How to read and interpret Hârn?

Ilkka Leskelä, © 2006 (ileskela@hotmail.com)

Disclaimer: This is a derivative work discussing Hârn or Hârn World, originally created by N. Robin Crossby. No assertion of copyright to Hârn or Hârn World is made by producer or the publisher of this work.

1. Introduction

Hârn has been written and published mostly in the 1980s. The later publications add very little to the general picture, and the new trend seems to be republishing of old works with added formal detail, but with only little added substance. To a great degree, this policy is based on the understanding that the publications of the 1980s should not be overwritten – that they present a “Hârn-canon” that is Hârn.

But the Hârniac “canonism” seems to forget that all “canonical” works are constantly interpreted, and older interpretations are not automatically better than the more recent ones, but merely older. Thus the Hârniac “canonism” is conservative, and to a degree defensive. While those who have invested on Hârn publications will invariably interpret them as they like, the Hârniac “canonism” is one of the central nominators of the Hârniac community, and has a central effect on how Hârn is interpreted. Hârn enthusiasts are regularly confronted with conflicting interpretations of the Hârn publications, and frequently one or the other interpretation is coined as deviation from the “canon”. This is an interesting phenomenon, worth of study.

In the following, I try to chart out some ways of interpreting the Hârn publications. I will first discuss the way the creators of Hârn wanted to present the world. Secondly, I will discuss the way the “canonist school” tends to read and interpret Hârn, and the problems “canonism” leads into. Thirdly, I will present my own reading of the Hârn publications as one example of the myriad ways of interpreting Hârn.

My goal is not to discover one “true” way of reading and interpreting the Hârn publications. I write mostly for myself in order to understand what Hârn is generally thought to be, and where I myself stand when related to the general discussion. Especially the older Hârn enthusiasts will surely find strange and naive interpretations in the following. But to avoid future conflicts and disappointments, and to promote mutual understanding and inspirational discussions, I propose that all Hârn enthusiasts would take some time to conceptualize their premises in reading and interpreting Hârn.

2. Goal of the creators: “All the fantasy you want, and all the realism you need”

Hârn was created as a fantasy roleplaying game world during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. This fact binds it into the cultural genres of fantasy, roleplaying games and world building. For an inter-textual analysis of the goals of the creators, it is important to understand that the time around the year 1980 saw several similar projects, all of them claiming originality, all of them claiming to be better than the others, all of them aiming to become financial successes. Hârn entered – and succeeded to establish itself – in a rapidly filling scene which was both expanding and settling, and trying to understand itself at the same time.

In retrospect, it is almost funny to see how close to each other all the “original” and “better” games and game worlds were. Nearly all of them narrowly followed the sword-and-sorcery style fantasy with warrior heroes, scheming magicians, and human-like (and often malicious) gods. Many had also ripped from Tolkien the idea of elder races and strange languages. All the game systems aimed to be “real”, i.e. to simulate life in general – but especially combat – in ways that created possible and likely outcomes but allowed also spectacular “critical successes” and “botches”. The central battle ground for realism was between the level-based and skill-based systems. This struggle for “realism” was tightly bound to the gamers’ subculture, to the dreams of adolescent boys, to the world-views of players of tactical war-games who had gone “in-character”.

Definitely, it was a magical time, and the RPGs were a stunning new medium.

From the start on, HârnWorld was marketed to the public as a “real fantasy world”, the reality supposedly based on medieval England. In the year 1983, N. Robin Crossby (NRC) wrote in his Introduction to HârnWorld: “Even the best environment and rules will not survive the misjudgements of a bad GM, but they can make a talented rookie shine.” (Quotes from the 1990 edition.) Here we find the aforementioned claim typical to the era: it is implicitly suggested that HârnWorld is the best environment for fantasy RPGs (and the little later published HârnMaster is the best rules-system).

Perhaps even more importantly, NRC stressed that “a good environmental framework is a painstaking endeavour that takes many, many years of blood and sweat to create.” Clearly this statement implies that the creators should be appreciated for the painstaking work they have done, for the “blood and sweat” that has gone into the creation of HârnWorld. We learn that the creation of HârnWorld had taken some thirty man-years, and the description took more than one million words. For the emerging RPG-writers of the early 1980s the hunger for respect was often immense, as these (young) adults had invested much of their time into writing and editing something that was not generally appreciated in the literary circles. They were not publishing only because they had some nice ideas or because it was fun – they were desperately trying to carve a social and economic niche for themselves.

