Arduin Adventure Listed On eBay

And the opening bid is $9.99.  If you are curious about this ephemera (and not because the Arduin Adventure is useful for anything other than perspective), check out the listing.  A copy of the rulebook is also being auctioned off in a separate listing.  Neither of those auctions are mine, but I know, with the recent interest in all things Arduin, that someone may find those listings timely.

Monty Hall Was Here

Dave Hargrave's Arduin Dungeon adventures read like how-to guides on how not to design modules. 

Arduin Adventure No. 2, "The Howling Tower", is chapter two in that how-to guide.

"The Howling Tower" is an adventure for character levels 1-4.

The Howling Tower adventure consists of three dungeon levels and a tower, from which emanate blood-curdling howls from dusk 'til dawn.

Don't forget your earplugs.

If the illustration above seems passingly familiar, it's only because Dave Hargrave "drew inspiration" from many sources, including Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.  This fellow looks to be a cross between a Stormtrooper and Cylon.

Arduin was the first multi-genre role-playing game, with Science Fiction and Fantasy co-existing in more or less equal measure.

Erol Otus and Greg Espinoza are the illustrators of The Howling Tower.  Below is the front cover, showing the dungeon entrance to the adventure, with the Howling Tower itself behind and to the left.

The back cover, by Erol Otus, shows an idol and fiery brazier.  Does this not seem faintly reminiscent of the cover of the ADnD Players Handbook?

Here is the map for the tower levels of The Howling Tower.  With only six levels, it seems rather stout, compared to the illustration on the front cover.

And here we have more treasure cards.  Again, if i'm not mistaken, all of these were illustrated by Greg Espinoza.

Stormtrooper Gear, Dragons Orb, Elder Sword, Spartakkons Gear
Heiro's Headband, Heaven Harp, Devouring Shield, Whirling Death

I mentioned earlier that The Howling Tower adventure is rated for 1st to 4th level characters.  Given that rating, there really is no excuse, other than pure monty-hallism, for some of the magic items, above.

Take the Elder Sword.  It is a +4 sword, that drains 1-3 life levels from an opponent as a result of a successful strike.  Or the Devouring Shield: it provides the wielder with an additional shield attack, which, if successful, results in one's opponent being completely devoured within 1-3 rounds.

Hiero's Headband is worth 10,000 gp, and provides the wearier with permanent True Sight, and +6 on all saves versus psychic attack.

Gonzo to be sure, but also seriously overpowered, for a introductory adventure.

Battlebones, Gameron, Skullmonculuous, Triclops
Braineater, Hellhorse, Battlespider, Priestmage of Cthulhulos

Dave Hargrave always had the best monsters.  These would be right at home in the Fiend Folio.

How To Design A Bad Dungeon

If you're looking to design a bad dungeon, you can take a few pointers from Dave Hargrave.  His most salient advice?  Secret doors.  Lots and lots of secret doors. 

Dave Hargrave designed four adventures for use with his Arduin Grimoire game system.  The first adventure, entitled "Caliban", was designed for 8th+ level characters.  Caliban is purported to be a ageless, self-aware, malign tower formerly lost to time and space and now revealed once more, for your looting pleasure. 

Caliban's adventure maps provide few hints of a towered structure.  Instead, Hargrave fills each dungeon map-page to the border with odd-sized rooms and interminable secret doors. 

The front and back covers are by one of my otherwise favorite Arduin illustrators, Brad Schenck.  The front cover is not one of his best efforts.

Brad Schenck's back cover is better, though still not stellar, by any stretch of the imagination.

Treasure: Living Scroll, Hell Hand, Demon Ring, Idol of Doom
Skeleton Key, Dragon Horn, Silver Cat's Garb, Black Belana's Garb

This adventure is accompanied by two sheets of cards, one containing treasures and the other one containing new monsters.

Monsters:  Death Tree, Kraken, Wardroid, Warwheel
Dragon Wurm, Phoenix, Death Hydra, Quetzocoatl

The artwork on both card sheets is by Greg Espinoza.

Arduinian Resource Cards And Descriptions

There's but one word that springs to mind when I think of the remaining artwork of The Arduin Adventure: gratuitious. 

I mentioned earlier that The Arduin Adventure is 16 pages thicker than its' Holmesian equivalent.  A great many of those additional 16 pages are devoted to illustrations and descriptions of various weapons, armor and magical items appearing in the Arduin setting.

