Arduin

Grimoire Games was a publishing company run by Jim Mathis. Active from 1978 to mid 1981, Grimoire Games's primary focus was the early Arduin series of RPG supplements, written by Hargrave. The Arduin Trilogy is the most famous of the Hargrave supplements.

In 1977 Hargrave sold Arduin to one of his players, Jim Mathis, and in 1978 Mathis started Grimoire Games out of an apartment building on the south side of the UC campus to publish Hargrave's Arduin material beginning with a series of four adventure modules and two boxed sets.[2]^:323–325 By the time The Arduin Adventure was published in 1981, the company was having increasing financial problems, and in 1984 its last publication for many years was 100 copies of a booklet of revised rules for Arduin; Mathis moved to San Diego and kept selling products from the company for a few years.[2]^:326–327 Hargrave continued to publish Arduin material through Dragon Tree Press until he died in 1988, which brought Arduin back to Mathis and Grimoire Games.[2]^:328

After finishing Hargrave's unfinished Arduin manuscript, Grimoire Games eventually published it as The Compleat Arduin in 1993 with financial assistance from a games distributor; however the large work was expensive and outdated and only sold less than half of the print run, and the distributor took a loss, and it became the last publication by Grimoire Games.[2]^:328–329

• The Arduin Grimoire (Arduin Grimoire Vol. I), 1977.
  • There are four different editions(printings) of this volume. These editions(printings) differ via internal verbiage, cover and back cover artwork and some internal artwork (p. 79, among others).
  • The first edition (printing) of volume one features cover art by Erol Otus and references to Dungeons & Dragons.
  • The second edition (printing) of volume one features cover art by Erol Otus and the references to Dungeons & Dragons have been whited out and typed over.
  • The third edition(printing) has the cover picture of multiple characters fighting and on the back cover the female character is topless and is the David Hargrave character known as Shardra the Castrator that appears topless in the drawing on page 1 of Vol III The Runes of Doom, the page following the Table of Contents.
  • The fourth edition (printing) and later printings, which comprise the vast majority of copies of Vol 1, are identical to the third edition (printing) except that the topless woman on the back cover has a halter top (editorial swimwear) added to cover her up.
• Welcome to Skull Tower (Arduin Grimoire Vol. II), 1978.
• The Runes of Doom (Arduin Grimoire Vol. III), 1978. The first printings of the first three books were self-published by Dave Hargrave.
• The Arduin Trilogy is a box set containing the first three Arduin Grimoires and published by Grimoire Games in 1981.
• The Arduin Adventure, 1981. Arduin introductory boxed set. Contained the Arduin Adventure book (which was also available separately), a few sheets of magic items, three character sheets, and two 20-sided die. The 'Arduin Adventure' book also contains a basic adventure, 'The Forgotten Tower'.
• Revised Arduin: A Primer, 1984. A short (11 page) booklet outlining the "battle factor" system featured in Compleat Arduin.
• The Lost Grimoire (Arduin Grimoire Vol. IV), 1984
• Dark Dreams (Arduin Grimoire Vol. V), 1985
• The House of the Rising Sun (Arduin Grimoire Vol. VI), 1986
• Shadow Lands (Arduin Grimoire Vol. VII), 1987
• Winds of Chance (Arduin Grimoire Vol. VIII), 1988 (published posthumously)
• Compleat Arduin, Book One: The Rules, 1992
• Compleat Arduin, Book Two: Resources, 1992
• End War (Arduin Grimoire Vol. IX), 2002 (published posthumously)

• Monsters from Arduin (24 monster cards) (First and second printings with different images exist.)
• Magic Weapons from Arduin (24 weapon cards) (First and second printings with different images exist.)
• Magic Artifacts from Arduin (24 Artifact cards) (First and second printings with different images exist.)
• Arduin Treasure Pack (a combination of the three items above).
• Arduin Character Pack (illustrated character sheets; listed elsewhere as Arduin Character Sheets Combined Pack) This is a set of 24 character sheets for different Arduin races/character classes. Each sheet has a unique illustration.

