Arduin Week - 2020 - Day Five

To begin Day Five of Arduin Week 2020 let us begin with another item from our anonymous guest artist and his tribute to Dave Hargrave and Arduin.

Phraint vs. Vroat (1979) by Erol Otus (from The Howling Tower)

DEDICATION

FEBRUARY 1977
I am deeply indebted to many people, without whom many of the ideas on these pages would have died stillborn. It has been a long, long year of trial and trouble, but made easier by friends both old and new. This supplement is dedicated to them certainly and with heartfelt gratitude, but it is also to those characters that lived, loved, and died in pursuit of loot and glory that my true dedication goes.  

Koryu, leader of the forty-seven Ronin; Elric the Hell-Lost; Daniel the True Defender of the Dreaming Isles; Jothar, Champion of the House of the Rising Sun and Baron of the Realm; Kazamon, the Ring Bearer, Hobbitt and changeling; Benk the Benighted; Hamal Assad’s Twelfth Lancers; Mithrom, bandit turned demon; Mogadore, the drunken Dwarf; Zorella, Amazon leader of the doomed Hell Raid; Lasuli, Elven and unafraid; Fredrick the Bold, slayer of Smaug and Sauron; Bolo Mark Nine, destroyer of a dungeon and near slayer of an entire world; the Seven Spartans and their never broken shield wall; Talso the grim Mage; all of you are forever graven in the iron legends that will forever follow your steps through Alternity. 

To you and the shades of near four hundred dead, I lift a tankard of Rumble Tummy’s ale in respectful salute. Without all of you I could never have dreamed my dreams of glory, nor beheld the beauty of the Misty Mountains of Arduin.

CHARACTER AGING

No thought is usually given to player characters aging during prolonged or campaign game play. In Arduin, however, we believe in reality, and so have devised an aging system that is simple, fair, and playable; here it is.

For each 10% of maximum life span left a character has after he reaches his majority, that character will lose 1 point off of his Strength, Dexterity, Agility, and Constitution. Fighters and others who lead an active and hard life (such as Shao Lin Monks, Ninja, etc.) loose those points only after 15%, and those who lead soft, weak lives (Psychics, Courtesans, Alchemists, Sages, etc.) loose them after only 5%. Please see the example below.

A Half Elf Mage has a life span of 1,000 years, and reaches his majority after 40 years. Thus every 10% of 960 years (those remaining), he would lose 1 point each off his Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, and Agility.

However, no character may ever lose more than half of his/her points through natural aging. Elves and other immortals age 1 year in appearance and loose those points after only each 1,500 years. Characters may, of course, use magikal or other artificial means to restore (or keep from losing) those points.