Note: My copy of HarnWorld was a gift from my good friend Ludo (of God Learners infamy) who is a ginormous fan of Harn. His own review of the recent hardcover is on his personal blog here. Both Ludo and his co-host Joerg are lovely folks who for some inexplicable reason have put up with my nonsense on their podcast twice—so go show them some love!
When it comes to thorough, consistently detailed fantasy settings few are as famous—or infamous—as Harn. Published by Columbia Games, HarnWorld is the 40th-anniversary hardcover collecting key articles about the setting for established fans and newcomers alike. Included with the hardcover is a set of poster maps. One depicts the continent of Lythia, while the other shows the Harnic Isles, the focal region of the setting. Loosely analogous to the British Isles, Harn is an immensely detailed fragment of the larger world glossed over in HarnWorld.
Unusually for me, I’ve not read the entire volume before writing this review. Instead, I’ve read the “Harn,” “Lythia,” and “Kethira” articles, and made heavy use of the “Harndex” article while reading the other sections, in addition to some general skimming and topical exploration. I feel competent to have a reasonable opinion of the work, but want to leave this disclaimer for completeness.
That said, let’s take a look inside. Does Harn live up to its reputation?
What’s Inside?
HarnWorld includes four “articles” in the style of other Columbia Games products for the setting. Most physical products are not bound, but instead looseleaf articles for use in a binder. Thus, each gamemaster can compile an Encyclopedia Harnica which is relevant to their own game. While Harn is supported with its own game system—HarnMaster—all of the material in HarnWorld is system-neutral. The authors explicit intention is that the gamemaster may select the system which best pleases them.
No matter where you’re playing in the Harnic Isles, your Encyclopedia Harnica will probably include the foundation articles of HarnWorld: “Harn,” “Harndex,” “Lythia,” and perhaps “Kethira.” These articles, in that order, present the setting from the perspective of Harn’s feudal (and allegedly “semi”-civilized) society, with broader reference made to the nearby Lythian continent—loosely analogous to Eurasia—and the planet itself within its solar system.
As someone new to the setting, I felt slightly bemused about where to begin with HarnWorld. Like The Guide to Glorantha it is, ultimately, structured somewhat like an encyclopedia rather than a treatise. The intent is reference, not cover-to-cover reading. As a compilation of articles, HarnWorld retains the setting line’s system of numbering each article individually. The book does not have a table of contents or an index. Reference to different articles is instead made to the page of the article. The logic of this is that any gamemaster can thus reference the article wherever it happens to be in their personal Encyclopedia Harnica. However, in a hardcover this felt cumbersome; a mix of article and page numbers would have helped newcomers like myself, along with a table of contents describing the topics of the Harn, Lythia, and Kethira articles.
There’s 2 pages of intro matter, and then HarnWorld begins introducing the 9 settled or “civilized” cultures of the Harnic Isles. Local tribal cultures are mentioned more briefly, along with the gargun, Harn’s equivalent of an orc. Each culture has a 1-page summary. This pattern continues throughout HarnWorld. Most subtopics of a section are covered in either a page or a spread of pages, with minimal overlap onto subsequent pages.
The minimalist intro matter was, honestly, a hurdle. Once I got over that initial push into HarnWorld, I quickly came to admire the setting. Now, I really like worldbuilding, especially weird worldbuilding—we’ll get there—but this admiration goes beyond that. First off, HarnWorld is written very, very well. As a prose writer myself I can clearly see the careful, thorough attention required to present the setting’s detail. The text is, at turns, terse, easy to comprehend, and informative. Secondly, it is presented very cleanly. The presentation isn’t exactly “exciting,” but it’s not intended to be. HarnWorld didn’t grab me when I flicked through pages at random in the way that, for example, The One Ring 2E or The Islands of Sina Una did. Instead of being flashy, the presentation of HarnWorld is utilitarian. This downplays the art, and emphasizes being able to access information about the setting.
