My Harnworld hardcovers arrived yesterday, and they're a breath of fresh air. Unlike the modern fantasy settings we often encounter, Harnworld offers an authentic medieval fantasy experience. It's a welcome departure from the faux Instagram, copy pop culture festivals, modern hairstyles, and smirky attitudes we've grown accustomed to. There are no Steampunk excuses for cellphones and mass transit, no triggering elements, no extra-planar or faux-modern settings. It's a world made for those who truly appreciate the genre, not just everyone.
The game worlds of any of these big companies do not resonate with anyone or keep people in the hobby. At worst, they drive people away when they are changed. Part of the downer when Pathfinder 2 launched was the recap of all the "solved adventures," and the world felt too safe and "played out." Pathfinder 2 should have started a new world and put Golarion into a legacy support model. D&D defaults to a multiverse, Wall Street's way of telling consumers, "We don't care about storytelling, maintaining a setting, hiring good writers, or consistency."
No wonder 80% of players make their own worlds.
People want their own worlds to make logical sense and reflect them. They want immersion, the classic experience, history, and culture. They don't want to be undercut by official releases or have their worlds ruined by planar intrusions. They want conflicts, logical consistency, strife, danger, and the freedom to include mature subjects that may offend some.
Harnworld has been around for a long time. The publisher is rebuilding the world as a series of hardcovers, each new one a Kickstarter that lets you get the previous hardcovers and keep moving forward with the world remaster. Each year is a year in ours, so time and history are consistent. The art is fantastic, the maps are masterpieces, and the world is one of the best campaign settings ever created.
They are now on their seventh hardcover in the world and have a Kickstarter for this that ends in 10 days.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/columbiagames/harnworld-kingdom-of-kanday
Harnworld is a world shaped by the default fantasy experience of humans, elves, and dwarves. Some may see this as a negative since where are the other fantasy backgrounds? Well, since most games ship with a million fantasy races of every randomized shape, size, and animal characteristic, that is all left up to you. If you want a vampire count castle up in the mountains, put it there. If you wish to have a forest filled with anthropomorphic animal people, make it happen. If you want Tieflings on the fringes of society, untrusted by the churches and common folk, put them there.
I like this freedom. It allows me to introduce a new background to how I want them to be like Dragonborn trying to mix and integrate with society or the first appearance of the Drow happening in my game. If a character wants to be a particular background, like a talking puppet, it will be unique since there won't be a few million of them wandering around the campaign world already. Players want to feel unique and special, and what better way than a world that you can paint and alter to be your own?
The Harnworld marketing reminds us that these are "5th Edition Ready," which is true. You can "paint in" any ancestries you want, change the races of significant figures, and add and remove things as you see fit. I like the world being a more traditional Human-Elf-Dwarf base, with special ancestries like Dragonborn and Tieflings being the exception. There is one more open kingdom that allows evil worship and feels more cosmopolitan, so this would be a place where you could see Tieflings and their communities.
The human parts of the world are primarily human, but there is room for changing things, adding new areas, or making a city home of a specific ancestry. This setting is enormous but isn't world-spanning, so your focus will be tighter on history, people, and places. There is a Viking-like area to the north, and certain "north kin," like wolf people, could live among them. You may not find wolf-people anywhere but where they feel the most welcome.
Ancestries will likely be tightly tied to the area's cultures, with unique backgrounds supporting the kingdom's ideology and makeup. All of this is up to you, which is cool and gives me plenty of blank canvas to fill in when I play this world.
Someone playing an orc may be a tough sell in most areas of this world. But in middle-age settings like this, xenophobia is more the norm, and roleplaying will be needed to gain acceptance. Some players love this "fish out of water" sort of roleplay, and there is plenty of that here.
Nothing stops you from playing this with a more realistic system, too; this would fit any simulation-style system from Dungeon Fantasy to Rolemaster. This world feels very old-school, and a system that offers realism would fit perfectly.
But 5E here would be a fun alternative, an old-school style of world that feels "down" and more realistic. Much is left up to you, like how much magic is in the world. By its nature, this is a world where magic has not shaped society since the world is based on a lower-magic assumption. Again, a lower-magic world will make casters feel special.
If I were using 5E, I would likely use Level Up Advanced 5E for gaming here. While I like Tales of the Valiant, at this point, Level Up has far more support, options, and old-school charm to do this world right.
The only background I may find hard to integrate here is Steampunk and tinkering. This is a lower-tech setting; none would feel too appropriate for this world. They may find a home in the dwarf kingdom, like something out of World of Warcraft, but not to an extent where the entire civilization is industrialized.
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