#arduin

OSR enthusiasts still debate the best way to map wilderness areas with hex grids, but 1/4"=5 miles was good enough for author Dave Hargrave and mapper Carolyn Schultz in Death Heart: Arduin Dungeon 4 & Overland Adventure (Grimoire Games, 1980).

The Black Rabbits of Critical Role reminded me of one of my favorite world-building things I have ever read in an RPG supplement. From 1985, Dark Dreams, Arduin Grimoire V.

Image © @chimeride

[Sponsored by @crazytrain48, from Arduin. Carchanone is one of the Arduin demons with the wildest appearances, but relatively little flavor text. Which inspired me to go off in my own direction, tying into some of my favorite topics in Pathfinder, such as the economy of souls and belief, the qlippoth/demon cold war and the machinations of divinities. The mouths in the claws are borrowed from another Arduin archfiend, Gorog-Nor the Hungry One.]

Carchanore The Death Mole, The Burrower Between CE nascent demon lord of burrows, portals and paranoia Domains Chaos, Earth, Evil, Travel Subdomains Cave, Demon, Fear, Portal Worshipers evil molekin, miners, planar travelers, doomsday preppers Minions katpaskir demons, earth elementals, skymetal reavers Unholy Symbol a molehill with a spiked ball protruding from the top Favored Weapon heavy flail Devotion spend one hour digging. At the end of the hour, while standing inside the hole or tunnel, kill a living creature and consume some or all of it. Gain a +4 racial bonus to saving throws against paralysis and petrifaction. Boons 1st—stone call 2/day; 2nd—stoneskin 2/day; 3rd—plane shift 2/day (as 6th level spell)

Nascent Demon Lord, Carchanore CR 25 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature is the size of a wagon, a cross between a mole and a lobster covered in stony armor and spikes. It has eight elephantine legs each ending in sharp claws, and a long tail tipped with a spiked ball. Its arms are long and have crab-like pinchers. It has a circular whirling maw set in its eyeless face, and similar orifices open up in the corners of its claws.

Carchanore is a monster caught between worlds. Once, the Death Mole was a qlippoth lord who lived as a simple predator, albeit of the great wrackworms that crawl between the planes. His gift at digging is such that he can bore through planar boundaries in pursuit of his prey, and his knowledge of earth and stone made him occasionally revered by subterranean humanoids such as molekin or troglodytes. Deskari, Lord of the Locust Host, considered him a nuisance and a possible competitor to the portfolio of portals, and Yamasoth resented their shared domain of Earth. After Deskari was killed in the Material Plane, the severed faith of his remaining worshipers was cast into the multiverse, and the Burrower Between happened to be its recipient. The exposure to faith and sin warped Carchanore into a nascent demon lord. It made him rather more powerful, but also more vulnerable; without a domain to call his own, Carchanore cannot rejuvenate, and now is terrified that either old enemies or new will slay him. So he roams, digging his way from plane to plane and stopping only to rest.

Carchanore is a straightforward combatant. He prefers to fight with his natural weapons than with his earth magic, although he appreciates his newly gained ability to summon demons. Carchanore’s hide is stony hard and covered with sharp spikes, and weak creatures striking him may shred themselves on his spines before he even lays a claw on the. Carchanore is a juggernaut, trampling earthbound foes before grinding them to pieces with his diamond teeth. Carchanore has three mouths—one in the normal place and a secondary one at the joint of each of his crustacean claws—and any creature killed with these weapons is ground into mincemeat. If creatures keep their distance, Carchanore has a nasty surprise—he can fire the spines on his shell like a barrage of ballista bolts. In his previous life as a qlippoth lord, Carchanore gleefully fought to the death, but now he is quick to flee as he has a newly acquired fear of permanent destruction.

Although the bulk of Carchanore’s cult is made up of survivors of Deskari’s minions, not all of them are. The Burrower Between’s survivalist paranoia makes him popular among others who believe that the end is nigh, and some of his followers are converted from Groetus or other apocalyptic religions. After all, multiple apocalyptic events have been narrowly averted on Golarion, so sooner or later one of them is bound to come to its fulfillment. Such followers are noted for their endless digging, creating vast sprawling bunker complexes for themselves and filling them with provisions and traps. "Dig forever" is a common saying among the Burrower Between's worshipers. Amoral wizards interested in planar travel and mass summoning occasionally call on Carchanore to open gates for them, but doing so is fraught with danger, as the Death Mole views them as challenging prey as often as he does as supplicants.

Carchanore in the Great Game In the Age of Monsters plotline, Carchanore has received his demonic nature as an experiment. Pale Night, who straddles the line between qlippoth and demon herself, brokered a deal with a coalition of powerful katpaskir demons to turn the attentions of the fragmented cult of Deskari to a qlippoth lord, and the Burrower Between was the “lucky” recipient. Pale Night is now observing the Death Mole very closely, to see if he can fight his way into the ranks of true demon lords, or if he will die trying. Pale Night is keeping her reasons for this trial secret even from her allies.

Theme Arduin(Tri-Color Dragon)

Prompt List Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So yeah pixel art is my passion. I had a three headed dragon and a vision. While I may have lost some detail like the red wings I think I captured what's most important. I put all my heart into making those big ol eyes perfect.

Palette picked

Large Mutant Gorilla with 8 octopus-like tentacles. No one is sure of the exact origin of the octorilla but, it is likely to be the result of magical alchemical experiments. Wizards are often trying to create the perfect guardian, they often fail, or sometimes the results of their experiments escape. This eight armed monstrosity has the body of a large gorilla with thick tentacles for…

It took me a long time to put together a set of David Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire books but holy wow, was it worth the wait. This is the first, The Arduin Grimoire. Originally self-published in 1977 with different art, this edition is part of a three-pack “Trilogy” issued by Dragon Tree Press around 1984 (last pic). The project was born out of Hargrave’s heavily house ruled Dungeons & Dragons campaign. 

Because these books are named after Hargrave’s fantasy world, I kind of expected a primitive sort of sourcebook, but no, they are just a collection of house rules. While they are organized around how they work in Hargrave’s world, and there are many things implied by the rules (the Techno class, for instance, and their use of sci fi technology), we don’t ever get a clear picture of the lands of Arduin in the Grimoires (not unlike the Greyhawk supplement, honestly). But that’s OK, because the rules? Pure gold. 

While the book never explicitly says so (for legal reasons, obviously), the rules are intended as modular expansions to the original white box D&D. Even knowing that, though, doesn’t make parsing them very easy – Hargrave is constantly referring to a mountain of material, only portion of which is in any given book. The “How to Play the Game” section is largely devoted to the mechanics of overland travel. I needed to get through all three volumes of the Trilogy before I had a handle on things to the point I could probably incorporate them into a game. 

There is so much, I don’t really know where to start. How about new classes? We’ve got Merchant, Psychic, Barbarian, Rune Weaver, Techno, Medicine Man and Witch Hunter. We’ve got piles of new treasures, monsters and spells. We’ve got musings on alignment, modified approaches to character creation and combat and a gloss of the 21 layers of hell. And charts! So many random charts! For mist generation, for fumbles, for character special abilities (some good – natural mechanic! – some bad – bad liar!), for traps.