hey everyone, this Halloween i put forth some effort and actually made something that will see multiple Halloweens to come. . . really, i'll find a way.

Well it started off with an idea of a nice staff with lots of carving and wood burn to highlight the carving. Took me a while to find the right stick, but when i first laid eyes on it i knew i had the right one. this fine stick was out in the weather and had cured up real nice and the bark came off easily, well i still had to work to get it off but not as much as i assumed.

Once de-barked i had to set up my writing line, good flow and straight lines wrapping down the staff would have a best look in my personal opinion, so i popped out my masking tape and got to work.

Step 1: Runes, Who Needs Futhark?

After looking around at what was available on the internet and in books i noticed that most of the time viking runes seem to be used, the Futhark alphabet just didn't seem right to me, i wanted something a little different, something a little more fluid and less rigid with all those straight edges.

Found a real nice alphabet in the form of draconic script from Dungeons & Dragons, it just looked perfect.

Once the script had been figured out I needed something to write out on the staff, not just a mish-mash of jumbled mess, so i got this nice oath i found online for a necromancer, wasn't sure how far through the list i'd get but oh well.

Step 2: Always Use Pencil

Well, just knew it, not all of it fit, but hey that happens. Praise the almighty power of the pencil and eraser, with whose power I didest respace things and squeeze in just enough to finish up a sentence instead of leaving it sorta hanging. But fear not, for I got most of the oath to fit just fine in large and clear lettering with plenty of even spacing.

After the letters where done my last bit was to trace around the masking tape, top and bottom, to make some nice edging. Already i can see this will be looking pretty sharp. Really helped how the bark left such a nice smooth surface underneath, like bone smooth.....which kinda fits with the theme.

Step 3: Oh Sweat Dremel and Wood Burning

Once I was satisfied with the placement of everything i took to the surface with a fine carving bit on my dremel, both border lines and all the letter, plus i used a dot for each space between words, something I'd seen used with the viking runes and thought was a wonderful idea to pilfer. That was a very long while to get it all done, took me two and a half days, but I was doing some other stuff too.

Once carving was done I pulled out the old wood burner and started going over all the carving, darkening and cleaning up my edges and such, that seemed to take up even longer than the carving itself. After that was down I just looked at it for a bit and said "you know what, you need a sanding" so I popped out some 120 and some 300 and sent a couple passes over the surface to finish it up, this of course was the final clean up, but I'm always tinkering and thought it could look better.

Step 4: Bah, Stain It With the Blood of Your Enemies!

With the staff almost done I felt all that was left to do was to stain it a little darker, so I brought out some minwax red mahogany and laid into that thing, instantly I was hooked on the color, it was perfect, funny how that works.

so with one of those little chair leg protectors for your floor hammered into the bottom of the staff for protection I declared my work a masterpiece and done.