This attitude still lives in the RPG world, and also among the Hârn enthusiasts who invest enormously on writing the fan products, as we will see in the next chapter.

The hallmark of HârnWorld was and is claimed to be “realism”. The meaning of the word “realism” in relation to HârnWorld, and the reason for such strive, are revealed in the following quotes from NRC: “All works of fantasy should be woven of familiar threads. Because it is impossible to entirely describe an alien world, readers must be able to fill in the gaps with their own knowledge and experience”, and: “This world operates under the same physical laws and social dynamics as medieval Terra.” This philosophy was and is nothing new in the RPG worlds: not counting the magic, all of them follow the Terran physical laws, and the very concept of fantasy is strongly embedded in the visions the writers and readers have of medieval Europe, and to a lesser degree of the “lost civilisations” of antiquity.

But the mentioning of the social dynamics of medieval Terra starts to draw a line between HârnWorld and other RPG worlds. Most RPG worlds of the early 1980s did not aim to present credible socio-economic systems. To this should be added that “outlandish beasts with strange powers and strange esoteric phenomena exist in HârnWorld, but they are carefully blended with medieval reality.” This sentence is fleshed out (on Hârn 1): “While Hârn contains unique cultures and creatures, its closest historical equivalent is 9th-14th century Britain. Elements from this entire period may be found and, with the exception of the unique elements described, the GM may use this historical era as a model.”

It becomes apparent that the “reality” of HârnWorld is strongly connected to the real conditions on medieval Terra, especially those on medieval Britain. The pains taken to describe the life of ordinary men (peasants and guildsmen) in HârnWorld are remarkable, and the basic socio-economic data in the form of sub-infeudation charts and manorial acreages, land quality, numbers of households, local economics and taxes, etc., is taking a major portion of the Hârn publications. This kind of detail and data cannot be found in any other RPG setting.

But how should be this “real” socio-economic data used in the actual game? NRC writes: “Only an environment that is fundamentally rational can give the feeling that one is involved in an epic”, and: “HârnWorld was specifically created for roleplaying as opposed to dragon-bashing.” It seems that the socio-economic data was meant to be used in creation of epic games that would see the characters taking part in this socio-economic setting instead of destroying it.

However, the somewhat later introduction for HârnMaster (I) seems to lay stress on exploring and adventure, and the character creation explicitly leads the player characters away from the rural and agricultural lives typical to most Hârnians. In the published adventures, the trend seems to lean still more heavily on adventure, mystery-solving, monster-bashing and even dimension-hopping. In addition we see that Hârn is not low-magic but rather magic-rare. The question of how these facts and attitudes fit into the medieval socio-economic reality of Hârn is not even asked.

If we return to the maxim of this chapter, “all the fantasy you want, and all the realism you need”, we might conclude that HârnWorld was in the end written to allow generic fantasy adventures to take place in detailed scenery, but the scenery itself was not meant to have a central role in the gaming experience. It seems that the potential reader was not expected to need very much of the realism. It is somewhat unclear why the effort of creating HârnWorld was needed for the gaming stance presented in HârnMaster. Perhaps this was unclear to the creators themselves. More recently, NRC has tried to describe his ideas about roleplaying in Hârn, but the relation between socio-economic data and roleplaying experience still remains somewhat confused. [See: Introduction to Hârn and Hârnmaster) ]

However, all of this is not very relevant for the reading and interpretation of Hârn, because the ideas and goals of the creators need not be, and frequently are not, followed.

3. The Right Way: Canonism

Hârniac canonism can be taken to mean literal reading of the Hârn publications. This would however be very simplistic, as the Hârn publications are not totally concise, and often do not go very deep into the setting. The reader is expected and even encouraged to further detail and create his version of Hârn. The notion that Hârn’s closest historical equivalent is 9th–14th century Britain gives huge possibilities for conflicting interpretations and importations. Also, as the whole of Hârn and all of its societies are in the end unique, it becomes problematic as to how the reader may use this historical era as a model “with the exception of the unique elements described”. In addition, the conditions in Britain in the 9th–14th, or more narrowly in the Norman era, were anything but uniform. Hence the reader – who probably has not extensively studied medieval Britain – is at loss as to what the periodisation of Hârn, based on real-world examples, actually means.

