Turning Gears as Terrain

In the final game in the Heroic Tier of “Lords of Dust”, our heroes moved into a Creation Forge and fought amongst the turning gears. It wasn’t a safe prospect, I can tell you that. The grinding of cogs had the option of ending gristly, which it did for a few “Hellforged”.

Here’s how it worked: On every single player’s turn (and once on the monster’s turn), the gears would turn 2 squares. What this did was shift the battlefield around, especially if various characters were standing on different cogs.

For example, in one encounter, the players had a Hellforged drop down on them while they were traversing the enormous gears. The combat started with Tana, the Genasi Sorceress. Everyone on the gears shifted two squares in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction, based on the gear. When Alayah, the Eladrin Artificer’s turn was up next, the gears turned again.

I realize this would represent the gears moving quite fast, but I wanted the players to have to think quite far ahead to their next turn to know when they would be in prime condition to strike.

I suppose if you wanted to get a bit more accurate, the smaller gears would turn faster, maybe 3 or even 4 squares a turn, but it would be up to you.

By the way, I used a battlemat for this, drawing out the gears and shifting everyone around. I would have loved to make actual gears, but at the time, it simply wasn’t possible.

What do you think? If you end up doing the same, let me know!