Where I Read HârnWorld, Part I: Welcome to Hârn

In 1996, I was introduced to the setting of Hârn, and I've been very fond of the setting ever since. It was a serendipitous combination of factors. I had a great gamemaster and good fellow players. I had come off almost fifteen years of playing mostly D&D and needed a change. I like maps, and Hârn had some great ones. And Hârn had a versimilitude that I hadn't really seen before in an RPG setting.

(I've never cared about "realism" as such, though Hârn certainly aspires to that, too; but I do like settings that have some internal consistency and "feel" real. I can roll with some niggling inconsistencies. As far as rulesets go, I care even less about realism, as such; no RPG is going to "realistically" model an actual combat, as far as I'm concerned.)

The heart of the setting is the island of Hârn, which is based, more or less, on various aspects of England between the 9th and 12th Century, though the land mass of Hârn is significantly larger than that of the British Isles. Most of the main kingdoms on the island are based around a feudal aristocracy, with knights and peasants; there's a corrupt, vaguely Romano-Celtic republic, and an unstable quarrelsome version of the Danelaw. As befits a setting that saw the light of day in the early 80's, there's a forested kingdom of Elves and a mountainous one of Dwarves - though the ruler of each has human vassals as well as non-human ones. Between the various kingdoms are lands populated by human tribes, the Gargun (Hârnic Orcs), and various other threats. There are henges, remants of an ancient culture; strange pyramids and dimensional portals left by the mysterious Earthmasters; and a bloody great pit, ostensibly inhabited by a god, from which all manner of monstrosities emerge.

"Gargun Attack" by Richard Luschek

Hârn isn't for everyone; much of it is low-fantasy, it's very detailed, and it cleaves too close to the "real world" for some. There are explicit ties to Middle-Earth (the Hârnic Elves, the Sindarin, are canonically from "Midgaad", the Hârnic term for Tolkien's world), which can make it feel derivative. And it still feels like a setting created for, and in reaction to, Dungeons & Dragons, with elves and dwarves, wizards and clerics, fighters and thieves. And it is, frankly, expensive for what you get; Hârn products are usually well-done, but they're pricey compared to comparable products for other game lines. I'm not sure anyone involved in Hârn is interested in marketing outside of the existing fanbase, to be honest.

(A quick note: Following a nasty dispute between N. Robin Crossby, the creator of Hârn, and Columbia Games, the game's publisher, Crossby started up his own company, Kelestia Productions. The dispute apparently remains unresolved, but both companies now produce Hârn products, though Columbia Games focuses more on the island of Hârn itself, while Kelestia Productions focuses on the game world outside of the island. Both companies also produce their own version of HârnMaster, the ruleset designed for use with the setting - HarnMaster 3rd for Columbia Games, and HarnMaster Gold for Kelestia - but the setting material is mostly rules-agnostic.)

But all that said, Hârn's still one of my favourite settings. Part of its appeal is unquestionably nostalgia. However, I also like the scale of the setting; it's very local, in the sense that the countries are quite small (the largest city on the island only has about 12,500 residents) and scattered. As I mentioned above, it has versimilitude; its "realism" is debatable, but it hangs together pretty well. And there is scope for a broad range of adventures, from a Game of Thrones-esque mud-and-blood campaign to wizardly intrigues to dimension-hopping via the Earthmaster sites. It is, admittedly, not really well-suited for grand epics, in my view; unlike Westeros, Hârn isn't a single kingdom so what happens in Kaldor stays in Kaldor won't have much impact on Kanday or Melderyn, for instance. But provided you're okay with that limited scale, there's a lot you can do with the setting.

I periodically drag out my Hârn stuff to leaf through, though I haven't actually played or run the setting for probably a decade now. I do liberally steal from Hârn for other games, though; both setting features and adventures (e.g. "100 Bushels of Rye" became "100 Koku of Rice" in a Legend of the Five Rings game) have made their way into games I've run.

Even so, I hadn't bought any new products for a long, long time. I have enough setting material to see me through, and the HârnMaster rule system just isn't for me anymore. But recent online discussions inspired me to buy the new (2014) version of the HârnWorld and HârnDex modules, in PDF. I don't get the full-size map of Hârn that way, but that's okay; I already have two laminated copies...

So I'm going to read through HârnWorld, and share my thoughts as I go. Let's get started!

First Impressions

Right off the bat, there's a problem. The HârnWorld PDF - or at least my copy - lacks the (IMO quite splendid) new cover for the paper copy.

Not a huge deal; it's not difficult to add a picture to a PDF. Still, it's a shame that CG doesn't let you know that this is the case. I was a bit disappointed.

Printed out, it makes a surprisingly slim booklet. It's only 60 pages, counting title page.

Stylistically, the new HârnWorld uses the same "article" format that other Hârn articles, with a heading bar on each page with the article title, page number, and topic within. The entire product in this case is comprised of the "Hârn" article, with a variety of topics such as "Religion", "Towns and Cities", and "Hârnic Guilds". Some pages have two columns, others have a single column with sidebar. It's clean and simple. Unlike the 2nd Edition HârnWorld module, this version has colour illustrations throughout, some of which are coloured versions of pictures from the previous edition, while others are new.

It retains the descriptive style of past editions. There are no snippets of fiction and precious few in-character quotes or explanations. I like that there's no fiction at the start - I've never found gaming fiction to be particularly good or useful - but a bit of in-character stuff can make the read a bit less dry. 

