Games need dice, and dice need trays. Otherwise they just scatter about willy-nilly, leading to “jack dice”, “trust me it was a crit”, or in extreme cases: dangerous choking hazards. So for the safety of critter familiars, wee 0-level adventurers, and–if you’ve got fancy metal or stone dice–the table itself, we include a dice tray in every Vault. It’s a good tray. But for those who want something a little extra, we offer the Hardwood Dice Tray Add-on.

The Hardwood Dice Tray Add-on is the sort of dice tray an industrial designer would create. Because that’s exactly what it is. It’s beautiful and sturdy, sure, but it’s also got that clever inclined edge. Because what happens after you roll dice? You scoop them up. And based on extensive field experience with Queso and Chips at PAX South, I can assure you with great confidence that a square container with perfectly right angle sides is not the ideal scooping environment. 

Our Hardwood Dice Tray’s patent-would-be-pending-if-we-weren’t-so-busy-with-this-campaign design facilitates a swift scoop after every roll. The time savings are obvious, but consider also the comfort: less joint strain, lower danger of carpal tunnel injuries, and reduced incidence of blunt trauma to fingernails (these claims have not been evaluated by an attorney). For real, though: we anticipate what we’re calling the Marshall Method(™) tray design to be all the rage among premium tabletop accessory makers once these get out into the wild.

Speaking of premium tabletop accessory makers: we chose Green Fox Woodworking as our maker/partner for this dice tray. Green Fox was founded by husband and wife team Dan and Cara Winski. They have been designing, creating and building beautiful wood dice trays and gaming accessories out of their home shop in northeast Wisconsin since 2017. Go You Packers Go! 

 

We reached out to Green Fox not just for their beautiful craftsmanship, but also because we want to support fellow small businesses within our community. When we asked if they’d be up for building the dice tray that fits in the Vault of Mini Things they jumped at the opportunity. So know that when you select this Add-on, it will be hand built after the campaign ends by lovely folks who are proud to enhance your gaming experience.

And as backers, you’ll have first-dibs on Marshall Method ramped dice trays. Only after the campaign ends and all backer rewards have been delivered will Green Fox make them available in their online store. Meanwhile, you can see all of their currently-available wares here: https://www.greenfoxwoodworking.com/ 

Commoners. Nobles. Guards. Bandits. Quest-givers, rabble-rousers, innocents, key-keepers, the Usual Suspects. NPCs by any name. Community achievements 5-7 are all about folks who aren’t the heroes of their own stories. They’re the folks who exist solely to help, hinder, or inspire the sort of people who have class levels. 

And it’s fitting that we’re talking about them now, because this community of NPCs can only be brought forth by the efforts of our community of backers. The midpoint of a crowdfunding campaign often stalls a bit in terms of new backers and momentum. We’re at that midpoint now. So rather than languish, let’s rally and rouse! Now is the perfect time to share the campaign far and wide. If you shared earlier in the campaign, hit those same people up again and tell them how far we’ve come together. Thanks to your efforts we’ve hit SIX stretch goals–the value proposition for the Vault has vastly increased, and your friends, families, and online communities deserve to hear about that! 

So let’s talk about stretch goals 7-9 in detail. Stretch goal 7, “Cops & Robbers” brings in even more of those who break the law, and those who enforce it. 

We call them “Bandits” and “Guards”, but you can call them “Rangers”, “Highwaymen”, “King’s Men”, “Militia”, or even the name of your current PC. These guys tend to turn up often in a campaign, even at high levels, as foils and friends for the adventuring party. The Vault includes a bunch of them already, and this stretch goal adds alt-colors and variations. This way, when the PCs get into a bar fight in Baldur’s Gate, and then have to interface with the constabulary of Waterdeep for a murder investigation, the livery of the minis you put on the table can be distinct. Verisimilitude: it’s what’s for dinner.

We call stretch goal 8 “Village People” because the smallfolk are the stars. The Vault contains a bunch of them, and this stretch goal adds more quantities, more varieties--and their mini horses, too!

These are the hapless folks the heroic PCs get to defend and rescue from danger, or the outraged citizenry who want to burn your party at the stake. Campaigns tend to have one or two NPCs rise to “recurring guest star” status and this stretch goal gives the GM plenty to choose from.

