David Hargrave's Arduin books are chocked full of creative game aids and each one has an enormous amount of material, often haphazardly organized, but always full of enthusiasm and originality. Known for the over-the-top nature of his style of play, Mr. Hargraves includes over 100 new spells, over 100 new monsters, demons, elementals, magic items, and new tables galore in this volume alone. In The Runes of Doom he redefines the ranger, druid, assassin and paladin character classes and adds the alchemist, and sage classes. He gives us rules for playing some of his unique races, the phraint, saurig and deodanth as player characters and introduces a hit point system designed to allow low level characters, even 1st level, to adventure alongside higher levels without being impossibly "squishy".
Tired of rolling 3d6 x 10 for starting gold and spending the next umpteen minutes purchasing starting gear? Mr. Hargrave provides tables for determining starting coin and gear based on social and economic status. Prefer a system that puts less emphasis on armor for defense so that the John Carters and Conans in your campaign may run around bare-chested without being killed in their first fight? Mr. Hargrave has a table listing "natural" armor classes by race which could easily be modified to include "by class" as well. That is what David Hargrave is so good at - by sharing his wonderful ideas for the game, he inspires us to take it one step further ourselves. He shows us the path to modifying the game to suit our own campaign.
Mixed among the tables and new rules, monsters and items, Mr. Hargrave sprinkles some good gaming advice. On page 7 he points out the importance of keeping a good account of in-game time, something Gary Gygax also emphasized. Here Mr. Hargrave indicates that such accounting for the passage of time is essential for a campaign world in which several people run different countries/areas for a common group of player characters. Wow, that takes the campaign game to a whole new level with multiple referees sharing the overall world, rules and pool of player characters. Again he is stretching the parameters of the game.
On more than one occasion, Gary Gygax was on record regarding how he meant for the game he and Dave Arneson authored to be played and frequently commented on how others could change the game so as to make it not the same game he wrote. He was referring generally to referees running a high powered campaign with lots of magic items, very high level PCs who had progressed rapidly up the experience levels and powerful magic users that tended to dominate play. Yes, Mr. Hargrave played in this high-powered style, but he also claimed his game was different from White Box.
Included in every volume of the Arduin Grimoire are various descriptions of Mr. Hargrave's world, Arduin. Usually these elements come in the form of lists or tables, but they make the reader wonder and improvise, filling in what the author leaves unexplained with imaginings of our own making. What a wonderful gift to jump-start the imagination. Obviously, we as readers are free to borrow ideas from the Grimoire and import them into our own play resulting in David Hargrave's Arduin influencing many other campaigns. The idea rather fits into Mr. Hargrave's concept of the Multiverse where all worlds can be connected on some level.
So back to that ranger class. In this volume of the Grimoire, he redefines the ranger in true Hargravian fashion as the Forester, placing a greater emphasis on woodcraft the Forester is almost never lost, but seldom enters the dungeon. He describes the Forester as a solitary and nomadic scout/military spy, respected by elves and half-elves, held in awe by hobbits, but detested by dwarves who see them as untrustworthy woodrunners. They have improved hearing and can travel further and faster afoot for longer periods than normal types. They have improved skill with non mechanical bows and as they level up acquire the ability to "sense" enemies and weather changes and the ability to "speak" with plants and animals. At fiftieth level the Foresters gain some healing ability equivalent to a first level druid.
The druid, paladin and assassin classes all receive similar customization in The Runes Of Doom. Designing or re-designing various character classes, spell lists, monsters and magic items is one way to emphasize the character of one's campaign "world" or milieu. Mr. Hargrave tends to include nearly everything which appeals to him in his milieu, therefore Arduin is a setting of vast inclusiveness. That is part of the campaign's character. It is however quite possible to pick and choose among the ideas presented in the Grimoires, using only that which appeals to each referee individually. Showing us the path to doing it our own way seems to be a principle goal of David Hargrave and his Arduin Multiverse. I hope it would make him smile to see a little of his Arduin in my campaign.
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