Digging Up Bones

After I was introduced to D&D (the LBBs back in 1976), and before I ever encountered Tekumel and it's Empire of the Petal Throne, I stumbled across David A. Hargrave's incredible mish-mash of genius and madness The Arduin Grimoire.  My original copy of the first edition of the first booklet was ripped-off borrowed never to return by some anonymous gamer who migrated through my local gaming group back in the Eighties.  I was able to replace it with the box set.

Recently, as I was rummaging around in our storage space, I uncovered a few things that I'd lost track of over the years, including my slightly worn Box-o-Arduin (photo above).  I never followed-up on the rest of Hargrave's magnum opus, mostly because of what he accomplished with those first three Other Little Brown Books, and that was to inspire just about everyone exposed to the things to go out and start creating their own stuff. It seems that back then, once you caught the creative bug, you created and you kept on creating. Everyone had their own worlds, their own house-rules, their own cosmoses that sometimes overlapped or crossed-over, but generally there was no corporatized homogeneity. Then AD&D was formulated and set into motion to promote a more profitably homogenous approach that shied away from the ultra-personal, often silly gonzo-style of gaming that broke out of the White Box as though it was a second hand heirloom left-over from Pandora. But all of that is the stuff of rampant grognardry and you can read tons of waffling, wiffling and wheezing about all that stuff elsewhere. Frankly, having already lived through a  lot of it when it was still as new or fresh as it ever was going to be, the crap bores the piss out of me.

But Arduin is not boring.

Arduin is a weird form of RPG-Kryptonite that mutates impressionable young minds into would-be creators, and that is a wonderful gift that Hargrave has given to all of us, and an incredible legacy to be remembered for...despite the near-legendary rants, raves, and other stuff that just doesn't really matter.  Arduin matters. 

It's messy, mixed-up, big, bold and brassy...and packs a creative wallop like no other RPG setting, supplement or product.  Despite claims to the contrary, to our group in particular, Arduin was never anything more than a supplement to OD&D, one that could be ported over to warp AD&D with a bit of effort.  But what a supplement!  Tables, tables, tables and loads of typos, insane spells, bizarre monsters, and more tables--Arduin reeked of the DIY-ethic before it was ever codified for by wannabes and pseudo-hipsters.  Arduin was the original garage-band proto-punk take-no-prisoners gonzo gaming memetic STD that infected the very roots of the industry.  Its impact is still felt.  Love it, hate it, be baffled or bemused by it, Arduin exerts a lingering, mythic underground (almost disreputable) influence that is probably the most viral of all spin-offs from the original classic RPG.

Arduin endures.  It still lives.  You can find the various tomes and books available through the folks over at Emperor's Choice, the Arduin Eternal Fan-Site is still going, there's an Arduin Guild Yahoogroup, a Meet-Up, and a few Wikipedia entries for both Dave Hargrave, Grimoire Games and Arduin itself.  There's a nice Tribute page for Hargrave and a decent Bio of the man behind Arduin at Answers(dot)com.

In a lot of ways, Blair's work on Planet Algol is reminiscent of all the really good stuff I liked about Hargrave's Arduin. Thankfully Blair is a lot more organized than Hargrave seems to have been, and he has the benefit of that there internet. The Planet Algol Box-Set could well turn out to be another Arduin-in-the-making.

Which makes me wonder and imagine what Hargrave might have gotten up to had he was still around to publish Arduin stuff. And what manner of stuff would it be? It would be strange, radical, bizarre, sometimes crude, other times unbalanced, out of step with the prevailing dogma and self-serving doctrines of the Established Designers, off-the-wall and truly weird--but it would definitely be cool.

Like Hargrave himself used to say: "Take a troll to lunch."

Like Jack Nicholson's Joker said: "This town needs an enema."