Somewhat surprisingly, the canonist reading of the Hârn publications does not usually consider the aforementioned problems. Instead the canonist reading tries to give simple and straightforward answers to questions like “How many…?”, “Who…?”, “When…?”, etc. In addition, we are told for example that there are no potatoes in Hârn and the trade between the kingdoms of Kaldor and Azadmere is caravan trade, because the river is at points not navigable. Typical to the canonist explanations is that they only cite what is written in the relevant publication, and give at most negative examples as to why things cannot be different. If something is not mentioned in the publications, there is a tendency to think it does not exist on Hârn. This results in truisms and poverty of insight.

Indeed, a central canonist stance could be termed “reluctant refraining from giving explanations”. When the Hârn publications do not describe something in detail, the canonist stops his inquiry and concludes that the phenomenon is as it is, unclear or non-credible. But in the same time, in order to keep the world functioning at all, one usually needs to implicitly decide how certain phenomena actually work, and thus implement the lacunae in canon with one’s own ideas. Here we all create something that is our interpretation of “how things must be”. These individual decisions are at times unconsciously presented as canon by the canonists.

Typically, the canonist stance does not eagerly welcome fantastic or magical explanations to Hârnic phenomena. On the other hand, many mundane explanations are ripped from real world medieval Terra without deeper understanding of their origins and repercussions on Hârn. This is especially the case with Hârnic warfare. While Hârniac canonism should not be simply equalled with Hârniac militarism, the two walk hand in hand when it comes to interpreting Hârn on the basis of medieval Terran guidelines. Where the Hârn publications do not give clear explanations, people simply take from real-world history what is to their liking, and try to present this as canon, just because it is from the 9th–14th centuries, or even if it is not. While it is perfectly acceptable to import into Hârn things and phenomena that are to one’s liking, it is vanity to try to make others to conform into one’s own decisions, especially if one is not willing to ponder the deeper meanings and effects that the imported phenomenon may have on Hârn.

All of the above examples clearly lead to the conclusion that a lot of interpretation and real-world studies are needed for a concise canonist interpretation of the Hârn publications. Because there will be several interpretations, and because the real-world time span given for the “closest equivalent” of Hârn is several hundred years, it becomes apparent that there cannot be just one, but rather limitless readings of HârnWorld based on the same sources. Because the very definition of “canon” presupposes the existence of only one explanation, there can in the end be no “canon”.

The canonist attitude is strongly connected to writing Hârn publications. When Hârn products – be they “official” or not – are expected to conform to the existing publications, canonism becomes a hindrance for originality and creativity. Canonism is a major reason for what can be called “copy-pasting attitude”: The first million words that were used to describe HârnWorld in 1983 have been doubled or tripled since, but without the doubling or tripling of substance. Hârn is increasingly chained in arbitrary rules that help to create formalism only, because some people are touchy of deviations and “mistakes”.

The touchiness is again connected to the hunger for respect and the niche-carving of the RPG writers. As long as people believe in the existence of canon, they will listen to those who supposedly know what the canon says, and more importantly, what it means. This brings respect to the canonists, which is only natural. But if someone claims that the truth about Hârn is found in the canonist interpretations, we end up with a form of RPG pharisaism.

A very peculiar form of Hârniac canonist RPG phariasism is giving definitions for what makes a typical Hârnic adventure. As all such definitions are invariably based on personal roleplaying preferences and personal interpretations of what Hârn is, it is clear that no-one has any authority on the subject. The problems of describing roleplaying are of course not confined to Hârn or Hârniac canonism only. But if guidelines for roleplaying are given from the podium of canonism, they can as well have an opposite effect of alienating potential readers and gamers. At times it seems that the Hârniac canonists (unconsciously?) want to keep some ways of roleplaying away from “their” setting – only because some gaming stances and concepts are not familiar to them.