Like Hargrave, I intend to be equally gratuitous, and show you some of the illustrations and accompanying text of those items.

Of course, it is not only within the pages of The Arduin Adventure that those items appear.  Hargrave also published Arduinian treasure cards, like the two card sheets displayed below. 

On the front side, illustrations of the items.  On the back, descriptions of the items, along with space to customize the items to your game.

Several different sets of Arduinian treasure cards were published.  I have several more sets, which accompanied the dungeon adventures published by Hargrave.  If there is any interest, i'm happy to reproduce them here on my blog, for review and educational purposes.

Without futher ado then, here is a visual retrospective and representative sampling of the items and descriptions appearing in The Arduin Adventure.

Holmes vs. Hargrave

Early Arduin game materials are rightfully viewed as hacks of Dungeons and Dragons, and The Arduin Adventure boxed set is no exception. 

Similarities between The Arduin Adventure, David Hargrave's foray into the boxed introductory rpg set market, and the earlier-published J. Eric Holmes Dungeons and Dragons boxed set abound.

Beyond the obvious, with both being boxed sets, both role playing games include a basic rule book, provide a "complete" set of rules designed for low-level play, dice, and an introductory adventure.  Each rule book cover also features a Dragon confronted by a pair of adventurers.

The Arduin Adventure rule book is 64 pages, while the Holmes blue book is only 48, but The Arduin Adventure does not really provide an additional 16 pages of content,as it includes (within its covers) a 9-page introductory adventure, The Forgotten Tower of Kharkorum the Black. 

By comparison, the Holmes basic set booklet includes a 5-page Tower of Zenopus adventure, and modules B1 or B2 as stand-alone products.

The back cover of The Arduin Adventure, complete with an Illustration of The Forgotten Tower of Kharkorum the Black

Arduin Adventure is not a particularly well-constructed rpg rule set.  Then again, neither is the Holmes blue book.  The difference, of course, is 3 years.  The Holmes blue book was published in 1977, while The Arduin Adventure was published in 1980.  You would have expected that the intervening three years would have provided time for Hargrave to fine-tune his own competing offering.

This post is not intended review The Arduin Adventure rules themselves.  If you want to read a rather unflattering review of The Arduin Adventure rules, you can find that here.  No, the purpose of this post is to highlight the art of Arduin Adventure.

If David Trampier, Tom Wham and Dave Sutherland defined the visual style, and therefore "feel", of Holmes Basic DnD, then Greg Espinoza, Brad Schenck, Michio Okamura and Roland Brown do the same for The Arduin Adventure.

Greg Espinoza supplies the Unicorn and Pegasus illustrations found early in the rule book.  These are competent fantasy illustrations, although not true rpg illustrations, as they fail to reveal any particular feature of role-playing.

Brad Schenck does a better job, providing the cover illustration to The Arduin Adventure, and two tableaus featuring the various classes and races.

If you consider several other Brad Schenck illustrations, appearing in various Arduin products, you will see that he understands rpg illustration.  His art pieces reveal the environment within which the characters operate, whether it be preparing to enter a dungeon, a surprise encounter with a monster, or looting a treasure hoard after a battle.

Michio Okamura also provides several illustrations, like the Dwarf, above, wielding a combined morningstar/battleaxe weapon, and the hobbit, below, finishing off a dragon.

It's unclear who provides the illustration, below, although it appears to be an Espinoza piece.

I'm guessing that the illustration of a combat, below, is by Roland Brown, as it very different from the Schenck, Espinoza and Okimura styles.

The battle between this Dragon and an adventuring party is my favorite illustration from The Arduin Adventure.  You poor bastards: you poor, flaming bastards.

Late edit: And just so there is no ambiguity ... skeletons are included.



Revolt On Antares/Erol Otus: One Fine Young Artist

From the Forward (sic) to The Arduin Grimoire; Volume 1, by Dave Hargrave:

"Special Note. The artwork for this supplement is the sole doing of one fine young artist: Errol (sic) Otus. I'm only glad I'll be able to say ten years from now, 'I knew him when...'"

Erol Otus did not merely produce fantasy artwork during the late 70's and early 80's. He also rendered the science fiction artwork below, which graced the centre pages of the 1981 TSR Revolt On Antares minigame booklet.

Click to embiggen.

