The Throbbing Ruins - Heart Of Darkness

Part of Tribes and Patreon May 2026 release.
This set is part of the Throbbing Ruins Bundle.

All the models are test printed in resin and presupported when needed.

This gargantuan heart stands 28 cm (11 inches) tall. It is perched on its own veins - I really wanted that "floating" look - and it has two version: one with the upper veins ending towards the intended ceiling of the room and one with them as tentacles, ready to strike those who threaten it. I can picture it being used just like that, as a single monstrous boss with psychic - or cardiac - effects on the characters, and striking at the rhythm of its thuds.

Although that's a first fascinating use, when I was designing it I kept thinking about a titan-like creature whose heart would be found in their enormous chest, which would be big enough to be a dungeon in itself. This could be in the final room: the thing characters need to stop from beating to save the world from its titanic owner. Alternatively, it could be used - as in the case of this set - to represent the central, nightmarish heart of a biomass that's invading a town. Once that is destroyed, the growths will stop spreading and decay, being deprived of their nourishment. Or maybe your campaign has a Lich who, instead of a phylactery, uses this thing to survive, buried in a forgotten tomb inside some mountain at the end of the world - or maybe they are a vampire, and you are playing Curse of Strahd! Or again, if painted with wood and root colors and some sickly greens and reds it could be the pumping heart of cursed forest (for the Draw Steel players out there!), spreading its roots and sucking life from the trees all around it, turning them black and... aggressive. (Or in a similar vein (wink) it could be a mythical "heart of the see": I could easily see the mutated top "bumps" painted as coral reef or something like that! And what if a pirate, out of the pain of a betrayed love, decided to cut their heart out of their body and bury it in the sea not to suffer again? But make it more monstrous this time. I'm sure some will get the reference!)

But that's not it! This set also comes with a few tentacles sprouting from the ground. If you fight the heart, these will definitely come in handy to threaten players that are far away from it (although, let's be real, it would have something like 30ft of reach already). I can picture these as being "vulnerable spots" too, placed all over the dungeon (or the final room): they can be a point that characters can attack to hurt the heart itself, the things it maintains (it is pumping something after all), or the BBEG who relies on it! Slicing a vein as large as a tree trunk is heavy metal, and describing the absolute torrent of blood (Ichor? Acid? Sap? Sea Water?) coming out of it will be fun. Alternatively, you can use them to represent a gargantuan creature - or the heart itself, when it detects creatures sneaking in its dungeon - attacking from the ground. Characters will be wondering to what those tentacles belong, and when they get to the heart (wink n.2) of the dungeon they will find their answer (and more tentacles)!

These are given with flesh patches around them to help them stand (the intended use) or "free", but those will need some magnetization or a base to stand. They are great for dioramas too! (All of the pieces have a hollowed and an unhollowed version, and there is a complete non-split model of the heart too.)

A final note of color: the heart itself is a 1:1 scale of an adult human heart (the veins are waaaay thicker) - I know mentioning that will impress my friends at the table!