Caliban (Arduin dungeon)

Caliban (also known as Arduin Dungeon Number One) was a standalone short story and gaming module written in 1979 by David A. Hargrave and published by Grimoire Games. It was based upon Hargrave’s gaming system known as Arduin. It is the first of only four standalone “dungeon” books created by Hargrave as an extension of his Arduin Multiverse, which at the time of Caliban's publication was known as The Arduin Trilogy.

Setting
At twenty-five pages long, Caliban contained maps with room descriptions and trap matrices, four full dungeon/tower levels with maps and room descriptions (one level is an intricate cavern system), eight pocket sized magic artifact cards and eight illustrated monster cards with statistics. The package also contained a set of sixteen unique creature and treasure cards, which could be detached and used in-game and twenty-six unique new traps in a matrix at the rear of the module.

Cover art was contributed by Greg Espinoza.

System
While specifically designed for use with the Arduin gaming system, Caliban was usable with any d20 or other RPG system. The module was recommended for characters level 12 or higher (in the Arduin universe).

History
Caliban was originally published by Grimoire Games and went out of print in 1986. In 2002 reprints of Caliban were made available from Emperor's Choice Games and Miniatures, but were discontinued in August 2006. Since then, the company folded Caliban and all other Arduin dungeon modules into a single publication called “Vaults of the Weaver.”

Story
The story concerns a huge mountainous tower created by an undead sorcerer (see cover illustration). The tower was created by the sorcerer melting countless hectares of basalt and shaping it with his power. No one knows who he was or why the mountain/tower was created, but over 20,000 years or more it was populated with various forms of evil and was known as “Caliban.”

One day, Caliban gained consciousness and sent its inhabiting forces into the world to destroy and conquer in a battle known as the “War of the One.” The attack was countered by Elves, with power so great that the plant tilted on its axis and life was destroyed on a planetary scale.

Caliban lost its consciousness and became a ghost of dungeons, wandering the world and appearing randomly and at random times.