Saturday, October 19, 2024

Hârn Orcs are Wee Rascals

So I've been revisiting N. Robin Crossby's Hârn setting, a cool sorta low-magic medieval world that been around since the 80's. Hârn has its own system, HârnMaster, but no mechanics appear in the setting book. I know Jimbo Eddy Raga-ma-tazz numero 4 thinks early modern Europe is the ideal setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I think lowkey gritty Hârn would work pretty well. So much so that I am currently converting many of the weird spells in HârnMaster to LotFP.

You can hardly do a medieval fantasy setting without some sort of kneejerk self-differentiation from Tolkien and one of the ways Crossby does this is with the orcs. Orcs are also called Gargun in Hârn and they are so, like, totally different from Jirrty Wirrty's bad boys. I will not give most of the details here, but one way they differ from D&D and Games Workshop orcs is that they are tiny little bastards. Here's the five subraces of Orc/Gargun in scale with (mostly) normal adventurers.


The second guy from the left is a Gargun Kyani, the second smallest of the five subraces. They are noted as perhaps slightly less malevolent and slightly more civilized than their cousins. So in my hypothetical LotFP/Hârn mash-up they replace the halflings, which Hârn lacks.