As a long-time D&D player and DM myself, there's nothing more satisfying than bringing a campaign setting to life with visceral descriptions that evoke the senses. Music never goes amiss, and I'm even partial to lighting and sound effects when the time is right but, I'm telling you, smelly dice is a step too far.
Seriously, I've seen a lot of weird D&D merchandise in my time, but my initial reaction to discovering scented D&D dice was "Man, I really hope my DM doesn't read this," because he's definitely going to import them and take over the table with some distinctly pungent aromas.
Discovered while perusing The Soloist (one of my favorite Substacks) this morning, I now feel like I've seen everything when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons merch. From Studio Woe – whose art has touched World of Warcraft, Darksiders, Disney, and Warhammer 40K titles – comes Scented Adventure Dice by Baron Smelly Bones. Currently up for pre-order at $20 a pop (bargain), Baron Smelly Bones' dice come in a few different scents.
Nature's Embrace dice are earthen brown and translucent green with copper numbers that emit a subtle scent of earth and fir tree. Ancient Armory dice are black and transparent silver, with micro glitter and red figures, that features notes of steel, leather, and "unbridled power". And the Fireball Char dice are yellow and transparent red with silver numbering, which emulate that campfire waft "or the smoldering remains of your ancestral home."
There's also Arcane Vapors in case you're wondering what D&D magic smells like, and Healers Balm that should make playing the party's medic a little more interesting I suppose.
The studio also Kickstarted a few other designs of the Villanous scent variety back in October. From Vampire Wine to Cemetary Soil, and even Blueberry Hag, 694 backers pledged $50,839 to make these evil scents a reality. Although you can't make late pledges, I imagine you'll be seeing them pop up on the Studio Woe website eventually.
The main question for me (other than just "WHY?") is with all that handling, how do these dice not lose their scent over time? The description helpfully explains: "Our dice are scented with a multi-phase process that infuses both the dice and the dice tin with fragrance! While your dice are not in use, store them back in their tin to recharge their aromatic battery."
That means you're getting a scented dice set and free tin to keep them in for your money, as well as the very unnecessary but very novel infusion of the scent of your choice.
All this has got me considering a really important question I spotted on the D&D Beyond forums, however: "What do Celestials smell like?" More on that at a later date.
For more recommendations, why not check out the best D&D books, or some of the best tabletop RPGs.
