Build Your Own Dunshire

June 05, 2014 10 Comments

So you've left my warnings unheeded? Very well, let's get to it then. To follow along, you'll probably want to look at the components list from the rules PDF. There's actually 2 versions of the rules there: the authentic version and the "Oh God, my eyes! Make it stop!" version. So let's talk about the board first. The first step is going to Michaels and getting three 1/2"-thick foam boards. I don't remember the exact dimensions, but they were something around 30" x 15". Two of these boards served as two halves of the base of the board, and the third I cut up to form the mountain in the middle. Basically you want to cut the base and the mountain up so that it accommodates the following array of hexes, which each measure 2 3/4" inches side-to-side: board For the mountain, basically each increase in elevation (the numbers are the elevation and the base is at zero) is going to be an extra layer of 1/2" foam, so that the summit of the mountain of the mountain is 3" off the table. You can use thicker foam or multiple layers for each elevation change if you want the mountain to be taller. Next you'll want to decorate your board with hex tiles. You can look at the above image for a reference on what colors go where, but, honestly, as long as there's an even distribution of yellow, blue, red and green tiles thrown in (along with some doom points), you should be fine. The trick for authenticity is to cut out the colored hexes from construction paper, and then print off octagons of slightly different color with the land labels and tape those on top of the construction paper hexes. Here's a PDF for the octagons. A point of order here: I looked everywhere I could for the font they used for all the text. It's not exact, but Devinne Swash is pretty darn close. CoDboard Now that the board is squared away, let's talk about the cones. Obviously in the video they used foam cones from Michaels, as well, which is fine except they are expensive, and you'll need 32 of them. So unless you want to drop $150, I'd highly recommend investing in construction paper instead. You can even use the same kind you were using to make the hexes. And the bonus here is that they're already colored so you don't even have to spray-paint them. Just take a 12" x 17 3/4" sheet (also available at Michaels) and cut from the center of a short side to an opposite corner. Now roll up the paper so the short side becomes a point and the opposite side becomes the base, then put a single piece of tape on the top right corner - which is now somewhere in the middle of your contraption - to keep it from unraveling. You'll need to cut some excess off the base so that the cone stands up straight, but that's pretty much it! conecutting Now just do that ~30 more times for all the cones, using one of those sheets cut in half for the smaller subcones. You'll need a total of 8 cones and 8 subcones in each of the 4 colors, as well as a white cone and a black cone for the central cone of decision. An added bonus for using construction paper is that they're hollow and are much easier to store away. Next we're gonna need a lot of other little bits. You can cannibalize your other games for some of the other bits like wood, stone and iron resources and the irrigation/famine tokens (thanks Agricola!). Also hopefully you've got some minis laying around to use for the 8 avatars. I used my minis from Mage Knight, plus some others from my D&D box. It helps if they somewhat vaguely match the player colors (red, blue, yellow, green, black, white, grey and purple) avatars The real problem is that you need 7 other different bits in each of those colors to represent the buildings and troops of each player. I couldn't think of a good cost-effective solution for this, so I went to Print and Play Productions and was able to find all the bits I needed. It ended up being, like, $80 or something, which was sad. Except the troops. For the troops I used this fine little product, which I had laying around from other projects. You'll also need 12 each of 6-sided, 8-sided and 4-sided dice. And the 8-sided and 4-sided needed to be altered so that they display a color on whatever side or corner is rolled. For the d8s, you want an even distribution of yellow, blue, red and green on each one, and for the d4s you want every combination of two of those four colors, where one color is on three corners, and the second color is on one corner. I did this by applying blank labels to the sides, cut to size, and then drew on the labels with colored pencil (markers might be better, though). dice And now all that's left is the cards. There are a lot of cards, but you can find a print-and-play PDF here. It alternates front and back sides of cards, so you'll want to print double-sided. You'll notice that the cards look rather mundane, and I'm sorry for that. The cards in my game had a bunch of cool art instead of monochromatic boxes, but it was stuff I lifted off of deviantART and I don't feel comfortable distributing that around without the artists' consent. Oh! And I almost forgot! You also need representations of the 4 gods. I left this until the last minute for my game and had to get creative during a late-night trip to Target. The rules say you'll need a dragon: dragon But I think you should also have on hand a kraken: kraken a minotaur: minotaur and a lava worm: lavaworm1 I ended up eating the lava worm with hummus and black bean dip after our first session, lavaworm2 so we had to make another one when we finished the game 2 weeks later. He didn't last very long, either. lavaworm3 And that's it! If there's something else you need help with or are confused about, please let me know in the comments. Also I'd love to see pictures of your own Cones of Dunshire creations!


10 Responses

Wandering King
Wandering King

June 05, 2024

Those of you looking for the cards, I think I found them here: https://www.scribd.com/document/441637712/Cones-of-Dunshire-cards

David
David

June 05, 2024

What a fun setup. The food monsters are an especially nice touch. I’m excited to build this game and am happy to support an official release should there ever be one. In the meantime, it looks like your update in 2020 broke the link to the cards PDF. For anyone who still needs that, here is a new copy ;) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wgi-wVgBOWNCl75dx4HZwcq3sxpW7cN1/view?usp=drivesdk

Jo
Jo

December 18, 2023

Hey there, the print and play link for the cards seems to have been changed

Aezogeus
Aezogeus

February 20, 2023

Hi, I just found your page and I wanna say I’m a big fan of the Gloomhaven franchise. I recently finished watching the entirety of Parks and Recreation and was pleasantly surprised to find out that this project was a thing! I’m super excited to try it out but the link to the pdf with the cards seems to be broken.

Mary Sumner
Mary Sumner

December 18, 2023

Hi! I know its been a long, long time since this was posted, but is there any chance you still have the pdf of the cards lying about? The link reroutes to Founders of Gloomhaven.

Thanks!

Ana
Ana

December 18, 2023

Hey, I noticed the link to the resource cards leads to the game files for Gloomhaven. Is there any way to get the actual card files?

Amanda
Amanda

December 18, 2023

Hey! This is awesome. I can’t get the link to the cards to work for me. Help?

Jason
Jason

December 18, 2023

I’m thinking about building this game, but your link for the pdf of the cards is broken and takes me to some Founders of Gloomhaven pdf instead. Do you have the pdf of all the cards?

Siobhann
Siobhann

December 19, 2023

I tried to get the PDF for the CoD cards, but it seems to be a link to a gloomhaven game instead :(

ANDREW HILL
ANDREW HILL

December 18, 2023

The link above doesn’t lead me to playing cards. Do you have another link for playing cards? You’ve inspired me to build the game. Thanks you.

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