Encyclopedia Harnica

Game Review

reviewed by John T. Sapienza, Jr.

By N. Robin Crossby and others
Columbia Games Inc. P.O. Box 810, West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V57 4C9 Canada P.O. Box 8006, Blaine, WA 98230
Released: Cities of Harn (1983) Encyclopedia Harnica, Volumes 1-10 1984)
Catalog No. 5002 Price: $12.00 (Cities of Harn)
Catalog Nos. 6001-6010 Price: $6.00 (individual volumes), $60.00 (12-issue subscription)
Complexity: Intermediate
Solitaire Suitability: None
*****

Harn is not a game and it is not a scenario pack. Harn is one of the most impressive attempts I have seen to commercially publish a detailed and convincing world in which roleplaying characters would live and adventure. The master module ($20.00) gives you a large, detailed map of an island 750 x 400 miles, an overview book outlining its culture, economy, and religions, and a reference book which combined with the overview of hundreds of years of past history gives the Gamemaster (GM) a ready-made set of ideas for generating scenarios.

Cities of Harn was published as a supplement to the master module, but technically it is really the first volume of the Encyclopedia Harnica (EH), and thus is included in this review. Harn gave you the basics to start; the EH is an ambitious project to fill in the most interesting details, piece by wellorganized piece. Each volume is sold as a stapled booklet of 20 pages that must be taken apart into sections. These are to be punched and inserted into a three-ring binder in alphabetical order. Gamers who do this will have a real encyclopedia, one that will continue to grow month by month as you add new material.

Columbia Games is not the first company to publish a product intended to be handled this way (Thieves' Guild from Gamelords Ltd. is an example), but EH is the first world so published. I wish more companies publishing products in pieces would adopt the same system of providing expandability combined with organization this way. The ability to put future expansions of existing materials in with the originals gives the buyer a more workable set of materials. EH shows this ability off by publishing some of its articles spread over two volumes, with the continuing pages numbered as an expansion of the first section.

The components of the EH are of high quality. Each book includes a set of maps printed in color in the center pages. This raises the cost, but it also gives the buyer considerable satisfaction at owning something nicer to look at than the usual game aids. EH provides you with two and sometimes three versions of the maps: There is a color version to show to the players, there often is a black and white version that you can copy and hand out to the players, and there is another black and white version with the contents codes and with certain items the GM knows, but the players have to discover, printed in.

You are paying for this convenience, but 1 think it's a fair price for quality. In addition to the regional or local maps, there are usually drawings of locations and sketch maps of odd features, plus drawings of each level of interiors of buildings. The only thing that is of less than ideal quality is the way the text and interior tables and illustrations are printed. Brown ink on tan paper is legible but not as easy to read as black on white. But this is a minor quibble.

Each volume of the EH is divided into three sections. There is usually an article on a place and its people, as a specific source of scenario ideas. There is a section of the Atlas Harnica providing maps for the preceding article showing the place described, and the area of Harn in which it is located.

And there is a second main article on some topic of general interest, such as law, economics, or a culture on Harn. Each volume begins with a page of introduction and comments from the company on current and future plans for the series, and generally closes with a page or two of data tables listing specific places within an area, their owner, acreage, land quality, special features, and the like. On the other hand, they make a point of telling you that they don't expect everyone to use everything published. The point to the EH is to be a source to choose from in building one's personal role-playing campaign.

Cities of Harn is set up differently. This 32-page book consists of an article on cities and how to use them, an article on each of the seven major cities on Harn, including full sets of maps. You really need this "Volume 0" of the EH, because here is where you acquire the keys to the interior drawings for the series. The front cover contains reduced color maps of all seven at once, for quick reference.

Each city article tells you what country it is in, its legal status, its form of government, its population, economic conditions, a short history, what religions are established, tolerated, or forbidden there, and the names and titles or occupations of the principal people of that city. It provides a key to major buildings in the city, with their functions and importance. There is also a detailed write-up of five, typical city buildings, providing the GM with a sample inn, guildhall, temple, thieves' guildhole, and arena, with contents.

