non-mechanical charsheet fodder

So here's a thread I started on Google Plus that I wanted to save.  Here's what I said:

I think it was the Compleat Arduin where I saw a character sheet with a spot to fill in your PCs best friend. I thought that was a brilliant example of the kind of non-mechanical info we need more of on our charsheets. Please help me brainstorm some other ideas.

Here's what everyone came up with:

*****
Favorite Oath, Curse, Swear or Expletive:
Favorite Intoxicant:
Monster or Animal That Gives You the Willies:
More usable by the player then the character; but theme song.
no. 1 friend, rival, enemy.
What are they afraid of?
What would they be doing if they weren't adventuring?
What family role do they play? (parent? kid? foundling? weird uncle?)
Siblings
Prized or lucky posession.
Most influential person -- -- they don't necessarily have to have even met and they might be entirely fictional. Alexander the Great's might be Achilles, for instance.
Favorite item of clothing
Most shameful act
How/where did they acquire their weapons/armor/spellbook etc.
biggest flaw or greatest fear, family and/or business ties. One one conveyed something in game for the GM to use. 
"I'll get that guy...someday" 
Why are they adventuring in the first place?
Important Person, a formative or influential person in the PC's history.
Hiding spot. What's hidden there.
Favorite food
accent/regional dialect (some people can't do voices but want their characters to have them anyway)
most important memor(y/ies)
most important possession and/or person
family's social/economic standing
favorite hobby when not bashing heads in
most applicable diagnosis (since most adventurers are actually pretty crazy or dramatic sorts)
Why can't you return home for some time, if ever?
[Seems like brevity would be key if you wanted these things on a character sheet.]
In #torchbearer you have best friend, enemy, parents, mentor and home
What are they going to do when they get out of this shit? (War Movie rule #38 they need to harp on that in conversation right before they get it.)
Annoying catchphrase, ofc.
Civilization level
Favorite bar/tavern/pub
favorite drink order
most successful pick up line
preferred hangover cure
Morning Temper
Mannerisms and quirks
"Tell" when lying
One thing loved/hated
Secret dream/secret shame
Personal strength/personal weakness
Favorite color (Blue!)
Beliefs about the causes of diseases and infections
Favorite LoTFP publication
Political position on the association between rats and copper pieces
[Let 10,000 designs bloom around the idea of quick-starting a character with an online dating profile instead of the traditional sheet!]
Hero from childhood
"Signs" from Over the Edge: Tell-tale signs that hint at your character's abilities without stating them explicitly (for instance, "thick veins and beefy arms" could be the sign for high strength.
I've used Drive (something like Sex, Money, Fame, Knowledge) that the character is motivated by, and Aversion (something like Commitment, Attention, Work) that the character seeks to avoid.
Rival's been one I've had fun with. "why can't you go home" also seems incredibly useful. 
Who do you hate in the party
Who do you like/need/love in the party
What's the worst thing you've ever done
Commonly used expletives
Most shameful desire
Failed Profession
Some for more modern/Sci Fi feel, some just taking the piss, some of more general application

• PCs favourite TV/holovision program 
• PCs favourite fast food 
• If this was PC was a kind of fruit what kind would he/she be? 
• How much this PC hates telesales calls 
• Hours spent noodling on the internet per day 
• Favourite vacc suit/combat armour air freshener scent 
• Tattoo, location and how badly it is misspelt 
• Organ Donor Card? 
• Length of criminal record in feet and inches 

Battle scars and Amputations
Parasites
Where they've stashed the loot.
*****

So that's some good stuff, but also a lot of stuff.  How should we navigate all these good ideas?  The DM could pick a few categories.  That would be a signal to the players that those things were important to the campaign somehow.  Allowing players to pick would give them interesting ways to round out their characters.  Or you could turn your favorites into a random chart and have everybody roll d3 times or so.

Original post.

Not for the Phraint of heart

Pardon the punny title. 

I know Arduin, Bloody Arduin has full rules for PC Phraints, those delightful pre-Vrusk, pre-Thri-Kreen insect dudes from the mind of Dave Hargrave.  But I don't own that book and I wanted to make up my own race-as-class version anyway.  So click the link here for my draft rules for bug dude PCs: BX Phraints

The Hargrave Descriptionator, part 4

Here's the last piece of random room features inspired by the Arduin modules.  By request, here's all four pieces in a single Google doc.  And while you're grabbing some random charts, here are some quicky gem and jewel charts I whipped up a while back.

d100 OTHER FEATURES
01-02 air glows pale green
03-05 bitter, metallic odor
06-08 blood splattered about
09-11 chandelier(s) with oil lamps
12-13 crystal chandelier
14-15 darkness spell only counterable with a wish
16-18 doors of brass bound oak with ivory skull-themed knockers
19-21 doors of brass bound seasoned oak 18" thick
22-24 doors of burnished copper
25-27 doors of dull iron
28-29 doors of fire-blackened iron
30-32 doors of highly polished bronze
33-34 doors of iron sheathed in tarnished copper
35-36 doors of silver-plated steel
37-39 dust covering everything
40-42 every surface painted with horrible cabalistic designs
43-45 filled with giant toadstools
46-47 glass globe containing neon red gas, illuminating room
48-49 glass orb glowing with daylight equivalent
50-51 green malachite steps up to an altar
52-54 huge masses of cobwebs in corners
55-56 odor of burnt pepper
57-59 odor of rotting meat
60-61 oily quality to the air
62-63 pale blue haze smells of licorice
64-66 pile of bones and rusted weapons/armor
67-69 room filled with glowing golden fog
70-72 room smells of cinnamon and fried chicken
73-75 shattered and partially dissolved bones
76-79 shiny polished sconces every 3'
81-83 smell of licorice
84-85 smell of lilys
86-87 smell of peppermint
88-90 smell of sulphur
91-92 tinkling sound like windchimes
93-96 torches in brass sconces
97-00 white marble pillars

The Hargrave Descriptionator, part 3

d100 FLOOR
01 3' deep very dry old straw
02-03 3' of brown, mucky water
04-05 4' of dirt over stone
06-07 black basalt with silver and gold flecks
08 black basalt with silver inlay in spiral pattern
09-10 black marble
11-12 black obsidian
13-14 blue marble
15-16 blue painted concrete
17 brilliant green crystal with flickering, dancing points of light
18-19 dry, crumbly red sandstone
20-21 dull red quartz
22-23 dusty granite
24-25 dusty, cracked, crumbling basalt
26 fine red crystal sand
27 fine wool oval rug
28 fire pit with eerie green flames
29-30 fired brick
31-32 glittering mica with strange swirls of green copper
33-34 granite covered with silver leaf
35-36 green nephrite
37-38 green obsidian
39-40 grey granite covered by 4" thick glass
41-42 grey-green malachite
43-44 iron ore
45-46 lavender marble
47-48 loose dirt on rough, grey granite
49-50 low ground fog (3' or so) over slippery wet grey granite
51-52 magical mirror surface
53-54 milky white marble
55-56 mirror polished steel
57-60 nondescript grey stone
61-62 nondescript stone painted pale blue
63-64 old grey iron
65 pale red translucent glass
66 pale violet marble with white swirls and golden flecks
67-68 pale yellow marble
69-70 pearl grey stone
71-72 pitted, corroded, acid-etched bronze
73-74 red carnelian
75-76 red marble with silver swirls
77-78 red, crumbly sandstone
79 rough white quartz with iron pyrite sparkles
80-81 rusty red iron
82 rusty, flaking iron
83-84 shiny steel
85-86 slippery smooth pale blue marble
87-88 smooth pale golden sandstone
89-90 smooth red marble
91 solid granite
92-93 tile mosaic depicting demons slaughtering elves
94-95 tile mosaic of reds whites and blues in a floral pattern
96-97 translucent black obsidian
98 unfinished diamond
99-00 yellow marble with puddle of blood