Bruce Campbell fans may recognize “Hello Mr. Fancy Pants”, stretch goal 9, as an apt greeting for the high falutin’. 

Sometimes the PCs get invited to, or more likely are commanded to appear before, a gathering of the nobility. Stretch goal 9 adds more of such highborn folk to the Vault. There’s a good chance some of these minis will feature as the villain of a campaign, and an even higher chance that the PCs will have to burgle one of their mansions. 

Halfway There
We've reached an important milestone: today is the midway point of the crowdfunding campaign for the Vault of Mini Things! It's more important than ever to share this campaign far and wide before the campaign end date of June 16. We've got a bunch of huge-value stretch goals and we can hit them all if we keep encouraging others to consider adding the Vault to their own gaming collection. Onward!

fissionessence asks:
Q: I see Frostgrave as being a game that is intended to be supported by the Vault. Do you have any plans to offer terrain of ice & snow? The ruins would be a perfect fit, and it shows "WIP," but the preview looks pretty rocky. This would be a great spot for some snow!
A: Real talk: Frostgrave was a major inspiration for this project. That game, and other "minis agnostic" rulesets that are all the rage these days,  created a real need for lots of minis of diverse type but consistent look. It struck us as unfair (or at least, unfortunate) for a potential player interested in such games to be faced with a huge obstacle of time and money if they didn't already have a whole bunch of figures.

So: standees. Lots of 'em, full color, with consistent (and consistently GREAT) art. Like this:



We've been working with Marshall for over a year on figures specifically for Frostgrave. You can see some in the form of bandits/thugs, the barbarians, a treasure hunter, some particular spellcasters... they're here and there in the Vault. And once the art for the full assembly of each of those arctic-outfitted figures is done, we'll release a dedicated Pouch of Mini Things, or maybe even a boxed set, that will equip the buyer with everything they need for a game of Frostgrave. Stay tuned!

Again, thank you for the support. Everyone over here believes the Vault will be there for you when you need it, and with your help we can bring it forth!

Sincerely,

Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall.

TinkerHouse Games got its start in tabletop with TinkerTurf: a line of full-color, sturdy sci-fi terrain for wargames. We know that terrain can turn boring battles into exciting tactical puzzles. So as exploration of our entry into Fantasy progressed, we knew that whatever we offered, it had to include terrain.



Luckily, Marshall is a multi talented artist capable of creating terrain pieces every bit as beautiful as his creatures. We believe his vivid terrain art truly complements the minis, making them look even more fantastic. The art also elevates the look of a tabletop adventure; too often, RPG terrain can be drab, muddy, and indistinct. While a dingy dungeon might be accurate, it’s boring and unpleasant to look at–and games are meant to be fun. We’re proud to present terrain that pops with color and details that read well at table distance.

We classify terrain in two categories: terrain, and props. Terrain pieces are elements such as walls, trees, and other large linear obstacles. The Vault’s terrain is made of the same chipboard material that we use for TinkerTurf. If you’re unfamiliar with chipboard, it’s the same material that’s typically used for board game boards. The particular chipboard we’ve selected for the Vault’s terrain has a black interior. This means the die-cut edges of each piece show up as black, so that the eye can focus on the art rather than be distracted by a stark white border. 

Props are things like torch stands, treasure chests, shrubs, lecterns, weapon racks, urns, fountains, and other smaller bits of “dungeon dressing.” They’re made of playing card stock–the same material as the standees–and likewise insert into standee bases. This means they can feature terrain pogs that match those of whatever creatures you include in the encounter. It’s a small touch, but really helps a scene feel cohesive.

The starter terrain and props included with the Vault are enough to run small encounters in dungeon, wilderness, or tudor village environments. What do we mean by “starter terrain”? For example, the general notion for the included Dungeon terrain was to include enough walls and floor tiles for whatever room the characters are in, one additional room, and the tunnel or passage that connects the two. Additional terrain is available via Add-ons, which will let you lay out several rooms and passages, a village neighborhood, or open wilderness area. You can find the piece list and quantity counts here, with the usual crowdfunding caveats of “does not include unmet stretch goals” and “not final/subject to change.”

