Populating Kethira:
By James S. Watson
Being a brief summary of the author’s views on the fauna and flora of Kethira:
Some time ago Robin accepted a suggestion I made for the formation of the Azeryan Dry Lands. I proposed that the Dry Lands were the result of an asteroid impact at about 100,000 BT. This impact was a major extinction event that wiped out most of Kithira’s life forms. I also suggested at that time that the Earthmasters repopulated Kethira from Terra.

The following is my take on events that followed the arrival of the Earthmasters with respect to the populating of Kethira:
At about 20,000 BT the Earthmasters discovered Kethira and for their own reasons, now unknown, decided to use it. To replace the missing fauna and flora they drew upon terra. The Earthmasters used the Eurasian land mass for Lithia, Including Harn, and Australia for Mernat. They found remnant populations of Homo Erectus that they settled in Kamerand along with fauna and flora from the American continents; and Homo Neanderthals which they settled on the two islands to the north of Kamerand along with surviving Ice Age mega fauna.

For reasons unknown the Earthmasters fiddled with the Homo sapiens genome to create the Sindarin. They also used the Homo Neanderthal genome to create the Khuzdul. Lothrim might well have been right in his belief that the Earthmasters were trying to create a warrior race but if that was the case both the Sindarin and Khuzdul did not have the makings of cannon fodder so their efforts failed.
The Earthmasters withdrew/left Kethira about 15,000 BT again for reasons unknown. Some think they were recalled for a last stand against some foe but it could also be they were a renegade group who were breaking the laws of whatever civilization they belonged to and got caught and hauled off to the poky. Of course other reasons are possible.

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

Moved to the appropriate forum.

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Ok, let me get this straight. These guys come in, trash the place, slap Agrik & Larani around, and the most intelligible thing they said was "Zog!"?

Hmmm. I have not really given the origins a lot of thought. Though I could see using more A.M. Homo sapiens rather than anything earlier. and also bringing over some of the flora and fauna to bolster the damaged ecosystem. However good their intentions were, they changed the ecological course of Kethria. Creatures that are found on Kethria and yet not on Earth (e.g., Ilme, Gargoyles, specialized herbs and plants from Herblore, etc...) were native to the world. However this unbalanced the ecosystem and there was competition between native and non-native species. It would have been likely that if Humans had not appeared, the Ilme may have been the dominant intelligent species.

The Elves and Dwarves came through later by canon, and may have either come through Godstones (Is it just conincidence that there are Godstones at Azadmere and Kiraz?), or the Ancient's use of Godstones weakened the boundaries of Kelestia in the area. Or, my personal favorite is to have the Godstone at Pesino malfunctioning to weaken the inter-spacial boundaries around Evael linking the area at times to Yashain which gives the Shava forest its etherial quality. I do not give in that Elves and Dwarves are Tolkienish. That leads back to the bad old days of RPG when everyone was borrowing off Tolkien either out of envy, or to give their RPGS some air of fantasy legitimacy. Keep Hobbits in Middle Earth. However, I see elves more as the Sidhe and spirits of Terran legend. They do things for their own purposes and reasons. Mortals beware. So Elves and Dwarves came from their own planes. (I have given some thought to rearranging Kelestia a bit with the planes attuned to elemental planes. Not elemental planes themselves, but if you drew out the Shek-Pvar wheel and placed the elemental plane occupying the core of each slice, the material planes would have aspects depending on where they sat in relation. But I digress.)

Where you say "material plane" I read "world". I too like the idea of aligning the various worlds of the cluster along Shek-P'var philosophy, although this is something that I would do purely as a teaser for the players and as an example of Pvarist philosophy applied to something else. I don't believe that it is necessary for this to be actually true, but sufficient for a Pvarist to believe that it could be true and thus want to investigate the possibility that "Elemental Odivshe" might be located physically.

Personally, I don't like writing Tolkien out of the Elves and Dwarves. Sorry, nope, doesn't work at all for me. Harnic Sindarin and Sidhe as the prototypes of Terran legends of the Sidhe? Absolutely! I see Harn, specifically, and Kelestia in general, as the place where all of those fantastic legends from Terran antiquity can be tied in to reality. If you stepped through time, for example, in modern Ireland by following some faerie path, the "Emerald Isle" of antiquity that I would have you arrive on would be Harn.

It is a player crutch to do this, but one that I encourage, to draw parallels between Harn's deities and those of ancient Terran myth. Sarajin, for example, is a prototypical Odin/Thor and as I describe his worship "Sarajin" encompasses an entire pantheon of other deities and mythology which you'd only understand if you followed Sarajin in the first place. Thus Sarajin worship encompasses Loki, who may actually be simply an aspect of Naveh. But I digress.

The point is that I much prefer an explanation that closely ties the mythology and legend of these worlds together with each other. I much prefer the Tolkienish Midgaard explanation for the elves and the dwarves of Harn, but accept that Midgaard-Terra has its own connection and that the Quenya of Middle Earth, the Sidhe of Terra, and the Sindarin of Harn, are essentially one and the same - and not genetically engineered Earthmaster servants.

Do please leave the Hobbits on Middle Earth.

As for the Humans, yes I'm certain that the humans of Kethira and the humans of Terra are the same genetic stock. The genetic variety of Kethira can easily be explained by Barasi transits, with or without Earthmaster assistance. I would encourage open speculation on the part of the players, but not offer a solid explanation one way or the other. The reality is that I'm sure that the Earthmasters DID transplant both flora and fauna from Terra, and that the fauna included humans, but that humans have also managed to transplant themselves - both ways. That, at least, would be my explanation.

