Preview's advantage is speed and simplicity. Reader is still needed for more sophisticated stuff.

That having been said, while I could view the images in the compressed version, the 24MB version images look a lot better in Preview.

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The Melderyn Campaign

Fantastic work guys. Really wish I didn't read it though, would have loved to play it .

Beautiful piece of work

Cheers,
De Coucy

Visually very good.

Location descriptive text is adequate, and extensive.

The adventure itself is thin, with thin characters.

I got the feeling that playing the backstory, i.e. Bognor & his companions doing the fatal research, would have been way more interesting than rambling through forest (traps), meeting arbitrary by-passers (monsters, some of them intelligent monsters), searching through terrain (dungeon) and possibly finding some scrolls (magic items). This is a classical Old School "outdoors" Dungeon, very good for a 70s module, but they're a legion, very easily usable on Hârn.

Obviously, I'm not in the group this adventure was written for. But I'm looking forward to read through that setting material.

So, thanks.

Well, I 'aint reading it as I will be playing it (rare occurence for me!); but now I know the basic plot, thanks to Illka.

Maybe I should have stayed away form here until I had played it

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I could have done with this as a resource last week when I ran an adventure on Bognor's Island. Not disimmilar with what I ran (I had Valdris trying to keep the players out of Bognor's sanctum - mainly because apart from a roughly sketched map of the tree interior I had nothing prepared). All good as the players are wanting to come back.

One to do a deal with Valdris, the other with axes and fire. Should be good fun.

Thanks guys

Oh, Illka. Any adventure written by anyone else is thin. What gives an adventure depth is the relationships established in the campaign. If I were to recount any adventure I ever ran, you would say it was comically thin. Gossamer, even. Only if I prefaced it with the hours of exposition necessary to put the adventure in the context of the campaign it was in would it seem to have any heft. And even then it would have only a fraction of the impact that it had in actual game play.

Now, if a GM were to use this exactly as is, without any development of the context, it surely would be thin gruel. But I imagine that most GMs will take the necessary steps to fully integrate the adventure into their campaign and give the adventure the depth it needs.

Pokep makes a good point, but most fanon adventures written for Harn are generally pretty thin, at least relative to other published gameworlds/systems. That's partly by necessity, I think, but also probably because the original canon stuff tended to be somewhat sparse and later writers have emulated that. That said, I think that's one of the things that makes fanon useful, as it eases the tailoring for any specific campaign.

One question: what is the meaning of the charts at the back referring to the books found in Bognor's library? They list various skills appropriate to the work and then a range of skill level for each. I don't have my Harn stuff with me (still in A-stan) but I couldn't recall any charts like that before. Are they required levels for understanding the text? Bonuses gained from reading it? Something else entirely?

PaladinSix

Yes, those rules are found in the Tomes & Scrolls article, along with a number of examples. Basically, they indicate the ML range that can be opened/improved by reading the book. Thus, if the book lists a skill with "ML10-40", it means that it's pretty introductory; the reader could open the listed skill (provided their SB was at least 10) and/or it could be improved if it didn't exceed ML40. After that, the reader wouldn't gain much from the book, at least not for that skill. Some skills have higher ranges ("ML40-99", for example) which indicate that the reader needs at least ML40 to understand the concepts and thus get any benefit, but even an expert can learn something new from reading it.

Re-read through all the articles with more time. The deltas are very well described. More information on the functions of the different groups (especially the refugees and the pirates) would be better still. What are their goals? How are they achieving these goals? If the number of the pirates varies between 10-100, where do the rest go - is there essentially a pirate or two in every local village? How does this influence the relationship between the pirates and the villages? Assuming the pirates rob something of value not useful for themselves, where do they sell their spoils, and for who? If all of this happens in the easternmost settlement, is it essentially a pirate hold? What does the lord of Lorkin think about this?




Sorry Peter, if you feel I spoiled your enjoyment, but really, almost all fanon adventures for Hârn have been dungeons, so that you can pretty much expect that basic structure. I gave out nothing. Had I said "a typical Hârn fanon adventure", I would have said as much, but given less feedback for the heroes who still want and try to make the setting alive. Which is, I think, the only meaning of this subforum.




Nope, I have read much more fully round adventures, with interesting in-depth character descriptions that lead into character immersion and playing. They're rare, though, and most of them come as "freeforms" or "larps", with emphasis on characters, not locations.



I fully agree.



Putting words into my mouth before I get to say anything about your adventures? Try me.



Sounds good. With some economy, that should fit the typical 48-64 pages.



In my experience, it's easier to write adventures myself than to try to integrate these repetitive go-there-do-this dungeons into any campaign. Most Hârn (or generic fantasy) locations tend to be so unique, special and dangerous, that you need to have those vast wildernesses to separate them from places where ordinary people are supposed to live. Thus: travel to find the dungeon adventure. Juicy local characters with imminent local problems leading to drama would be actually easier to include into campaigns than new and far-flung locations.