Hârniac canonism tries to codify interpretation, to formalise natural plurality. It does not promote discussions, and it often hides the unwillingness for deeper interpretations. While general discussions need a generally accepted basis, the canonist reading of Hârn is usually not improving the basis given in the Hârn publications. In the end the phenomenon is mostly social and elitist, having little to do with factual interpretations of Hârn. I strongly believe that Hârniac canonism is a major reason for Hârn to remain a marginal setting among fantasy RPGs, because it alienates creative people with alternate and inventive approaches on Hârn.

4. My way of world construction

4.1 Intellectual challenges of world construction

If there is no right way of reading and interpreting Hârn, how the consistency and “reality” of the setting can be kept intact? The simple answer is: They cannot be kept intact. In the end, the mutual understanding of what is Hârn is connected to the willingness of understanding how others read and interpret Hârn. While we cannot find the one true way of reading and interpreting the Hârn publications, we can find a collegial way of understanding and discussing the different readings and interpretations. Central to the success of this is consciousness of one’s own goals, and the willingness to express not just one’s results, but also the way one took to get those results. In short, the goals, starting points and argumentation need be voiced aloud.

While it is my great interest to try to understand how others read and interpret the Hârn publications, the effort of decoding the opinions and goals of all the other Hârniacs is simply impossible. Above, I have tried to decode two central stances. Now it is time to try to decode my own stance, world construction or “ConWorlding”.

As noted in the second chapter, the hallmark of HârnWorld is its “realness”, which again is strongly entrenched in both everyday and long range socio-economics. We are told that the Hârnic civilisation is mostly feudal and clan-based, and without doubt pre-modern in all the meanings of this concept. Thus central to the understanding of what is Hârn is the understanding of pre-modern, feudal socio-economics.

As we cannot just induce how pre-modern feudal socio-economics function, Hârn forces us to study the real world phenomena. In this Hârn is no different from other constructed worlds. Studying and creating imagined environments always means learning about the real-world. This is exactly what NRC meant in his introduction to HârnWorld: “Because it is impossible to entirely describe an alien world, readers must be able to fill in the gaps with their own knowledge and experience”. Studying the real-world medieval era is equal to filling in the gaps in HârnWorld with our own knowledge.

Ultimately, Hârn is teaching us to understand what the real-world is and may have been. The greatest challenge here is that we need to drop our modern presuppositions about the functioning of societies, strive to get rid of anachronisms. In this way, Hârn is teaching us to be conscious of and concise in our own thought processes.

4.2 A preset general picture

As a medieval historian I work with primary sources, trying to answer questions that I or some other people have presented. Usually this means that I need to go through a large bunch of sources before I can do any kind of generalisations. And the generalisations are what the public usually are after – i.e. “How was life like back then?” etc. HârnWorld presents a somewhat opposite situation. Whether or not based on real-world medieval era, the setting starts with the general level. Certain parameters are just given, and the rest of the world is supposed to more or less confine to these parameters. I find the presence of a preset general picture relaxing, even if I constantly have to disagree with the rationality and “reality” of the creation.

The preset general picture of Hârn includes physical and biological laws, geography, climate, nature, approximate technological level, approximate population numbers, general cultural and political patterns, general socio-economic patterns, and some – quite random – notes of the Hârnic history. This is like a puzzle with ready-made borders and a very fuzzy cover picture of the end product: We have the borders to see where different phenomena start and end, and we have a vague picture of what the puzzle is believed to (re)generate. We can already guess a general pattern with some details, but we do not yet know how these patterns and details will figure in independent pieces and how they interconnect in the end.

For example we can immediately tell that the Hârnic geography is unique, but some parts – especially the nature – of the island (and the Lythian continent) somehow resemble certain locales in Europe and North America. Thus we find large areas of woodland and forest that resemble the North American and Eurasian natural conditions; we have a multitude of small rivers and a great inland lake that resemble the European river systems and the Great Lakes of North America; we have fjords or firths that resemble those of Scotland and Norway, or the British Colombia; we have mountain areas that resemble the Pennines in England, the southern Scandic mountains in Norway, the Black Forest in Germany, the Alps, or the northern Rocky Mountains in Montana. All of this makes it easy for us – as European or North American readers – to picture what kind of looks and feels the Hârnic geography and nature probably have.

