2021 is here, and it’s time for the first Dice Digest of the new year. Here’s all the latest news I found sharing-worthy.
Disclaimer:
This newsletter is impartial, editorial content and is not aimed at commercially advertising products. I don’t receive any payment or free products for any content in this newsletter. Products mentioned here are things I personally find interesting and would like to keep the dice community informed about.
New from Chessex
Chessex is starting the year with a bang — they’re finally confirming which of the 2019 Lab Dice Releases are going into full production, and there’s one completely new Nebula release, plus a change to Nebula Spring.
Fully released Lab Dice will be:
- Nebula Nocturnal (new ink: blue)
- Nebula Oceanic
- Nebula Wisteria
- Nebula Red
- Nebula Spring (with colour change)
Newly released will be:
- Nebula Primary
All these Nebula lines will have the well-known luminary particles inside. A bit hard to tell from the photos, but Primary are clear dice with swirls in the three primary colours red, blue and yellow in varying mixes. In their newsletter, Chessex said:
Primaryâ„¢/blue: This color is a mixture of the three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. Our only concern is similar to our concern about a previous color, Flameâ„¢. The color of these dice will vary greatly. Some could be more yellow while others more red or more blue. Like Flameâ„¢, they can have very interesting color mixes but, also like Flameâ„¢, the colors of the dice within a set could vary greatly.
Spring underwent a visible change as they added orange swirls to the previous mostly green-heavy design. Nocturnal will have an ink colour change from turquoise to blue, and they made an error in their newsletter by saying Primary came with turquoise ink, but the ink for these is also going to be blue.
Street date for these is said to be February 25, 2021.
New from HD Dice
More colours are being added to the HD Ribbon line. I recently received my Rainbow Ribbon set, and they look really fabulous. I’m excited for these.
Also new are more colours for their Ancient line.
New from Die Hard Dice
Die Hard Dice has released two new sets in early January — an addition to their metal Dreamscape line called Deep Space, and a new colour for the Avalore line, called Sea Witch.
At the end of January, they added three new sets to their Avalore line (Honey Dice, Moonstone Enceladus and Enchanted Little Red), plus another design in their Mythical metal line, called Dreamscape Aphrodite.
New from YuSun
New designs from YuSun — hollow metal dice in several colours, and resin dice with fish and moss inside. Likely soon to arrive with your YuSun retailer of choice.
New from URWizards
URWizards is always expanding their designs, and they have now added another resin set to their Astrology, Meow and Yeet & F*ck lines — this time clear dice with green shimmering glitter. (sigh I may have to buy these.)
New from Critit
Critit from the UK announced a new line of custom sharp edged designs they are going to be releasing soon — called Divine. Stay tuned for more updates on this.
New from Beholder’s Gaze
New custom dice from Glasgow-based Beholder’s Gaze as well! Their new set is called Forest Whispers, and has the Beholder’s Gaze logo on the d20. These indeed give off an awesome forest vibe, and I daresay they’re the perfect dice for a nature based RPG character.
New from Heartbeat Dice
Heartbeat Dice, who specialises in Pride-themed dice sets and RPG accessories, recently released a rainbow Fudge set. These are available in either a translucent or an opaque pearl design.
New from Haxtec
Haxtec added banded glass dice to their gemstone lineup, which you can find on amazon.com. These are available in different colours, including green and brown.
New from Hymgho
I’m not sure they are really new, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned them in previous Dice Digests. Hymgho has these snowflake themed dice out now that are a combination of resin and metal. They are available in different metal colours.
Kickstarters
Here’s a compilation of currently active dice Kickstarters that I think look pretty cool.
I would like to add that me listing Kickstarters here doesn’t automatically mean I highly recommend them, or that they are trustworthy and legit. I try my best not to list anything that looks dodgy or that I couldn’t in good conscience recommend, but it’s always possible that a project looks great on paper but ends up not delivering what it promises. I may add my own commentary to the text if I’m not convinced about certain projects, but ultimately it’s at everyone’s own discretion whether they want to back any of these Kickstarters or not.
PolyHero Dice – Cleric, Warrior, Wizard, and Rogue
PolyHero Dice is a known commodity in the dice scene, having run several Kickstarters before with themed dice sets in unusual shapes. They are back with specialty dice for clerics, warriors, wizards and rogues.
The Kickstarter is already more than fully funded, and will only run for another 4 days. A full set of dice will cost you $19, and there are many add-on options if you’d like to wide the range of dice and designs, such as adding a spellbook d2 or Lock & Pick dice, a Swords set, etc.
Level Up Adventurer’s Curated Dice Collection
Level Up Dice is expanding their metal range by running a Kickstarter for customizable metal dice sets for RPG character classes, weapons, damage types and spells. These are matte aluminium dice in different colours with symbols matching certain RPG classes, and you can build your own custom dice set by mixing and matching from all available options. (Please note that percentile dice aren’t pictured but were unlocked as a stretch goal.)
Prices are tiered by which and how many dice you choose, starting at $10 for d4/d6, $15 for d8/d10, up to $20 for d12 and d20, and $45 for a 35mm jumbo d20 for single colour, and $5 more per die for dual colour dice.
The Kickstarter is fully funded and has 10 more days to go.
Damage Dice 2: Physical Damage and More
A company called Gyld ran a successful Kickstarter last year for polymer dice specifically aimed at certain damage types. They are back now for round 2, with metal options, and additional acrylic dice for bludgeoning, piercing and slahsing damage.
