The Howling Tower

The Howling Tower (also known as Arduin Dungeon Number Two) 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 second of only four standalone “dungeon” books created by Hargrave as an extension of his Arduin Multiverse, which at the time of The Howling Tower’s publication was known as The Arduin Trilogy.

Setting
At thirty-two pages, The Howling Tower contains maps, descriptions, a short story, and overviews, with detailed room descriptions and trap matrices, two ground level dungeons and six tower levels with eight pocket sized magic artifact cards and eight illustrated monster cards with statistics.

Cover illustrations are by Greg Espinoza, back cover and interior illustrations are by Erol Otus.

System
While designed for use with the Arduin gaming system, The Howling Tower is usable with any d20 or other RPG system. The module was recommended for characters level 1 through 4 (in the Arduin universe).

History
The Howling Tower was originally published by Grimoire Games and went out of print in 1984. In 2002 reprints of The Howling Tower were made available from Emperor’s Choice Games and Miniatures, but were discontinued in August 2006. Since then, the company folded The Howling Tower and all other Arduin dungeon modules into a single publication called “Vaults of the Weaver.”

Story
“Let none pursue where I now dwell.” — Sorven of the Seven Lights

In times passed, Sorven of the Seven Lights tricked a small party of adventurers into a phony expedition to explore a dungeon set into the mountains. When outside the dungeon he offered them all wine which they drank. The wine was poisoned and they all collapsed but were not dead.

Sorven slit the throat of one adventurer and used his blood in a dark ritual. Then he cut the hearts from the chests of the remaining men and began to summon his patron demon.

By order of the demon, he climbed up the mountainside to finish the ritual. Something went wrong at that time because where Sorven climbed to be with his demon there now stands a tower which howls from dusk till dawn. It is said the howling tower brings insanity to those who hear it.