Part 1 of the Kingdom of Rethem module is reaching subscribers now, with part 2 to be released relatively soon. A lot of people put a lot of effort into this and we're all glad to have it out the door.

We hope you find it useful and welcome feedback. Please use this thread for your comments.

So far, it is a reasonably nice expansion of Rethem, with more information on the key players in the government. Very useful if your game involves Rethemi government. For me, the biggest surprise was the Queen of Rethem's background. I mean this in a good way, and I think it plays very nicely with Rethemi intrigue. I am especially looking forward to the details of the major holdings, which I expect to appear in Part II, and of course, the maps.

For me, the only downside is that I had hoped for some sort of expansion of the different Agrikan orders and what their theological differences are. I had also hoped to see some more about the lay Morgathians, particularly the believers of Hohnamshire. I didn't see either here, and don't expect to see them in Part II, given past publication patterns.

Perhaps a fanon project is in order....

_________________
Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE! -- Agatha Heterodyne

I don't think anyone would stop you from a fanon project. Do keep your powder dry until you see Rethem Part II because each detailed keep and castle might have some of what you seek.
Also, the Red Shadows of Herpa and the Companions of Roving Doom are being developed ancillary to other projects, but they may well see publication in 2011, so don't develop those.

_________________
Heroes should be uncommon. They just happen to be the PCs.

Argh! That will probably guarantee some horrendous delay, given the Rethem experience. Quick, throw some salt over your shoulder, spit, or something...
Oh well. If so, it will at least give Anborn something else to post about.

Part II will definitely address some aspect of lay Morgathianism, though not as a specific topic. Instead, it will appear as it pertains to some individuals.

_________________
The Melderyn Campaign

Well, according to Grant, Rethem will be available in two PDFs (Parts 1 and 2), which sounds like they'll be issued separately...so it's possible we might see a PDF of Rethem Part I soon...ish.

Not before Rethem II has been printed and sent to the autoship customers

However, there is another thread (in fact two other thread) for discussing about scheduling of CGI's publications. This one is to discuss 'impressions and feedback' on Rethem I

...speaking of which, since I havn't got my copy of Rethem I, I would be very interested in what other people think of it. Was it worth the wait? What is the best thing about it? What was a missed opportunity? etc.

_________________
··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

It is apparently available for download here at RPGNow. It does, however, have a message requesting nobody purchase it until it is reposted as a complete item.

Odd.

I've got mine and it included a message stating that the remainder would be shipping in February!


Excuse me just a moment...


goes off to check message to see if the year 2011 was included in the target date

_________________
Twelve inch turrets slowly turning on target.

What will be price for both parts? And how many pages they have?

From my blog on http://baintheattic.blogspot.com

I got the latest installment of Harn Subscription the first part of the long awaited Kingdom of Rethem, 2nd Edition.

Over the past decade, Columbia Games and the Harn Team have been updating the various kingdom articles, making them far more useful than the original. Mainly by including description of the various personalities involved in the ruling of the kingdom and it's society. So far they have done Evael, Kanday, Kaldor, and now Rethem.

This focus also make these kingdom articles useful for non-harnic campaign by detailing an interesting cast of NPCs and their relationship. The older kingdoms were very much encyclopedic in their content which limited their use as a harn supplement. The first half of Rethem doesn't disappoint in this regard. In it we learn that Rethem's queen has Elisabeth Bathory in her. She is dealing with the priests of the Morgath the god of the undead. Whose religion is not outlawed in Rethm. We learn who is backing Chafin III the King of Rethem. It is a pleasant surprise that his origins as the king of the "evil" kingdom of Harn is one familiar to most fantasy roleplayers who wind up as rulers. He was an adventurer and when his predcessor, Chafin II, died he and his fellow adventurers eliminated his cousins and gained the throne.

A typical Harn installment is 40 to 50 pages of material and because Rethem is 80 pages long they broke it up in two parts. The first half is the general overview, history, and details on who who in the government. Because Rethem is on the verge of civil war there is considerable detail on the military line-up of Rethem. Normally this is nothing special but the authors go into detail about the various mercenary companies which something not normally covered. I got some ideas for my own Majestic Wilderlands from reading this section.

One thing about using Harn is that the population is low and the scale of the military is definitely one where adventurers can make a difference. Large forces are numbered in the hundreds not thousands.

This installment came with a binder for Rethem which is an orange cover compared to the purple of Kaldor and the green of Kanday. I am looking forward to the second half which also have two regional maps. Along with material on the various settlements of Harn including details on the lords and notable inhabitants.

Got my copy of Rethem now and I would like to thank the team for a very impressive product and a welcome expansion. I agree with Nichola that the write-up of the Queen was very cool and landed nicely as she is one of the active NPCs in my campaign.

So, a big skål of mead and a loud roar from the hird to the writers for a great accomplishment. And a special toast to Richard Luschek for his second to none drool inducing artwork.

_________________
Anders Bersten, Kingdom of Sweden.
"Better to die at sea than as a cow in the barn"

The queen's backgrond does help to explain Techen.
I always wondered why the young Earl didn't vanish when the King took over as his ward. Seems she may be greedy but he is family afterall.

I've been putting off getting it. In part, it is monetary - wife is out of work. But also, western Harn will never be used by me. I've got all the original kingdom modules, and my preference is Melderyn first, Orbaal second, and everything else a distant third. Seems hard to justify buying it when I know my current stuff will do all I need for distant news and background material. On the other hand, I am a collector, the Agrikian fighting orders are the best thing in western Harn, and Luschek never disappoints. I'm sure I'll get it sooner or later, just don't know when.

