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.

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.



The Arduin Grimoire As ODnD Supplement

Reading and reviewing Dragons at Dawn led me to reminisce about another rule set, that also held itself out as a complete game system, but was really best used as a supplement to original Dungeons and Dragons. That other rule set, is, of course, The Arduin Grimoire.

Much (but not enough) has been said about The Arduin Grimoire. Authored by Dave Hargrave, who sadly passed away in 1988 (at the age of 42), the first three Arduin Grimoires were published in 1977 and 1978, some three years after the release of original Dungeons and Dragons. Like Dragons at Dawn, the Arduin Grimoire provided a myriad of alternate and supplementary rules and campaign suggestions, but Arduin was infinitely more extensive and table-laden. The first three Grimoires -- The Arduin Grimoire, Welcome to Skull Tower, and The Runes of Doom -- were nearly 100 pages each: the later six Arduin volumes were even longer.

But unlike Dragons at Dawn, the Arduin Grimoire (at least the books I have had access to) was, to put it politely, of uneven quality. For every blinding insight or brilliant suggestion, you would encounter some text equally execrable. But Hargrave never gave up on even his ugliest creations, often pleading with his readers to give his ideas a try, as it was only in the crucible of a role-playing campaign that the true value of his creations would be revealed.

Although this set of books was, and still is, passed off as a complete game system, it was born from Dave Hargrave's experience running original Dungeons and Dragons. It could be said, then, that The Arduin Grimoire is an example of OD&D house-ruling run-amok. A train-wreck perhaps, but a glorious one! While much of his material was largely derivative, there were some unique inventions sprinkled throughout his works, enough that many gamers considered his Arduin Grimoire to be part of the OD&D canon. TSR was not impressed with how close Hargrave hewed to their intellectual property, including explicit mentions to OD&D in his rulebooks, and famously slapped a cease & desist order on him. That resulted in the removal of any mentions of D&D in The Arduin Grimoire, although it probably did little to dampen its' sales. In some cases he simply whited out references to Dungeons and Dragons in his books, replacing those references with phrases such as "most often used ruleset".

The 12 black & white illustrations for the first Arduin Grimoire volume were created by Greg Espinoza and Michio Okimura. The above Greg Espinoza illustration appears on the back cover of the original Arduin Grimoire. I love Greg Espinoza's illustrations: there is a darkness, energy, and tension to them, absent from much of the modern art being produced for more recent versions of ye aulde game. The female in the above illustration first appeared top-less: even the intransigent Dave Hargrave was cowed into covering her nakedness in his subsequent, censored editions. As for the fighter in the background, opening the chest of treasure, he was reportedly modelled after Clint Eastwood.

And in case you doubt my objectivity with regards Arduin, I am happy to quote from someone else that you may, given the circumstances, feel has little to gain from extolling Arduin's virtues and vices. Jonathan Tweet had this to say about Arduin:

"Arduin's appeal isn't in its elegance, its comprehensiveness, its game balance, or its presentation. It's the author's enthusiasm that counts. Hargrave loved running his Arduin campaign, and the books read like the campaign notes of a manic DM. He often refers to his own campaign and how he makes rulings, runs combat, handles treasure, etc. Hargrave's enthusiasm is contagious.

The good folks of Emperor's Choice have reprinted the Arduin trilogy, so this piece of RPG history is available again. They've reprinted a later edition from 1981 or so. It has references to Dungeons & Dragons edited out, and it has better art than the original. (The bare-breasted woman on the back cover, however, got a leather bra for the second edition.)"