• Arduin Dungeon No. 1: Caliban (1979, high level adventure)
• Arduin Dungeon No. 2: The Howling Tower (1979, low-level adventure)
• Arduin Dungeon No. 3: The Citadel of Thunder (1979, mid-level adventure)
• Arduin Dungeon No. 4: Death Heart (1980, high-level wilderness and dungeon adventures)

• The Map of Arduin: A 2' × 3' four color poster-sized map of the Country of Arduin printed on parchment complete with legend and scale.
• World Book of Khaas: The Legendary Lands of Arduin; A world guide to the country of Arduin and the world and continent upon which it rests. 865 pages of world/campaign material. Unique for size and the absence of any game mechanics.
• Swords and Dragons: Fantasy Card Game; Fantasy themed card game from the world of Arduin.
• Vaults of the Weaver: A compilation of the 4 Arduin Dungeons along with Hive Home (the only example of a Phraint Hive ever completed by their creator David A. Hargrave) and the 13 part Heart of Darkness campaign, both never before published. Vaults was compiled and co-authored by his friend Paul Mosher.[3]
• The Black Grimoire: All of Dave Hargrave's published spells.

Hargrave's death in 1988 left many Arduin items press-ready but unpublished and/or incomplete. A few items he created on a whim for those he especially liked or was close to. Among these are the following:

The Book of the Shining Land

Created December/January, 1980-81. Dedication and signature inside front cover. This is a complete campaign area, designed as a generic adventure campaign suitable for insertion into any RPG, written by David for his longtime friend, writer Paul Mosher. The Book of the Shining Land comprises 118 handwritten pages of 10​¹⁄₄ × 7​⁷⁄₈ quad ruled paper in a composition style notebook. It includes a Master Map of the area (approximately 100 miles square) and 59 "keyed" adventure area maps all cross-referenced off of the Master Map.

The Book of Dreams of Lost Sardath

Created October 1981. Similar in size and concept to The Book of the Shining Land, this work comprises 158 handwritten pages of 10 × 7​⁷⁄₈ quad ruled paper in a composition style notebook. Includes a Master Map of an area approximately 100 miles square. This work was written by David for his longtime friend, writer Paul Mosher. It comprises a "lost" island kingdom containing 136 villages/towns/cities cross referenced on the Master Map as well as 79 adventure area maps, of which 31 are "keyed".

Lancer's Rest

Created October 1987. One of the last game-related items created by David A. Hargrave before his death in August 1988, Lancer's Rest was Lance Mazmanian's personal burial chamber, a very large single-level dungeon adventure which included an Arduin "Hell Spiral"[4] and a 3,000 ft (910 m) pool where Mazmanian's corpse was entombed. Created by Hargrave as a tongue-in-cheek tribute, the adventure itself was essentially a quest to gain life-prolonging treasure while avoiding Mazmanian's wandering Avatar, an extremely powerful Lich-like entity who would either attack or help a party on random percentage roll.[5]

In 1977, TSR objected to certain contents of the first Arduin book. David Hargrave negotiated with TSR about two points. First, Hargrave's foreword made it appear as though he advocated people copying game books (such as D&D) without buying them. Hargrave removed that foreword from later editions. Second, a Prismatic Wall spell in Arduin appeared to be plagiarized directly from D&D; Hargrave changed some of the description, including some colors. Hargrave further distanced himself from controversy by using white-out and typing correction tape to mask all direct references to Dungeons and Dragons, and then the volumes were reprinted exactly that way. In some versions of the Arduin printings, these so-called "corrections" are clearly visible.[12]

Much criticism was made of Hargrave's combat mechanics, to the point where many Game Masters simply used either their own versions, or those of TSR.

While David Hargrave was considered one of the "best of the best" of game masters, he was also known for having a somewhat volatile personality. The original role-playing community at large was split between love and mere tolerance of Hargrave's passions, and his infamous falling-out with Greg Stafford, which resulted in Hargrave naming an Arduin spell after him as revenge, is one such example.[13] The spell was called Stafford's Star Bridge (The Arduin Grimoire, Volume 1, Page 41):

Stafford's Star Bridge is a 9th Level Mage (Magic-User) spell. It produces a rainbow-hued bridge of coruscating light that is 5 ft (1.5 m) wide and 20 ft (6.1 m) long per level of the caster over the level needed for use. The bridge will carry any weight, and it cannot be hit by non-magical things. The bridge can also be "keyed" to support any single type (or more), letting all others fall through selectively.

Hargrave felt that Stafford had betrayed him over a Chaosium publishing deal, thus "falling through selectively". According to Stafford, Hargrave was later very upset with himself for having created this spell and for his behavior in the situation.