So you like butterflies? How about a set of dice with blue butterflies inside?
Name: Mixed Morpho Blue Butterfly 7 piece handmade sharp edge dice set + crystal D4
Description: A set of eight sharp edge resin dice in clear resin with small blue butterflies and a tiny bit of fine blue glitter inside. The dice have a mild blue tint because of the blue inclusions and the blue ink on the font. (pretty standard Helvetica-ish font). The numbers are nice and large relative to the size of the faces. The font is inked with a nice slightly dark Royal blue ink with a hint of glitter in it. The d10s have edged waists and the 6 and 9 faces use dots to indicate their orientation. The eighth die in this set is an extra 8-sided “crystal” shape d4. (really a d8 with one half elongated) This extra d4 is smaller than the rest of the dice but is the same length as the d8. I don’t hate this shape, but I’d like it a lot more if it’s waist had the same perimeter as the d8. This is the second set I’ve bought from King’s Dice Shop (the first was from review 009 “Color In Your Life”) and both sets came with the extra 8-sided d4 die. The butterflies inside are different variations of the Blue Morpho species.
Size:
d20: (Face->Face) 20.75 mm (Point->Point) 25.34 mm
Where did they come from: Etsy (Seller: KingsDiceShop)
How much did they cost: $80
Material / color: Clear resin with blue butterfly inclusions and blue glitter
Quality: Very good. They’re clean dice but the color/size/font aren’t doing this set any favors.
Readability: Not very good. Forget about reading these from even 4 feet away
Value: Decent value but they’re just not $80 pretty dice to me.
Overall Rating: 8/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 16 rolls
Ten d20 rolls: 9, 14, 2, 17, 8, 20, 2, 7, 14, 15 (10.8 avg)
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 9, 8, 9, 12, 14, 14 (66 total) An outspoken Half-Elf Cleric from an internment camp who hates riding horses.
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Random Tables rolls:
Masks: – 12: Deathmask of the Whiteface: +2 rounds of Raging if barbarian otherwise taking damage can (wearer’s choice, free action) trigger the spell Uncontrollable Rage for 2 rounds, forcing the wearer to attack the source of the damage.
Zero HP Injuries: – 06: Your nerves are shot, for Resolve: {1d4+ 3 days}, you feel no pain and the DM tracks your health without your knowledge
(I’m getting these random tables at: https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts: This isn’t normally a set of dice that I’d buy but my wife has a tattoo of a Blue Morpho butterfly and asked for a set of blue butterfly-themed dice if I could find them. Duh, of course I could find them (Goblins be goblin-ing!). I’m glad that I didn’t have to find a boutique dicemaker who I could pay an arm and a leg to have a set of butterfly dice commissioned. I did ask around when I was having trouble locating a set. As I mentioned in a previous review, my wife isn’t playing D&D right now so I’m keeping these dice safe for her. (wink wink). I do have to test them out every so often in my in-person game.
Overall I think that these dice are nice but they’re not amazing. Given that they’re barely above average size for a set of ttRPG dice (20.75 mm d20), the blue butterflies look like they’re crammed into the dice. As (almost) always, these dice could be improved with a few changes in my opinion. Given a magic want, I’d change:
– Size. Make them 10% larger (22mm – 23mm would be great)
– Font: Use a slightly thinner font.
– Ink: Use a different color ink for the numbers
“Make them larger” is one of my most frequent complaints about dice. This has a little bit to do with me having large hands and my eyesight not being what it used to be. I hate to even mention using thinner fonts as they rarely ever look better than bold and almost never improve readability. In this case the font is wide enough that it is a distraction from the butterfly inclusions that made me buy the dice in the first place. The user has to look around the wide numbers to see the butterflies instead of your brain just ignoring the numbers. This wide font works well on the other set of dice I bought from KingsDiceShop (linked above) as they have no inclusions and are all about color and shape. You’re trying to look inside these dice though. Using a slightly lighter blue or even another light color or complementary color font would help set the blue butterflies apart from the rest of the die and take away some of the blue tint that the thick royal blue font brings to the dice.
Would I buy these dice again? Would I buy them if my wife didn’t ask for a set of butterfly dice? No. I don’t find them terribly attractive. I think they’re cluttered and small rather than delicate and beautiful. I see what they were trying to do but butterflies aren’t one of the things that I would look for in a set of fancy dice. I’m glad that my wife likes looking at them though.
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