Mt. Fuji, boats, waves… this fancy set blurs the line between art and dice
Name: Great Wave Hand Painted set
Description: A set of sharp-edge resin dice with a blue background and ocean/waves/boats hand-painted on all faces that resemble the Hokusai woodblock print: “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa“. The dice have numbers carved into them in a font that is close to Arial but with no flag on the ones. This seems to be a popular font for Everything Dice’s sets. It’s a decent easy-to-read font so I can appreciate that. I’ll take this bland font any day over the Norse Foundry font with the slashed zeroes and angular numbers. All edges and vertices of this set are sharp. The d10s have edged waists and the font uses underbars to indicate the orientation of the 6 and 9 faces though the underbars get a bit lost in the painted details on the faces. These dice are around “average” size and weight.
Size:
d20: (Face->Face) 20.35 mm (Point->Point) 25.35 mm
Where did they come from: Everything Dice kickstarter
How much did they cost: $129 (!!)
Material / color: Resin, hand painted with waves, ocean, and little boats
Quality: Fantastic! These are gorgeous but rough in the way you’d expect from hand-painted dice.
Readability: up-close they’re quite readable. From > 2 feet away they’re sometimes readable depending on which face is up. Some are easy to read and have high contrast, some of the faces with more waves (white) painted on them are much harder to read. From farther than 2 feet… good luck.
Value: Worth every penny. It’s hard to put a price on art.
Overall Rating: 10/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 44 rolls
Ten d20 rolls: 17, 14, 10, 3, 1, 12, 12, 11, 5, 16 (10.1 avg)
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 5, 13, 15, 8, 14, 10 (65 total) A Reliable Half-Orc Druid from the Dungeon Inspector’s Guild (local #422) who seems to know everyone
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Casting the Incendiary Cloud spell:
A swirling cloud of smoke shot through with white-hot embers appears in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point within range. The cloud spreads around corners and is heavily obscured. It lasts for the duration or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it.
When the cloud appears, each creature in it must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 10d8 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature must also make this saving throw when it enters the spell’s area for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there.
The cloud moves 10 feet directly away from you in a direction that you choose at the start of each of your turns.
Creatures take 42 fire damage on a failed save and 21 on success.
(This is another excuse for using random tables and rolling dice)
Random Tables rolls:
Townfolk reactions to PC heroes: – 09: You overhear a lady talking to a man about one of your recent feats. He snorts and replies ‘That’s nothing special. I could have done that!’
Epic Forgotten Realms Villains – 29: The Mad Wizard of Yawning Heights: An archmage gone mad, the Mad Wizard of Yawning Heights was once a powerful spellcaster in service to the gods. After being betrayed by them, he has vowed revenge and seeks out powerful artifacts to further his own power. He is known for his unpredictable magic abilities and mastery of necromancy, as well as his ability to summon hordes of undead minions from nearby graveyards.
(I’m getting these random tables at: https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts: These dice were from a kickstarter campaign for Everything dice. There were a couple of hand-painted sets of dice in the campaign. I scoffed at the price but then I saw that they had a set that was painted in the theme of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. They got the colors and design of the dice close to the original artwork. The roughness and flaws of the dice are a reminder that they’re hand-painted and that they’re both art and gaming pieces. I know that The Great Wave Off Kanagawa is a bit overused in general and you can get all sorts of things with that design on it but I just loved the look of these dice so I saved my pennies and fed the Dice Goblin.
The dice have a sealant coating over the painted design so that they’re able to withstand use on tables and rolling trays. I still keep them in the fancy decorative box with the protective foam that they came with. Keeping them in the box means that I don’t take them with me to games often, even when playing at home. I’ll usually just bring them if I want to show the dice to someone. I have a few other sets of dice that I treat this way (keep in the box and rarely bring to the table). Most notably: The Air Ashari dice from post #12 “Blue Sky Mine” and the fancy hand-made dice in post #16 “Fancy”.
These dice haven’t rolled very well for me at the table so far. I don’t know (or care) if they’re well balanced because they’re art first and dice second for me. They’re gorgeous to look at but I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy these unless you’re a big fan of the artwork like I am. With that caveat, I think that Everything Dice has some fantastic dice sets at premium prices. I don’t shop there often but occasionally they have something that I just can’t resist. I try hard not to think about how much money I’ve spent on this little hobby that I’ll hopefully be able to play for decades to come.
Leave a Reply