You say BO-coat, I say bo-CO-tay

'Tis the night before Christmas and my Christmas shopping is done. Whenever I'm spending money, I can't help spending a bit on myself. One of my presents to Dave this year was a new Wyrmwood Gaming dice vault made of bocote wood. I took advantage of one of their flash sales to get it much reduced from it's normal price. Bocote is normally a custom wood for any Wyrmwood product, so it was a great bargain at $60.00.

The dice vault arrived just a few days ago and it's splendid. But I am left with a bit of, not buyer's remorse, but buyer's perplexity. I think I was seduced by a good deal to buy something I don't really need. I'm sure that feeling will pass.

The dice vault isn't my first Wyrmwood product. Wyrmwood dice vaults came on the scene in 2013 as a kickstarter project. I didn't get one then, but I did get a dice tray made from beautiful bubinga wood. I blogged about it in October 2013.

It was $35.00 in 2013. The same item now is only available as a custom wood. You have to ask for a price quote. When you have to ask the price, it's never cheap. The dice tray in standard woods, the core 16, run from $75.00 to $285.00.

Subsequently, I did buy a dice vault in splendid spalted tamarind wood. I use it to store my beloved Viking bone dice, all 30 of 'em.

Don't let that capacity fool you. The bone dice are small and irregular. Their shape ranges from vaguely cuboid to roughly six-sided. I wouldn't rule out that some have five sides or seven. I love them all the more for their misshapeness. However, if playing in competitive games, some players may not appreciate crudely hand-carved instruments of fortune.

For normal dice, the capacity is less commodious.

In addition to being much less expensive back then, the dice vaults came in two sizes. I got the larger one, which is now the only size available. The upper and lower parts of the vault are held together by perfectly matched rare earth magnets.

So, being seduced by a good deal, I bought a new dice vault in Bocote. I have yet, however, to find a good purpose for it. I know, the obvious thing would be to store dice—but there's the rub. I play a lot of bucket o' dice game, like Lion Rampant. You need 12 dice in hand to fight or shoot in LR. Rolling fewer means you're in trouble. 12 normal dice won't fit in the vault.

This one does not go to 11—never mind 12

The dice vaults were designed to be used by troll-rollers who typically want a classic seven-piece Dungeons & Dragons set that runs D4, D6, D8, 2xD10, D12, D20. Pulling out a custom dice set from a hand-crafted exotic hardwood vault is about as gangsta as RPG gaming gets.

If we historical minis gamers want to get gangsta, we have to be a little more ersatz.

The dice tray and dice vault that I bought previously came unadorned, apart from the beautiful wood grains. For the last several years, Wyrmwood brands their products with their shield logo and company name.

I don't begrudge a company its right to brand its products, but I think it takes something away from the beauty of the piece. It interrupts the sensual pattern of the wood grain and makes the object less striking. I'm quite glad my first products are unbranded. The branding has set me back a bit when I've contemplated buying other Wyrmwood products like another dice tray.

Being branded isn't all fun.

Nevertheless, I'm contemplating a spalted tamarind dice tray sometime next year. They're not cheap at $175.00 (!), but I'm keeping my eye out for it to appear as a flash sale for much less.

Oh, and I can fit 24 smaller normal (i.e., truly cuboid) dice in the vault. I can get up to 26 of the 12mm Chessex dice in the vault.

On the other hand, the larger of my vintage bakelite dice (also truly cuboid), barely fit eight.

And it's a job trying to get the vault to close. It looks like a dice sandwich.

So, there it is. Look for a bocote dice vault to appear in my forthcoming adventures.

Or is it bo-co-TAY?