The Hargrave Descriptionator, part 2

d100 CEILING
01 6" wide bars of glowing crystal (illuminate room)
02-03 black basalt with red jade inlay depicting giant fanged mouth surrounded by swirling tentacles
04-05 black basalt with silver and gold flecks
06-07 black marble
08-09 black obsidian
10-11 black onyx carved with obscene pictograms
12-13 brilliant green crystal with flickering, dancing points of light
14-15 carved & arabesqued white marble
16-17 copper plated with silver
18-19 covered with lichens, moss & slime
20-21 cracked tan sandstone, dust and debris crumbling down
22-23 crumbling pale golden sandstone
24-25 deep purple marble
26-27 dull red quartz lit from within, filling room with pinkish glow
28-29 dusty granite
30-31 dusty, cracked, crumbling basalt with large, cave-in prone crack
32 eerie green glow
33 fired brick with small jets of blue flame (very hot in here!)
34 granite covered with silver leaf
35 green nephrite painted with hieroglyphs faded into illegibility
36-37 green obsidian
38-39 grey granite covered by 4" thick glass
40-41 grey-green malachite
42 iron ore
43 magical mirror surface
44-45 milky white marble
46-47 mirror polished steel
48-49 natural stone with stalactites so long some nearly reach the floor
50-51 nondescript stone painted pale blue
52-53 old grey iron festooned with spider webs
53-54 old, faded pentagram
55-56 pale blue marble
57-58 pale green marble
59-60 pale red translucent glass
61-62 pale violet jade
63 pale violet marble with white swirls and golden flecks
64-65 pale yellow marble
66-67 pale yellow marble
68-69 pale, streaked green jade
70 patches of slightly phosphorescent lichen
71-72 pearl grey stone
73-74 pitted, corroded, acid-etched bronze
75-76 polished copper
77-78 red marble with silver swirls
79-80 red sandstone
81-82 red, crumbly sandstone
83-84 rough, grey granite
85-86 rusty, flaking iron with faded cabalistic design
87 sequin sparkle stars
88-89 solid granite
90-91 tan granite
92 thick, clear quartz with glowing lava above
93-94 translucent black obsidian
95 unfinished diamond
96-97 wet grey granite slowly dripping water
98 yellow marble with dripping bloodstain on ceiling
99-00 yellow pointed granite

The Hargravian Descriptionator, part 1

I made this after going over the room descriptions in a couple three of Dave Hargraves' Arduin modules.  Tables for ceilings, floors and miscellany to follow.

d100 WALLS
01-02 black basalt
03 black basalt with silver and gold flecks
04-05 black marble
06-07 black obsidian
08 black onyx carved with obscene pictograms
09-10 blood red jade
11 blue fur!
12-13 blue marble
14 brilliant green crystal with flickering, dancing points of light
15-16 burnished copper
17-18 coal
19-20 covered with lichens, moss & slime
21-22 cracked, crumbling tan sandstone
23 deep red carnelian
24 dry, crumbly red sandstone
25-26 dull red quartz
27-28 dusty granite
29-30 dusty, cracked, crumbling basalt
31-32 fired brick
33-34 glittering mica with strange swirls of green copper
35-36 granite covered with black velvet drapes
37-38 granite covered with silver leaf
39-40 granite covered with tapestries depicting pastoral scenes
41-42 granite painted purple
43-44 green nephrite
45-46 green obsidian
47-48 grey granite behind purple silk drapes
49-50 grey granite covered by 4" thick glass
51-52 grey-green malachite
53-54 iron ore
55 magical mirror surface
56-57 milky white marble
58-59 old grey iron festooned with spider webs
60-61 old, dry pine paneling
62-63 pale blue marble
64-65 pale golden sandstone
66-67 pale red translucent glass
68-69 pale violet marble
70 pale violet marble with white swirls and golden flecks
71-72 pale yellow marble
73-74 pale, streaked green jade
75 paneled with polished cherrywood
76-77 pearl grey stone
78 phosphorescent blue plastic (emits deadly gas if burned)
79-80 pitted, corroded, acid-etched bronze
81-82 polished copper
85-86 polished granite
85-86 red marble with silver swirls
87-88 red painted limestone
89-90 red, crumbly sandstone
91 rough white quartz with iron pyrite sparkles
92-93 rough, grey granite
94 rusty, flaking iron
95-96 solid granite
97 translucent black obsidian
98 unfinished diamond
99-00 wet grey granite with lots of moss

Arduin Grimoire, final installment

So we've made it to the end of the first volume of the Arduin Grimoire.  Page 94 comes with a little note "THE OVERLAND AND DUNGEON MAPS ON THE NEXT TWO PAGES ARE PROVIDED FOR YOUR INTEREST AND ENJOYMENT" followed by Mr. Hargrave's signature.  His middle initial is A and the way Dave forms it makes the letter look like a 5-pointed start, as if the dude is so metal he has a pentagram right in his name.

The wilderness map on page 93 is a nicely drawn little realm, centered on a lake surrounded by mountains and forests.  Eight little villages and five cities or castles dot the map.  One of the mountains is an erupting volcano.  You know I approve of that.  Overall I like this map but I've got two beefs.  First is a lack of scale.  That's not a dealbreaker but it would be nice to know what Michio (the artist) had in mind when it was drawn.  The second problem is that the southern edge of the lake hold quite a few islands and then south of the shore are what appears to be four smaller lakes.  Without coloring the map it's hard to tell at a glance which little outlined blob is land and which is water.

Here's the dungeon map on the following page:

Like most of Hargrave's maps, the sheer quantity of secret doors and oddly-shaped rooms makes my butt hurt.  I could use this map, but I wouldn't enjoy it as much as less crazy-go-nuts layout.

The inside back cover features a table of contents.  You know, that thing that normal people expect in the front of the book.  Underneath the TOC is a listing of products that Grimoire Games of San Diego, CA will be happy to sell you.  You can buy the three volumes of the Arduin Grimoires separately or save a couple bucks by getting all three at once.  Grimoire Games also sells 24 Arduin character sheets, a high level overland & dungeon adventure called DEATHEART and The HOWLINGTOWER, which is described as "Dungeon #2, levels 1-4".  These products'll cost you $6.50 apiece.   I've run the Howling Tower for a few sessions.  Sending in 1st level D&D types seems like a massacre waiting to happen.  Also advertised is the Arduin Adventure, which you can buy as boxed game or rulebook only.  No explanation is given about the Arduin Adventure's relationship to the Grimoires.

Finally, we get to the back cover.  You remember the front cover, with an amazon, a bug guy and Clint Eastwood fighting lizardmen in front of a mysterious door?  The back cover shows that same trio, from the same perspective, after the fight:

It's a nice effect.  I like the malevolent glimmer in the eyes of the face carved above the doorway.  I'm left wondering if in the original version of this art maybe the adventuress was topless.  There's at least one topless lass inside one of the Grimoires.  More to the point, the way the collarbone can be seen through the fabric of the top can be a tell, indicating what some comics fans refer to as "editorial swimwear".

So that's Dave Hargrave's The Arduin Grimoire: Volume 1.  There's lots of stuff in this book that can be cherry-picked to add a little high octane gas to your campaign.  That's how I've been using the first three Grimoires for years.  Another perfectly valid use of this material is as a particularly elaborate example of how one enthusiastic, energetic referee took OD&D and made it distinctly his.   In this way I like to read the Arduin Grimoire much the same way I do Empire of the Petal Throne and Holmes Basic or even Tunnels & Trolls or Runequest: as a demonstration of the process of bending the rules to your own campaign.

Arduin Grimoire cover to cover: by the 21 Hells!

Pages 85 to 92 of the Arduin Grimoire covers Dave Hargrave's vision for hell and its occupants.  As you can tell by the title of this post, Dante's nine circles are insufficient for Uncle Dave's imagination.

First up is a 22 point list of DEMON LORE: General Data.   You'll have to get your own copy of the Arduin Grimoire, though, as I'm going to hit the highlights here.

Why you shouldn't mess with demons: they attack and save as twice their hit dice, they get bigger hit dice than normal (d10's for lesser demons, d12 for greater, "Major Gods" get d12+3), they don't actually roll those hit dice instead they get max hit points, they almost always attack (75% chance of attacking their own kind!), controlling conjured demons requires you have hit dice equal to their level for a base 10% chance, they regenerate like trolls only better, killing them only dissipates them like a vampire (you can nuke or phaser lesser demons to death though), low level characters panic at their appearance, etc.

Why you should mess with demons: a greater demon might have 500,000 gp, a million ep, five million silver, and a hundred thousand platinum pieces in its lair, up to "3,00" gems, 500 jewelry, ten or twenty magic items and 1-3 artifacts. So basically if you're in Arduin you should sneak into greater demon lairs to burgle their loot when they run out for groceries.  Anything less is small time.

Lesser demons fall into in eight categories: wind, sea, fire, earth, ice, night, demon locusts and unique.  "Boak is an example" of an untyped unique demon.

Totally off-topic: My brain keeps telling me that some budding occultist out there could to map this list to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  I don't know what would be gained from such an exercise, though.  Al Crowley's Liber 777 ought to be a good place to get started with that.  In general that book could be a great resource for any DM wanting to creep up their campaign without dropping acid. This idea is probably on my mind since the other day I was working on some magic items based upon the gems on the breastplate worn by the high priests in the Old Testament.  You know, like the one that French dillweed puts on just before the Ark of the Covenant blows him to smithereens.

