TGN Preview: SkullSplitter Dice Aether Breach Kickstarter Set

You know I love dice. That’s just a given. It’s not an addiction. I can choose to stop any time I want… I just don’t want to stop. I mean, they’re just so pretty. *stares at dice intently* … … …

Anyway, I’m hoping you’ve already seen my review of the first set of Skullsplitter Dice that they were so kind to send to me. If not, I can sum it up like this: I love these dice. Though, I do wish they were purple.

Well… now they have purple.

As part of their Kickstarter campaign, one of the color options is a mixture of Purple and White that they're calling Aether Breach. Once more, they were kind enough to send me a set to check out ahead of time (who said that Vikings were mean? I think that's just propaganda). So, how do these dice hold up? Were they everything I could’ve ever wanted? Let’s find out with another TGN Review. (and if you happen to be listening to Amon Amarth while reading this review, it couldn't hurt)

Ok, first thing: my first, actual response, out-loud, when the fine Vikings over at Skullsplitter sent me a preview shot of the purple and white dice was, “Oh SNAP!” I said it. I’ll own it. I’ll admit to it. I said that out loud. I think the e-mail went something like, “Hey Polar Bear, would you like to revi-“ “YES!!!” Like, I somehow managed to interrupt their e-mail while they were typing it. Some weird technical thing, I suppose. I don’t pretend to understand how computers work.

A couple short days later and the dice were in-hand.

My first thought was that the dice bag’s certainly smaller than for the LE Red set that they had. That’s alright with me, actually, since these sets are supposed to be part of a Kickstarter, and people will be ordering multiple sets all at once, as opposed to being a single, LE purchase. Also, this is a really nice dice bag. Thick material. Nice strings. Good silkscreening on the logo. This is meant to make a statement of “We care about the details.” Even the bag you get your dice in is quality. I like that.

Getting to the dice themselves, I was actually a little surprised initially. I opened the plastic bag that the dice came in and poured them into my hand. I was just kinda rolling them between my two hands for a bit when I thought, “… that’s, like… a lot of dice…” I’ve noticed companies lately going to 11-piece sets. That is, they have the standard polyhedrals (with the two d10 for the percentile), plus a second D20 as well as 3d6. This… this was a lot more. Let’s go over it:

1d4
4d6
4d8
2d10 (1 each of a regular and 10s die)
2d12
2d20

That’s a 15-piece set. No wonder it seemed like I had a ton of dice in my hand. I did!

Now, the 15-piece sets are a stretch goal (actually, a pair of them). So, I don’t want to say that all sets are guaranteed to be like that. The Skullsplitter guys are awesome and I don’t need to bring liability issues down on them like that. :P

But anyway, I had wanted purple dice. I got purple dice. How does my imagination of what I was going to get stack up to the reality?

First off, the dice are of the same quality as the previous red set I had looked at. No chips. No cracks. No smudged numbering. I think they’re good dice. They give you a good “clack” when you roll them around in your hand. They’ve got a good bounce on the table when you roll them. I didn’t notice any particular issues with rolling the same number, though I didn’t exactly salt-water test them, either.

Aesthetically, I like the amount of swirl on the dice. It’s a good mixture of both the purple and the white. I do like the shade of purple. It’s right in the middle of the purple ranges. Too light and you can stray into pastels. A little darker and it can start looking black. This is nicely right in the middle.

An upside of the purple, I feel, is that the dice are more legible than the red. In my original review, that was the one downside I thought they had. I felt that while the dice were pretty, they could be a little hard to read at a distance. With the purple being a little darker color than the red, I feel these dice are easier to read with the gold letters. As you can see in the photo there, even that far-away D6 is still pretty easy to see.

And the last thing that I love about these dice, like last time, is the custom 20 on the D20, with the axes and helmet symbol. That’s what lets me know that these dice are special. They’re custom. You might see other swirl dice, but these are the Skullsplitter ones. It gives that feeling of exclusivity that I know a lot of people like (myself obviously included). And this time, my camera actually wanted to take an alright picture of it.

So, as you can tell, I love the dice. I was very happy to get the chance to try them out. And I hope that you check out the Skullsplitter Kickstarter campaign. You can get these dice, as well as blue and green variants. And it’s more than “just dice” in the Kickstarter. True to their love of storytelling, they’re getting Adventure Modules made for the different dice sets. That’s really cool, if you ask me. It’s not just dice. It’s not just named sets. They each have a story that goes with them. It’s another one of those extra touches that Skullsplitter puts into their products.

My thanks to the Vikings over there for the dice. Hopefully the dice won’t send my characters to Valhalla too quickly.

And so, be sure to check out their Kickstarter campaign, going on now. Go get yourself a set of these amazing dice!