The Deck of Many Things

You come across a small ornate box

A deck of many things box, with full deck hidden inside.

Just a placeholder pic saying final pics coming verys soon Just a placeholder pic saying final pics coming verys soon Just a placeholder pic saying final pics coming verys soon
In your searching of the area, you find a small ornate box tucked into a corner. It is made from a beautiful wood and is covered in jewels, and a small lock holds it closed. What do you do?

This project began, in a way, with the Harrow deck, and I needed to have the regular Deck of Many Things as well, and so I ordered it off Etsy. At this point, the thinking began.

For you see, most Decks of Many Things come with 13 cards, though some can carry as many as 22! I have decided to do both.

So for this deck, working with primarily cardboard scraps and extra cloth I had laying around, I set about making a box with two hidden compartments in it, thin little slots where an envelope containing cards might go. The main box holds the primary 13 cards, but with a successful investigation check (after picking the lock, something the players at the table will be able to mess with directly!), they can find that the inner lining can be removed, revealing the two hidden envelopes inside, containing the remaining cards.

The deck of many things, with the box, and the wish card drawn, moon A scattering of cardboard, arranged to look somewhat like a face holding a smaller pile of scrap cardboard Tall, thin strips of cardboard glued onto dark brown patches of cloth
One inner side of the box assembled, having a slot to place a small envelope of cards The red velvet lining of the box, appearing clean and flat. Think of it like, the box has had the top face of it removed, so basically an open box, except one side is a door. And the bottom face is hiding the cards The inner lining partially pulled back, revealing the envelope behind it. Little fun fact, each envelope contains six cards. There's actually one extra card, a blank one! Oooohhhhh, GM choice.
The box will at some point soon, when possible, be- Oh what is this, a change to the page since 2021? Let there be update!!!! And on August 1st 2024, we found and received wooden veneer online (in A4 page sized sheets!) And on that same day, the two sides of the box were finally glued together (they had been left separate to look less weird to customs when moving to England). And the project surged forward again! To rehash the info that was typed here before, I had hypothesized that creating the interior would be the hardest part, let's put that to the test! I'd also wondered how I might be able to lock it, which has been solved! We have a hinge, we have a lock, and we have the gemstones! Now we need glue-drying time, and also mucking with a ton of veneer.

Also a note kinda in the middle of things here, with the random card drawer at the bottom, while editions 1, 2, 3, and 5 are all almost verbatim identical, 4 is actually quite a bit different, with two version in fact, Paragon and Heroic! However, due to 4th ed being unusual with its sharing, I can't post those. However, they both use only the 22 card versions. The Paragon deck is in Dungeon magasine issue 177, page 57, and the Heroic deck is in the module Madness at Gardmore Abbey, page 30. So you can use the 22 card randomizer at the bottom, and then look up those resources for the rules to those, at least until it's made shareable.

But that aside, it is time to muck with veneer!

Note: With the renaming of the Visier and Idiot cards to Sage and Puzzle in 2024, I've gone and photoshopped the two cards to have the 2024 name. The cards themselves in the physical deck have both words on on them along with a sheet for the 2014 and 2024 (and 4e's for my own deck) rules. 		The envelope opened, and the cards partially pulled out, laid on top of the box, still showing the lining pulled back. The box, now completely closed up, being held together with white elastics. The box is brown on the outside with the lip of a red lining showing, with the cards inside. It looks a little bit like a mouth, kinda muppet-like or something. The cards and inner linings have been removed, revealing how the envelopes look with the lining out. From a muppet perspective, it looks like he took his dentures out, kinda light brown gums showing there.
Due to my not having gotten the veneer just yet, the rather rustic looking box, brown fabric and elastics showing, has a scrap of paper taped to the face of it, rather clumsily written with the words ornate box An imagining of the outside veneer, a very light, shimmering wavey patterned wood type, with four blue gemstones and four red gemstones on the face. The blue and red are drawn in a paint program, just filled in circles, with the four blue gemstones being close to the corners, and the red gemstomes making up a smaller rectangle closer to the middle. A gold padlock and latch are drawn at the top of the box, and a dark brown line shows where the lid would be A photo of the cloth covered box interior, this time without the scrap of paper and elastics holding it closed, sitting on top of a plastic package of six steamed beech wood veneer sheets, with beside it a large bottle of gorilla wood glue and painter's touch craft enamel spray, which is toy safe for handling, added bonus!
Anyways, we tried gluing one side of the veneer on... which went incredibly ripply X|. We then attempted to sand that to make a flat surface, but the half-millimeter thick veneer was not thick enough for that to be possible, and so we peeled/sheared that off entirely. We tested using a sheet of plastic cover from the bookbindings as a permanent plate, but that peeled off incredibly easily, tho that led to it being used as a means of keeping the glue flat while it dries, so good came out of that test at least. Then, after like... 5 or 6 layers of glue to give it a nice thick, hard surface, we can proceed.

With much filing and careful bending with pliers, we managed to bend the upper portion of the hinge mechanism at a 90 degree angle WITHOUT it just snapping off (which I fully expected, so I'm very glad it didn't) just above the latch post. Following this, we thickened up the lid of the box to match the depth just set by bending the hinge, with the result being to embed the metal into the cardboard so only the latch is visible, and as well thickening the lid will mask how thin the sides of the box actually are (due to the hidden compartments), and imply that the entire box is much thicker than it is. We put this first layer of veneer on with the grain running horozontally, in hopes that it adds strength and stability when I put the vertically running second and final coat of veneer on next.

