What is HârnWorld?
HârnWorld is a detailed, realistic, flexible, and system-neutral setting for fantasy role-playing games. Since 1983, HârnWorld has been used by many thousands of people across the world to run a wide array of medieval fantasy adventures.
A True Medieval Setting
HârnWorld is based on the reality of medieval society and culture, blended with the fantasy elements we all know and love. This makes for a harsh, gritty background with original plot lines and background stories that will make your characters feel more alive.
A System-Neutral Background
No matter what system you and your players are familiar with, HârnWorld easily weaves into the system. Use the setting full-tilt, or simply pick and choose elements that you like for some down-to-earth action in your campaign.
Laden with Support
Since it started in 1983, HârnWorld has had decades of material added into its realm. There are over 150 supplements, big and small, that enhance and enlarge the HârnWorld setting. More are made every quarter year with no signs of stopping! Wherever your roleplaying goes, adventure awaits…
The Hârnworld experience!
Great resources to get your ideas started!
A Vast World
This 58-page Hârn article is a general overview of Hârnic cultures, governments, economics, history, and more. It also includes campaign aids for such tasks as generating weather conditions and character backgrounds.
Delight in the Details
Hârndex is an alphabetical, general reference source book for gamemasters using HârnWorld. Geographical, economic, guild, religious cultural and political entries make up this 154-page tome. It also contains material from the “Hârnic Dictionary”
Fresh New Ideas
The Hârnworld Bestiary gives a realistic coat of paint on RPG fantasy creatures! Have players that know fantasy monsters inside and out? They will learn quickly to forget what they think they know! 110 pages of vile goodness!
Unique Magic
The Ancient & Esoteric Orders of the Shek-Pvar have existed on Melderyn, the Wizard’s Isle, and in other locales of Hârn for at least two thousand years. The six orders are members of the Guild of Arcane Lore. Their traditional colors and symbols are shown on the Wheel of the Shek-Pvar.
More than Background Material
Religion is pervasive in all levels of Hârnic society. The churches are very powerful and influential. No roleplaying campaign is complete without them. Each of the ten major deities is explained, with details on their mythos, churches, temples, rituals and much more.
Details are Everyting!
Keeping your players guessing and on their toes comes down to details.
Detailed Maps
The beautiful 22″ x 34″ map you’ve seen above (you can download that PDF for free you know!) is supported by Atlas Hârnica, plus the detailed maps found in expansion kingdoms, cities, castles, and ruins.
Gritty Adventures
Nothing gives you a better taste for what Hârn feels like than the written adventures! Hârnic realism and intrigue engages players desensitized from over-the-top action.
Kingdoms, Castles, and Keeps!
Hârn is a land of castles and keeps: More than 150 major fortifications are scattered throughout the island. Most of these are strongholds of feudal nobles and religious fighting orders. There are also eight walled cities on Hârn, one dwarven and seven human. Dozens of castles and keeps have been detailed with local maps, interior plans, and rich history, politics, economics and more.
We mentioned detailed right?
Hârn’s richness allows you to experience the background to the fullest. Details abound on Culture and Customs, Food, Drink and Entertainment, Heraldry, Guilds, Law, Real Estate, Astrology, Herblore and the like. Unique supplements like HârnManor offer guidelines for running a manor house: enforcing law, managing economics, and noble intrigue. These details lead to exciting sub-plots of their own!
As a gamer most of my life and medieval reenactor, I always find myself returning to the Hârn setting. It feels like a real, living world that the characters in my game inhabit. Hârn undoubtedly opened my eyes to the real middle-ages, and helped guide my choice of major in college (Medieval Humanities) as well as my hobbies today.
I have been playing in Hârn since 1989 and have been running my own game since 1992. I have found Hârn as a system and an environment flexible enough to accommodate the introduction of new players with different personalities and styles of play and to allow me as a gamemaster to move my campaign from gritty granularity to high fantasy and back.
Roleplaying for adults. Politics, religion, economics, and dragons (if you need one).
Hârn is one of the most intricate, well-thought-out, and seriously medieval settings there is in the hobby. A worthy successor to Empire of the Petal Throne [‘Tekumel’] for detail, thoroughness, and originality.
The maps [both color and b&w] are simply the best in the business. Once you learn to read them, nothing else will compare.
Furthermore, there is a passionate and prolific fanbase working to expand and enhance the entire setting.
I encourage every serious fantasy gamer to try Hârn at their first opportunity.
In my 38 years of RPGing I have never had the desire to contact a publisher before, but after receiving my order of HarnWorld, Kaldor, and some associated items the urge became overwhelming.
I am astonished with the detail of what I received, while reading HarnWorld I felt as if I was reading an actual world history, not some piece of fantasy fluff. Your break down of feudal society took back to my teen years when I studied the middle ages.
You have gained a loyal fan. I only wonder why I haven’t done this before.
