Arduin Grimoire: Runes Of Doom

I suppose if you are going to be castrated, it may as well be by Shardra the Castrator, an Amazon bandit from the pages of The Runes of Doom, the third in the Arduin Grimoire series of fantasy RPG supplements.

Shardra, while topless for the first printing of The Runes of Doom, was covered up for subsequent printings. Whether you saw that as a necessary response, or an overreaction, to the self-appointed morality police, the self-censorship did ultimately result (in my opinion) in a diminishment of creativity by the professional publishers of the day.

The 100-page Runes of Doom was published in 1978, and was billed as the third, and final chapter, in the Arduin Grimoires. Dave Hargrave would go on to publish 5 more Grimoires, after this, his supposed swan-song. A sixth would be published, after his death in 1988, bringing the total to nine grimoires, comprising easily 1,000 pages. Quite an achievement, for what was largely an amateur effort. And I don't mean that in a deprecating way: Hargrave was certainly an amateur publisher, but that doesn't mean that his material can be dismissed as entirely amateurish. On the contrary, it, like the AD&D DMG, has all sorts of blindingly mind-bending (and ocassionally inscrutible) insights and suggestions.

Yes, sometimes Hargrave's material was childish and prurient -- look no further than Shardra the Castrator, who in addition to her modus operandi also had a related dining ritual (nuf said) -- but I find much of his work to be a useful tool: he delves into all sorts of forgotten, ignored, and dusty corners of campaign and world-building. Sometimes his explorations will lead you into dead-ends. Other times, he opens up a tunnel to some unexplored cavern, filled with sparkling gems.