We used a smooth grout filler to fill in the corners where I trimmed the first layer of veneer a bit close and to fill in any other gaps or indents, and proceeded to add the second layer, the grain running vertically as earlier mentioned. Some areas were added with crazy glue instead of contact cement, the sides of the lid and the angled strips leading into the hinge. The back put up an unexpected challenge when I got excited and trimmed the sheet a little bit early (same day, several hours after application) and it shrank away from the corners. I pulled that off, and applied my last sheet of veneer, letting it dry for a full week before trimming it to size (mainly due to the now layer and a half of glue under the veneer), and then set about deciding where to put the gemstones. At the same time, we made a test piece of veneer to test varnish on unsanded vs sanded veneer, and sparkle powder vs none (and the bottom right is just a slight tap of powder). The sanded looked more shimmery and magical, and the powder just didn't look good. Rubbed on, way too much, slight dust, the little white specks just didn't work. So the final decision went to just sanding. But first, we need to made the slots for the gemstones before sanding, so I can sand away any accidental scratches while doing so.

We decided on putting the blues 14mm from the top and 9mm from the side, double-sided taping them into place for now, and then decided on the red. I made sure that, when the lock is on and closed, it would not hit the gemstones swinging around, so it reaches about 2mm from the red gemstones, and the four were put on symmetrically. I then traced around the gemstones with a fresh boxcutter edge, removed the stickered gemstones, and carved out the top layer of veneer inside the traced lines. Thankfully, since I was angling in while tracing, the initial holes were a touch small, allowing me to trim to the gemstone size more exactly and carefully. With those slots removed, we were free to sand the veneer, the final wood preparation step! We sanded it initially with 320 grit sandpaper, followed by 600 grit, and then could finally attach the gemstones! I used some contact cement to glue the gemstones (new gemstones to be fair, there was some scratches on the tracing gemstones) into their places, and another day of drying later we were ready for varnish!!!!

Oh my goodness I was so excited by this point, this project has been in the works since 2021, and we were now in the final stages!

We taped over the gemstones and lock hasp parts, and gave the box its first coat of varnish, just a light coat to start, to seal up the wood and keep from saturating it. I also gave a bit of a heavier coat to a seperate gemstone itself, to see how the varnish will adhere to it, since I imagine the varnish will scratch less easily than the plastic, so we'll see if on layer 2 and 3 we can remove the gemstone tape and varnish coat them too. And the verdict on that is **pending, first layer drying**

**last notes and finished pics to come, the first coat of varnish is presently drying!!!!**

Interior finished August 27, 2021
Exterior finished June X, 2025




Did you want to draw a card from the 13 or the 22 card deck?
Or perhaps the 66 card Deck of Many More Things?

On top of the veneer sheet package is sitting red and blue flat back plastic faceted crystals, an elaborate darkened brass jewellery box hinge, and a pair of simple brass luggage locks and keys. The box sitting on a cutting board on a table, with white woodworking pva glue coating the front surface of it, and a sheet of clear plastic pressed on top of it as it dries to have it dry as flat as possible. The surface of the box after multiple layers of gluing and sanding flat, now essentially a hard plastic surface ready for veneer.
The upper half of the hinge, bent at a ninety degree angle just above the hinge for the latch, being held by Kabutroid. Behind it is a wooden table with a contraption balancing precariously, detailed in the next pic, and a large black case that contains Kabutroid's files set. A delicately balanced setup where the box is standing vertically on the lid, to press the glued paperboard flat as it dries, with on top of it being a ream of waterproof paper and the set of metal files, which is balanced on the other side by a thin piece of metal railway, itself standing on a small card box to make it the same height as the many things box. It looks ready to fall over if you so much as breathe on it. And it did actually, but after an hour or so, which was plenty enough time for the glue to set, so good enough! The box now with one layer of veneer on the face, with a somewhat dress-shaped hole cut out from it, the bottom part of the clasp in that shape beside the hole, and a second sheet of veneer with a slightly smaller hole of the same shape cut out from it as well, so that the very edges of the clasp metal will be covered in veneer to hide the seams.
Kabutroid holding the box, with the back and sides now covered in a horozontal running veneer as well. A pair of large faced metal clamps holding a thin strip of veneer to the back of the lid of the box on Kabutroid's desk. Kabutroid holding the box, now with a white patching material over the corner lines, and filling in slight curves in the veneer to make the layer flat for the final layer above. The bottle of filler and a metal lid containing some of the filler and a wooden spreader are behind it.
The box sitting on a cutting board as a work surface, with the top and bottom now having oversized pieces of veneer on them. The sides of the box have already been coated in their final veneer. A closeup of the hinge on the back of the box, with thin little strips of vertically running veneer glued into place, drying before the overhang is trimmed to size. Kabutroid holding the now fully veneered box, with red and blue gemstones attached to pieces of doublesided tape seen behind the box.
The box with the gemstones loosely scattered on the face prior to being taped into place. The first gemstone hole carved from the top layer of veneer, and the second hole started, with the carving gouge behind the box. The tracing lines for the other gemstones are visible on the box. The box with all eight gemstone slots carved out from the top layer of veneer.
The nearly finished box, now fully sanded and smooth, and with the gemstones glued into their spots, blue gemstones closest to the corners, and the red gemstones more towards the center. The box sitting on a cardboard box, with all of the gemstones carefully wrapped in masking tape, as well as the locking hasp part. The inside of the open lid is also carefully covered with masking tape to protect the inside, and not visible in the photo, the cloth at the back of the hinge is covered in masking tape as well. An open red gemstone is attached with tape above the hinged portion of the hasp to test the varnish on it. The box, now slightly darker due to the varnish, hanging between two binders with a length of coathanger running through the tape covered hinged portion of the hasp. A spare varnish coated red gemstone, now on its own, it was easier to varnish it separately, is sitting on the paper beneath the box.
A placeholder pic saying project finish pic soon.


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