I understand this is more about playing styles and tradition than an objective appraisal of "good roleplaying adventures". But I felt somebody should write something about the adventure, not just one-liners or simple questions. I came up with some critics because I felt that way. I'm not surprised that someone nags on this, it happens always here. I'd be interested to hear what "good", "beautiful" and "fantastic" mean, and how people are thinking of using this adventure & setting for their benefit.

-ile

And in this you were wrong. It's fanon. It's free. Just smile and nod, just like when your dotty old aunt makes you a sweater with one arm longer than the other.

And "fantastic" means, "Gawddamm, I wish I had the skill to put something like this together." You should learn these words - they are useful in all kinds of situations. As my wife is constantly telling my kids, "Just be sweet."

I was only joshing. However; now I KNOW it is only an outside dungeon...what if I had been half expecting an exposition on the inner turmoils and travails of trying to appreciate the wonders of love and life whilst trying to scrape a living in a brutal hierarchical system??? Now I know I am not going to get that Well, you never know, I might have been

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Indeed. Whilst I am sure Ilkka did not wish to appear ungrateful....he did Maybe it is an internet thing.

However, one should not wish to stifle an honest critique either; and Illka's response does provide more information than the platitudes of the happy folk

Maybe two threads should be born for new fanon...one for thank-you and one for critiques....

Failing that perhaps the use of 'Thank you' followed by 'but' or 'however' as a preface could be recommended

But...Ilkka did say it it was 'Visually very Good'; so it would be a disservice to caricature his response as purely negatively critical

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Ahem, just what do you mean exactly by this phrase? Is this harsh critique disguised as sweetness? Are the authors of Bognor's Folly dotty and have they delivered a product that is wanting?!??!

Never mind, I'm just kidding you

OTOH, this is probably a good example of the benefits of forthrightness in comparison to politeness.
Even if it's only fanon (Yes, that too is in your paragraph), the authors might benefit from honest critique, don't you think?

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

To me, saying any fanon is good, and thanks for the work, has selfish motives. For me the Fanon is a bit light on the ground at the moment (and yes I know I could write some, but not lets go there), so by sounding thankfull, I hope to encourage others to put some out there.
I hope by grovelling, I can get more.
By the way (and to clarify the 'not lets go there') a friend and myself did write a two part adventure, but I wrote the main text for it on an old English computer companies system, and then lost that computer. I scanned the entire thing, and sent it to Joe Adams to see about putting it a Thornahexus, but he did not seem interested. It was an open air wilderness adventure with a political intrigue free form end (lashings of maps). It was well playtested, but he had some reservations about the major enemy, and I was not willing to re-write. It was played over two years at the Camberra gaming convention, and I even caught up with a artist who loved Harn, who had some art work published in a Columbia adventure.
He provided me some original art work, one piece I think ended up in Joe's, Knights of Kaldor.
So I suppose the gist of all this is to say, each of us has our own fanon, and sometimes if we appear gratefull some of this may see the light of day.
Allan

For what it's worth:

I didn't take any offense at Ilkka's comments. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but he's certainly entitled to his opinions and free to express them, sweetly or not. As far as I'm concerned, he's welcome to provide feedback. That said, he's probably quite correct in that he isn't in the group it was written for. I'm not sure what group that is, exactly, because I was aiming for a general appeal, but clearly it's not quite his cup of tea. I had no expectations of pleasing everyone, however, and am fully prepared to hear criticisms as well as compliments.

Ilkka, you mentioned adventures that you preferred. Do you have any examples that would give me a sense of comparison? It would help me decide what (if any) changes I'd make in future fanon.

Without getting into details (for those who are intending to play), the purpose of the adventure pages (as stated on the back cover blurb) was to provide a synopsis including suggestions for various ways the GM can tailor the material to suit their needs. It's organized into general categories (lead-ins, the journey, conflicts, and resolutions), but I had no intention of defining a set path for the GM to follow. I would expect that most GMs will read through this, perhaps adopt a few bits they like, introduce a few of their own, and run the game that best suits them and their players. The two FFF characters were included as a matter of convenience for the GM, but anyone who uses them will likewise need to give some thought to how they fit in (or don't) with the needs of their group. There's only so much that fits with the FFF format. In the case of Ardeth, he's adopted from the canon character mentioned in Tomes & Scrolls, fleshed out with the help of that piece's author (Matt Roegner). Callan was included as a way for a busy GM to quickly reinforce a PC group that is lacking some of the skills most helpful in this adventure. Who's after Ardeth? Whoever you want. It's your game; I'm just offering suggestions.

The original version, by the way, was written as three acts, with a specific plot dealing with Esobran's pirates and the tensions of Lorkin. It quickly became apparent that for that to work, I would either need to provide a cast of characters*, or make a lot of assumptions about the GM and players. Neither seemed very appealing to me.