While you can certainly lay out a fully-enclosed dungeon complex, we’ve found that an encounter featuring wall pieces looks best when presented to the players in an isometric or “Diablo” point of view. This lets every player see the action, without foreground walls occluding any minis or props. Marshall put together this encounter to show what we mean:

Mooks, cannon fodder, minions–they go by many names, and they’re the perfect expression of “quantity is its own quality.” Stretch goal 4 adds even more of the sorts of creatures that jump to action when someone bigger, or smarter hollers “SEIZE THEM!”

Achievements 1-4 (the chromatic rainbow of dragons) already add an astounding quantity of kobolds, so the Multitude of Minions community achievement is composed of higher CR foes: bandits, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and cultists. As GM you’ll be the delight of your party’s Evoker when you scatter a bunch of these guys within a convenient 20’ radius.

This stretch goal augments the Vault’s contents of such foes from “you encounter some orcs” to “you encounter an orc patrol”. If you want to go full “FOR THE HORDE”, we humbly direct you to the “Pouch of Mini Things: Minions.”

Thanks to the efforts of the community, we've steamed past three stretch goals and are 95% of the way to Community Achievement #4! Congratulations, all of us! Please do keep sharing this campaign with friends, family, and your favorite news sites and influencers. Once people see the Vault, the value is pretty obvious--but if folks aren't aware of it, they can't back. Your energetic evangelism is both appreciated and necessary! A single news story or feature on a prominent site would blow this project wide open.

Lot of lively discussion to surface in this update. We've been seeing on Facebook that some folks are asking about the material we use for the standees, and it's reasonable to assume that some of you are being asked that same question when you share this project with friends. A concise way to answer that question is: "The standees are die-cut from playing card stock. That's the same durable material Las Vegas uses for their table games."

Greg asked a good question about storage capacity:
Q: One of the reasons I pledged this awesome looking project is the awesome looking organizer.  Will the organizer be sufficient if we do a bunch of add ons or is there a way to pledge a second organizer/add on organizer box?
A: There is (much) more than enough capacity in the Creature Catalog to fit every Pouch of Mini Things add-on. The design intent is that you can keep adding on to the Vault as we release additional Pouches over the years. The Trays of Terrain are called Trays because they are engineered to be swapped into the Vault; you remove the included Tray of starter terrain and simply slide in the Add-on tray. 

Again, thank you for the support. Everyone over here believes the Vault will be the prettiest box at the ball, and with your help we can bring it forth!

Sincerely,

Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall.

The Vault of Mini Things has hit its goal! Thank you so much to the 324 backers (as of this writing) who pledged for the Vault, and thank you to Backerkit for their train metaphor so we can say: Choo choo, the train is leaving the station!

Everyone here--Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall--are so thrilled to have you all aboard, and grateful for the support. Now that we're rolling, it's crucial to keep up our momentum so we can start hitting stretch goals. You can help by sharing the campaign with friends, stores, and gaming forums. We're running ads to try to reach the game masters and players the Vault is intended for, but it's a well-known fact that a personal endorsement from someone known and trusted is the most compelling means to get a potential backer to check out a campaign.

So we encourage you to continue to spread the word about the campaign! A simple: "hey check this out" and a link is good. Your particular reason for backing is even better. Was it the gorgeous art? Saving time and money by not having to buy and paint 3-d minis? Compact storage and portability? The Creature Catalog, which lets you quickly find and use whatever mini you're looking for? Whatever it is, by sharing your rationale it'll be a bit more likely that folks will consider getting a Vault of their own.

Thank you once again for making the Vault of Mini Things a funded campaign. Buckle in: we're just getting started!


Feature: Creature Catalog

It’s no good to just toss hundreds of loose standees into a box. To be of real use, any particular standee has to be quick to find, and easy to store once the encounter is over. Our solution has been reliably used for over a century in libraries across the world: the card catalog. 

Just like an old-school library catalog, the Vault’s Creature Catalog is ordered into general categories, and then alphabetized within those categories. For example you’d find orcs in “Foes”, under “O”. Whereas you’d find owlbears under “O” in “Monsters.” And octopuses (octopi?) under “O” in “Animals.” Our full list of categories is:

* Oversize standees are stored elsewhere within the Vault. 