The bigger question is binder or PDF? I wish buying the paper copy would get you the PDF free or at a discount. Can't get both. It would look great beside the Kaldor and Kanday binders. I really prefer reading paper over PDF, no doubt about that. I already have some canon articles that would logically go in the Rethem binder. But, no room on the current bookshelves (5 sets just in the office!), and I have so much fanon PDFs that it would make sense to get all new canon as PDF as well. If I could get PDFs of all my old stuff, I'd sell the collection in a heartbeat and go digital, but that will likely never happen. Can't decide, but at least I don't need to do so today.

Where is Gonedy manor (south bank of the thard- page 27 1st column, 5th paragraph)
I don't see it on the Golotha atlas map, I suppose it could be in Thiri, but I don't see it on my list.
It was in 711 so it would have been after Ezar's war, so south bank of the Thard and in Rethem, so it is very limited.

It's in Anerath Hundred, along the river due north of Omnis, right before the "S" curve in the river. It will be on Atlas Map E7, which should be shipping with Part II.

Don't let your kids starve to feed your Harn habit....that would be an addiction.
OTOH when you can swing it, there is a lot in Rethem that is useful elsewhere. The detailed discussion of the gears of power would apply to any organization where a few ruthless bastards make the gears go 'round. The military section helps you to organize any other military along similar lines - the system is quite elegant and practical. Of course the individual; settlement details, when they are released, provide ample creative adrenaline for any GM.
Each Kingdom article, whike obviously specific to its own kingdom, is designed to provide ample inspiration for GMs to develop their own campaigns while they wait for the next kingdom article to be released.

_________________
Heroes should be uncommon. They just happen to be the PCs.

My kids all have hooves and horns, and tend to get sold off the farm at 3-4 months age. I knew when I was 7 years old that I never wanted kids of my own, and the years have only solidified that position. My wife has no want of kids as well - one of the reasons I married her!

I figure that my need for the Agrik-related info will be what finally pushes me over the edge. One of my major background storylines has the Azeryani Agrikian church trying to reform that on Harn - turn it back from lawful evil to neutral, so to speak. It will eventually get to the tolerated, but mostly ignored status, in Melderyn, but make no headway at all in western Harn. The Rethemi stuff will definitely be useful for this, as there will be plenty of resistance to the idea, but often for very different reasons.

A little bit surprised by the size of Red Shadows of Herpa. Would have expexcted them to be larger compared to The Copper Hook and Companions of Roving doom. They have after alle the best economic basis.

The NPCs are great. Sayorsaxe is a personal favorite. Imagine a "Counting the Gulmorvin for the Chancellor" campaign .
The description of the culture comes across as coherent, beliveable and fascinating.

In the Military Use of Gulmorvrin section we originally had an example of Sayorsaxe's calculations, but then decided not to show any numbers. I would be curious to see what numbers different GMs come up with.

_________________
Heroes should be uncommon. They just happen to be the PCs.

Until you pointed out that you sold them for meat, I didn't see this as unusual.

John wote:
You might be interested in our calculations: We would be interested in yours!
Speaking as a GM, I would use whatever number makes the game work. The problem is that the Morgathians could have any number: 100, 1000, 10000. Whatever. Given that the Gulmorvrin have no need to sacrifice Aura to Klyss, the Church of the Unlamented Dead could stockpile them like cordwood.
Amorvrin are a very different story. Their need to sacrifice to Klyss means that there simply cannot be many of them, or the whole area would become uninhabitable for ordinary folks. A few homeless wretches disappearing every month is nothing in a town the size of Golotha, but if a hundred people are consumed by the Shadow every month, and it would become a (heh, heh) ghost town in a short time.
If there are 5 Amorvrin in all of Rethem, and they convert one human into a Gulmorvrin each month, and another 5 are created each month by the Church (botched rituals of Myrvria's Kiss, etc.) that is 10 per month, and thus 120 per year since, well, whenever. If since the end of the Balshan Jihad, the Church could easily defeat any army. Note that many of those could be from outside the Kingdom (slaves from Tharda, prisoners from Kanday, the Kuborans, etc.) imported for this very purpose. Slaves brought in for the Pamesani games who turn out not to have what it takes, prostitutes worn out in service, younger sons, the list goes on.
Can Ivashi be converted to the Shadow? Gulmorvrin Aklash adds new meaning to the Shadow!
What are the limits on controlling them? What are the limits on turning undead in this game? I must go read the invocations of Larani, and start recruiting from the Order of Belsirasin.

_________________
Laboro diem, carpe noctem.

Yes Yes Yes, all good questions for a big grey area.
Why not included this info in the first place?

Sigh
Allan

Because some GMs want an Army of Darkness(tm) to march on Menekod, and others don't want undead to be anything more than rumors of superstitious folk. My first idea was to show Sayorsaxe's calculations, but even that was felt might be too constraining to GMs. It is perfectly valid to have no amorvrin in your campaign (they're just scary stories for children and idiots) of to say that the Church of Morgath has run a ruthlessly efficient morvrin-producing machine for centuries, and the old temple on the hill above Golotha is a gateway to 3600 gulmorvrin ready for duty.
As Dogberry pointed out, the only important number is what works in your campaign. Sharing your thoughts and calculations here may help to inspire other GMs intrigued by the idea.

_________________
Heroes should be uncommon. They just happen to be the PCs.

If I remember correctly, a priest can only control about 5 of them at a time (assuming a high RML)
So they have a huge supply but the number that could enter battle is limited. And targeting the priests would quickly turn such a force into a shark school with the remaining priests the closest food source.

So I think a longbow company would be useful.

As for Ivasu, they are already owned by 1 god and since the morvin can't enter consecrated ground I would doubt the shadow could take Ivashu.
IMHO, unless you decide the gods don't exist and the shadow is something else. But you still have the whole concecrated ground and weapon issue to deal with.