Anyway, the next four pages is a chart detailing the 21 hells in the following four ctageories: primary inhabitants, atmosphere, average temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, and "Terrain, Looks, Notes, etc."  So, for example, the 4th Hell is mostly deserts of black sand with occasional oases of flame, all broken up by mountain ranges of basalt and granite reaching up to 50,000 feet above the plain.  The atmosphere is breathable for short durations but contains enough neon and xenon to affect humans after 4 hours.  How it affects them isn't clear, but a lot of other hell-atmos are specified as being lethal after certain durations.  The locals are wind demons and the average temperature is 55 degrees.  A trio of red moons hang in a purple sky lined with silvery clouds.  Sounds like a pretty interesting place to visit, eh?  There are twenty others.

Then you get two pages of stats for the lesser demon types I mentioned above.  Organization is a problem with pretty much any early gaming product, but having the demons here and the dinosaurs in another place and the general monsters in a third place can be a real pain in the butt.  Still, I won't turn up my nose at stats for seven new demons.  These guys have about 10 hit dice, an AC around 2 or so, and lots of gruesome details and special powers.  My favorite tidbit is that five of the demons have their favorite food specified.  Wind demons go for elf meat, while fire demons like just the heartmeat of elves.  Earth demons like ent hearts, while ice demons enjoy amazon and sea demons prefer mermaid flesh.

A fun item that is mentioned briefly but not explained at all is that demons can be promoted.  At the end of the demon section is a list of names of known lesser demons.  Mithrom, a named Sea Demon, has the note "(now a greater demon?)".  Similarly, the description for Night Demons a few lines above ends with the line "It is rumored that one Night Demon has ascended to "God" status."

So that's the demons and their hells in a nutshell.  I'll end this installment with a great illo from this section:

Arduin Grimoire, part 10

We're finally to one of the best parts of the Arduin Grimoire: the monsters.  Each monster is given hit dice (often a range of possible hit dice), Speed in inches, Dec score, number appearing, % Liar, attacks/damage and a few lines of description.  I wasn't kidding about % Liar, the "% in Lair" stat was misspelled in OD&D and Hargrave just went with it.  So here are the monsters.

Air Shark - Big ol's sharks that swim through the air.  They float by means of internal hydrogen bladders, so when killed they go up like the Hindenburg.
Blue Bellower - Really loud giant beetles with shiny carapaces that reflect  lightning bolts.
Boogie Man - an undead jerk that turns its victims into shadows, dig the creepy illo:

Deodanth - Described as "tall ebon humanoids with flaming red eyes".  Pretty badass in a fight.  Are these from a book I've never read?
Doomguard - animated suits of black platemail that do normal weapon damage plus d10 Str points per hit
Emerald Ooze - high power attack slime, gets d8 pseudopod attacks per round, each does 4d10 damage and turns survivors into fellow Emerald Oozes.
Ghost Crab - giant ass undead crabs that drain levels when they catch you in their claws
Grey Horror - giant scorpions as big as your house; their stinger venom paralyzes unless you're a hobbit, then you melt
Hell Horse - undead horse, they hate dwarves and always attack them
Hell Maiden - skull-faced valkyries, totally metal
Hell Star - kinda like a giant will-o-wisp, envelopes you then you go blind plus lose 3 levels per round
Ibathene - a giant one-eyed lizard-beast beast up to 120' long and 50 hit dice in size, Hargrave notes their tongue can lift a fully armored man on horse and their claws can snatch up 6 dudes at one go, can fight for d20 rounds after death due to utter stupidity
Knoblins - half goblin/half kobold "and a smidgen of bat"
Kobbits - kobold/hobbit hybrids, they love scones
Maggoth - imagine if purple worms were maggots and the earth was a giant corpse
Morghoul - like a ghoul but more so, their claws paralyze but their bites cause rotting
Phraint - one of Arduins signature humanoid species, these guys are 9' tall mantis/ant warriors
Red Fangs - giant leaping spiders, their poison is deadly except for elves who are paralyzed instead, these guy love the taste of hobbit so they always attack the wee bastards first
Saurig - lizardmen who are "100% unslowable but are highly susceptible to sleep spells"
Skyray - looks like an aerial manta, but is actually a deadly fungoid lifeform
Spiga - intelligent spiders made of metal
Teng - 4" to 7" long beetles with arrow-shaped head, these guys appear in swarms of up to 10,000
The Helltide - a swarm of thousands of 6" to 9" long ants
Thermite - giant termites that are on fire
Thunderbunnies - rabid jackrabbits appearing in hordes of up to 100,000 members

Seriously, without clever play or powerful magic there's nothing preventing the above three horde monsters (Teng, Helltide, Thunderbunnies) from killing the whole party and destroying a repectable chunk of your campaign setting.

Tryvern - a wyvern with three heads and three tails
Vroat - one of my favorites, basically a giant toad with the head of a crocodile, it leaps at you then eats your head
Wyvergon - fat wingless wyvern that breathes petrification gas
Yellow Peril - less racist than it sounds: an amber-hued giant snake that spits acid
and some new golems - Silver, Gold, Mithril, Adamantine, Orichalcum, Shadow and Light.  The Adamantine variety has a disintegration beam.

Next time I'll tackle Hargrave's ideas for hell and the demaniacal inhabitants thereof.

Arduin Grimoire, part 9

Page 64 of Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire is the WERE-CREATURES COMBAT CHART.  Basically this amounts to a couple dozen regular-type animals statted out with a range of possible hit dice, an Armor Class and some attack/damage info.  Need stats for a jaguar or a condor?  Look here.  For no good reason one of the entries is Dragonet, while everything else here is a normal, real-world animal.  Under the chart proper is a paragraph giving Hargrave's rules for lycanthropes: in wereform you use the animal hitdice, but can advance across the range of possible hit dice as you level up in human form.  Thus a wererat starts out with a measly half hit die when he first joins the lycanthropes, but he'll eventually get bigger and badder.

Next up are two charts full of useful critters: the Dinosaur Chart and the Sea Creatures Chart.  A tyrannosaurus rex can have up to 20 hit dice and bit for 6d12 damage under these rules.  Giant sharks can get slightly bigger than that.  Useful stuff to have all together for lost worlds and nautical fiascos.

The ESCAPE TABLE on page 68 looks pretty amusing.  This bad boy attempts to answer the question "Can my dude get out of the monster's claw?"  Compare class to monster hit die for a base percentage, adjust by victim level and modify by whether the creep has you by its tentacle, claw, hand or jaw.  So let's say your 4th level thief has been grabbed by a ten hit die giant.  Ten hit dice versus thief is a base chance of only 1%, but plus 10% for hands and +10%/thief level ups that to a 41% chance the thief can wriggle free.  Monks are especially good at these sorts of escapades, while psychics and singers are screwed if they end up in the monster's clutches.  I love that Hargrave gives you a percentage chance to escape from the jaws of a monster.  Note to self: shove more PCs into the gaping maws of the bad guys.

Pages 69 and 70 have frustrated me for years.  These are Hargrave's sample wandering monster charts by dungeon level.  I'd be all over twelve level charts with a d20's worth of creeps on each, but there's one big problem.  A whole crapload of monsters listed here aren't in this book!  Many of them are in volumes II and III of the Grimoire, so my copy now has the volume and page number penciled in by those entries.  That doesn't get the whole job done, though, as other monsters on the chart appear in the even-more-obscure-than-Arduin Chaosium product All the World's Monsters.  You can get PDFs of all three volumes of AtWM at RPGnow for less than 8 bucks apiece, but buying a supplement just to unlock features in another supplement makes me cross-eyed with annoyance.  I'm pretty sure the Wilderness monster charts following the dungeon charts have the same fundamental flaw.

Next it is two pages of random weather tables, broken down by season.  If a 4% chance of snow in summer turns you off, look elsewhere for wandering weather.  Inexplicably, what should be the first line in the chart ("1-50 No change in weather") is down at the bottom after the result for rolling 100.

Pages 75-76 is a RANDOM FOG AND MIST GENERATOR CHART FOR DUNGEON ROOMS.  I dig that "for dungeon rooms" bit in the title.  Imagine some kid getting this book, but without that note.  Every time he rolled fog on the weather charts on the preceding two pages he'd probably roll here and make every fog in his campaign world go crazy nuts.  Anyhoo, roll 5d20 on this chart to make a magical fog.  Let's say you rolled 7, 12, 19, 11, 2.  That means you've got a grey fog that smells of coffee and doesn't actually interrupt line of site.  The sound of "stealthy footsteps" can be heard within the fog.  Anyone in the fog suffers extreme heat, losing d6 from their physical stats for each minute they are in it.  A bit overdone in my opinion, but I've used it a couple of times.

