Gaming Dice

Light-up forbidden jolly ranchers.

Light-up forbidden jolly ranchers.

They're just bog standard six-siders, honest!

• Front left: 4 on top, 6 and 2 facing.
• Rear left: 1 on top, 2 and 3 facing.
• Front centre: 3 on top, 6 and 5 facing.
• Rear right: 2 on top, 6 and 3 facing.
• Front right: 5 on top, 6 and 4 facing.

These are wooden. Obsessive lunatic that I am, I actually rolled them a thousand times and checked that they were sufficiently random for play. I have an all-metal set in my shopping cart ready to buy when I get the urge.

These are not, strictly speaking, gaming dice, but I make use of them in gaming for in-character purposes (and sometimes when I face idea blocks as a GM: using them to foster ideas like I might use a tarot deck).

Tibetan Mo Divination

These dice are a hold-over from Tibetan shaman practice incorporated into Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I have three sets of them:

1. A wooden set that has the Tibetan symbols writ large and in small beside each their Chinese translation.

2. A brass set that has just the Tibetan symbols. (I later coloured in the symbols so that it was easier to distinguish first and second.)

3. A "literal gem dice" set: one in "egg yolk opal" (literal translation), and the other in yellow jade.

Yijing Divination

These dice will look unusual to people who have a preconceived notion of how the Yijing (I-Ching) are consulted. The ways most people know of are the "yarrow stalk" technique, the "three coins" technique, and, if especially familiar from afar, perhaps the "bamboo strip" technique. But there are many ways that the Yijing are consulted that have developed over the millenia. In addition to the aforementioned techniques there's also tiles (similar to the bamboo strips) and my examples here: dice.

I have two sets of these dice:

1. A wooden set that has the Yijing hexagrams written by name, not by the six broken/whole line sets that people outside of China are most familiar with.

2. An all-metal set ("bronze", but not really made of bronze, just coated with a bronze layer) that is again done by hexagram name.

In both cases and extra six-sided die is used to determine the "moving line" of the hexagram. (Yarrow stalk and coin methods can have zero to six moving lines. Dice methods will have one always. Slip and tile methods will never have any.)

Taking a break from literal gem dice to show off the best d4s ever made. Not only are these not caltrops waiting to pierce slippered feet at night when a stray one happens to be right where you're stepping in a rapid trip to the bathroom after a night of drinking way too much tea while playing RPGs, they also roll much better.

Whoever invented these is a genius.

The d4 is a special kind of petrified wood. The numbered d6 is (sintered) turquoise. The d8 is a cats eye. The blue d10 is lapis lazuli. The red d10 (tens) is red sandstone with gold flecks. The d12 is opal. The d20 is malachite. The funky d12 with astrological symbols is blue sandstone with gold fleck. The really funky d6 (a Tibetan "Mo" divination die) is yellow jade.

Sadly I could not find a way to take a photo that shows just how glorious these dice look in actual use. (I'm not exactly a professional photographer.) These are a set of gaming dice cut from dichroic prisms. This makes them sparkle in unusual ways and colours that makes them unique of all the dice I own. They're instant eye-grabbers on the table.

This is the second full set of the many, many, (idiotically) many dice I’ve ever owned that is made from semi-precious stones. These literal gem dice are cut from unakite, essentially a highly decorative form of granite.

This is my absolute favourite set of dice of the many, many, (idiotically) many dice I've ever owned. These are literal gem dice, in that they are cut from actual bloodstone (a semi-precious stone). For complicated reasons (that begin with Judas Priest) bloodstone is my favourite gemstone so finding dice cut from it was a transformative experience for me.

I have become fascinated with dice made from alternative materials, and am slowly building a collection.

Here is my latest addition, a couple of chonk d20s made of jesmonite from Magpies and Trinkets via their Kickstarter campaign. My photo doesn't really do it justice, sorry!

Chopped carbon tow in resin. Silver numbers with gold high values.

Translucent ultramarine. Silver numbers with gold high values.