Every October I get the same question: what do you actually get behind the twenty-four doors? An advent calendar is the one product people buy without opening it first, so “a surprise” is not a good enough answer. The honest answer is that there are two very different types of product sharing one shape: a miniatures advent calendar and a dice advent calendar. The right pick depends on what the person opening it wants to be holding on December 25th.
I run a 3D-printing studio in Utah, and I am a DM and avid gamer. We print and pack both kinds of calendar in house, so here is what goes inside each and how to choose without guessing. If you are shopping the whole category rather than these two formats, our guide to the best D&D advent calendars covers the field, and the broader gifts for TTRPG players guide covers everything else on the table.
A miniatures calendar is a story you unpack: twenty-four sculpted characters, monsters, and props that end up on a battle map. A dice calendar is a collection you build: complete polyhedral sets revealed a die at a time, with miniatures picked to match them. Minis suit the person who runs or plays in a campaign and wants new things on the table. Dice suit the person who already has terrain and minis, and treats dice the way other people treat trading cards.
Most listings skip the part that matters: what happens after Christmas. Minis carry a job into January because they keep showing up in encounters. Dice carry a mood. Match the gift to the person and they get a lifetime of DMing and gaming out of it.
Behind each door is one unpainted 3D-printed miniature with its base, and in our quest calendars each mini belongs to a named character in a written adventure. We publish those contents by name, so a DM knows what is coming and can plan a session around it. We also print mystery miniatures advent calendars for the player or DM who would rather be surprised every morning.
The Hidden Hoard is a self-contained 5E one-shot for a party of 3 to 5 at level 1, set in the plague-stricken coastal village of Blanchetaque. Inside the advent calendar are thirty-three named miniatures, a full quest book, and a double-sided 11×17 battle map. Every mini matches a character in the story, from the village cleric to the goblin chieftain Scrag. You can read the Hidden Hoard one-shot for free before you buy, which is the closest thing to opening the box in the store.
Shadows over Silverlake is our flagship: a gothic 5E vampire one-shot for a level-10 party with three branching paths: rob the vampires, slay them, or save them. It ships with 57 sculpted miniatures, a double-sided 11×17 playable battlemap, a bound quest book, and the wearable Heirloom of House Sterling. This is the calendar for a DM who wants a centerpiece campaign, not just a single session.
The Mystery Advent Calendar is the classic advent experience, and the easy gift when you do not know someone’s campaign. Twenty-four doors of surprise miniatures drawn from a pool of 500 or more sculpts, so no two are alike, and you still choose the collection and basing style. There is an XL version as well, with boss-scale figures that do not fit a standard box and a premium dice set packed alongside the minis.
Behind each door is dice, revealed so complete sets assemble themselves over the month, plus hand-picked miniatures chosen to match them. Our Premium Dice Advent Calendar runs $99.99 and arrives in the Codex Kirtrite Arcanum, a grimoire-style book box rather than a flat panel. You pick one of four worlds at checkout.
Whichever you choose, the calendar holds a premium dice set in your theme, a Pocket Watch set that ships in every box, and around twenty miniatures sculpted to match. Yo-Ho and Plunder runs to swashbucklers and cannons; March of the Undead to death knights, ghouls, and a lich; Storm the Dungeon to minotaurs and a mimic or three; Descent Into Madness to cultists, mind eaters, and a lighthouse keeper you should not follow. Building toward a finished set is the point: a lone d12 is not a gift; it is a spare part.
The natural pairing is somewhere to roll them. A Ruined Keep Dice Tower at $59.99 keeps them on the table, not under the sofa.
With a miniatures calendar you keep a cast: characters with names, a quest book, and a map you can run this weekend. With a dice calendar you keep a collection: sets you will roll for years, the minis packed alongside them, and the specific pleasure of a die that matches the character you are playing. Both end up on the table, by different routes.
Here is the single best use of a calendar, and almost nobody does it: paint each mini the night you open it. Twenty-four days, twenty-four small sessions, and by Christmas the whole cast is finished and ready for the table. The pieces are small and the pressure is low: one mini a night is fifteen to forty minutes of painting, not a whole afternoon of painting. It works with either format, since our dice calendars ship with miniatures too.
Setting someone up for this, a Dual Force Paint Brush Set covers base coats and detail work, our drybrushing guide is the fastest way to get a sculpt looking finished, and the brush care guide keeps those brushes alive past January.
Three questions get you there.
Do they run games or play in them? A DM gets the most out of a quest calendar: the miniatures and the map arrive with a session already written around them. A player gets more out of a dice calendar, which comes to the table every week whoever is running.
Do you know what they play? If you do, a quest calendar drops straight into their world. If not, a mystery or dice calendar fits any system: a d20 is a d20 everywhere, and a 32mm adventurer works in D&D, Pathfinder, Frostgrave, and most skirmish games.
Do they paint, or want to? Point them to a calendar with miniatures in it and put a brush in the box. Every calendar we make includes minis, so this is a question of how many, not whether.
The two formats are not rivals. Plenty of tables run one of each and trade the doubles over the month.
Ours arrive unpainted, washed, and cured, ready for primer. That is deliberate: painting them as you open them is the best way to use the calendar, and a pre-painted set removes the part people enjoy most. For painted pieces, check out our options for commissioned work.
28mm and 32mm, standard for D&D, Pathfinder, and most skirmish wargames. They sit correctly next to minis you already own and on any one-inch grid battle map. Every mini ships with its base; a few of the larger kits need a drop of glue to seat them.
A dice advent calendar is more than the dice. It is themed sets of your choosing, paired with hand-picked minis that finish the set, plus twenty-four days of anticipation. If it is only the dice you want, our resin dice sets are there on their own at $49.99.
Either one works. It depends on the adult in the room. If someone will paint alongside them, a calendar with miniatures is one of the better introductions to the hobby there is: a brush, a few paints, and one small figure a night. If nobody is painting yet, dice are the easier start, and the minis in the dice calendar are still waiting when they are ready.
Yes, and most people do. The quest book gives them a home, but a plague doctor, a goblin chieftain, or a pack of dire wolves work in any campaign. That is why we publish the contents by name.
If you want the full field rather than a head-to-head, read our guide to the best D&D advent calendars, or browse the shop. Everything listed above comes off our own printers in Utah, so if you have a question about contents or scale, ask and you will get a real answer. Consult the Oracle.
Every Kirtrite miniature, terrain piece, and accessory is 3D printed in-house in Utah — built to be played with, not just displayed.
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