CHAOS TEMPLE
 Ideal for Mordheim


Chaos TempleMordheim is not complete without a proper place of worship for your evil minions to congregate and plot world domination and destruction. This Chaos temple reprents a harmonic centerpiece for your Mordheim gaming table, not to mention a great locale for attracting and getting to know all those forces of good bent on extermination. This temple was inspired by the Lizard temple built by Gary James at Terragenesis.

Materials

This temple follows the design of the ancient New World stepped-pyramids. The major component is four layers polystyrene covered with plaster of Paris, painted, and then detailed with plaster of Paris sculptures and foliage. It is also mounted upon a hard wood base. The materials necessary include:
  • large sheets of either 1 or 2 inch thick polystyrene. Check your local DIY store (I had some old shipping material I used).
  • Plaster of Paris from hobby shop.
  • Plasticene (children's brightly coloured, oily non-setting modelling clay, mine cost $2.00 US).
  • An 18x18" wood or corregated cardboard base (I used a1/4" oak piece from my local DIY sotre that cost me $4.00 US).
  • Corregated shipping carboard and thick card from a cereal box.
  • PVA glue (white wood glue).
  • Paints and flock.

    • Method

    The dimensions of this temple are 15x15 inches square, 8 inches high in four steps. Each layer of the temple has a thickness of 2 inchs of polystyrene. Start with the bottom two layers and apply PVA glue to hold the layers together. Be sure to allow the glue ample time to dry. I also place weights on top to be sure both layers stays tighly in place. The dual stairways up opposite sides of the temple are just small 1x3x1 inch pieces of polystyrene glued into place the same way. Four corregated carboard banisters were also added, cut to fit with a sissors. Do not worry about minor gaps between the cardboard and the polystyrene, since these can be filled later.

    		Chaos Temple
    Chaos Temple
    		Use two pieces of thin card for each step- one vertical and one horizontal piece. Be sure that the horizontal piece sticks out a bit. Score the polystyrene with a hot wire cutter to give the appearance of cut-slab stones. Be sure not to make the scores too deep or else it will make priming more difficult.

    Cover the temple with three to four layers of plaster of Paris to give it a tough, stone-effect finish. Mix up 1 part plaster powder to 2 parts water by volume. Each layer with set quickly (10 minutes or so), so don't make up too much at once. Paint rapidly all over the polystyrene and card temple building, being sure to seep as much mixture as possible into the polystyrene cracks. With each successive layer, irregularities and details will slowly form in the finish.

    		Chaos Temple
    Chaos Temple
    		Now prepare the facade by creating plaster of Paris tiles. Use a large miniature, mobile, wind chime, or anything else suitable. This temple uses two master sculpture styles: a skull face made from a giant skeleton miniature; and a female-goddess bust made from a tiny bronze statue of the Greek goddess Athena (I picked this up in Sicily). Knead and stretch out your plasticene clay and press your master into it. The photo here shows how the skeleton miniature was pressed into the plasticene to make a bunch of skull facial imprints. Mix up one part plaster powder to one part water, then use a butter knife to spread the plaster into the molds.

    Carefully pop out and trim the plaster casts after they dry thoroughly. Clean the plasticene molds of excess plaster and either reuse them or pound them out and repeat the process. If some of the casts come out stretched or with small pot-holes, thats perfect! This temple uses 70 skulls and 8 larger busts. The skulls are arranged along the top and bottom layers of the temple, and along the face of both staircases. Four of the larger busts were placed on each side of the temple.

    		Chaos Temple
    Chaos Temple
    		Use your piece of hardwood to make a proper base. This base is an 18 inch square piece that is primed black, and then painted along the edges with the spray-on granite color textured paint. See the bases section for more details.

    Attach your sculptures with PVA glue and then prime the entire temple black, Use a spray can if you wish, but be sure that you have all the spots covered in plaster or else any exposed polystyrene will start to melt. This temple was painted by hand; the black paint was thinned a bit with water so it would seep into those hard-to-reach cracks. Using various shades of gray, carefully drybrush the entire structure.

    		Chaos Temple
    Chaos Temple
    		Finally, attach the temple to the base with PVA glue and then glue on flock and other foliage to taste. It may be best to constrcut the base and glue it to the temple before you apply the plaster of paris. This temple warped a tad as the plaster dried and was not level when it was glued it to the base after it was complete. A heavy mixture of plaster was applied at the base to make it level. This temple has mossy-type flock in the various cracks and crevices, particularly heavy on one side of the building to reflect sun exposure.

    This temple makes an excellent centerpiece to any Mordheim or other fantasy battle! Here it is used in a Mordheim conflict, with the forces of good trying to stop an evil ceremony on top.

    		Chaos Temple

    michael kolb, 15 may 2001 text&photo