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David A. Hargrave, Arduin, and Khaas have touched many lives in ways few other things in life can attempt to rival. His dream touched us all, carried us on a fantastic yet somehow deeply real journey. To speak succinctly and encompass all that it was to we who lived, breathed, and drank from the dream is a task greater than any ever placed before any hero. Yet, if there is anything constant in Arduin and Khaas, it is the twin banners of Unbowed Bravery and Hope Eternal. And as always…always…some step forward to attempt the impossible. Following these meager words is the heart-given voices of shield-brothers who walked, lived, and was the dream. Drink from the cup, as did we all, the charisma that was, is, and ever will be Arduin and Khaas!

Read the first tribute to David Hargrave by Paul Mosher.
Read the tribute to David Hargrave by Mark Schynert.

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In another time and place, I composed a tribute to Dave Hargrave, for what he did with Arduin: the game, the world, the campaigns, and most of all, for all of us who played with him. In yet another time and place, I wrote that I missed Dave for who he was, not for what he did not have the chance to do. Third time's the charm, no doubt. For, though one might not think of it at first, 'charm' is exactly the right word. Dave's world had a charm that transcended the base elements that composed it. We all work with much the same materials when we try to build a town, a country, a world, or a universe. A dwarf here, a tavern there, or a dungeon in the far corner of the cursed valleys. Arduin certainly had its dwarves and taverns, cursed valleys and dungeons, scheming barons, geese laying golden eggs, hell spirals, knitting grannies, trees that liked soft singing, and bands of desperate bandits that stole horses, not to ride or sell, but just to eat.

In the hands of a lesser storyteller, these elements might or might not jell into a feeling of worldliness in any given game session. In Dave's hands, everything always made sense. I don't know why. I don't think this talent, this charm, can be bottled. Dave's world could not be bottled either. It was too vast, consisting mostly in his head, and the vast amount of it likely went to his grave with him. If he had left behind ten times as much written material, it would still be the smaller fraction of the whole.

This sounds like a great loss, and yet I don't think it is, except in the sense that the person who made it has passed on. The entire process of role-playing, of interactive, shared story telling is essentially a transitory art form, more difficult to reproduce for posterity than any play, because the audience and the cast are one. As the greater part of every RPG exists only in its own time and place, as a personal experience, so it is with a GM's world. So, what's the point? Why a world book, if it is like the fossil bones of a Tyrannosaurus: incomplete, broken, and lifeless? Incomplete it is, but neither broken nor lifeless, when set out in appropriate display, like that same dinosaur skeleton in the hands of a museum that knows what it is doing. The skeleton evokes an emotional response in most people when they see it-this immense thing was once alive, and its power still radiates from what little is left of it. So it is with Khaas, as laid out here.

Perhaps each of us takes away something different from such a display. For me, this book provokes many memories of specific times and places, deeds and conversations, lives and deaths. It also stands as an object lesson. People think of Dave as a GM, or a game designer. Few think of him as a teacher. More should. He taught role-playing, and game mastering, better than anyone, I know, without ever breaking the stride of any game. He was not short of ego, and in his game, everything was played his way, but he expected every GM that followed his path to cut their own as well.

You see the emphasis repeatedly in his rules, you saw it constantly if you played with him, and you will see it here. You will see it here because this material, such as it is, is the largest and probably the last major fragment of his world that will ever be published. It is an example of the many elements that can go into a world-history, biology, cosmology, law, sociology, politics, economics and so on. He might expect some of us to use it exactly as it is presented here, adding only those missing things we feel we absolutely must. He certainly would expect some of us to mix and match with our own ideas in our own world, as we strive to create the same verisimilitude at which he was so adept. And he would applaud those of us who would look at this example deeply, and then compose our own solutions out of whole cloth, using this skeleton as a template from which a whole different organism might be formed. Admire it. Enjoy it. Use it. I can see Dave smiling now.

Mark Schynert

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You’re about to take your first steps there. It only takes a few you know, before you learn how real it is. You’ll learn the legacy David A. Hargrave left behind. You’ll learn first hand through the eyes and ears and minds of your characters. Then you’ll know. Khaas is real. Arduin is real. It’s a journey made possible through Dave Hargrave’s imagination and the dedication of Emperor’s Choice Games and Miniatures to be your guide.

I discovered Arduin back in 1977 purely by accident and never regretted one moment of it since. I’ve experienced such wonders and sights there and seen and done so many things both good and bad through the characters I played and were played around me. Its always been a dream place, a cool place, a wondrous world of being, living, existing, adventuring…the stuff of dreams.

For Dave Hargrave though, it was real. He lived it, breathed it, spoke it, ate it, slept it. It was his greatest creation and gift to the world and he made Arduin as real as the world we live in is to us. He was a Dreamweaver, perhaps the greatest of them all. Dreamweavers are a Character Class you say? Yes. But in David’s case they were real too. He made them so. If you could get him to talk he could tell you down to the tiniest detail everything you wanted to know about any specific Arduin thing.

In his games there were times when you could actually feel the winter wind as it howled down from the north and cut through your camp, on into your very soul. You could smell the guttering torch as you crept down the cave length, hear your heartbeat and feel the sweat gather in your palm as you gripped your weapon. Once we felt the terror, the unmitigated all consuming fear that was part and parcel of the House of the Axe and smelled, smelled I tell you, the coppery tang of blood on the air in that charnel house of horrors. He made it so. David wove the dreams for us and they came alive in our games, each and every time…

David, on some level, actually brought Arduin to life. And having brought it to life, he continued to breathe life into it from his own imagination, his own dreams. On a daily basis, from the day of its inception to the day of his passing from this world to the next….or to Arduin itself…he lived Arduin, he was Arduin. He told the tales, wove the myths and recorded the legends. He never gave it up, never quit, never thought of anything else no matter what came down the pike in his own life. He somehow, through all this, found a way to make Arduin live.

Now it’s your turn. Open that doorway in your mind; the one that leads to other places, things and times. Step into Khaas and Arduin. It will happen, just you wait and see, O Wise Traveller. You’ll be thinking of a scenario or plot and a chill will come over you as if something Grim and oh so Dark has just looked your way. And grinned. Or you’ll be painting a figure of a PC and a pure clear picture of a field of green, green grass with a faerie flitting by might flash through your mind from nowhere…then be gone. A glimpse of a mountain range in winter and a Dragon soaring high in the distance. Then you’ll know. It’s real. It’s REAL. Thank you David.

Paul P. Mosher