For the people in the Western World who still have some, however distant, connections to our agrarian (pre-modern) past, picturing life in Hârnic villages and towns is not too alien. We have also heard or read of kingdoms, knights, peasants and castles, and many have a vague idea of what feudalism, manorialism, free towns, smallpox, and trade in small sailing ships might have been or felt like. Thus we at least believe we can understand the Hârnic cultural, political and socio-economic patterns. The preset general pattern for Hârn helps us to imagine what life in Hârn might actually be like.

4.3 Unique aspects and their effects

But Hârn has many unique aspects that force us to rethink the familiarity of the setting. Every time Hârn deviates from known real-world medieval socio-economic patterns, we are faced with both a Hârnic and a real-world “What if?” scenario. First we need to try to understand what the deviation really means in the Hârnic context and for the Hârnians. Secondly, we need to check through the whole system of both real-world and Hârnic socio-economics to see what possible repercussions a deviation from the known patterns might have. The following is only a short list of unique aspects and their possible effects on Hârn.

1. Geography – while familiar, the shakedown of Hârnic geography creates a unique world. No real-world historical phenomena took place in this special landscape, and thus all real-world historical phenomena need to be carefully analyzed if they are to be used as examples of what is possible or probable on Hârn. For example Hârn is many times larger than the British Isles, and the land mass is much more compact. This has obvious effects on the Hârnic regional and interregional contacts, and leads to a Hârnic logic in the order and magnitude of connections between different locales. The unique geography has profound effects on trade and cultural contacts.

2. Unique cultures and creatures – while humans make up the vast majority of Hârnic intelligent creatures, there exist on Hârn several non-human species with their own cultures: the Ivashu (of Misyn), the Ilme of Ilmen Marsh, the five species of Gargun, the Sindarin and the Khuzdul. In addition, a mysterious dead culture, the Earthmasters, has left its marks visible on Hârn. The degree of cultural interaction between alien species is not explained in depth in the Hârn publications, and it seems generally to be mostly non-existent. No-one can communicate and understand the Ivashu, the Ilme have very little contact with anybody else, the Gargun are extremely violent and usually kill and eat members of other species, the eternally living Sindarin have withdrawn into their own magical world, and the Khuzdul of Azadmere have only minimal contact with humans. Still, even the minimal contact between humans and Khuzdul is something that cannot be readily explained with any real-world example.

3. Barbarians – there are small tribal populations of different ethnicities that populate vast regions of Hârn. The reasons and effects of this cultural diversity are not given very deep explanations in the Hârn publications, and it is obvious that no real-world example from the 9th–14th century Britain gives us any insight into the workings of Hârnic barbarian-civilized contacts. As the barbarians make up 15–20 % of the human population on Hârn, their cultural, social and economical input into the life on the island must be important. As barbarians mostly control the inland routes connecting the northern, south-western, central eastern and south-eastern civilisations on Hârn, their importance in interregional contacts and trade can be enormous. If it is not, the reasons for it are lacking in the Hârn publications. If ethnic pride and xenophobia should be the sole reasons for the marginalisation of 15–20 % of the human population on Hârn, these phenomena and their history should be charted out in detail.

4. Civilisation history – Hârnic civilisation is much younger than that of medieval Britain or medieval Europe. The island of Hârn has been touched by humans for only a little over 3.000 years, and only for some 2.000 years have humans had any substantial effect on the state of things on the island. There are still many tribes that have a predominantly nomadic and even stone-age culture. Leaving out the kingdom of Melderyn, the first regional human realms appeared only some 600 years ago. Only the Corani Empire was expanding, and even today the realms are quite small. The situation is very different from 9th–14th century Britain, and we are hard pressed to find any parallels to Hârn in this respect from the real-world human civilisations. Obviously the combination of small population numbers, small and separated realms, feudalism etc. is unique, and should be explained through the study of Hârnic phenomena.