The Kickstarter is fully funded, and several stretch goals have been unlocked, including Magic Missile d4s and additional acrylic colours. An acrylic set will cost you $17, a metal set $40, but you they are pretty flexible with add-on options. You have 15 more days to back this project.
Sea Glass Dice – Frosted Glass Dice Sets
Dice Dungeons, whom some people might know from their recent metal condition ring Kickstarter, are now offering frosted glass polyhedral sets in several colours with a custom font. The dice are made from real frosted glass and are emulating a sea glass look.
Colours currently available are green, dark and light blue, red, purple and brown. Two d20s are up for grabs at the $20 tier, a full polyhedral set will cost $65. The Kickstarter is fully funded and is running for another 24 days.
Metal Heart Unicorn Dice
Unicorn enthusiasts will love this one. This Kickstarters comes with metal unicorn themed dice in rainbow colours. The dice are fairly standard zinc alloy dice in different colourways, with hearts on the faces and a unicorn symbol as the highest number on the d20, d12, and d6.
A full set costs CA$40 (~$32 USD). The Kickstarter is funded and will run another 22 days.
The Revenge: Metal Framed Resin Dice
Perhaps somewhat similar to the Hymgho snowflake dice I mentioned above, this Kickstarter offers dice sets that are a combination of resin and metal, with a coloured resin core and a metal frame. What’s new for these pirate themed dice is that the metal is two-coloured. The numbers are framed by crossing sabres and there are several colourways to choose from. Also available are hollow metal options without resin inside.
A 5x d6 or 5x d10 set will cost $49, a full polyhedral set $69. The Kickstarter is fully funded with 10 days to go.
Handcrafted Ancient Myth Dice
A company called InfiniDice (whom I have admittedly never heard of) is running their first Kickstarter for metal dice that are inspired by Greek mythology. There are several different metal designs available at different price points, including hollow but also solid metal dice. There’s also several add-on options like dice towers, dice bags and tote bags.
I must admit I’m a little undecided what to think about this one. There are so many options, and prices seem pretty solid, though they advertise themselves as “metal D&D dice at persuasion check prices”. The designs are pretty similar to what’s already on the market from metal dice specilised brands like Hymgho or YuSun.
The Kickstarter is funded and will keep running for another 22 days.
AKO Dice III: Dragon Stone
AKO Dice is back with more imaginative metal d6s. Their new line is called Dragon Stone, and isn’t your classic d6 layout with pips or numbers. The number you rolled is depicted by diagonal lines amongst a surface textured witih small squares.
The dice are available in five different colours (black, red, blue, green, pink), and can be pledged in sets of 2 at $25 and sets of 5 (with a dice case that doubles as a dice tower) at $100. The Kickstarter is funded and ends in 4 days.
KLEC – Polyhedral Dice inspired by a Caged Jail
KLEC are quite a unique design of polyhedral dice where the actual die is encased in a metal frame reminiscent of dice in a caged jail. They are described as made with copper metal, as a one-piece structure.
A full polyhedral set runs at AU$78 (~$60 USD) and they come with a zinc alloy dice cage. Currently, the Kickstarter is about 60% funded, with 8 days to go. Might be a tight squeeze for this one to come to fruition.
Majik Dice – Dice inspired by Arabia’s beauty
This is Black Blossom Games’ first foray into dice, having previously run a Kickstarter for dice towers. They are offering sharp-edged resin dice, inspired by a trip they took to Arabia.
The dice are remiscent of already existing, popular semi-translucent resin dice with holo foil inclusions, and they are being offered with two font options — square font and standard round font.
Early bird pricing comes in at 20 EUR (~$25 USD) per polyhedral set, and at the time I’m publishing this blog post, there’s still over 60 slots left before the pricing goes up to 31 EUR/$38 per set. Funding has just surpassed the 35% mark, so there’s still a ways to go to see this one reach its goal.
On a personal note, while some of these colourways are unique to this Kickstarter, these types of dice in either the same or very similar colours and even the same font can already be bought in stores, and some of them are very similar to Dispel designs. It might explain why people are hesitant to back, and the blatant copying of Dispel’s Kickstarter packaging and page design are also not the best look. However, the early bird pricing may look enticing.
News
What else is new in the dice world? Take a look!
Q-Workshop Updates
Tomek from Q-Workshop gave us an update on what’s to come in 2021 from Q-Workshop. I made a separate post about all the news they shared, and you can read up on it there in more granular detail, but the big news was this in a nutshell:
- Several licensed Witcher dice (incl. a Kickstarter) are coming, different themes as per different main characters from the books and games
- Kanji dice will come back in 3rd quarter of 2021 with the same design as before, but in different colours
- Dice Macabre will be released as retail version in February 2021
- Several new colours are coming for existing designs (e.g. Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, Starfinder)
- My First Dice Set for children
- New buyer’s reward system with virtual coins you can cash in at physical events
- New subscription program that will give you access to exclusive special or custom dice
Lucky Hand Dice Crowdfunding Update
Many of you may still be waiting for your exclusive hand-made dice from the LHD crowdfunding campaign back in early 2019. Lucky Hand Dice keeps announcing the delay of the production and fulfillment of these dice month in, month out. Recently they openly admitted they don’t have capacity and capability anymore to keep making the crowdfunding campaign dice themselves, and if backers ever want to see their product, they need to move the production to China.
In order to do this, they first need to raise more funds, which they are now doing by selling mass produced round-edged designs with their custom font. Price point is $25 per set, and they justify the price by their custom font, two-fold quality check (factory plus LHD) and the highest number being hand-painted in a different colour by LHD themselves.