Next up is Hargarve's random trap chart, with d20 options for floor traps and ceiling traps.  On the floor chart you can drop PCs one thousand feet to an underground river, five feet into a pile of dragon crap or into the mouth of an awaiting monster. Ceiling traps include disintegrators, black slime pouring onto your head and... oatmeal.  You know I'm not making up that last one.  I wish I could take credit for a trap that dowses the party in oatmeal, but Hargrave beat me to it.

The last item I'll tackle today is the MOST MALIGNANT & MALEFIC MISERIES KNOWN, a.k.a. crazy uncle Dave's disease chart.  We get 15 maladies sorted by location including swamps, moors, deserts, mountains, forests, cities and one arctic disease.  These are way cooler than the realistic system in the 1st edition DMG, with names like Stumbling Mania and Black Bloat.  Not all of them are fatal, but many of the non-fatal ones will blind you, drive you mad, etc.  I wouldn't just outright infect a PC with one of these, but they could make good effects for creepy disease-themed undead or a way to make the players fear giant rats again.

Next time: Aieeee! Monsters!

return of "Arduin Grimoire cover to cover" (part 8)

So way the heck back in Sep-friggin-tember I started a cover-to-cover write-up of Dave Hargrave's original Arduin Grimoire.  You can go back and read the first seven installments here, here, here, here, here, here and here if you'd like.  Here's where I got stuck trying to prepare part 8:

The combat section is where the Arduin Grimoire goes off the rails for me and tackling it was looking like the opposite of fun.  But today I'm going to try it.

Before I dive into 15 pages of combat rules and chartery, there's this single page on alignments.  Here Hargrave gives his thoughts on threefold alignment, which is kinda unexpected given that 35 pages earlier he served up a chart expanding the ninefold system.  Feudal England, Nazi Germany and modern socialist Sweden are given as examples of Lawful society, so watch your back.  Also, here's a little story from Hargrave:

A party of three went into a dungeon.  One was chaotic, one neutral, and one lawful. During the course of the expedition they caught a troll and were discussing what to do with him. The lawful guy said, "Tie him up and let's move on." The neutral said, "No, let's put a rope around his neck and let him be our point man and open all the doors and test for all the traps," and the chaotic said "Phooey! Let's put him too the torture and see if he knows where there is some treasure," at which point an amoral spider came around the corner and ate all of them.

I swear, Dave Hargrave is basically the Walt Whitman of DMs: "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)" (Song of Myself, stanza 51).

The next three pages are entitled "General Notes on Monsters, Combat and the Like."  Basically this is a bunch of rulings Hargave has come up with.  Here's a sampling:

• Undead, excepting skeletons and zombies, can always see invisible because they existed partially on another plain of existence.
• Creatures that petrify can only be petrified by members of their own species.
• Fireballs and other area effect attacks divide their total damage among all effected.  (E.g. a 30 point fireball against 3 targets does 10 damage each, against 2 is does 15.)  Weird.
• Two warriors can fight side-by-side in a 10' corridor, three warriors at -2 to hit and four warriors at -4. (Two-handed weapons mean one less dude fits.)
• Armor penalizes Dex.  Platemail is -3, chain -2, leather -1.  Important since initiative is Dex based in Arduin.

There's a lot of good ideas and a few very odd ones, but overall they strike me as the sort of thing that a DM should figure out on their own.  You'd be better off drawing up your own list of miscellaneous rulings than adopting Hargrave's wholecloth, in my opinion.

Next up is a section on "Movement of Men and Monsters", wherein the standard movement rates of D&D are found wanting.  There's not much to get worked up about here if, like me, you don't use a tactical display very often.  Maybe Hargrave is right that D&D movement is about one tenth as slow as would be realistic and maybe everyone should be allowed an extra adrenaline-based burst of speed, but I'm just not into it.

So now we arrive at the page I showed up at the top of this post, the Melee Chart.  I can understand some folks wanting to take facing and turns and shield positioning seriously.  But I feel differently. If I have time to worry about details like this in such a systematic way then not enough crazy stuff is happening.

Then we come to four pages of weapon charts.  Normally I'd be all into 4 pages of death-dealing implements, but these leave me cold.  Two pages are weapon versus AC charts, just like out of the 1st edition AD&D Players Handbook.  The other two are damage charts.  Remember how in AD&D1 weapons do one range of damage versus small and medium foes and another range versus big dudes?  Instead of 2 categories we've got 12 here, by hit dice.  So if you attack an orc in chainmail with a broadsword your attack roll is normal and damage is 1d8.  Use that same sword against an ogre in platemail and you're -2 to-hit but do 1d10 damage.  Why?  Why do 2-handed swords do 2d10 damage against creatures with 6+1 to 8 hit dice but 3d6 against 6 or 9 HD?  I just don't see anyway to justify this sort of thing.

The to-hit chart that follows isn't that different from D&D.  A first level fighter needs a 10+ to hit Ac9 and gains +1 at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.  Clerics work the same but they don't get their first advance until 5th and wizardly types have to wait until 7th.  Then they advance at the same rate as the fighters.

Pages 60 and 61 are the infamous Arduin critical and fumble charts.  These are some of the greatest charts ever written for gaming, but use them at your peril.  You can check out my transcription of the crit chart here.  The fumble chart is less gruesome, but almost as big a pain in the ass when it affects your character.

The last two pages I'm going to cover today are the Brawl Charts.  If I'm reading this right every round of a brawl you choose one of 24 attacks.  These range from the prosaic Right Cross and Left Uppercut to  low, medium or high Flying Dropkicks to the 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper approved Double Ear Clap.  You also pick a defensive move along the lines of Duck Right, Jump Back or Turn Sideways.  You cross-index your attack against your foe's deense to find out your damage range.  Most damage is temporary but every successful strike has a percentage chance of actually hurting people.  I really like these brawling charts.  There's room for some interesting fights.  People fall down and get stunned and pull all sorts of shenanigans.

Okay, that's enough for today.  The next sections involve were-apes and dinosaurs and sharks, so I doubt you'll have to wait months for me to tell you about 'em.

Arduin Grimoire, part 7

I've got just enough time for a quick write-up for NEW MAGIKAL TREASURES.  Each item has a value in Gold Sovereigns, amount of charges it contains (if any), range if needed and a description.  Most magic items listed run between 5,000 and 50,000 gp in value.

Witch Fire Wand - fire attack plus paralyzation (except for elves, who are stunned)
Ring of Night - invisibility only in the dark or shadows
Wind Staff - clerical staff of wizardry equivalent with a variety of wind-based effects
Ring of Rapid Transit - move 10x for 1 minute, engraved with the logo of the mighty BART
Misty Boots of Silent Speed - walk on any surface, including illusionary ones!
Shield of Defense - 95% chance to completely block any one attack
Gauntlet of the Fencing Master - +5 to hit, double attacks with fencing weapons, usable only by thieves, assassins, traders an other scoundrels
Staff of the Druids - does several stupid druid tricks
Helm of War - +3 to all physical stats plus a percentage chance to intuit enemy moves
Holy (& Unholy) Robes - basically robes of the magi for clerics, in addition to various named powers each such robe has a non-specified immunity and a secret power to be specified by the referee
Slavers' Lash - 3d6 damage plus rotting disease plus save of surrender
Ring of Remembering - reads the history of objects
Hawk Helm - triple visual range, infravision, immunity to fear and confusion
Doctor John's Salve - this is the same stuff as appears on the price list, a thousand bucks for 2d8 healing on 'heavy' wounds only
Golden Centaur Salve - same Doc John's but for animals
Golden Drops of Heavenly Essence - the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free, one drop applied to a single particle of a corpse completely restores life.  Costs 100 grand per drop and "only 21 drops have been seen in the last 1,200 years!"
Boots of Banana Peel - meant to be a cursed item, but I bet my players could figure out a way to make zero coefficient of friction footwear into an advatage
Mighty Mystical Silver Sling Shot of Slaying - each such slingshot is keyed to a monster type, save or die, if save take 4d6 damage
Ring of Ruthlessness - become "100% amoral evil", gain a bunch of stat boosts (+6 ego, +3 Str, Int, Dex, Con), fight as berserker.  Damn.
Javelin of Devastation - javelins of lightning that also drain levels
Oil of Instant Immolation - 3 minutes after being applied it burns for 6d10 damage
Oil of Instant Immobility - 3 minutes after being applied it forms a steel hard shell over anything
Oil of Instant Obedience - 3 minutes after being applied whatever is coated will become your obedient servant for an hour.  Items will animate
Whimsey Wine - effectively a wand of wonder in alcoholic beverage form.  does whatever the DM wants.
Doom Fire Wand - 6 dice of fire plus fear effect