To aid with organization and cleanup, the base-insert portion of each standee is color-coded to match the color of each Category.

We’re pretty proud of the Creature Catalog and its filing system. It may seem like a simple thing, but it’s a key component of the core value proposition of the Vault: saving your time. It’s frustrating to *know* that you’ve got a mini of a particular monster, and it’s… somewhere within your various cases, baggies, drawers, or boxes. With the Vault, you can find that creature in mere seconds. And when it’s time to pack up for the night, even gamemasters suffering from the Exhausted condition will be able to easily get everything and everyone back to its place. 

It’s worth noting that we color code each standee by Category, but further filing is up to your discretion. Want to classify your Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears together under “G” for “Goblinoids”? Makes sense. Want to group your Heroes by Class? Go for it. Race? Sure, do that instead. Us, we group Heroes simply by “Heavy Armor”, “Light Armor”, and “Spellcaster.” Point being: we provide color-coded standees by Category, and by supplying alphabetical dividers, and you can use those dividers so that classify your particular Creature Catalog in accordance with your particular preferences. Or even, as superbacker Landon Jamieson suggest, re-label the dividers to make them truly bespoke.

Bonus for bibliothecaires: an interview about the history of card catalogs 

We saw several questions asking about counts of individual standees for the Pouches and the Vault itself. With the caveats that stretch goals are not included in this list, and the list itself is not completely final: you can find that list here. 

Erin Jungjohann asks:
Q: Hi! As a long time patron who is very excited by this project I am all-in, but I hesitated on the terrain sets with map tiles because they don't seem to be gridded and that's a must for using these standees with dnd, at least for my table. Was there any plan to include a grid with these map tiles, even just on their reverse side? It seems like a hugely useful inclusion for most backers.
A: Good news: the map tiles are gridded! The gridding is hard to see at the distances we're currently showing, but the grid is there. It was a topic of intense discussion as TinkerHouse Games has its roots in tactical wargames terrain, and such terrain is typically ungridded. But ultimately we decided on a subtle grid, since so many RPG systems suggest a grid for tactical combat. The grid is a standard 1" size, and plays well with other gridded maps or tiles.

Dungeon Master asks:
Q: One other company that makes flat D&D minis makes most of their large, huge, and gargantuan size monsters under-sized so they can fit more minis on a single printed page. It makes you think you're getting more for your money, but I find it really irritating. A DMs job is to terrify their players - that's hard to do if your storm giant mini is no taller than a player's elf. Will the Large, Huge, and Gargantuan monsters be printed at the correct scale?
A: Yes! One of the reasons we chose playing card stock--in addition to its inherent durability and ability to showcase the art--is because it lets us make minis of large (and huge) size. Take a look at these prototype minis of a dragon and human. That dragon is 4.5 inches tall. Put that down, and it will make an impression!



Again, thank you for the support. Everyone over here believes the Vault will be the hit at New York’s Hottest Club, and with your help we can bring it forth!

Sincerely,

Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall

Deciding to launch a comprehensive solution for game masters featuring hundreds of minis as well as terrain–that was the easy part. Figuring out how to fit everything inside one box in an elegant, usable way? Harder. 

Our guiding principles were:

We know that space is at a premium so whatever shape the Vault took, it had to be able to fit inside a standard Ikea Kallax shelf system–right alongside your other tabletop games. Once we locked in that limiting factor everything else came into place. Let’s take a peek inside.

The Terrain Tray is a removable storage tray for terrain pieces and oversized standees. 

The dice tray is a convenient corral for random number generators of various denominations. It can be upgraded to a hand-made wood form factor; see update 5.

The storage cells are for terrain base pogs, standee bases, and any miscellaneous counters, tape measures, or other game pieces you might require. Their contents are kept secure by the trays above.

The foam insert applies even pressure to ensure nothing rattles around or comes loose during the tussles of normal transportation.

We’ll go over the Creature Catalog in great detail in the next update.

Each of these components have been thoughtfully engineered to snugly fit inside the Vault, and to keep all its wonders safe and secure during transport. And for those who reside on planet Earth, you'll be glad to know that the trays and compartments are made of sustainable, biodegradable materials–not plastic. 

