Critical Role and Everything Dice bring you the Luxon Beacon liquid core chonk d20
Name: Luxon Beacon Oversized d20
Description: (From the CR web shop): “Arm your roll with high probability and dunamis with this gorgeous Luxon Beacon Oversized d20 made in collaboration with the master artists at Everything Dice. Housed in a foam and velvet insert for protection, this d20 is a handmade, sharp edged, high grade wear resistant resin die beautifully painted with custom mixed colors and polished with a gemstone finish. Inspired by the sacred relics of the Kryn Dynasty, this d20 features white numbering, a swirling liquid core of glittering stars, and beautiful hand painted golden dunamancy sigils.
The Luxon Beacon Oversized d20 also includes a microfiber polyester polishing cloth, a nylon bag with ribbon closure, as well as an insert describing the inspiration and recommendations for ensuring the quality of the die. The box artwork is a charming illustration of our resident hot boi Shadowhand, Essek Thelyss.”
This is a hand-painted sharp-edge resin chonk d20 with a liquid core. It is a brilliant dark purple color with tiny sparkle glitter suspended in the resin and a hand-painted liquid core with holofoil suspended inside. The numbers are inked in white in a sans-serif font that is again similar to Oracle Sans but with a different “4” that doesn’t have a closed top. The 6 and 9 faces use underbars to indicate orientation (which are superior to dots in every way).
Size (d20): < 32mm
Where did they come from: Critical Role online shop (Made by Everything Dice)
How much did it cost: $60!
Material / color: Resin. Dark purple with fine glitter. The inner liquid core has hand-painted glyphs in gold.
Quality: Very good. There are no blemishes or dings. The edges are sharp and the die is well polished.
Readability: Extremely good. I was able to easily read what I just rolled (a 15) on the rug from 10 feet away. Dark purple dice with white numbers in a simple font are going to be readable 10/10 times.
Value: Okay. This is a lot to spend on a single d20. I struggled with the decision to buy this one (not for a terribly long time, but the struggle was real). It’s overpriced for a chonk d20 but…..
– It has a liquid core
– it’s very readable
– the quality is very good
– It’s made by Everything Dice (who are fantastic)
– it uses a nice color combination
– it’s hand painted in a way that won’t rub off / chip / scratch
– it’s made for / supports Critical Role
– it doesn’t have a silly emoji on the 20 face.
I feel a little guilty paying this much for a single chonk d20 but I use chonk d20s regularly in my game. I much prefer rolling a chonk d20 than a standard size d20 for most things. I’m happy to pay extra to support CR. I enjoy their 5e campaign shows and appreciate that they haven’t pay-walled their content (yet).
Overall Rating: 9/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 29 rolls
Ten d20 rolls: 18, 7, 12, 18, 3, 3, 20, 9, 1, 7 (9.8 avg)
6d20 stat block (dropping rolls < 3): 7, 4, 20, 15, 11, 4 (61 total) A Reluctant Human Sorcerer from the White Halls who can’t read
Things get wild with a 6d20 stat block. That’s only a -3 on Dex and Cha though. For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and Point Buy totals to: 69.
Random Tables rolls: (I’m just going with a single d20 roll here)
NPC Physical Attributes: 10 – Twisted Lips
Prisoners in Jail Cells: 18 – Gray Shido – Skinny man with a nice mustache who runs an illegal gambling parlor that doesn’t pay taxes. The head of guard patrol in Shido’s territory changed recently and wanted more bribe than Shido was willing to pay. Incidentally, the new head of patrol was just found dead, head run over by a wagon wheel after tragically tripping in the street. Complete accident. 10 witnesses corroborating.
Final Thoughts: This is a gorgeous chonk d20 made to a quality precision finish. The “Value” section above has most of the highlights. Other than those plusses, I like that they used very small bore glitter and not the larger confetti sized bits. It’s also nice that the hand-painted area is inside the resin (on the surface of the liquid-core ball) so that they can’t get scraped / rubbed off. I don’t think that a die being hand-painted is necessarily a selling point though my favorite set of dice is hand painted in a specific theme and that is most of what makes them so amazing. (Also made by Everything Dice).
The packaging absolutely looks fantastic. The passport stamp detailing on the shipping box with locations across Tal’Dorei is a great easter-egg to any fans that watch CR. The internal box from Everything Dice is beautiful with fantastic art including Essek Thelyss from Campaign 2! The Luxon Beacon that the d20 is named after as described in CR campaign 2 (which I’m very slowly working through) is a 12-sided object the size of a cannonball with handles on opposite sides. If chonk d12s were a thing at all, this would have been perfect.
Probably the only thing that I don’t like about this die that while it was advertised as a 40mm d20, When I measure it with calipers it comes in at less than 31.5mm across opposite faces. I also measured it from opposite vertices and that only came out to 39.6mm. I don’t like the disparity in measurement techniques and size jumping. I would have been less inclined to buy it knowing that it was only approaching 32mm (which is a great size for a d20, but at this price? ehhhhh…)
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