With the seeming-success of Metagaming's microgame line, other game companies jumped into the soon-to-be-crashing minigame market. That included TSR, SPI, Task Force Games, Chaosium, Mayfair Games, Heritage USA, Operational Studies Group, Steve Jackson Games, and FASA.
TSR's Revolt On Antares concerns a power struggle on Imhirros, ninth planet in the Antares system, on the fringes of Imperial Space.

Several noble houses, the Imperial government, and alien invaders vie for control of Imhirros using raw military power, alien artifacts, galactic superheroes, and hereditary psychic abilities to achieve their ends. Interplayer diplomatic efforts are encouraged in the rulebook, but there are no game systems to regulate diplomacy.

The game was designed for TSR by Tom Moldvay, who also designed Avalon Hill's Lords Of Creation. Two pieces of Erol Otus art appear within Revolt On Antares.

The game showed great promise, particularly when viewed through the lens of the above Erol Otus art.

World Of Synnibarr Redux

Many moons ago it was mentioned that I had a copy of The World Of Synnibarr in my collection.

Now it seems it is potentially off to a good home.

The World Of Synnibarr is liberally derided by many. Having read, but never played the game, I admit my perspective is somewhat shallow.

I've heard vague reports that Raven McCracken's campaign was not unlike that of Dave Hargrave's.

But while Hargrave is hailed as a hero of self-publishing and gonzo D&D house-ruling, McCracken is mocked for his World Of Synnibarr setting.

Interestingly, one of the criticisms of World Of Synnibarr is this: "McCracken is, incidentally, addicted to the percentile dice roll, and not in the good Unknown Armies / Call of Cthulhu way; he'll use them for everything. You'll see more of this later."

Is McCracken's material that bad, or does he get unfair rap?

Old School Resources: Dragon Tree Spell Book

Dave Hargrave wasn't the only one publishing gonzo, D&D-esque gaming materials in the late 70's and early 80's. In addition to the Arduin materials, Ben and Mary Ezzell of Dragon Tree Press were (and still are) publishing materials for their own fantasy setting, dubbed Delos (any similarity to the Greek island of Delos, and the Delian League is purely coincidental).

In addition to The Delian Book Of The Dead (which I previously reviewed), Dragon Tree Press published The Dragon Tree Spell Book ("the Spell Book"), which is a compendium of magic spells compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. First published in 1981, The Spell Book is 135 pages, contains 224 unique spells, and can still be purchased from Dragon Tree Press, for $12.

Some of the more interesting spells within The Spell Book include:

• "Weed-killer", this spell withers weeds -- handy for clearing out an overgrown area;


• "Andrea's Rambling Clew" -- the material component is a ball of yarn, which unrolls as it provides a trail towards your intended destination;


• "Gordian Knot" -- a spell for ensuring theives cannot untie a knot to raid your backpack or sack;


• "Snap, Crackle, Pop" -- a spell which creates tiny globules across a flat surface, which make loud popping sounds if walked upon;


• "Foghorn" -- allows a player to amplify her voice, so she can address large crowds;


• "Percival's Phosphorescence" -- enchanted items collect sunlight, and can thus be used as no-fire torches underground; and


• "Brother Bertram's Body Bag" -- a corpse placed within the body bag will cease to decay, useful when you want to resurrect someone but it will be several days before you can do so.

There are some interesting and useful spells in The Spell Book. But the real value to be derived from The Spell Book is within the first 27 pages.

Those first 27 pages provide a summary of Newton's Principia Arcana, an ancient tome that reveals the four types of magical mana, from which are derived five magic systems. The derived magic systems are:

• Memorization System -- similar to the Vancian system of spell-casting employed in Dungeons and Dragons;


• Local Mana System -- similar to the system used in D&D's Dark Sun setting, or Niven's "The Magic Goes Away", there is a certain amount of magic power within a given area, and spell-casters who use up the magic power in that area, must then move to another area in order to continue casting;


• Personal Mana System -- each spell caster has a certain amount of magical mana within himself, and can cast any spell until his personal mana is exhausted. Then he must eat and rest for a certain amount of time to restore his personal mana;


• Percentage and Fumble System -- magical essense is abundant, but hard to control. Spell casters can cast spells, but there is always a chance that a spell will backfire or result in some catastrophe; and


• Impromptu Magic System -- spell casters can make up any spell, but their chances are dependent on certain laws of spell casting. Those laws are identified in the Impromptu Magic System, and adherance to those laws affects the chance of spell success. This system is similar to DeCamp and Pratt's magic system, as described in The Compleat Enchanter.