The first part of this adventure was detailed in the post Kraken Week mini.
So, one of the themes of TabulaSordida (the Dirty Slate), is that Re-cycling, Re-Using, and Re-mixing stuff is cool. For my entire life, I've been dumpster-diving, thrift store-shopping and re-imagining my toys for something else. This post is all about my little adventure with crafting this scenario and doing it as cheaply as possible. I am fortunate (for me, but not my pocketbook, as cheap as it is) to live down the street from the absolute bestest craft store in the universe - The Center for Creative Re-Use, where they have shelves and shelves and bins and barrels of vintage, surplus, and second-hand supplies of, well, everything. It is attached to Construction Junction, an equally wonderful warehouse of salvaged, vintage, and surplus building supplies. I also visit cheap dollar stores for stuff, and we begin the adventure there, at Dollar Tree.
These 3 toys above were actually the last pieces that I purchased while buying some art supplies. I couldn't resist the shark (30') nor the salamander (45'), nor the snake from Kung Fu Panda (5' x 10' base and 25' long uncoiled) (total cost - 3 x. $1.25). Staining the wood pieces later is going to be fun. There were also bags of cheap tiny multi-colored feathers there, but I'll get them next time to attach to the salamander - to turn it into a coatl-something.
At the Center for Creative Re-Use, they have barrels and barrels full of old trophies, and the parts that go into making them. In the above picture, you see the trophy bases (10' x 15' if you care), the screws (I have a large handful of various lengths, the tallest of which is to the far right) and a ferrule, the silver piece, in which you screw the posts and then mount to the trophy base (I learned a new word today). I got at least a baker's dozen of everything. The trophy parts are in the bulk supplies section, so the price is measured by volume, not weight or number of items (a small gift-bag is 6 bucks, max). But not today! Little did I know that the trophy supplies were on Secret Sale that week. Secret Sale? That meant they were all free! Seriously. Because they had such a surplus, they were thinning out inventory. Many of the bases are traditional marble, but some are rubber and some are plastic, so lightweight.
They have bags of shells at the Craft Store too. They'll be nice random decor and eventually I'll glue them to tiles (sized to the trophy bases, with an added hole in the center). I'm not gluing them to the bases themselves, because then I can swap them out with other terrain that I make later.
The light-blue thingies (seen above and below) are also from the Re-Use store - in the science supplies section. I wanted to get corks that have holes in them (I have a few from a previous visit), but they were out of them. Instead, I found a bag of Rubber Bulbs from Fisher Scientific (used for eye droppers) - they're squishy rubber, with a hole in the bottom and are the perfect size to fit into the bottom of the finger puppets (like a finger tip), and the ferrule trophy parts fit into the bottom of the bulbs as snug as a bug in a rug. When assembled no glue, bolts or anything else is needed - I didn't even need the screws. A bag of 24 Bulbs was 8 bucks - 33 cents apiece and I only need a dozen (for 12 finger puppets - 8 tentacles, 2 claws, and 2 brains - 2.50 apiece for a total of 30 bucks). I'll have a full accounting of what I've spent at the end of the series.
Just below where I found the animals at Dollar Tree, there were cheap balls of yarn. I was originally going to buy a ball of string for the encounter (more on that later), but the yarn ball laying on top looked exactly like seaweed to me. ($1.25 and more yards than I need). It looks so 'effin cool hanging from a tentacle - they are measured to the same length as the uncoiled tentacles - 40' (plus a little to wrap around the base) but you can make them any length you want if the dimensions of your creature are different. We're using them to symbolize the reach of each tentacle, like you would in free-form wargaming.
Again, at Dollar Tree, I found these light metal Adhesive Rinks (whatever those are). The bracket is the same diameter as the trophy ferrules, so the screws also fit (loosely). They're going to be the bases for the two masts and the two crow's nests (eventually - I'm not making them today).
And lastly, I grabbed one of the Deco Squares (plastic adhesive fake wood-looking panels) that I got at a Family Dollar years ago that I use as shelf liners for my milk-crate paperback-bookshelves (more Re-Use!). I quickly sacrificed one square and cut it up into their panel parts. This is for our Intrepid Adventurers' boat. Eventually I'll make some permanent bases and peel off the adhesive backing, but they'll do for now. I was going to draw a grid on them, but I put it off and have since changed my mind altogether, for reasons you'll see later (each of the long panels is 15' x 45' - they'll be arranged to be 30' x 90').
This last photo was actually taken at the very end of the day, after I put all the pieces and parts back in the box - it's just a typical delivery box, perfect height for the bases on their side. (10 x 13 x 2") It takes up less storage space than a typical board game, and I still have room for more small accessories.
P.S. If your OCD has been irritated by the third column from the left being out of synch with the rest of the tiles, you're not alone, and I apologize. I didn't notice it until all the pieces were on the board, and I wasn't about to go back and fix it - especially because in the end, they just don't matter for the rules of this encounter.
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