HârnWorld also maintains the campaign year as 720 in the Tuzyn Reckoning (720 TR); it's been a long-standing tradition that no Hârn supplement will move the timeline past 720 TR. Which has its up sides - there was no "Hârnic metapolot" in the metaplot-mad 90's, for instance. But it does also mean that you won't find an official supplement on how to run the Kaldor Civil War, for instance, which could, I think, make it a bit more difficult for new players to find a "hook" without reading the whole setting.

Cultures (Pages 1-13)

We start with a couple of maps. The first is a small version of the "poetic" map of Hârn. On the next page, there's a cultural/political map of the island. 

Under the poetic map, we get a brief introduction to the island. 

Hârn is a rough, hazy, forested island about 100 miles off the northwest coast of the continent of Lythia on the edge of the Haonic [not Hârnic, note] Ocean. It is a wild, dangerous land, where pockets of civilization are surrounded by large tracts of wilderness. It is a land of feudal kingdoms, religious turmoil, savage monsters, noble knights, beleaguered peasants, industrious craftsmen, barbarian tribesmen, and secretive wizards.

A sidebar describes geography (primarily about the large central lake and major rivers), weather and climate (maritime - cool summers, mild winters, and damp), vegetation (decidious forest and woodland, mostly), communications (Hârn suffers from rough seas, a lack of good roads, and general disdain from the continent), and calendar (12 months of 30 days each, so a Hârnic year is slightly shorter than the Terran one).

A nitpick - the main text notes that there are seven "civilized" human states on Hârn. I have never particularly cared for this term, as the term "civilized" has always had a lot of value judgment wrapped up in it. Plus I'm not sure that you can group five feudal kingdoms, a "pre-feudal" polity, and a "plutocratic republic" all into one "civilized" group. It's meant to contrast them with the eighteen "barbarian" or "tribal" nations on Hârn but the language is a bit dated. Anyway. The map itself is clear, showing the borders of the various kingdoms as well as the lands belonging to the various barbarian tribes.

(It's possible I'm overthinking the "civilized" thing; Legend of the Five Rings gets away with using the term gaijin, after all. But L5R makes it clear that's the perspective of the Empire. Here, it's just blithely phrased that way. It just feels very...80's.)

Anyway. Pages 3-11 detail the "civilized" nations of Hârn. Human tribal nations, the Gargun, and some "unique cultures" each get their own page later. In order, the main nations of Hârn are:

• Azadmere (Dwarven mountain kingdom);
• Chybisa (tiny - 8,000 people - feudal kingdom);
• Evael (Elven forest kingdom);
• Kaldor (large feudal kingdom, facing a succession crisis (again) and possible civil war (again);
• Kanday (overall-pretty-decent feudal kingdom with some unpleasant neighbours);
• Melderyn (the "Wizard's Isle", largest kingdom in Hârn, off the southeast coast);
• Orbaal (collection of squabbling domains ruled by Viking-type invaders);
• Rethem (overall-pretty-awful feudal kingdom, Kanday's unpleasant neighbour #1); and
• Thardic Republic (corrupt plutocracy, governed by a Senate; Kanday's unpleasant neighbour #2). 

Each nation gets a one-page summary with a related colour picture, as well as a sidebar that provides some pertinent details like population, largest town, exports, and the country's dominant religion, as well as a picture of the country's crest. The summaries are quite good, providing a bit of the "flavour" of each kingdom (Orbaal has a lot of racial tension between the governing Ivinian invaders and the native Jarin, for instance). But you'd really need the HârnDex to get beyond that level of detail.

Azadmere's Crest

Historically, one of the criticisms of Hârn has been the difficulty for new players in figuring out what they need to play. A brief perusal of Columbia Games' website reveals a bewildering array of supplements, ranging from kingdom supplements such as Kaldor and Evael to supplements about individual castles and settlements like Olokand Castle and City of Golotha, never mind the various supplements regarding the Harnic Orcs, Harnic Undead (like the good-looking chap below), and, er, Harnic Rabbits.

 

A Gulmorvrin, a form of Harnic Undead

Columbia Games addresses this concern in the new HârnWorld by adding a listing of "related products" in the sidebar for each country. Azadmere's sidebar, for instance, includes the products Azademere Kingdom Module, Sorkin Mountains, Silver Way, Kiraz, and Nasty, Brutish and Short: The Orcs of Hârn. This is a good move overall, I think, but the down side is that it feels a bit like reading a catalogue or ad copy. Given Columbia Games' sales model, however - publishing numerous modular articles rather than bound books - this kind of list is really almost a necessity. And indeed Columbia Games says as much on the very first page of  HârnWorld:

With all this detail, HârnWorld can seem overwhelming to newcomers. But don't worry, you don't need everything we've published to get started. The descriptions of the Hârnic kingdoms in this module will give you a taste for each and should spark ideas of the kinds of adventures they are best suited for. Just pick one and dive into the related supplements. Use what fits your game, change what doesn't. Above all, enjoy exploring Hârn!

What this means is that it would take a lot of work to run a campaign with HârnWorld on its own. There isn't enough detail in here to make sense of the map, for instance. (It is described as a "general overview" in its product listing, in fairness.) At the very least, you need the HârnDex to provide the necessary details about various kingdoms, gods, personages, and so on. Without it, you'd have to flesh out the bare bones of HarnWorld on your own.

Again, I make no judgment on Columbia Games' business model - it seems to be working for them - but I can't help but think that a new player might be turned off by what is, in effect, advertising for other supplements in the natural first module purchased. It also doesn't help that HârnWorld shows up in the middle of all the product listing on CG's website - though the interactive map might make it easier to find. The 2nd Edition HârnWorld module had both HârnWorld and HârnDex bundled together; it doesn't make much sense to buy HârnWorld on its own, in my opinion.

In any event - that's it for this post. Next, Gargun, Governments, and Guilds!