It would have been impossible to do any city in detail in so small a volume (Gamelords' city of Haven required three volumes), and this gives only an outline to each city. That is quite in keeping with the stated purpose of the product, however. Columbia Games in tends this to give the GM a framework on which to build, adding personal invention to mold the cities to fit personal preference. The book provides two invaluable aids to the GM, the maps and the lists of names of persons for the players characters (PC's) to encounter. I never could invent good names on the .spot when the players said they simply had to visit a crafter or merchant, and EH is a lifesaver on that, providing existing names and locations for members of all the usual guilds in each city. That alone is worth the price.

The ten volumes I have of the EH contain simply too much to review in detail. I will list the major contents to give you an idea of what Columbia Games is publishing, and then comment on certain items.

EH1

The Khuzdul (dwarf) culture and history on Harn, and the city of the dwarves.

EH2:

This begins a major series detailing the Kingdom of Kaldor in central Harn, starting with a piece on one of the Earthmaster ruins in that region. There is also an article on the structure of law and order on Harn.

EH3:

A royal castle in Kaldor. And an article on the economics of running a manor, and fief management in detail (in case any player ends up with one and you need to know how to manage medieval economics).

EH4:

A piece on an inn and village on the Salt Route through Kaldor. And an article on Kelestia (the system of magically connected worlds that affected Harnic history).

EH5:

A ruined city, capital of a Conquering lord important to the history of Harn. And an article on pricing goods.

EH6:

A walled town in Kaldor. And an article on the Earthmaster Godstones.

EH7:

Part one of the article on the astronomy of Harn and the astrology based on it. Also an article on heraldry with materials for creating coats of arms for your campaign's needs.

EH8:

The conclusion of the astrology article, and an article on the history, politics, and clans of Kalclor, and the coats of arms of those clans.

EH9:

A piece on an ancient Sindarin (elfish) fortress and its current residents. Also a piece on herblore, and an article on a primitive people on the borders of Kaldor.

EH10:

An article on one of the small kingdoms of Harn, and a piece on its royal castle and town, with a genealogy of the royal clan.

This variety of materials has an underlying purpose and theme. Harn is based on historical materials, specifically Britain from the 9th to the 14th centuries, on which much information is available. For the gamer unfamiliar with the real medieval period, the EH gives articles on major useful topics such as how to run such a society's economics, justice, and politics. The articles are intentionally simplified but wellwritten treatments of each topic.

Harn is also a magical world. So the EH is divided roughly into one-third historical materials, one-third fantasy topics, and one-third mixed materials. There is a distinct Tolkien influence on Harnic history, with elves and dwarves and an ancient war with a mad sorcerer who imported the equivalent of orcs onto Harn to be his armies. This bothered me as I read the Harn master module. But after reading the expansions on this topic in EH4 and EH5, I admired the clever way Columbia Games adapted a masters fantasy into their own terms.

Columbia Games has borrowed from all over in providing sources of wonder on Harn. There is the theme of the Ancient Race, for example, that preceded humanity in the world and whose ruins still contain evidence of remnants of power. These are called the Earthmasters on Harn, and scattered around Harn are pillars called the Godstones. At times, the stones change color and can be stepped through, to places unknown. The article on the stones relates to the Kelestia article, for the Godstones not only permit passage around Harn from pifiar to pillar, but also offworld to other planes. The Kelestia is a well-structured basis for transportation magic and would be worth examination even for GMs who do not use Harn as the basis for their campaigns.

A lot of the pieces from the EH are good enough to borrow, even if vou don't want to use the world itself in your game. But as the volumes of the EH continue to come out, one every month, they present an accumulating argument for adopting the world as well as its details as the basis for your fantasy role-playing campaign. The Encyclopedia Harnica was a nominee for H.G. Wells Award for Best RolePlaving Adventure, 1984, at this vear's ORIGINS.

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© Copyright 1986 by Dana Lombardy.
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