As of this writing we’re at $36,150 pledged, or just over 70% of the campaign goal. Good progress! And good time to talk about campaign stretch goals, or "Community Achievements" as Backerkit calls them. The Backerkit platform handles Achievements in a pretty clever way. Rather than making the backer hunt-and-peck through the campaign's main page for Achievement updates, Backerkit collects that information in a real-time, dynamically updated, dedicated section right here. That's where you can go to see details on the next Achievement with up-to-the-minute progress toward the goal. And we'll introduce each goal right here, via these Updates. Let's get started with our first four Achievement goals. I hope you like Dragons!

Achievements 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all about dragons of chromatic hues. It turns out that when we first engaged with him, Marshall already had art for a white dragon but not for any of the other classically-encountered colors. So our first stretch goals are to fill the rest of the evil dragon crayon box via Community Achievements for Green, Black, Blue, and Red dragons. 

Completing the evil dragon rainbow makes sense; the most popular game played by our intended audience has “Dragons” in the title after all. But if we’re including different colors of dragons, it also makes sense to include different colors of a dragon’s most loyal minions: kobolds. That’s why each Community Achievement includes not just a huge, distinctively-illustrated dragon but a complement of 9 like-colored kobolds. And two drakes!

With all four achievements unlocked you’ll be able to field every color of evil dragon (the collective noun for a group of at least one of each chromatic dragon is “a Tiamat of dragons”) alongside a horde of dozens of vicious kobolds. Onward!

Our community has grown to 235 Backers! Backerkit likes the train metaphor, so in that spirit: welcome aboard! Your pledges are what enaables this project to get up to steam and leave the station. To continue the metaphor, we encourage you to invite others to go on this journey with us by posting about the project, encouraging your favorite influencers or news sites to cover it, and otherwise spreading the word. We think the Vault can benefit most every group's game experience, and we need your help sharing that good news.

There's been some lively talk in the Discussion area! Here are a few topics to highlight:

Sergio Plaza asks:
Q:  Is it just me or are there repeated standees from the main box in the addons along with other standees that are not in the main box?
A: It's not just you! The Vault comes with hundreds of minis, including multiple duplicates of minis that often are encountered in groups. By adding on Pouches of Mini Things those ranks can be further swollen with even more. We'd like to highlight that the Pouches also have color-, head-, skin color-, gender-, or gear variants of minis that appear in the Vault. This lets you differentiate different factions, tribes, or power levels. For example with the Minions Pouch of Mini Things add-on, you could use the guard minis from the Vault as the constabulary or militia of one town, and the alt-colored guards from the Minions Pouch for a different town. Or one color as regular, and the other color as elite.



We also got another question about modern or sci-fi minis. If the campaign is successful, we'll certainly consider expanding into other genres. Either with Pouches of Mini Things (which would easily fit within the Vault) or as a new version of the Vault devoted to those genres (with many more minis as well as terrain appropriate for those genres). But: we've got to get this train out of the station first!

Again, thank you for the support. Everyone over here believes the Vault will be quite the thing to see, and with your help we can bring it forth!

Sincerely,

Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall.

It’s day 1! And wow, what a day it is! Thank you so much for the outpouring of support and enthusiasm for The Vault of Mini Things. This project has been a labor of love three years in the making, and everyone over here–Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall–are overjoyed at the response to the launch. 

The Vault and its contents are complex feats of engineering, and we aim to showcase these wondrous features in detail over future updates. In addition to those deep-dives, each update will also include a snapshot of the campaign-in-progress, including surpassed and upcoming community achievements. And each update will end by highlighting especially noteworthy questions and comments from the community.. 

Check out the schedule below:

Update 1 - Today (May 30th): Feature: Standees Stand-up

Update 2 - (May 31): Feature: What’s in the box? (compartments, Dice Tray, Terrain Tray) Community Achievements 1-4

Update 3 - (June 2): Feature: Creature Catalog, Community Achievement 5

Update 4 - (June 5): Feature: Terrain pieces, Community Achievement 6

Update 5 - (June 7): Feature: Hardwood Dice Tray add-on, Community Achievements 7-9

Update 6 - (June 9): Feature: Map Tiles, Community Achievements 10 

Update 7 - (June 12): Feature: Marshall Artist, Community Achievements 11-12, Final week!