Arduin Grimoire, part 6

Okay, let's get back on track with this Arduin Grimoire thing.  Today I'll be looking at some magical spell type things, starting with

PRISMATIC WALLS AND THEIR USES

Did you ever stop and consider that the usual color scheme for Prismatic Walls and such was inadequate?  That prismatic effects clearly needed some additional colors?  Yeah, me neither.  But Dave Hargrave apparently dug on Prismatic Spheres and such so much that he expanded the list of possible colors to include Red, Violet, Indigo, Rose, Orange, Purple, Magenta, Cyan, Pink, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Gold, Blue Green, Yellow, Lavender, Black, Black & Silver, Black & Gold, Red & Blue, Green & Yellow, Purple & Silver and Green & Gold.  Each has a listed effect on people trying to cross a prismatic wall of that color and a NULLIFYING AGENT that will shut it down.  My favorite color is either Gold, which stops greater demons but not lesser demons from passing through or Green & Yellow, which keeps out dragons and which no dragon attack (breath, claw, spell, lobbed tomato) can pass through.  Magenta prismatic walls can only be nullified by Thunderballs of at least 8 dice, which amuses me to no end.  I just like saying the word, that's all.

Incidentally, don't look at a prismatic wall with True Sight.  There's a five percent chance per level under 20th that you will go permanently insane.  And even if you don't you will be stunned 2d10 months.

Moving along, let's tear through the new spells offered here.  I really dig on most of the names.

DRUID SPELLS
Yalynwyn's Spell of the Singing Winds - sounds so pretty it charms people into sitting and listening to it
Kharch's Spell of the Binding Earth - feet sink into ground, pinning you in place
Cuelchain's Spell of the Wonderful Wind Horse - magic air horsey runs fast or beats people up for you
Marlyn's Mighty Mystical Mouse Spell - tiny angel mouse can fly, put people to sleep with its bite, act as eyes and ears of the druid
Chastarade's Spell of the Stone That Weeps in Silence - don't like a dude? turn him into a rock that's still sentient.  harsh.

MAGE SPELLS
The Rosy Mist of Reason - Forces people to sit down and talk things out like reasonable creatures, but may enrage non-intelligent animals in the area of effect.  I tend to imagine the effects on everyone present as a really mellow high.
Anti-Web Aura - keeps of webs, both magic and cob
Stephan Le Strange's Spell of Instant Idleness - save or goof off the rest of the day
The Wailing Wheel of Fire - whirling disc of flame hurts folks, scares the bejeesus out of anyone under 4th level
Flames of Doom - single target bursts into black flames, taking 1d8 damage and losing a level for every round you keep the spell going, putting out the fire requires simultaneous dispel magic and cure disease
Rhoar-Eee's Transit Spell - object moves 10x normal speed
Masayuki's Mist of Malevolent Misery - a creepy ass version of cloud kill, good for wiping out low level foes
Morgorn's Spell of Red Death - turns a single foe inside out
Waragen's Wave - redirect river, pond, etc. to drown some poor bastard
Yorgan's Falling For Forever Spell - foe falls upward forever, if target saves they still fall 100' up, then presumably back down
Sulthoe's Blaze of Glory - either fire off all remaining spells and mana in a Death Blossom or one spell overpowered by all remaining mana, caster falls asleep for d12 turns thereafter
Stafford's Star Bridge - A rainbow bridge that you can selectively let people fall through.  I've heard this spell was written as a swipe at Greg Stafford at Chaosium for some perceived slight, but I have no confirmation.
Khurluu's Call of the Hell Spawn - summons one or more demon locusts to wreck some shit
Antigan's Shell of Silvery Safety - a forcefield that keeps out spells under 11th level, laser beams and bullets.  only has enough air inside for d10 rounds.
Gandolyn's Gates - target placed inside magic room with 8 doors, the only way out is to blast out with a phaser rifle or go through a door.  Seven of the doors lead to a random hell, eighth to deep space.
The Curse of Tindalos - target is 'claimed' by the Hounds of Tindalos in d20 days, no save

CLERIC SPELLS
Aura of Evil Detection - your basic detect evil except the spell manifests as a whisper in the cleric's ear "something wicked this way comes".  Also one example of what can be detected for evil is a windowframe.  Clearly, I need to put more evil windowframes into my games.
Korgen's Cloud of Kindness - the Rosy Mist of Reason for clerics
Transfer Curse - cast before reading a scroll or trying a new magic item.  If it's cursed the effect lands on your designated proxy instead of you.  Hargrave warns that using this spell belligerently could anger your gods.
Gathering the Sheaves - Gathers up the pieces of a corpse.  Handy.
Wilamon's Wall - puts a wall between you and a foe.  wall moves to keep between you two.
Visions of Hell - basicly Phantasmal Killer for clerics
Heavenly Fog of Forgetfulness - amnesia fog
Aura of Angellic Fire - golden flame aura surrounds cleric, burns foes, burns/disrupts undead, absorbs level drains
Rhyton's Release - sets off all magic items in the area of effect  "This one's fun!"
Spell of the Horns of Joshua - Show those jerks in Jericho who the boss is.
The Askalonian Avert Spell - 75% chance to send a curse back at the one who laid it.  Works on the Curse of Tindalos.

RUNE WEAVER RUNES

If I understand the Rune Weaver class correctly, they can use all normal M-U spells but they cast much slower, using their ancient weaving technique.  They also get the following wicked cool web-themed attack spells.  Each one comes with a description of the energy web that they build during the rounds they are casting, which is nice.  I don't know about your players, but mine will probably never find out which description goes with which spell.  If they see some sinister jerkwad building a spiderweb out of laser beams in the back rank of the foes, you can bet dollars to donuts that guy is going to eat every attack the party has available.

Spell of the Web That Eats Men - cast green slime as an attack spell
Kaid's Web of the Wondrous Star Spyder - drags foes to another universe
Werthal's Web of the Fire Spyder - d6 fire damage per turn foe trapped
Spiraad's Spell of the Web of Pain - d6 acid per turn
Palazaand's Witch Fire Web - d6 fire and paralyzes, web "screams and roars!"
Spell of the North Wind Spyder - d6 cold per turn until frozen solid
Waziran's Wondrous Web of Paralysis - paralyzes, "can only be cut by magikal items", implying that the other webs cn be cut
Rorgoe's Spell of the Lightning Spyder - d6 electrical damage per turn, if you save take no damage but stunned
Argoth's Spell of the Spyder Golem - save: slowed, no save: petrified
Skylar's Web of Wondrous Entrapment - 10% strength drain per turn trapped
Web of the Hell Spyder - drains one level per turn
Moira's Spell of Shrinking Beauty - shrinks those trapped down to 18 inches tall

All in all there's some really great spells here.  Yet another section that leaves me wondering why I never tried a straight-up Arduin campaign rather than just cherrypicking from here and there.

Arduin Grimoire, part 5

The nest two sections of the Arduin Grimoire are entitled MAGIC IN ARDUIN and EVEN MORE MAGIC IN ARDUIN.  I will try to summarize all of Hargrave's house rules and interpretations in bullet points.

