Eldritch Horror Case - the Lower Workings

I was finally able to come back to this project, and start work on the lower level. Unfortunately while working on this part of the case, I realized I was going to end up only able to fit the Mountains of Madness components into my plan, and not the upcoming Pyramids release. But having the case able to store the base game, 2 small box expansions and 1 large box expansion seems pretty good to me, so it is what it is.

Working on the tray

I started with the front section holding the Character sheets, Mythos cards, and Great Old Ones. I wanted to create a pull out tray that would display the current GOO & hold the Mythos deck during a game. I decided to have the GOO held at an angle – this meant I had to fully enclose the cards, otherwise they’d simply slide out of place. For ease of removal given the tight quarters, I will be adding a ribbon beneath the cards, but I didn’t have an appropriate one to hand for now. To get the angle, I just glued a small piece to the “head” end of the tray that the cards rest on. I’m intending for the entire stack of GOO cards to be left in the tray with just the current adversary on top, so the stack is rigid enough for this method. The final touch for this tray was to use two pieces with an angled opening for the back wall of the Mythos deck instead of a single wall piece creating a finger-hole for easy access to the cards. The tray for the rest of the Mythos cards & the investigators was created the same way but without enclosing both ends of the investigators, allowing them to easily slide out & avoiding needing to add a second ribbon. I also didn’t bother with the finger hole as the card slot has extra space above the deck and only needs accessed during set-up unlike the tray for the in-use deck which will be accessed throughout the game session.

The finished tray for the GOO & Mythos deck

The tray with cards in place

This was the point when I threw the rest of my plan out of the window and redesigned the layout for this level of the case. Changing the wooden supports, from crossing the whole case width to just sitting at the sides, opened up space to better support the investigator standees while allowing for the cards associated with each GOO to each have their own space. I figured out the exact design as I went. First I created the top line of GOO deck holders. I cut the base of the tray and added the long sides. I then cut small angled dividers and carefully gluing them next to the decks – I luckily managed not to glue any cards to the holder during this stage of the project or any other, for that matter!

Before I added the dividers

Once this was fitted into the case, I measured the gap that was left between it and the Investigator/Mythos/GOO trays & cut a piece of foam-core to fill the gap. I trimmed the width of the piece down by a little over 10mm to leave room for the wooden supports, then started creating divisions to hold the rest of the GOO decks, leaving the rest of the piece to hold the Investigator pieces. I chose to fully enclose the standees mainly to add rigidity to the piece. All that was left at this point was to cut down one of the original wooden strips that had supported the top tray. I plan to glue the two strips of wood to the case but haven’t decided whether to add a slight spacer to ensure they fully support the tray (because of the space between the tray & case sides, it feels like widening the supports would provide greater stability).

Just missing the wooden strips to the left & right of the characters

A few days after I finished the lower level, I received a copy of the Mountains of Madness expansion in the mail. Unpacking its contents and placing them into the box let me see how well I’d calculated the space needed for the extra components. The only component that doesn’t fit into its assigned space is the Conditions deck – for now I have bagged the items that are very Antarctica-board specific & placed them on top of the smaller Ally deck so they're easy to separate & place on top of the correct deck during a game.

Next up is figuring out the best way to adapt the inside of the lid to store the game boards without damaging them. I have multiple ideas about how to do this, so I’ll need to sit down and play with it. I’m also toying with the idea of adding a lid to the top level in order to allow the case to be carried vertically but I think I’d rather just keep everything horizontal for now.

Introduction

Planning & Resource Gathering

Phase One - the Top Level

Phase Two - the Lower Workings

Phase Three - the Inner Lid (coming soon)
The Final Product (coming soon)