Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Talk about a Critical Hit!

Written by Justin Mason

Over the years I’ve seen some pretty unusual game dice, made from almost anything you can imagine from bone to stone, from tin to precious gem, but today I’ve seen a d20 that I have to get my hands on.

Ever since I was a little kid in my elementary science class were I was first introduced to the vastness of our solar system, galaxy and universe, I’ve been somewhat enthralled with things “from the heavens above.” In fact, I’ve always secretly longed to get my hands on a meteorite to have forged into a dagger or sword -- just because.

Many of my role-playing game characters over the past two decades have had meteoric iron armor, weapons and gear. Some of those character's were completely obsessed with the rare material.

I had always assumed that was likely to be as close as I would get to owning any myself. However, now I (and anyone else who’s interested) can get their own tiny piece of extra-terrestrial real-estate in the form of a 16mm Meteorite d20 from Crystal Castle.

“Floating around for perhaps billions of years, meteorites are some to the rarest objects on Earth. There is far less total known meteorite material on Earth, counting all known varieties, than there is gold, platinum, emeralds, rubies, or sapphires. The artisans of Crystal Caste turned some of this wondrous material into Dwarven Stones.” -- Crystal Castle Website

At $300, it’s anything but cheap, but come on!?

We’re talking about rolling with a d20 that was once a flaming ball of superheated rock that plummeted to our atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour from the depths of the solar system and crashed into the earth. Talk about a critical hit!

Crystal Castle also offers Meteorite dice in d6, 12mm d20 and 14mm d20 styles; ranging in price from $100 to $200.

Specific details about the meteorite used to make these dice are --

Name: Ghubara
Location: Oman, 19°13'40"N; 56°08'34" E
Found: 1954
Classification: Chondrite, Ordinary (L5), black, xenolithic Approx. Recovered Weight: 4kg Found on the surface of the desert, the stones are fresh internally, and the crust only slightly weathered. Total Known Weight (TKW): 9+ stones @ 100+Kg
Sources: Meteorites from A to Z, 2nd ed. Jensen, Jensen & Black; Catalogue of Meteorites, 5th ed.,Cambridge University Press

Worth mentioning is that Crystal Castle also offers extraordinary dice made from Camarasaurus (the largest Dinosaur to roam the Earth) fossil, mammoth ivory, and prehistoric Megalodon teeth.

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