(* At HârnCon, we used the "Lorkin" FFF characters based on Firefly, which was great fun, but I wanted this to be more adaptable to individual campaigns.)

Anyway, thanks for the comments so far and feel free to offer any more. Politeness is appreciated, but not required. I'll do my best to answer any specific questions. I'd invite Sablefox and bbailey to jump in if they like, especially where Anoth Delta is concerned.

Beyond that, I'll back off and let y'all get back to arguing about Ilkka's comments.

Thanks,

Brent (bbailey) may wish to respond re: the Marsh dwellers, but I'll offer my take on the pirates.

Esobran's band tends to vary in size depending on the relative fortunes of the surrounding communities. If the harvest is bad, or if their Ivinian overlords are particularly oppressive, the band may swell for a while. Other times, it's a fairly small core group. There is definitely a relationship between the pirates and the local villages. There is also a relationship between the pirates and the lords of Arone, although this is not advertised. Although Esobran also deals with the Jarin rebels, he's not a patriot. He's out for profit; it's just that the ripest targets are often Ivinian. In this, he's not that different than the Hulthards of Arone, who are happy to offer refuge to the pirates in exchange for a cut of the profits. This is, of course, not the way Taarbri Geldestaar of Lorkin sees things, and if the Hulthards' involvement ever becomes known, it could make for "interesting times" in Arone.

Exactly how the pirates fit into the local economy is deliberately left open to the GM, but I presented two possible options. One has a well-hidden pirate stronghold somewhere in the delta (see Thonahexus #2 for this interpretation). The other has "Port Esobran" being a itinerant floating marketplace for the stolen goods. In either case, with so many of the pirates being of Jarin descent, a lot of the booty inevitably finds its way back into the economies of the villages, so there's a tacit support from most of the Jarin.

First off, let me preface my comments with this:

Thank you for this module.

Now to my comments:

What I believe may be the issue here is that "I" expect more information than what is presented. Even when it comes to official releases from our 2 main companies, I want more than they offer. I want the detail, the background, the intrigue, the stories, the characters etc. I want to see more info than I would ever use. Okay, that's not true, I "hope" to see more info than I would ever use.

In short, the more detail you can provide to me, for use by me in my world, the better.

Perhaps I've grown accustomed to being spoiled with massive works that cover every facet of an area, perhaps I've grown prehistoric in my approach to seeing what the work is, and accepting it for what it can add to my world.

I think about these issues when I d/l a module/buy it and then sit down to read it. Then I take a deep breath, open it and absorb the data given.

All the above aside, here is what I think:

I absolutely love the look and the module does provide the necessary background needed for a gm to adapt it into their P-Harn campaign easily. The area covered provides me with enough info - and this is important - gives me specific places to look in official works for the data NOT covered. This was a huge bonus and something I'd like to see every fanon module/article from this point do in the future. Kudos!

I love the layout, the graphics and the map. I like how every section covers important details, and the overall feel of this module is well done. Each and every person involved should be proud of their work.

Would I have liked more detail?, Sure, but this module serves its purpose well, and gives me the basis for a plot/adventure and the bottom line is - it is a Harn product.

That is always a good thing!

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"Honor is earned through the balance of peace and harmony, yet to the Master all eyes are open to possibilities".

Silverleaf 1981

A brief comment from the former Harn Review Factory...

From my quick read, looks like a solid 'Dungeon Crawl' type scenario. Like The Earls Progress it makes good use of existing Canon/Fanon material.

I'll post more detailed comments in a few days.

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'Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Halea, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!'

Trad.

Thanks for these articles, Krazma & co. Good stuff!

I was just wondering about how you incorporated the previous articles in Thonahexus 2. Did you start from this information and build on it, or did you write the area as you saw it and then 'retrofit' so as not to contradict the old information too much

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"...blogging is literary pole dancing."
Robin Hobb

Thanks!

We tried to build on the previous articles wherever possible, but I suppose a little retrofitting went on as well. There were places where I definitely had a different interpretation, but I wanted to avoid any overt contradictions. For instance, I presented two versions of "Port Esobran" as possibilities (one essentially being the Thonahexus version) so that GMs could choose which version best suited them.

Krazma,

Thanks for clarifying some aspects of the Delta pirates.

-ile

Thank you.
We cannot ever have too many Harn adventures published, free or otherwise.

Please give us more!

I dont care if the adventure is a dungeon crawl, exploration of an exotic locale, or whatever...
Ill take it! (Even if I never use it....)

I completely agree. This is excellent and we me need more adventures like this.

Ilkka, I would be interested to know examples of any module/scenario that hold up to your meter? I think most of us have problems finding really good scenarios, and so any pointers to where one can purchase such rare beasts most appreciated.

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Anders Bersten, Kingdom of Sweden.
"Better to die at sea than as a cow in the barn"