5. The role of Melderyn – the role of the kingdom of Melderyn is either enigmatic or mostly irrelevant. If the oldest human kingdom on the island has influenced the civilisation process of Hârn, the Hârn publications tell very little of this process and the ensuing contacts. On the other hand, Melderyn can be seen to belong to the Lythian cultural sphere, and especially to the sphere or the kingdom of Emelrene. Even then the central position of Cherafir in the Hârnic maritime trade and the ensuing contacts should be studied more closely. As no clean real-world parallels can be found for the realms of Emelrene and Melderyn, they must again be studied through Hârnic phenomena.

6. The impact of Lothrim – before Lothrim there were only tribal petty realms on mainland Hârn. After the era of Lothrim, Hârn had received a new rapidly breeding and violent intelligent species, and larger realms started to form in eastern Hârn. Did the “empire” of Lothrim, or the person of Lothrim, or the Gargun have some impact on the civilisation process on Hârn, either giving it a boost or preventing it to spread as it would have without the presence of Lothrim? Lothrim and his empire are named in most local descriptions of Hârn, but do the modern Hârnians actually remember him, and what role does he have in their (oral) histories?

7. The guilds and the Mangai – the Hârn publications (Hârn 10) tell that “throughout Hârn and western Lythia, virtually all significant commercial and professional activities are within the control of powerful international guilds whose monopolistic rights are protected by law”, and: “the Mangai is the association of all guilds. […] The Mangai operates under […] a law that has been enacted by most civilized governments of western Lythia.” Such an institution finds no parallel in medieval Europe. The idea of “international” networks is by itself not unfamiliar, but the idea that these networks would have their own monopolistic rights and be protected by the ruling monarchs rouses many questions.

   What is the Hârnic mentality of ruling, and how is it connected to the rights of free (artisan) men? Is there a concept of international or universal laws? If the people know of such laws and regularly can benefit from such laws, how do they see the omnipotence of ruling monarchs and other governing bodies? What is the reason for very local and very different kinds of professionals to combine their efforts to obtain international rights when they might as well obtain the rights from the local royalty? How does such an international network keep regular contacts with the different nodes, and how do they keep their juridical doctrine the same in all parts of western Lythia? While Hârn seems to lack a religiously supported political power comparable to the Pope in medieval Europe, could we see a similar interregional and international power in the Mangai? If so, what forces the secular rulers to tolerate such a power?

8. Religion – the religions of human communities tend to mirror the livelihood and mentality of those communities. As Hârn and the whole of western Lythia are predominantly feudal and clan-based societies, the religious beliefs and practices should work in this context and give answers to questions that rise in local, predominantly agrarian, and often feudal society. As is typical to all pre-modern societies, the secular and religious life and practices should be strongly intertwined and form a central part of the total lifestyle. This doesn’t seem to be the case on Hârn.

   Instead the Hârnic gods are described as individual beings that have their individual goals where humans may or may not play a part. If the gods have only little to offer for the Hârnians, why do the Hârnians pay respect to these gods? On the other hand, why should the gods offer much to the Hârnians? It seems that the Hârn publications present a predominantly secular society where religion is mostly personal. If this is the case, it has immense effects on the Hârnic mentality, culture and society. Again, the situation in medieval Europe only helps us to see the differences. Should we search parallels in the polytheistic Hindu religion, or perhaps in the religious practices of the Aztecs and Inca?

9. Magic – through study and mental powers, people in Hârn can learn to command unseen forces that have physical effects in the world. The study and command of the unseen forces is called Pvaric philosophy. The connection between this philosophy and the general Hârnic religious (or supernatural) beliefs is left totally open, even if it is obviously clear that a normal Hârnian must see magic as a miracle, and probably understands it in the context of religion. If the Hârnic magic-users are holy men, what god do they represent? If they command powers without the aid of the gods, why should Hârnians pray for any gods? It is perhaps easiest to decide that the practitioners of the Pvaric art are secluded and try to remain in hiding, but even then their presence suggests a subtle but important impact on the Hârnic society, culture, philosophy and religion. If magic is taken to exist on Hârn at all, its effect should be reconsidered.

So large is the multitude of unique things on Hârn that the whole idea of using any historical era as a model for Hârn “with the exception of the unique elements described” actually opens as many problems as it tries to close. Different readings of the Hârn publications will lead into very different interpretations. Not all interpretations are possible if the individual consistency of the setting (p-Hârn) is meant to be kept intact.

