016: Fancy

Finally a fancy set of boutique dice graces my little Dice Goblin review blog

Name: Tentacles and Flowers

Description: A hand-made Sharp Edge resin set of 7 dice. They are made of mostly clear resin with black tinted resin for the bottom side. The dice have a black and purple tentacle curled around a white blooming flower inside. The dice use a very fancy Gothic font. The font is a combination of maybe Pirata and Lordish with high flags on the ‘6’, a curve in the stem of the ‘7’ & ‘2’, and a closed ‘4’. The numbers are inked in gold which is never my favorite but works okay for this set.

The dice are extremely sharp on all points and edges. The d10s have scalloped waists. The standard d4 pyramid shape has been replaced with the prism d4 shape that one or two of my other sets have (notably the set I reviewed in post: 009 Color In Your Life.) The big news for this set is that they are my first set of dice with a Rhombic d12 shape. I’ve only seen a few sets of boutique dice that use this shape where each face of the d12 is a Rhombus (diamond). It is still fascinating to me that this shape exists.

Size (d20):  21.00 mm (first d20 that was bang on accurate)

Where did they come from: Allelenyan Dice (https://www.allelenyan.com)

How much did they cost: $180, making them my most expensive set of dice.

Material / color:  Hand poured resin with plastic and floral inclusions.

Quality:  Flawless! These are highly polished and contain no scratches, dings, chips, or other blemishes. They’re the standard that all dice should be judged by (so far)

Readability: Not good. The gold font blends in with the flower detail and the numbers disappear from any further than an arms length away. Reading the numbers over the dark resin sides is a little easier.

Value: Decent, not great… they’re art.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 17 rolls

Ten d20 rolls: 3, 12, 17, 10, 14, 18, 13, 5, 19, 18 (12.9 avg)

4d6 drop 1 stat block: 7, 12, 17, 8, 9, 12 (65 total) A Talented Half-Orc Sorcerer from an oasis village who was framed for the murder of a famous and well-loved innkeeper

For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and Point Buy totals to: 69.

Random Tables rolls:

Desert Encounters: 34 – On there journey through the desert, the party encounters a group of raiders traveling back from the their last raid at a nearby Temple.

Somatice Components (AKA: Spellcasting gestures): 35 – The caster shakes their hand violently, and lunges about 1 foot forwards, slanting their body and pointing their (no longer shaking) hand at the target.

Final Thoughts: These are hand-made boutique dice produced by a woman in Kazakhstan. I found her while I was dice-goblining on either Instagram or Twatters a few years ago. I saw the quality of dice that she was showing in her photos/videos and couldn’t believe how clean they were. She says that she does everything herself (makes the molds, casts the resin, creates / paints the inclusions, polishes, numbers, etc…). She only sells dice a few times a year in batches. She’ll develop a design, make a clean example set and then take orders for just a couple of days. They’re in high demand, so she’ll get enough orders quickly and then close her shop while she makes the orders and ships them out. She doesn’t cut corners on the dice. They’re beautifully cast and polished. The quality of the dice is better than any I’ve bought in stores / from companies.

I love the mixed theme of a flower and a tentacle. The color of these isn’t amazing with the clear resin and gold numbers, which makes them a little bit hard to read but they’re so nice to look at. I love looking at her new designs when she posts them and I think I’ll probably buy another set of her dice or a chonk d20 if she makes any and I like the design.

I’m very impressed that the dice maker (Allelenyan) was able to produce the first d20 of mine that is exactly the size advertised. It’s rare for a d20 to come within even 1/10th of an inch of the stated size (they’re always smaller) so seeing this d20 come up as 21.00mm on my calipers was surprising. I do wish that the set was just a little bit bigger overall (based around a 23mm – 24mm d20) so that the detail would be a little easier to see.

There’s a little bit of good/bad on the shapes. I don’t love a crystal d4 shape. I’m more of a traditionalist and always like the pyramid / caltrop d4 shape. To balance that, I absolutely love the rhombic d12. I’d only seen this shape for the first time about a year ago and I prefer it in every way over the pentagram sides of the standard d12. The rhombic shape is so much more geometrically pleasing to my eyes despite being confused for the d20 at a quick glance.

The downsides of this set are that they take like 3 months to arrive due to the spotty postal service in her part of Kazakhstan. She often mentions that the post office just isn’t open on a regularly posted schedule. The cost is a bit of a hurdle as well. These dice were close to $200 with shipping. That’s way too much to spend on a fancy set of hand made dice even if they’re this gorgeous. I’d like to think that this equates to a living wage for her and they’re a mix between art and functionality. I can’t wait to use them at the table next time I play.