The Promise

The original amulet, used in the title graphic, was carved from a very dark gray beach rock. I used a Dremel motor carving tool with several grinding heads and a drilling one for the hole at the top.

I threaded it with a leather cord.

I wanted players to have something to hold from "The Promise". I wanted to evoke the feeling of the Wishbringer stone, as introduced by INFOCOM for its "Wishbringer" game.

Here is the carving process:

Almost at the beginning.	Grinding in one cheek.	The Dremel at work.	Continue the grinding.
The other side also partly done.	Now for the ears.	Carving the individual ears, the loop for the string, and etching out the ears.	Delineating the head.

The final product.

Obviously I could not carve individual ones for players. Each one took nearly a full day's carving with a Dremel. To start with, it is hard to find beach rocks of a consistent shape, so to make these I would have to mold them or shape them from clay of some kind.

I decided on Sculpy. The weight is good, and it's fairly sturdy if baked. Note that the hole at the top can hold the amulet well, but it is not intended to take a lot of stress. Treat it gently, and it should last a long time.

I mix a small amount of white in with almost-black Sculpy to get some marbelling. The effect can be subtle.

Then I use the foil wrapper from a Cadbury Easter Creme Egg to impose some rock texture.

The real one is on the left. The replica is on the right. Not too bad.

Both the original and replicas are threaded with real leather cord.

 

Letter

The letters are printed in runes of the Northern Language. These are easily translatable. I learned these for the first time after reading "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien. The most common printing of the book has runes all around the cover and I translated them myself.

This set is similar, but may not be identical to those. However, a quick search on the internet can easily find a translation guide. Of course why, once translated, the letter seems to be written in plain English just with different letters, is a mystery to us all, I suspect.

The wax seal is hand-carved by me on a glass bead. The symbol of Ice Wolf Cove is the wolf's head, and that is what Elder Mallen's seal is.

I mounted the bead on a wooden peg for ease of use.

I use real wax to seal each letter. It is faux wax, which can be applied using a large-calibre glue gun. It is not real sealing wax, which is brittle, and might not survive mailing. Still, the effect is quite accurate.