• Memorizing a spell takes one hour per level, divided by the number of that level you can memorize per day.  In other words no matter what level you are it takes one hour to memorize all your first level spells, another hour to memorize all your second level spells, etc.  To memorize fewer spells, just do the division.  That is so dang simple I am going to start using it effective immediately.
• Vancian style memorizing runs in parallel with a mana point system.  You memorize fireball once, but you can cast as many as your mana points will allow.  Basically your list of memorized spells tells you what you can spend mana on that day.  Am I right in thinking that's how HackMaster Basic works?  I love straight Vancian magic, but this is one of the few spellpoint systems that work as an interesting compromise.
• Unless otherwise stated, multiply spell level by 1.5 to find its mana cost.  You can under or over power spells.  So if you only have 3 mana left and want to cast a 4th level spell (6 mana) you can throw it at half effect.  Slick.
• Unless you are a weirdo like a Rune Weaver or a drum-playing Medicine Man, here's what your Mana points look like:  If your Int is 8 or less take your Int score, multiply it by your level and divide by 4.  If your Int is between 9 to 12, use Int X Level divided by 3.  If your Int is 13 or more, it's Int time Level divided by 2.  So a fifth level magic-user with a 14 Int gets 35 Mana per day.  With only a 12 Int that becomes 20 Mana.  So if I'm reading this right the Int 14 MU could conceivably throw 7 fullbore fireballs and one underpowered one, while the dumber mage could only throw four and a fraction.
• Mages can't wear metal but they are allowed leather armor and wooden shields, though Hargrave notes that few use shields because it "cuts down their dexterity".
• Here's what I call the Gandalf Rule, which I use in my own campaign: Starting at 5th level Magic-Users may wield a magic sword and at tenth level they may use any magic weapon.  They are only allowed to carry one magic weapon at a time.
• "MAGIC SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN CLOSE COMBAT SITUATIONS WITHOUT HEAVY PERCENTAGES OF CHANCE THAT EVEN FRIENDS WILL BE HIT."
• At most you can use a spell scroll every other round, because of the time it takes to find, unroll, etc.
• If you save against Bob's fireball you never have to roll a save against his fireball again.  Handy when it's a matter of accidentally flaming your own parties members, but a hassle when a recurring villain makes a save.
• Wands, staffs, etc. are activated by holding and concentrating rather than command word.  Rings are activated by twisting them on your finger, which Hargrave notes is impossible if you are wearing it under a gauntlet.  Amulets must be fingered or cupped in the palm.
• The base chance PHUMBLE PHACTOR (screwing up spells use or item activation in the heat of combat) is a whopping 50%, minus 2% per level above first and minus 5% per point of Dex above 12.  (Plus 5% per point of Dex below 9).
• Touch attack effects are at +2.  Ranged touch attacks are +4 (Hargrave never uses the 3e-ism 'ranged touch', by the way.)  Splash effects, such as "a jar of magic shrinking potion" are at +6.
• Most elemental-based attack spells splash kinda like burning oil, affecting nearby non-targets.
• The maximum spell level you can use is equal to your Int divided by 2.  Since spells go over 9th level in Hargraves system, even an 18 isn't going to be enough for high level MUs.

Next up is two paragraphs called NOTES ON PLAYER CHARACTER TYPES, which is basically a exhortation to stop being a whimp and let the PCs play whatever they want.  This is where Hargrave's famous line "Don't be lonely, take a troll to lunch." first appears but it's also where you get his unfortunate mention of a Jewish kobold begging people for pennies.  Let us move on.

The next page is the CLERICAL TURN-AWAY CHART.  This looks a lot like the standard chart, except that it adds banshees and morghouls to the undead axis, the cleric level axis goes in wider increments (one clumn for levels 1-2, one for 3-4, one for 5-6, etc) and it is d20 based.  Also, it seems pretty harsh.  A first or second level cleric needs a 16+ to turn friggin' skeletons, man.  I'm hard on clerics (one of my players opines that I outright hat 'em) but this is unduly harsh.  The notes in the paragraph below do make it two points easier to turn undead of the same faith as you, but, amusing as the idea is, as a DM I don't want to have to keep in my notes whether every dang skeleton keeps kosher or not.  You also get a +1 bonus if this is your "final try", which I guess implies you can try to turn undead more than once per combat.  Turn range is limited to 10' plus 5' every other level.  Also, if you roll double the required number you disintegrate the undead.

Page 32 is devoted to HARGRAVE'S DETECT ABILITY CHART.  You think casting detect magic is a surefire deal, huh?  Think again.  A magic-user gets 70% +3% per level above first.  Items also get a percentage rating when they detecting poison, evil, traps, curses, weather, etc, etc.  Probably the most annoying entry on this chart is ACTUALITY (TRUE SEEING), which suggests that a Gem of True Seeing only sees true 33% of the time.

The following two pages are devoted to saving throw charts.  First we get saves for magical equipment.  Hargrave's save categories are Heat, Cold, Energy, Disintegrate, Negation, Triggers, Electricity, Acid, Crush and All Others.  'Triggers' looks interesting.  Maybe it's a separate roll that needs to be made to avoid setting an item off due to damage?  Per Hargrave everything must save when the owner is killed by one of the above categories.  Also if you are knocked out of the fight but not dead you must roll for all your "highly vulnerable items such as books, scrolls, and glass potions bottles".  This chart seems entirely reasonable and useful to me.

Hargrave's SPECIAL OR EXOTIC CHARACTER SAVING ROLL CHART is a little more dubious to me.  I like his save categories here: Dragon Breath, Psychic Attack, Polymorph, Disintegrate, Stoning, Paralysis, Poison/Venom/Acid, Spoken Spells, Rods/Wands, Staffs, All Not Covered.  The other axis of the chart is a slew of non-human races ranging from elves to centaurs to phraints to undead to slimes to demigods.  Elves and half-elves are broken down by gender.  Females elves have the smae or slightly worse saves than their male counterparts, except for Psychic Attack where they save at 1 point better.  Half-elves work much the same way except female half-elves are also slightly less prone to Disintegration and All Not Covered.  What isn't on this chart is a way for saves to improve with level.  Do humans use the standard OD&D charts, getting better saves as levels improve, while everone else is stuck where they started?  I don't know.  Demi-Gods unsurprisingly get the best saves in most categories, needing only a 6 or higher versus the dread All Not Covered.

Following these charts is a percentile system for generating random magic weapons.  Throw d100 six time for a magic weapon, with more rolls possible for Special Attributes of really high Int weapons.  So let's say I roll 23/42/66/13/99/07.  That would mean I've got a Falchion, +3 to-hit, +3 damage, 4 Int, 23 Ego, that Detects Alignments.  Pretty functional.

That's enough for now, I think.  Next time we'll start with Prismatic Walls and Hargarve's wacky spells.

Arduin Grimoire, part 4

When I started this cover to cover bit I promised myself that I wouldn't drag it out by talking about one page at a time.  However as I type this my Arduin Grimoire is across town.  What I have with me is a copy of page 27, the price list that I just happen to have lying around for no good reason.  So here I am, already goofing my plan up.

But there is some interesting stuff to discuss here.  The title of the price chart is MULTIVERSAL TRADING COMPANY PRICE LIST.  The Multiversal Trading Company has been mentioned once or twice in my World of Cinder campaign, mainly as the only outfit on the planet that will accept Dollars American (it came up).  Overall, the price list is not too different from what you'd expect in any fantasy game where you might need to buy a sword or a ship, with a few little differences.

All prices are random ranges.  A trident costs 10-15 gold sovereigns, for instance.  I like a little variability in little details like this, but I don't really want to have to roll for every dang item every time theparty goes shopping.  Also, you have to difgure out for yourself how to generate a price of from 30 to 85 gp to buy chainmail or 95 to 135 to buy leather barding or 375-1750gp to purchase a small sailboat.  It's the sort of thing where I would look at the chart, groan and just pick a number.

Poison and venom antidotes get their own section.  What's the difference between a poison and a venom from Hargrave's point of view?  I can't tell.  But it's cheaper to cure most venoms.  An antidote for a 1st through 3rd level poison costs 375gp.  The same level range venom cure is only 300gp.  I've seen other people assign poison a level, but I'm not sure what it means for Hargrave.  Maybe I'll find out in a later section.  Just below the antidotes is an entry for Doctor John's Salve, which costs a thousand bucks a pop.  Underneath is a vague note: "(heal heavy wounds)".

My favorite section is the miscellaneous stuff.  When I stumble across a new game this is one of the places I check to find out how seriously the author takes the ardures of adventure.  For an early text the Grimoire really delivers in this regard.  Not only can you get a 10' pole (leather-tipped, in fact), but the folks at Multiversal will also sell you a 15' oak blank (6" x 4") suitable for al sorts of dungeony nonsense.  Grappling hooks and crowbars are both priced for bronze, iron, steel, mithral and adamantine varieties, with the crowbars given a break percentage based upon metal content (30% for bronze to 1% for admantine).  Like the poison & venom section, I'm left wondering what Hargrave's rule for actually using crowbars was, i.e. if I want to crowbar open a chest or a door how does that affect my chances?  How long does it take?  I don't mind figuring this stuff out for myself, but the dude brought the subject up so I feel it's on him to explain.  You know what I mean?  Spikes for doors and such are only available in bronze, iron and steel, by the way.

In addition to rope (1gp for 50' or spider-silk at 200gp per foot), Hargrave will sell you a 30' rope ladder (10 gold pieces.  Backpacks comes in leather or cloth.  Boots and cloaks are price for regular type and fur-lined.  Holy water can be purchase in normal vials or in bulk.  Two items that clearly developed from some fun events at the table are the Iron Doorstop with Pull Handle and the Aerial Saddle.

But the best items on the list have got to be the artificial limbs and pirate-style hook-hands.  I wonder how many PCs ended up buying one or both after a bad run-in with the infamous Arduin crit chart?