4.4 The language of description

The language used in the publications describing Hârn carries many hidden tones. Hârn is described in an impersonal and distanced way, and some questions are left intentionally unanswered. At times, notions to Hârnic historians are made, implying that we are not reading first-hand data, but data that derived from Hârnic sources. This is partly because Hârn was meant to be an exiting fantasy RPG world, with mysteries and adventure. But mostly it seems to be an anachronistic tendency that distances the reader from the world by explaining the world in a way that 99 % of Hârnians would not see it. Thus the language used in the Hârn publications tends to make it harder to see how the Hârnic reality is ordered – what aspects are important for the Hârnians, and what are not. One often gets the impression that the Hârnians are pawns in a system that is not created by them, and not run by them. Instead of actually living in Hârn, they are merely acting to live in Hârn.

Another result of the anachronistic and distanced language is the style of the Hârnic history. It seems that the creators of Hârn have adopted a rather antiquarian way of retelling history. The history as written mostly mentions great men and wars, typically leaving social and cultural developments unnoticed. The result is that most Hârnic social institutions and cultural practices exist in TR720 without any historical background. In addition, the personification of all changes to a handful of great persons – or even worse, impersonal actors like states and guilds – obscures the role of the people, as if every common Hârnian would be strictly in the leach of few big men, like a robot. There seem to be only two important occasions when the commoners have had an impact on the Hârnic history: the Balshan Jihad and the founding of the Mangai. If any kind of “reality” is expected from the Hârnic setting, there is a great deal of work to be done in this respect.

The pictures and especially the maps are part of the descriptive language of Hârn publications. Both carry very much information. A central question to their interpretation is, do they depict Hârnic knowledge, or are they made according to modern standards. With the pictures, we can usually tell if they try to convene with a Hârnian view, and many do. With the maps, we have two classes: “real” and “poetic”. While their picturing widely differs, both almost invariably strive to meet modern standards, and would be anachronistic in the Hârnic setting. Thus both styles of maps should be understood foremost as a modern medium of describing Hârn, not as Hârnic products.

One last striking aspect of the descriptive language is the presentation of the Hârnic barbarians. While the basics of their societies and their livelihoods are given, their culture and their logic of action are left vague or very simplistic. The Hârnic barbarians are pictured as noble or less noble savages, as people who have very little initiative of their own, and mostly respond to the actions of civilized realms with arrows and ambushes. Their beliefs and habits are described as primitive and degenerate, and their religions and gods are depicted as mere derivations or misunderstandings of the civilized religions. In the same while the Hârn publications repeatedly insist that the barbarian cultures have remained the same for millennia, and that they are fiercely independent, proud, and possess interesting and deep cultures.

When one is trying to understand Hârn as an independent and “real” setting, as a constructed and consistent world, the language in the publications for describing Hârn becomes problematic. Should the simplistic attitudes be interpreted as the ignorance of the creators, or as the ignorance of the Hârnic historians, or perhaps as the ignorance of Hârnians themselves? My own understanding is that the creators of Hârn did not pay attention to their language, and thus made many mistakes that they would not have made if they had been conscious of what they were doing. The editors of the Columbia Games Inc. may also have distorted the meaning and attitude of many original pieces.

The analysis of language shows that Hârn publications cannot be read at face value. One needs to ponder what is actually meant, and how one piece of data connects to the whole. This means that the publications should be read in relation to other texts. They should be contrasted to the writing era and genre (1980s FRPGs), to the historical understanding of the creators (great men, states and wars), and to the real-world complex societies the creators tried to mimic and describe with very few words. One should also be ready to accept that there are outright errors and confused editing.

4.5 Of decision making: What gets to be true and why?

The blessing and curse of world constructing is that all things are connected. If something is decided to be certain, many other options become impossible. A “real” and consistent world cannot have pieces from here and there. The totality needs to be concise, and the details – however individual and exceptional – need to be possible in the setting. On the other hand, the general picture should not be forced into individual level, because this would only create a level of formalism that was not found even in totalitarian states of 20th century Terra. No society is uniform. There are always greater and lesser deviations, both systemic and individual, from the norm.