For most tabletop products, I would prefer a more flashy (or perhaps “engaging”) design. This design worked well for Harn, though, because it meshes well with the straightforward and informative text. In that regard, HarnWorld really does feel designed for gamemaster use. Once I understood the book’s structure, I did feel pretty capable of finding any piece of information I wanted to look up or reference.
The longest section of HarnWorld is the alphabetical “HarnDex” article. This article occasionally repeats information from “Harn,” but often includes additional detail. Many, many entries do not overlap with “Harn.” It was this index which really gave me my first glance at how fully the Harnic Isles have been detailed. This index is my first reference point when looking up any piece of information. If more than a few paragraphs is required (such as a culture or a religion), HarnDex then refers to the appropriate page of Harn, or to an article about that topic from Columbia Games.
The “Lythia” article is, naturally, less detailed than “Harn.” After all, the Lythian continent is significantly larger than the Harnic Isles. In particular, a great amount of detail is given to language families, including a fictional alphabet (though a cursory online search doesn’t find an officially published conlang). I found this article interesting, but was slightly disappointed by its “index” section. The purpose of Lythia’s index is to describe all named locations on the Lythia poster map. Well and good. My disappointment was that a few entries simply state the geographic location of the settlement on said map. For example, the city Narolis simply states “A city of the Karejian League.” Since most entries do have a short tidbit of flavor—for example, a trade good or ongoing conflict—those without were a small letdown.
Detail is even larger-scale in the “Kethira” article. The focus here is on physical description of the planet, including atmospheric and oceanic currents, and the tectonic plates. “Kethira” also places the planet within the Nolomar star system, with maps of the northern and southern sky, directions to find north via the constellations, and a gentle hint that there is, indeed, life on Mars.
As a work of creative worldbuilding, Harn is stunning. The world is not just clear and detailed, but also interesting. In particular—and this is very much a personal taste—I found myself intrigued by the setting’s metaphysics and history. Kethira is one world within a multiverse called Kelestia. This set of planets (or planes—the natives aren’t sure which) is loosely connected to one another. Access is possible through ancient gateways, some of which are defunct. In total, this cosmology combines elements of Greyhawk-style multiplanar universes, eldritch beings from other worlds, and the fairy rings well-known from our own medieval folklore, depending on which angle you look at the sum. A separate “Kelestia” article presumably goes into further detail.
HarnWorld itself presents the setting’s more magical elements in a slightly speculative manner so that the gamemaster has flexibility in the nature of their game’s fantasy. The standard fantasy pseudo-polytheism is present, but elevated with additional social and political detail. The reality of the divine is left to each gamemaster, but the reality of believers is detailed in a more satisfying way than most medieval fantasies.
The history of the Harnic Isles is short as fantasy settings go, focusing on about 700 years. As a bit of an amateur historian, I adored the complexity of historical movements in that period. HarnWorld really gets the granular verisimilitude needed to present “real” history. It does a good job showing how the modern political entities have relationships to the past—like the Papal States to imperial Rome—without making them simplistic.
I also found the nonhumans compelling. In particular, the orc-like gargun are absolutely horrifying, basically human-like termite colonies. But the other nonhuman species, though mentioned briefly, I still found compelling. The hru are analogous to giants. Like Tolkien’s trolls, they turn to stone in the sun. However, this is normal for them, like sleep. At night they travel, sing, and converse. They are people, not monsters. The combination of genuine horrors with mistaken monsters, plus Earthly analogues blended with unique Harnic descriptions creates a compelling fantasy.
Adventures in Harn
Yet is it compelling enough to play?
This was my primary thought, as I was finishing reading through the non-index articles. How do I play in Harn? The setting’s attention to detail has definitely made me a fan of the worldbuilding—I’m really looking forward to checking out more articles on magic in Harn—but, well, there’s a reason most medieval fantasies don’t go THAT hard in on feudalism. The setting’s compelling realism is strongly supported by a rigid social hierarchy, but that same hierarchy has made it tricky for me to think about how you go on fantasy adventures in Harn. After all, it’s clear that your usual band of misfits would get run out of town. There’s even a sidebar pretty much encouraging gamemasters to do so.
