Pirate RPG Props

Last year, we celebrated my birthday with a pirate theme. Krayorn decided to organize a pirate RPG campaign for me.

I asked him how many people I could invite. “All of them!” he said.

Although not everyone could make it, we ended up being 18 people. With that many guests, it was a huge amount of work for him.

If you’re curious about how he handled it, he wrote an article about the scenario and another one on the props he used, Here, I will focus only on the props I printed. I did most of the printing, and Krayorn handled most of the painting.

Who says pirate says booty ! We needed coins for the game, so we browsed and found some well-fitting models.

These were printed quickly and simply, then coated with gold spray paint.

Models: Ye Olde Pirate Treasure Coins and Coin From Pirates of the Caribbean

These required a bit more work. Time was short because the party was only a few days away. They were printed with matte black filament and brushed with gold paint. Skipping black primer was enough to achieve the rough look we wanted.

Model: Ye Olde Pirate Treasure Coins

Here is the model in the slicer with the “tree” support type and the “snug” support type:

Bambulab Studio: Print type “tree” vs “snug”

Notice that it uses “tree” supports. These surround the model and keep it stable during printing, but they are difficult to remove and can damage the part. I also did not want to print supports with a different filament type (PLA and PETG are not compatible, so they separate easily) because switching filament creates additional waste.

I needed a better solution. I switched the support type to “normal” with the “snug” style, and the result was much better.

Let’s compare printing a full plate of 32 coins:

I added glue to the build plate for better adhesion. We had two failed printed coins on the 32 we printed that could probably have been avoided. I should have increased the temperature by 5°C and reduced the overall print speed.

We also needed weapons for props and costumes, so we found dagger and sword models. There’s no banana for scale, but I placed a 30cm ruler next to the grouped props in the bottom-right image.

Models: Pirate Skull With Knife - Desk & Wall Displays, Sea of Thieves|Sea Dog’s Throwing Knife, Medieval Dagger, Cosplay dagger, Pirate Sword

On the left, you can see an impressive demonstration of how filament can handle angled prints without supports. On the right, the sword in the slicer shows how it was printed. We were able to assemble this large prop using guiding rods and a significant amount of glue.

For a friend’s costume, I printed and sanded a hammer. I sanded it for hours to achieve a smooth surface. I initially planned to give it a shiny silver finish, but time ran out, so it was simply primed and painted.

Model: Hammer

These keys were simply brushed with gold and bone-colored paint.

Models: Set of 4 fantasy ancient keys and Skeleton key

All the keys were printed in two parts and glued together, which made them easy to print. I lightly sanded the base before gluing because I used a textured build plate. That way, the glue adhered better and the seams were less visible.

Bambulab Studio

Would we really be good pirates without dice? And what if they were winning dice?

These are loaded dice with 330% higher chances of rolling a 6.

Model: Cheater’s Dice