Arduin

Arduin is a fictional universe and fantasy role-playing system created in the mid 1970s by David A. Hargrave. It was perhaps the first "cross-genre" fantasy RPG, with everything from interstellar wars to horror and historical drama, although it was based primarily in the medieval fantasy genre.

Arduin was one of the earliest challengers to TSR's Dungeons & Dragons. It began as a personal project Hargrave created to share with friends, but became so popular that he was inspired to publish the material.

The original Arduin suite of supplements, dungeon modules, and gaming aids were initially self-published, but were then later produced by Grimoire Games. Dragon Tree Press produced four further Arduin supplements before the Arduin rights and properties were purchased by Emperor's Choice Games and Miniatures.

Although the Arduin books did not explicitly claim to be a Dungeons & Dragons supplement, they were treated as such by most users.

The first three Arduin tomes are known as The Arduin Trilogy. They are, in order, The Arduin Grimoire, Welcome to Skull Tower, and The Runes Of Doom.

The Arduin Trilogy contained unique new spells and character classes, new monsters, new treasures, maps, storylines, extensive demonography, and all sorts of charts and lists which detailed the Arduin "multiverse".""

Source: Wikipedia, "Arduin", available under the CC-BY-SA License.

A microbadge is available:

Arduin has several versions:

First version: Arduin Grimoire Volumes 1-9 (1-8 written and published by Hargrave, 9 written by Hargrave)
Basic version: "The Arduin Adventure" (written and published by Hargrave)

Second version: "Compleat Arduin" also known as Arduin II (as of the year 2023, Arduin II is no longer a supported system)

Third version: Arduin Eternal (2011) (as of the year 2023, Arduin Eternal is no longer a supported system and will be out of print in March 2023)

Fourth version: Arduin Bloody Arduin (an old school system in development starting in late 2022. As of early 2023 the system is nearly half
completed. Arduin Bloody Arduin will be very similar to the First Verssion as stated above and will appeal immensly to any player
of Old School RPG's). Many supplemental items have already been created for Arduin Bloody Arduin and will be released gradually
with the release of the system).

The various accessories and books from Compleat Arduin onwards are "inspired by" the work of Hargrave.

Arduin is supported with its own miniatures, maps etc.

For articles dealing with the first version of Arduin see Periodicals with Arduin Materials