Brian,

I am still making trays, but I have slowed down my operations quite a bit. I no longer have a website because the guy that was maintaining stopped doing it. I have attached the PDF catalog that you can use for ordering. Just send me an email with your design selections, and I will send you an invoice through PayPal. Thanks for the interest!

Christian

p.s. Carl was a character that my former partner had been playing.

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So, it looks like the dwarves are still in business, but lack website expertise. Wish I could offer to help them out with that, but my expertise and experience with web design ended around HTML 1.0.

For the time being you can still get trays if you email and ask for the catalog. Hopefully things will pick up or they can work with someone else to get a website back online soon. If anyone has been considering it, now would probably be a great time to buy to show that there is a market for good quality gaming products. I’m ordering mine tonight!

Brian

dwarvensweatshoppe@gmail.com

I was hoping it was just temporary traffic overload or an ISP outage, but it seems they have been down for some time now. Hoping that someone has heard from them and knows what happened and whether they will be back or if their trays are available through another avenue.

The website is no longer. If anyone can find out any news on them, I’d appreciate it!

I feel odd posting this so late! I was looking for their website again and was hoping to find it. I hope they haven’t gone out of business in this economy.

I’d love to see a photo of your book-box/dice tray combo. Any chance of that?

My dear wife dissuaded me from contacting Dwarven Sweatshoppe about the custom tray for a long time. Little did I know that she did so because she had already ordered me exactly such a beast as a gift directly from them at Gen Con. I received it for Christmas and have been using it since. I love it. It’s just big enough to hold several hardcover 8.5″x11″ gaming books. So I toss my books in the box, then I can put the box in my bag without taking up too much space. The construction is solid. It looks sharp. It’s quite satisfying to roll in. Highly recommended. The octagonal shape is neat, but I think the book sized box is more practical.

It’s easily the quickest money I’ve spent at Gen Con, and has generated the least “buyer’s remorse” of any of my major expenses.

The first night I got it, I took some new dice I got from Crystal Caste rolled the d20 and got a 20 on the first roll. Even the dice approved of my new rolling surface.

Seriously, if you are at all interested in dice trays, this is the place to check out.

1) It makes noise. A very distinctive noise. A wonderfully distinctive noise that causes all of the players to turn and look at the GM as if they were a deer in the headlights. Table getting a little out of hand with joke cracking or some minor dispute? Plop a couple of dice in the cup and shake. Everyone suddenly freezes and wonders what you are rolling for.

2) It gives you a moment to think before you roll. You start picking out your dice and putting them in the cup and it is a sort of ritual where you have a moment to contemplate why you are rolling the dice at all. There have been times where I started to load the dice cup and realized that I didn’t need to roll at all. I knew exactly what I wanted to happen in the game and that a dice roll wasn’t necessary. Or it just gave me a moment to clarify how I would interpret the results of the dice. Not just success or failure, but what in game event would follow based on the results being a success or failure. It is like exhaling while pulling the trigger at the rifle range. A physical act that helps you to focus mentally.

Another advantage is that it helps to reduce the momentum of the dice before they hit the tray or table. I never realized this until I started to use one with my dice tray. Those bones will strike the sides of the cup as they fall out and settle quickly. Usually landing in a tight grouping not much larger than the mouth of the dice cup. Easy reading.

Plus if you have large amounts of dice to roll, putting them into a dice cup makes life a lot easier.

Of course, your results might vary.