WarFlail's Archives - March 2001

Go to WarFlail's Archives - April 2001

The HârnList server has moved! The venerable email discussion list, hosted for so long by the MIT server, has been shifted to the infinitely more modern list server hosted by Peter Leitch's www.lythia.com. From a user's viewpoint, few changes will be felt, and people who are already subscribed have been automatically subscribed to the new list. The list administrator is still Steve McDonald and all the rules are the same as before. There was talk earlier on that the MIT server would stop hosting HârnList, so this is a great relief.

Information on how to subscribe to the discussion list can be found at:

• HârnList Server Help  <http://lythia.com/listhelp.asp>

On the matter of updates to this site, I will be out of town for the rest of this month, so this is the last update for March. See you in April! :-)

Steve Williams (aka Dr Smurf) sent me a note to announce that his site has moved! (Already!) It can now be found at:

• The Dwarven Forge  <http://www.thedwarvenforge.com/>

<Begin Soapbox Mode> I think it's a smart move to relocate to one's own domain, rather than live under the mercy of an uncaring ISP. These days, it costs next to nothing to own your own Internet domain, so if you are serious about maintaining a website, you really shouldn't pass up the opportunity to convert your site to your very own dot-com (or dot-net, dot-org, etc). <End Soapbox Mode>

Hârn devotee Thorvald Neumann (aka Hrafn) has announced that his site has undergone a transformation and is currently in "open beta" stage. Do take a look:

• Hrafnsbjarg  <http://www.hrafnsbjarg.de/>

Ever find that you need a floor plan at the drop of a hat in your campaigns, because your players decide to explore a building that you (as the GM) hadn't expected them to explore? Well, lament no longer! My mate Ned Kelly sent me this extremely useful link, freshly ripped from Critical Miss: The Magazine for Dysfunctional Roleplayers:

• Deckplans, Floorplans And Assorted Diagrams  <http://www.criticalmiss.com/current/floorplans1.html>

Admittedly, this site is generally of more use to contemporary RPGs rather than fantasy, but there are a few fantasy floor plans in the links.

Another addition to HÂRN LINK is this site by Geoff Spakes, which is devoted to developing the Shôrkýnè region (that's pronounced Shor-KEE-nay if you didn't already know):

• Pillars of Agura  <http://www.shorkyne.f2s.com/>

A resource site for Shôrkýnè! Now why hasn't this been done before? It is an excellent region but so far very underdeveloped, with next to nothing beyond the official Columbia Games product covering it.

Geoff is eager to accept help from anyone who wishes to contribute to the site, so if you are developing any relevant maps or articles for your own campaigns, then let him know!

An addition to HÂRN LINK! Steve Williams (aka Dr Smurf) has let me know that he has a website containing a wealth of HârnMaster information. Do check it out:

• The Dwarven Forge  <http://www.btinternet.com/~stevewill/index.html>

Ah, a forge! A good name indeed - a welcome addition to WarFlail's Armoury. :-)

Also at Steve's site is a link to a very interesting page about the arms and armour of JRR Tolkein's Middle Earth. I've added this link to my Armoury page - well worth looking at!

Don't panic!  For the past 12+ hours, this site has been inaccessible, and you would have been looking at some strange page by Doteasy.com claiming that you are looking at the future warflail.com homepage. I'm sorry for the inconvenience - this has been a necessary action as I have been transferring my files to my domain's private webspace. This is to ensure that you can continue to download files from this site even if I change ISPs (something I am considering doing in the very near future).

Rebecca Downey (aka Ketherian), Hârnic mainstay and author of the excellent Pax Tharda site, has let me know that the site has been updated and given a new look. Rebecca's definitely been busy - check out all the recent changes:

• Pax Tharda - What's New  <http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/stonekeep/310/newhtm.htm>

HÂRN LINK has had a major face-lift with the inclusion of two excellent woodcut illustrations by artist extraordinaire (and Hârniac) Richard Luschek (aka Catfish)! Check them out now! :-)

  D20 Hârn guru Shane Morales has announced that his D&D Hârn Guide has moved. It can now be found here:

• The Shadow of Bukrai Hârn Page  <http://www.dndharnguide.addr.com/>

Quoting part of the announcement he made on the HârnList:

The updated, expanded version of The D&D Hârn Guide - now titled D20 System Conversion for HârnWorld - is FINALLY finished. Except for corrections, editing, etc, I won't be making any new changes. The latest version is 2.0 (March 8th) and weighs in at 923KB (608KB zipped) with 71 total pages. The latest additions are:

