Dice are the most symbolic items connected with the popular table-top RPG Dungeons and Dragons, and although the game shares its multisided dice with many tabletop games, most players will think of Dungeons and Dragons when they see a D20. Players are free to interact with the game world of D&D in any way they choose, but the dice represent the success or failure of each of these interactions, and this has given dice an almost mythical quality among D&D players.
This element of chance has meant that many dedicated Dungeons and Dragons players will often regard their dice with a level of superstition, or connect them with one particular character, and because of this, a huge market has grown among D&D players for personalized dice designs that are representative of a particular character or class.
Players can choose from thousands of designs to buy, including limited edition official D&D Beyond designs. But since all Dungeons and Dragons dice sets are built to the same design specifications, it is also possible for players to create their own dice and commit even more to the personalization of that particular set of dice. This exactly what a D&D player on Reddit named Yume has done, by creating a stunning set of holographic dice inspired by the northern lights.
Yume’s dice design, named Holographic Aurora Resin, is certainly evocative of its visual inspiration, as when the dice are moved and rolled, their holographic inlays reflect a spectrum of colors that is visually similar to the aurora borealis. This would be a set of dice that is perfect for a character that comes from a very northern area of the game world, or has some magical connection to the north.
The Reddit user sells their dice designs on an Etsy store named OriYUMEDice which also holds many other stunning dice designs inspired by other fantasy and adventure evoking concepts such as the night sky or the inky abyss. Dungeons and Dragons offers players the chance to play as so many fantasy archetypes, from dark fantasy, to high adventure, and so there are endless ways for a player’s dice to complement their character. Players can also play against these archetypes and reflect this through their color and style of dice, or perhaps even mismatch their dice from different sets in order to reflect different aspects of their character.
But of course, dice designs are entirely cosmetic and shouldn’t actually affect a game of Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, if the player has an internet connection, they wouldn’t even need any dice at all, as virtual dice can be used on D&D Beyond. Despite this, however, rolling dice has been a shared through-line for Dungeons and Dragons players since the game's creation in the 1970s, and the many sets of personalized dice that have been designed since then are symbolic of the thousands of beloved characters that have been created for the game.