Arduin Grimoire, part 3

Next up in our whirlwind tour of Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire is five pages of random dice charts.  This probably doesn't comes as a surprise to any of my regular readers, but I friggin' love random dice charts.  Especially ones with results that push the flow of play in unanticipated directions and there's some opportunities to do exactly that on these Special Abilities Charts.  They're a lot like the random charts in Rolemaster/MERP where you spend some of your background points and try to come up with a random ability you like, only crazier.  The charts are broken down by class, one chart for "all warrior types and barbarians or those of similar nature", one chart for "mages, illusionists, druids, alchemists, medicine men, psychics and those of magical natures", one chart for "clerics of all types, bards, singers, witchhunters, pallidins and all of a more religious than magical nature", one for "thieves, monks, ninja, highwaymen, corsairs, assassins, traders, slavers, rangers, and all of those with a more or less 'secret' nature" and a final chart for "technos, normals, sages, and courtesans - all those not covered".  So druids use the M-U chart meanwhile rangers and traders use the thief chart.  That's not how I would have done it, which is one of the reasons Hargrave work is so fascinating.

I'd love to reproduce these charts in full, but I'm sure the folks at Emperor's Choice wouldn't appreciate it.  Each one is a percentage throw with about 30 to 40 possible results.  Most of the results are positive or a mixed bag, with a few outright character flaws.  Here are three results each from the first two charts.

Fighter et al.

17.  +1 with all crossbows, javelins, and throwing darts, but -1 versus cold
62.  A coward, -8 save versus fear and always have a 50% chance of fleeing
95.**  You are a secret were-creature, roll to see what kind.

The double asterisk indicates that anyone rolling that result is 98% likely to be secretly chaotic and 50% likely to be secretly evil.  One other result is so marked, the one where your dad is a demon.

MU and such

09.  Fire and light competent, _3 versus blindness but -3 versus insanity.
42.  Ability to smell poison (50% accurate), but -3 to its effects
54.  Dragon friend (also speak high and low dragonish)

"Competent" is a term used in many entries on the MU chart and a few on the cleric chart.  It's obviously related to spellcasting is some way, but if there's an explanation of the term in the first Grimoire I have yet to find it.  Armed with just this book a DM would have to figure out what that means in their own campaign.  If you own Welcome to Skull Tower, the second volume in the series, you can find an explanation in the second section labeled "Notes on Magik" (p. 76).  It means that saving throws, damage dice and other variables are 2 pips or dice in the caster's favor.  E.g. A fire competent MU is +2 on all saves versus fire and lobs fireballs that are -2 to save and do 2 extra dice of damage.

Folks who own the book should feel free to share a favorite result I missed in the comments, cause I need to move on to the new classes.  Hargrave introduces seven new classes in the first volume of the Grimoire: trader (merchant), psychic, barbarian, rune weaver, techno, medicine man and witch hunter.  Most of these classes come with so many oddball rules and weird abilities that I could do a whole blog post about each.  Here I'll just hit the highlights that interest me the most.

Trader

Gain 10xp per 1,000gp profit from their mercantile ventures.  Cannot advance past tenth level unless they lead a caravan or command a trading ship.  Gets monk abilities (??) starting at ninth level.  At 100th level they automatically become guildmaster of their country.

Psychic

To qualify for this class all your stats except intelligence must be lower than 13.  I keep this class in my back pocket for when someone throwing 3d6 in a row comes up with a complete dud.  So far no takers.  Over the course of their level progression they get a passle of percentage abilities, mostly detects.  At first level all you get is "Intuit Traps" but at base 75% it beats the pants off the thieves and dwarves in the party.  At 50th level you gain the ability to explode people's heart with your brain.

Barbarian

A berserker type.  As written the class pretty much plays the game for you.  50% chance of charging every fight, except versus undead where you have a 10% chance of fleeing in terror and a 60% chance of an orderly retreat.  At first level you have a 60% of berserking against your will, which will last 19 rounds.  You get more control of your own PC if you survive to higher levels, but I just don't see the point of undermining player autonomy the way this class does.

Rune Weaver

In short these are slow magic-users.  They take much longer to weave their spells but can attempt to cast spells at a higher level than MUs and are really good at unweaving (i.e. dispelling) spells.  The details of this class tie directly in with Hargrave's mana-based magic system, so I won't say anything more until we get to the magic section.

Techno

I written about this delightful class before.  I can't hardly oppose a D&D class that allows you start tinkering with atomic reactors at 40th level.

Medicine Man

Your basic shaman type.  On the one hand nowadays I don't think I need a separate divine spellcaster for each culture in a campaign, but on the other this is the perfect class to stat up the fat witch doctor from Gilligan's Island.  Also each member of this class gets a pet puma or wolf every three levels and at 6th level can cast spells by playing drums.  I would go with bongos or maybe that big drum Ricky Ricardo used to play when he sang "Babalu" down at the club.  I really wanted to include a screencap of that witch doctor dude at this point in the post but google image search failed me.  So here's Gilligan with a robot instead.

from The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island.

Witch Hunter

Last up is a great class for folks who want to ruin the fun of everyone else at the table.  They are "religious fanatics (99% Christian) that are obnoxiously 'holier than thou' in their attitude towards just about everyone and everything".  Witch Hunters always attack Chaotic types and go after Neutrals 75% of the time.  Their righteous fury has all same drawbacks as barbarian berserkergang.  Basically these guys take all the worst stereotypes of paladins and make the rules enforce their jerkish behavior.  And you can bet your ass that I wouldn't hesistate to use them as bad guys.

One interesting quirk about the Witch Hunter: it may be the only class I've seen outside of Men & Magic that has a column Chainmail-style Fighting Capability.  A 1st or 2nd level Witch Hunter fights as a Man, a 3rd level hunter as a Man +1, etc.  That suggests to me that this class was one of the earliest Hargrave wrote, as no other class in the book uses this quickly-dropped-by-TSR notation.

Arduin Grimoire, part 2

Today I'm going to cover pages one through thirteen of the original Arduin Grimoire.  Maybe that sounds like a lot bust most of these pages are bigass charts.

At the top of page one is the title HOW TO PLAY THE GAME and then it immediately dives into rules for overland travel.  This is pretty much how Hargrave operates throughout the trilogy; lots of interesting stuff but no obvious organization.   Anyway, Hargrave's stated rule is to roll a 1 in 6 chance of a wilderness encounter  every dang hour, with chances doubling for terrain like woods and swamps and also doubling at night.  So if you're camped in the woods you have a 4 in 6 chance of going to the wandering monster charts every 60 minutes.  And I thought the rules for this in the first edition DMG were harsh.  Honestly, I can hardly believe this rule was ever used as written except by total dick DMs.

Hargrave hides two neat charts in this section.  In more than one place in his books he describes a dice chart via a sentence in a larger paragraph.  Here's his idea in chart form:

Initial Wilderness Monster Reactions, unintelligent critters (roll d12)
1-3 frightened off
4-6 shies back, hesitant
7-9 warily approaches party
10-12 berserk attack

Initial Wilderness Monster Reactions, intelligent beings (roll d12)
1-4 flee
5-8 indecisive
9-12 unhesitating attack

So dumb monsters are less likely to throw themselves at you than intelligent ones.  Another gem in this section is when Hargrave gets around to applying his wandering monster rules to dungeons.  He assumes that the basic unit of dungeoneers is the three person party and that wandering monsters should be increased for larger groups.  "[I]f you have a party of three than only one red dragon shows up, if you have 4-6, then it's two and so on" (Emphasis mine.)

Next up is Hargrave's experience point rules.  No xp for gold in the world of Arduin.  "After all, it is the act of robbery, not the amount stolen, that gives the thief his experience."  The chart that follows reminds me just a bit of the system used in Rolemaster/MERP.  Does anyone know if those guys played Arduin early on?  You can score experience by acquiring potent magic items, defeating foes in single combat and taking important roles in the party like group leader or point man.  Hargrave awards 400 xp for dying and being brought back to life.  Killing a demi-god in single combat is only worth 350xp, so I hope these are bonus awards in addition to standard fight XP but the rules here don't say one way or the other.  All in all it's a fun-looking system, but I think I'll stick to 1gp = xp and 1HD = 100xp for sheer simplicity.

Pages three and four are XP charts for a buttload of classes: thief, slaver, techno, courtesan, assassin, alchemist, rune weaver, saint, "all outlaws", warrior, cleric, monk, mage, illusionist, druid, "singer or bard", ranger, normal, barbarian.  Not all of these classes are statted up in this volume.  The XP progressions looks fairly normal just glancing at the chart, but in fact advancement is much faster starting around level 5 or so.    For example a thief needs 21,000 xp to reach 8th level, but only 24,500 xp for 9th and 28,000 for tenth.  So maybe killing a demi-god really is worth only 350 points.  Another oddity is that the chart goes to 105th level for each class but after 20th level you seem to go up 5 levels at a time.  I.e. there is no 21st level.  A Techno with 100,000 to 149,999 experience is twentieth level.  Score one more point and that character is now 25th.  At least that's what the chart seems to imply.

