Arduin Intro to Caliban

Ok, hopefully my good intentions will not get me into trouble! Here (**** Sorry, I removed this link for now. I am hoping to run this scenario at DunDraCon 43 and NO PEEKING) is an introduction to David Hargrave's dungeon, Caliban, which includes the setting outside the dungeon and the ground level encounters and traps within. 

Unfortunately the entire dungeon, with three more levels, is not presently available (commercially at least, other than $50-$75 used copies), however, posting the entire dungeon will certainly be too much if the copyright holders complain.

What I have done is annotated this portion of the scenario with all the particular monster, spells, and magik items descriptions that one would otherwise need to have the Arduin rulebooks to supply.

My hope is that folks can gain a bit of appreciation for the type of extreme dangers and rewards inherent to an Arduin game. If one focuses on the magic items first, it is like "Holy Toledo!" but I counted about half of the monsters with life level draining abilities. Ouch!

This is a HIGH LEVEL scenario. Dave wrote others such as "Howling Tower" and "Citadel of Thunder" that were appropriate for lower-level characters.

Also, historically in Dave Hargrave's own campaigns, he ran a high-power Arduin campaign with these extreme magic items, and also a low-power Arduin campaign where magic items are incredibly rare.

If you see some attributes of this scenario you enjoy, at least in terms of monsters, items, and spells, you can check out the Emperors Choice page on DriveThruRPG for additional Arduin products. Note that The Compleat Arduin from 1992 and Arduin Eternal from 2009, as well as the system neutral World of Khaas book about Arduin, were all written by others after Dave Hargrave had passed away (Dave died back in 1988). Compleat Arduin and Arduin Eternal are also new game systems that moved away from old editions of D&D rules.

For my money, I cannot recommend enough the Arduin Grimoire Trilogy book. It contains Arduin history, monsters, spells, items, classes, and a plethora of random tables for encounters, weather, etc. plus the infamous critical hit and fumbles! This book organizes the first three classic Arduin Grimoires in a single tome, combining the categories from each into single references, while keeping everything in the original writings of Dave Hargrave - whose singular voice and contributions to the RPG hobby are often overlooked.

Also, these early works were written in mind of and are completely compatible with OD&D and current OSR retro-clone rules. (I have even run his scenarios using 5th ed. with only minor adjustments.)

Ok then, please enjoy and accept this in the spirit of encountering one of the true greats!