As a newcomer to the setting, I would find a system-neutral article on gamemastering Harn very useful. To me, an excellent example of this is the Mythic Babylon chapter “Campaigns in the Age of Hammurabi.” Published by Design Mechanism, Mythic Babylon is a historical fantasy setting for their D100 game Mythras (which I’ve actually reviewed here). This chapter is about campaign structure, adventure premises, and other tools to figure out how to utilize the book’s detailed setting. Something in a similar vein showing different reasons why a Harnic knight’s squire might adventure alongside a plucky serf and a studious apprentice sage would help ease into not just reading, but also playing this setting.
Enjoying the review? Curious about how I’d handle an adventure? The go check out The Queen’s Star—one of my adventures for Chaosium’s RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, in which the adventurers have to save the lost spirit of a star!
Production
As I’ve already implied, the graphic design of HarnWorld is very well done. Although simple, this is clearly an instance of intentional, masterful simplicity.
My first impression of HarnWorld‘s art was neutral. It didn’t stick out to me, but it’s hardly bad. The more I read—like the graphic design—the more impressed I became. HarnWorld‘s art is good because it meshes well with the setting’s attention to detail. For example, you can often pick out an illustrated character’s religion, guild, and social class visually. Obviously the dude in a brown smock is probably a serf, but when it comes to the use of guild emblems, chivalric heraldry, and other details I quickly became impressed. The illustrations are not, in my opinion, of superb quality, but they’re also fairly good. Their biggest merit, in my opinion, is how well they support the text.
In addition, the illustrations are quite frequent. Flicking back through the hardcover for about 30 seconds, I actually couldn’t find a spread which completely lacks illustrated elements. (I’m sure there is one, but still.) Much of this is portraits, castle maps, or heraldic emblems. Together, this gives a pervasively “medieval” feel to the book.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the cartography. Harn is, after all, well known for its attractive and detailed maps. These range from the poster maps which came with HarnWorld, to the “Atlas Harnica” maps of smaller regions, to maps of cities, and individual castles or even taverns. The regional maps aren’t present in HarnWorld, but HarnDex includes a variety of city and castle maps. If I played a game in Harn, I’d want to pick up the detail maps for the focal area, but I feel the HarnDex maps would be enough to get by if my players traveled to another region’s capital during an adventure. It’s a really nice touch, and helped intrigue me about what my own Encyclopedia Harnica would look like.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m very impressed with HarnWorld. It has a strong reputation as detailed but a bit abstruse. For me, HarnWorld has fulfilled the positive, but not the negative. The setting certainly is very detailed, but I think that its complexity is well-managed by editorial control over the text, illustration, and graphic design.
I suspect Harn’s reputation for being difficult to get into is based more on the lack of overt gamemaster support than on the nature of the setting. It’s not hard to spot story hooks from which to hang adventures or campaigns, but I’m still not entirely sure how to use the detail to create characters enmeshed in this detail. It’s a bit like having a beautiful painting. I’m more inclined to look at it, than to fiddle with it.
In and of itself, that’s not necessarily a bad quality. I suspect I’ll be returning to HarnWorld now and again in my own work. I want to study its structure, its presentation, to understand how the book clicks. While Harn might not top my list of compelling or intriguing settings, HarnWorld is pretty high up there on good books about good settings. Somewhere along the way, I’m probably going to look further into the world. That feeling of curiosity, of wanting more, from a book which already has so much, is for me the strongest indicator of its high quality.
HarnWorld (or its articles) are available in hardcover, looseleaf, or PDF from Columbia Games. The articles are also available in PDF on DriveThruRPG.
Until next week, then!
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