft store. To decorate them, rather than paints I grabbed some colored Sharpie markers in an experiment in 'quick and dirty' decoration. This turned out really effective. Using only Sharpies, a silver paint marker, and a ball point pen allowed me to crank out a whole passle of shields in no time at all. I glued the shields to the frame with E-9000, which is also what I used to glue the frame to the front.
One of the most iconic bits of Viking décor are the carved dragon or other animal motifs that you see on the prows of boats and on roofs. If I had more time, I could have molded some from a dragon miniature or even carved some of my own from wooden dowels. But I was in a rush, so I hit the dollar store to look for something that could pass. What I found were these laser-cut animal shapes in the craft section. There weren't any dragons or the like, but I did manage to find a couple of seahorses that I thought might work as dragons with very skinny faces. But when I got home, I realized that at the scale I was working in, I could just cut off their tails with a craft saw and stick them up like rearing dragon heads. I glued them to the top with more E-9000 and voila: they give a good impression as rooftop dragon carvings.
To further distance the building from its log cabin roots, I covered the windows on the sides with some rough animal skins I made out of felt in like ten minutes. These helped cover up the cheery wide windows and side doors.
The doors are from one of the Dwarven Forge Kickstarters. They have cool looking Scandinavian serpent motifs, so I gave them a quick spray paint (not my best work) and hit the details with a gold marker, then just glued them together (more E-9000, natch) and just wedged them into place. In the end, I feel it really works, and since I glued everything with E-9000, I can later remove all the details and return it to log cabin status with no lasting effects.
And now for the ships...
I had Paizo's map pack tiles for the longship and the knarr, but I really wanted to have a longship under construction. I had a bunch of neat ideas about building a skeletal ship hull, but again there was the time consideration. I only had one set of longship tiles, and they have water in the background. But then I hit upon an simple and elegant solution; I took my tiles to my local Kinko's and made some simple color photocopies. Then I cut them out carefully and glued the pieces together. Now I could put it on land and make it look like a ship still being built (if you ignore the sail.) Not perfect, but quick and effective.
I was really pleased with how it all looked, and it made for a very interesting encounter, that saw the party cast silence on themselves so they could use hammers and nails from the shipbuilding supplies to nail the meadhall's doors shut with most of the Vikings inside, while the alchemist climbed on the roof to toss bombs down through the smokehole. Good times.
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