To decide what is true in Hârn, a great deal of analysis, argument and problematisation is needed. The published sources for Hârn can be squeezed for important information that is usually not looked upon. As socio-economic ponderings are my favourite, I give an example from this area.

On Hârn 13 it is mentioned that the Khuzdul had a monopoly in minting coins for many centuries “until the first comprehensive system of coinage was developed in the Corani Empire some 300 years ago.” If the first comprehensive system of coinage was developed in the early 5th century in south-western Hârn, this implies that the coins in circulation in Hârn until at least the 5th century were predominantly of Khuzan origin. This again tells us that to obtain coins (minted gold and silver) the Hârnic traders needed to trade them from the Khuzdul, giving a reason for Kaldor and Tashal to become central Hârnic markets even if they had little to sell for the outside world. In this way one sentence in one Hârn publication may lead into central understandings of the historical connections and economics on Hârn.

It is not important if the creators of Hârn intended this or not. Consciously or not, it is part of the general picture they created. As long as my interpretation of the Hârn publications supports this view, and especially if I can find no data that opposes this view, I can keep my Hârn consistent.

From time to time, the results must be accepted as flawed. This is the case with even some facts in the Hârn publications. There are biased viewpoints in the Hârn publications that perhaps should be rewritten. This is especially true of issues where the RPG mentality makes an inroad into the consistency of the setting. For example it is written of monetarisation (Hârn 13) that “in medieval societies, the use of money was not widespread, barter being more common. We have taken some liberties with this, so that players can handle money, find it, earn it, and spend it.” When Hârn is seen as internally consistent, there is no reason to bow to the FRPG inclinations of anachronistic monetary systems and treasure hoarding. On the other hand, the medieval example may not fit Hârn either. Hârnic monetarisation should be based on Hârnic socio-economy, the availability of metals and the cultural values and practices of the Hârnic societies.

Another thing is the acceptance of approximates and generalisations. While constructing imagined worlds makes it possible to go right from the top to the bottom and vice versa, certain kind of detail in certain context can be too much. For example, the creators of Hârn wisely wrote (on Hârn 3) that “population figures are approximate since no formal census has ever been undertaken.” Even after the publication of precise household numbers in the kingdom modules, this note seems to be useful. On Hârn, there is space for people that are not mentioned or described in the Hârn publications. On the other hand, the approximate and general population levels should be kept within an acceptable error margin. In this way, for example, creativity can be combined with consistency.

An important question is how much fantasy, magic and capricious gods the world should have. Here I have taken the socio-economic base of Hârn as described in the publications as my starting point. I will not change it, as this would lead into tumultuous changes in the whole setting. This means that I need to interpret all fantastic and exotic aspects of Hârn so that they fit into and support the basic socio-economic model. Aspects that do not accomplish this are not Hârnic for me.

5. Postscript

I hope the reader will not feel that I have intentionally disparaged the creators of HârnWorld. World is an inter-textual place, and the creators of HârnWorld were part of a wider scene that naturally left its marks on Hârn. We should not judge the goals and methods of the creators without understanding their premises. On the other hand, we are free to criticize their premises and choose to have different premises when utilising their creation. The fact that we still think it worth of writing about Hârn shows that the work of the original creators is appreciated.

What I did intentionally was to disparage Hârniac canonism. My attack is pointed at the unconscious vanity hidden in canonist interpretations. Every interpretation of the Hârn publications can be thought to be canonist, but only if it is presented as the Truth. Luckily, nobody is 100 % canonist. On the other hand, everyone tends to be a canonist now and then, myself included. But the step away from canonism is easily taken, and it pays out to be more conscious, to question, to go deeper.

And what should be done with my way of constructing HârnWorld? Of what use is it to know how someone else works his p-Hârn? Three answers come to my mind: Knowing how someone else does it will 1) help you to understand how you do it, and why; 2) help you to decide if you want to use the results thus produced; 3) make it easier for you to approach that someone else, and to discuss things with him.

I hope that now, after reading this article, you start to think of your own premises, and become more conscious of your own ways or reading and interpreting Hârn. In the best case this can lead to more transparent discussions, where people are able to see and willing to admit why they think the way they do. We do not need to agree on anything, yet we can still have intriguing and constructive, even intellectual, discussions.