• more detailed race/culture descriptions with racial skills
• expanded character classes
• Hârn barbarians as a race with Barbarian, Hunter, & Shaman character classes
• NPC classes modelled after some of the HM professions
• Paladins and Rangers as prestige classes
• A new skill system (100% compatible with the normal system) that promotes 1) access to skills for any class, and 2) assigning racial/cultural skills.
• New skills modelled after HM skills

Sounds like he's been busy! :-)

It's my 32nd birthday today... *Sigh* somehow, it doesn't seem quite as exciting as it was in my twenties... At least I still get presents, although the general theme over the past couple of years is to receive alcohol or related accessories (e.g. hip flasks, fine wine crystal glasses, etc) - is there a message in that? :-)

The strangest thing happened today at the office - everyone was evacuated early in the afternoon and the whole building closed, because bacteria levels in the building's air-conditioning system had become hazardously high. Nobody's allowed back until noon tomorrow! No doubt this is linked to the extremely hot weather we've been having since the weekend. Oh well, I guess I can sleep in tomorrow... :-)

While on the topic of strange, if you have Microsoft Word on your computer, try this:

1. Type the following: = rand (200,99)
2. Press Enter
3. Watch what happens!

Can anyone explain this? I hear that Microsoft is offering a reward to anyone who can.

Labour Day

Today is a public holiday here in Western Australia, to celebrate the eight-hour working day (which was triggered by the American labour movement in the 1880's). Eight hours! I'm lucky to get out of the office before 10 hours in a day, although I'm only paid for exactly 7.25 of them. Eight indeed... <snort>

Fellow Hârniac Dave Walters made this comment recently on the HârnList forum, regarding the inclusion of HârnMaster rules in HârnWorld products:

Bottom line - if the HM material were truly added as a separable section, and enough useful information is provided in the HW portion, I'll buy it. But if you bundle them together, it is less useful to me. I'll give you a good example: the Royal Chelabin Tourney of Olokand. That is an *incredibly* good write-up, and I have used it with great success. Bill Gant is now a personal hero to me. However, there are two things I don't care for about it: 1) the HM rules information is blended right into the document, and 2) without being able to just pull the HM material out, it takes up twice as much room in my HW binder than it otherwise would. Don't know about you folks, but I have really wide binder for the HW material, and it is overflowing. And that is without the maps, which are all in a different binder.

To be fair, the way that Bill wrote up the document, I can easily figure out what the various abbreviations refer to, or at least the gist of the skills and actions involved. Kudos to Bill. Now, if the document itself were written entirely with HW mindset - no rules system, just information that can be interpreted for any system - and then the HM rules information were at the end, in easily removable pages, it would be (for me) perfect.

Yes, I know it is not official material. But it is a good example of EXCELLENT material that could be formatted in a way that is more attractive to GMs who use HW and do not use HM. In addition, it would take nothing away from those who use both.

Well, Dave, I do try to accommodate the needs of other Hârn GMs out there (especially with high praise like yours!), so what I have done is uploaded a HârnWorld-only version of that article I wrote 6 years ago. Enjoy!

The Royal Chelebin Tournament of Chivalry [HW-Only]  (36Kb)

What a scorcher it is today here in Perth! A sweltering 40ºC! And we're officially out of summer, too.

House Rules Update: I've uploaded an update to my HârnMaster Gold House Rules for Combat - it's now up to version 1.3! Added are a few house rules about feints and other combat options, to help spice up a combat Round:

HMG House Rules - Combat  (45Kb)

Okay, I've set up the automatic redirection from HÂRN LINK's old address to http://www.harnlink.com. I see that a few fast-acting people have already changed their links. For the rest of you, please be sure to update your link soon.

Fellow Hârniac Thorvald Neumann (aka Hrafn) has very kindly offered to set up HÂRN LINK with its own domain name! This is absolutely terrific! :-) Thank you very much, Thorvald - I am in your debt.

• HÂRN LINK  <http://www.harnlink.com/>

I realise that many people are linked to the original page, so that link will stay up for a while - in the meantime, I will try to figure out how to auto-forward visits from that page to the new one, but it might be safer if you link to the new URL...

Go to WarFlail's Archives - February 2001

Go to

Note: Some links may no longer be active.

All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
All rights reserved. www.warflail.com © Bill Gant.

Back to the top