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Base Like a Druid: Meadows

Jess Miller-Camp (they/them), Ph.D.

Druid GM Designs

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Very Basic Environmental Science

  • Two parts

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    • Biotic
      • Living stuff

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    • Abiotic
      • Not living stuff

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What’s a Meadow?

  • Open habitat

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  • Often mostly grass, but not always

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  • Soil depth, nutrients, root systems important

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What matters for basing?

  • Surface
    • Loose or solid
    • Topography
    • Erosion/deposition
    • Soil profiles
    • Root systems

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  • Groundcover
    • Amount
    • Arrangement
    • Density
    • Height
    • Color
    • Type
  • The elements
    • Wind
    • Water
    • Light
    • Temperature
    • Gravity

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  • Space-time
    • Time of day
    • Seasonality
    • Latitude
    • Altitude
    • History
  • Ecology
    • Food webs
    • Toxins, diseases, pollution
    • Life cycles
    • Biogeochemical cycles
    • Waste
  • Behavior
    • Affect on surface
    • Affect on vegetation
    • Predation
    • Competition

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Height and Type of Plants

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Soil/Dirt Type

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Topography of Ground

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How Recently Disturbed?

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Seasons and Weather

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Search Terms for More Ideas (Abiotic)

  • Silt, loam, clay, sand
  • Drainage ditch
  • Ephemeral stream
  • Floodplain
  • Alluvial plain
  • Sod

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  • Soil profile
  • Topsoil
  • Sod
  • Permafrost
  • Brunisol
  • Luvisol
  • Mollisol
  • Loess

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  • UV index
  • Topography
  • Growing season
  • Well-drained/�Poorly-drained
  • Acidic/�Alkaline soil
  • Water table height

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Search Terms for More Ideas (biotic)

  • Tallgrass/�shortgrass Prairie
  • Meadow
  • Moorland
  • Grassland
  • Alpine meadow

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  • Perennial/Annual/Biennial
  • Root systems
  • Grass matting
  • Fossorial
  • Camouflage (for tall grass)
  • Wallow

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  • Pasture
  • Monocrop
  • Wet meadow
  • Tundra
  • Steppe
  • Sahel
  • Savannah

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Today’s Bases

Moorland

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  • Lay down super glue for path, sprinkle and press gravel or sand onto glue

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  • Paint base

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  • Gather with a few buddies interested in the same color(s) of grass flocking. Pile flocking in machine.

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  • Quickly slather glue over everything that’s not the path, plop your bases on the lid, put the lid on the machine, click the on button

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  • Use sticks to dab bits of PVA glue on grass, then sprinkle and press foam flocking to it

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Tall Prairie

  • Add masking tape around rim, trim off tape below it, trim top edge to desired soil thickness

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  • Plop some paint and spackling on the base, mix them up, fill tape cup to desired soil thickness

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  • Drop super glue in spots, then use tweezers to pluck off real plant bits and push them into the glue+spackle

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  • For areas that will not have tall grasses, cover in super glue, then either press in powdery flocking, repeat the grass machine flocking process, or simulate the “grass matting” that some species do by just pressing grass flocking onto the glue.

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  • Remove tape and paint sides with a soil profile. Can simulate roots by pressing small amounts of light-colored flocking in, then drybrushing them white (wait until the next day when everything will be completely cured for the drybrushing)

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