Update 8 - (June 14): Feature: Premium Bag pledge level, End is Nigh

Update 9 - (June 15): Feature: Campaign summary 

The original inspiration for this project was recognizing that tabletop RPG gamers, and players of the growing number of “miniature-agnostic” wargames, face a significant hurdle in fielding enough minis to have a complete and varied experience. Storage, transport, and usability are also significant obstacles: one of Tinkerhouse’s founders has a 25 gallon plastic tub full of pre-painted plastics in sandwich bags, and hauling that out of the garage and sifting it for the handful of specific minis he needs for an encounter is a daunting chore. Faced with the problem of wanting quick access to hundreds of different minis, we came up with the idea of partnering with Printable Heroes and presenting that vast library of art as high-quality, good-looking standees.

We originally thought to package the standees in a wide assortment of Decks of Mini Things, but ultimately decided to instead offer the Vault as a single comprehensive solution. We think of it as the difference between offering a Socket Wrench and Drill Bit set in a dedicated case vs. offering a piecemeal assortment of bits and sockets of various sizes that will end up stored loose in a utility drawer. The Vault is meant to be reliably useful. A system, not a substitute.

We’re proud of the design and engineering of the Vault itself, but the core of this product is the standees. Standees are a perfect pair for tabletop RPGs and tactical games because they’re individually inexpensive, they’re full-color, and they allow for representation of creatures that are difficult or impossible to produce in 3-D. Creatures with delicate or thin appendages and weapons. Floating creatures. Fiery or ghostly creatures. While painting 3-D minis is a joyful hobby for many, not everyone has that sort of time, skill, or money.

Standees are the perfect solution for gamers who want to have great-looking minis without having to spend a great amount of time. And our standees are more than simple paper printouts. They’re precision die-cut from casino-quality cardstock, with hand-drawn art specifically crafted to look their best at tabletop distances. That’s crucial; art that looks great full-size on a computer screen can look like a muddled, inscrutable mess when it’s printed and on a table. Not so our art: it’s made for RPGs and tactical minis games, with countless hours of image post-processing balancing and surface treatment enhancements on the cardstock itself to ensure colors and details pop. 

An equal level of consideration and care went into the design of the standee bases. Our bases are custom-engineered for solid grip, ease of use, and reduction of wear-and-tear. They’ve got substantial heft for tabletop presence, and each has a socket design for easy install and removal of two-sided terrain pogs that match the surface texture of our terrain tiles: wood floor, dungeon floor, wilderness, and cobblestone street. 

That’s why we chose full-color standees as the core component of the Vault. They look great, they’re durable, they store compactly–and the only time they require from you is popping them out of their die-cut sheets. Finally, a solution for hundreds upon hundreds of great-looking minis that doesn’t require hours upon hours of your precious time. 

This space is for sharing comments from the community, and post relevant topics from the Discussion.

We'll start with some questions and answers from Day One: 

Jim asked:
Q: "Heya, just wanted to quickly check: what material are the standees printed on?"
A: We are printing the standees on playing card stock.

We also saw some questions wondering if we'll release Pouches of Mini Things for Fey, Mallards, Wolfkin, sci-fi, or modern. The answer to that is: it depends on the success of this campaign! Certainly, if enough people embrace the Vault of Mini Things platform we'd be thrilled to explore additional expansions.

There were multiple queries about ordering multiple quantities of Vaults. This is a great idea, and we've added the ability to add additional Vaults as an add-on to your pledge.

Anonymous Toucan #430444 asked about a $1 "no reward" level for those interested in an add-on or two. The reason this isn't a pledge level option is because we're very interested in finding out if the tabletop community is interested in the core Vault as a comprehensive solution for their tables. While we believe our quality hand-drawn standees can stand proudly alongside hand-painted 3-D minis, the best experience is when everything on the table is the same form-factor and style. That said, if the campaign is as successful as we think it will be, you'll be able to dip your toe into standees by looking for Pouches of Mini Things at your local game store.

Finally, we'll close with this message from Printable Heroes patron Rina that truly warmed our hearts:






Again, thank you for the support. Everyone over here believes the Vault will be a true boon to game masters new and old, and with your help we can bring it forth!

Sincerely,

Mike, Lane, Chris, and Marshall.