Next up is the level limit chart for a huge variety of races, including giants, tritons, "piscoids" and all sorts of other stuff.  Note that two classes on the chart here, psychic and paladin, do not appear on the XP charts on the immediately preceding pages.  This is another common occurrence in the Grimoire: page 4 and page 5 don't seem to be on speaking terms.  Given that the XP charts go up to 105th level (with a 'for every level thereafter' amount as well) most of the level limits are quite low.  Most races have one or two classes they are allowed unlimited advance, with the rest severely capped or outright forbidden.  The absurd part comes in with the last column, which is labeled for All Others.  Most races have unlimited advancement in every class not specifically mentioned on the chart.  So if I made a Cave Man PC (which I totally would) I could play up to a 4th level Mage, a second level "Thief, etc.", an 8th level Warrior, a 2nd level Psychic or a 105th level Techno.  Personally, I love the insanity of this chart, but I could see how it would frustrate normal people.  On other note: only humans and half-elves can become paladins.  All other races are barred from this class.

Pages six and seven are a stat min-max chart by race.  Some races appear here that weren't on the level limit charts on the preceding pages.  For example, I can tell you that Balrogs have Wisdom scores between 5 and 10 and that Silicate Life characters are rated between 1 and 12 for Charisma.  This chart is the first place we Hargrave's expanded ability score list: Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Ego, Agility, Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Mechanical Ability, Swimming Ability.  There's also a column labeled Magic Resistance, but it's not a 3-18 score.  Rather the entires here look like a saving throw adjustment between -2 to +4, or "even", presumably indicating no bonus, or "special", which according to a note indicates 50% magic resistance.

Pages 8 and 9 are random height and weight charts.  Per the height chart Hargrave goes in for Tolkienian tall elves.  The height chart and weight chart look to me like they were written at different times, as the height chart is all Tolkien races. (And Amazons. Hargrave always sneaks in some amazons wherever he can, a policy I heartily approve.) The weight chart contains a lot of other races.  So I can tell you the weight of a Arduin gnoll but I have no idea how tall he is.

Next up is a large illo of an Amazon (see, I told you) and a Vampusa throwing down.  A Vampusa is a vampire/medusa hybrid.  This is standard operating procedure for Hargrave: If two monsters are interesting, why not smoosh 'em together?  Also on this page is a small chart.  It's percentage based but is structured such that a single d10 will do.

Body Type Determination Table
1-2  Skinny-Boney, -1 Str
3-4 Wirey-Tough, +1 Dex
5-6 Average, "As It Says"
7-8 Muscular, +1 Str
9 Very Muscular, +1 Con, +2 Str
0 Obese, -1 Con, -1 Dex

Given the odds here, I would gladly roll on that chart.  Maybe I'll start using it.

The next two pages are another bigass racial chart labeled NOTES ON FANTASTIC BEINGS.   Basically for a whole passle of races you get average life span (noted as "Arduin years"), age of majority, usual alignment, ability to mate fertilly [sic] with humans, general temperment [sic again] and "Notes, Observations, Typical Stuff".  Again there are races here not appearing on any of the previous charts.  Elves, orcs, trolls, titans, pixies, nixies and demons are all immortal.  About half the races listed are interfertile with humans, but about half of those produce sterile offspring.  By the chart half-orcs are one of the mule races.  The last column has all sorts of brief stereotyping going on.  Amazons are "pushy, men-baiters, frequently lesbian" while kobolds "love to gang up on cripples, thieves", the sort of thing that can be useful to a DM but a terror to players whose jerkwad DM insists they play their PC 'by the book'.

Next up is the random alignment chart, which is labeled as being specifically for players.  Hargrave starts with Gygax's ninefold system but adds some edge case alignments like Marginally Lawful and Amoral Evil.  Each alignment is rated with a percentile Kill Factor, Lie Factor, Tolerance Factor, Loyalty Factor and Cruelty Factor.  The usage of these percentiles is not explained, but these numbers do a better job explaining alignment than most text descriptions, including most of the text descriptions in the far right column of this chart.  I do like that Marginally Lawful is the alignment of 'those losing faith in the system', though.  To ruin a perfectly good system/make things more interesting everyone has a 10% chance of their alignment secretly being Insane.

Whew.  That's all for now.  Next installment will feature two of my favorite sections, the random special ability charts and the new classes.

Arduin Grimoire cover to cover, part 1

Okay, let's do this like Brutus.  The Arduin Grimoire is one of the seminal books of the early gonzo D&D period and by the time this series is done you'll know more about it than you probably want to.

Pictured to the right is the cover from my own copy of this gem.  I pick "cheap and crappy but legible" over "mint condition" pretty much every time and my copy is pretty dang crudulated.  Still, the awesomeness of Greg Espinoza's cover art comes shining through.  Clint Eastwood, Dungeoneer, and a dual-wielding bug dude and a lady adventurer with Gamora/Marionette style facepaint are throwing down with some serious lizard dudes.  Later we'll learn that the bug dude is called a Phraint, one of the mainstays of the Arduin universe and quite possibly the inspiration for the Thri'Kreen and/or Vrusk.  Click on the pic to see a bigger version.  The detail work is worth a closer look-see even with my sorry-ass copy.

A lot of game books have acknowledgment or dedication pages that mention PCs in the author's home campaigns.  The gang at ICE we're always good for this, but Hargave's dedication page here contains one of the best such lists I've ever seen:

Koryu, leader of the forty-seven ronin; Elric the Hell-Lost; Daniel the True Defender of the Dreaming Isles; Jothar, Champion of the House of the Rising Sun and Baron of the Realm; Kazamon, the Ring Bearer, hobbit and changeling; Benk the Benighted; Hamal Assad's Twelfth Lancers; Mithrom, bandit turned demon; Mogadore the drunken dwarf; Zorella, amazon leader of the doomed Hell Raid; Lasuli, elven and unafraid; Fredrick the Bold, slayer of Smaug and Sauron; Bolo Mark Nine, destroyer of a dungeon and near slayer of an entire world; the Seven Spartans and their never broken shield wall; Talso the grim mage; all of you are forever graven in the iron legends that will forever follow your steps through allternity.  To you and the shades of near four hundred dead I lift a tankard of Rumble Tummy's ale in respectful salute.

So by 1977 in Hargrave's game Sauron had been iced, Hell itself invaded and almost 400 characters killed in campaigning.  That, my friends, is hard effin' core.  On the other hand, in the foreward Hargrave makes a point of apologizing to anyone his work offends.  Which leaves me with the distinct impression that Mr. Hargrave will readily kill your PC but he tries to be a nice guy about it.

Anyhoo, I should take a moment to talk about the publishing history of this book.  The first edition was self-published in 1977 and featured different cover art and maybe slightly different content.  I've seen a copy of it floating around the internet for download.  Scribd.com or mediafire or someplace like that.  But I'm not sure I kept a copy because I already have a fully functioning print edition.  The second edition published by garage band Grimoire Games is copyright 1979 which is what I've got.  Almost.  There's at least three only vaguely documented changes made along the way in these earliest printings besides the cover art.  First, the inside front cover on my copy is dated 1980 (pictured left).  Second, at some point TSR got grumpy about some of the text, leading to a couple of obvious changes that are hilariously similar to the kind of slapdash editing the game wizards themselves had to do when the Tolkien estate got all huffy.  Mentions of D&D by name get genericized and a mechanic or two are renamed to remove the word 'fuck' from the grimoire texts.  You can't call a fumble a fuck-up without incurring the wrath of TSR circa 1980 apparently.  Thirdly, my eye for such things tells me that the back cover of my copy involves some editorial swimwear to cover up the amazon's vast tracks of land.  But I'm not going to show you what I'm talking about until the last post in this series, since that involves the end of the book.  And also I'm a jerk.

The original Grimoire saw at least two further editions.  Emperor's Choice, the official keeper's of the Arduin flame, have put out over the years an Arduin Trilogy boxed set and more recently an Arduin Trilogy hardcover which is still available.  Both contain the text of the first three Grimoires but I've not seen the insides.

Next installement of this here series we'll get serious and dive into the rules.  Following Hargrave's lead we'll start with the only logical place to begin a collection of crazy OD&D houserules: outdoor encounters.

Huh?