I think that it would be a mistake to tie Harn/Kethira down to some pseudo-scientific explanation of "this is the way that it happened" only to find that scientific discoveries or simple scholarship have totally discredited the pseudo-science within a few months or a few years. I prefer mysteries to stay mysterious. The fact that there are already so many interesting hooks and clues, both in NRC's writings as well as in ancient Terran mythology, makes for a very compelling world on its own without trying to give everything a basis in science.

Now, one last thought: the suggestions that the human(oid) transplant settlers of the islands north of Kamerand would be Homo Neanderthals, and that the transplants to Kamerand would be Homo Erectus. The scientist in me finds these suggestions unrealistic, based on what we know of the fossil record on Terra. The Alaskan in me finds this completely offensive and culturally biased. The suggestion that I read into this is that Kethiran parallels of Terra's "Northern Peoples" (Inuit, Inupiat, etc) are Neanderthal-ish is very ugly. Them's fightin' words. The suggestion that the Kethiran parallel of Terra's indigenous inhabitants of the North American continent ("Native Americans") are locked in the Stone Age is equally ugly. Everywhere you go across Kethira, you can draw a parallel with a place on Terra: this place is "like" that place". Kamerand is "like" the American continents. Saying that the indigenous inhabitants of Kamerand are barely a step or two evolved past Lucy and that anyone living in the icy north is a neanderthal is going to smack of euro-centric racial bias. It is not necessary to "dumb down" the inhabitants of those lands in order to include Ice Age megafauna.

akdave wrote:
First as a former anthropolgist there is no euro-centric racial bias in my concept. Second the neanderthal may well have been as smart as homo sapients of their time, their brains were as big. Also I didn't say that Kamerand was like the American continents I said "the Earthmasters stocked Kamerand with fana and flora from the American Continent. As for Homo Erectus they were much closer to modern man then to Lucy and may well have survived alongside modern man and neanderthals until about 20,000 years ago. The Earthmasters in my P-harn placed the verious groups such as neanderthal and the other fauna and flora where they did for reasons of their own. What reasons we don't know I see no parallel between the native inhabitants of places like Alaska or the rest of the Americas and what the Earthmasters did. If I had I would have used native inhabitants from those places.

_________________
The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

It isn't hard to look at a map of Kethira, complete with all of the place names, and draw parallels with Terran places and cultures. It doesn't take a lot of thought to see that Kamerand pairs up with the American continents, for example. It makes sense to use flora and fauna examples from the Americas in describing Kamerand, and equate the large islands of the north of Kamerand with Greenland and the arctic of Canada/Alaska. I buy that, and I buy the idea of transplanting late Ice Age megafauna to those regions to give a home for the mammoths, etc, and the peoples who would have hunted them. I buy into all of that.

What I balk at is when Harnic human culture everywhere else are equated with Terran human Homo sapiens cultures, except on Kamerand where the Terran human Homo sapiens cultures happen to be aboriginal natives of North and South America and their "Harn counterparts" are equated as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalinsus. Why do they need to be less than fully "human"? It doesn't take much to cut out Harn out of the middle start directly associating various Terran cultures as being "sub-human".

Why is it that the Euro-like Harn humans can be equated with Homo sapiens, but the non-Euro-like Harn humans cannot?

I'll note that I would make this same objection if you had equated Anzeloria with Africa and then said that the inhabitants of Anzeloria were Homo erectus or Homo australopitheces.

Once you start drawing parallels between Harn humans and Terran humans, there is a certain degree of cultural sensitivity that needs to be considered.

aldave wrote:
At 20720 BP there may have been no humans in the Americas. No human sites prior to 13,500 BP have been generaly accepted by archeologists at the present time so the Earthmasters finding no humans and for reasons of their own used the other two groups possably to preserve them for fuuture "study."

_________________
The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

Are you assuming Terra's "present" is 2011? The Kelestia article describes Terra as being at least in the 25th Century, possibly far beyond. Also, the same article specifies that time doesn't flow at the same rate between the familial worlds. Thus, a human plucked from 1,000 (Terran) years ago could easily have been deposited 20,000 (Kethiran) years ago.

Looked at Kethira in my Harndex (1st ed) no mention of Terra the second ed mentions Kelestia but not Terra but gives no detes. Yes I am assuming that the current terra year is 2011 but in any event how does that effect what the Earthmasters were doing in 20,000 BT? Please note I was suggesting how things came to be in my P-Harn. I have always been troubled by the explantion of the origin of the elves and dwarves and especially how the elves can interbreed with humans. To do that they would have to be very closely related which rules out convergent evololution. The whole thust of what I was trying to do is that the Earthmasters were messing with human and humanoid genonomes for reasons of their own and they brought the human and humanoid stocks they found on Terra to Kethera and settled them there so they would be available for Earthmaster manuplation.

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

Humans interbreed with elves but not dwarves because thats how Tolkien wrote it.

The original Kelestia article from EH4 dates Terra as being some time after the "P-World Wars ... of the twenty-fifth century", but left unexplained are the "P-World Wars" themselves and how these might influence Kethira, leaving open the possibility that this text is a future p-Terra anachronism. This reference to a "future Terra" doesn't exist in the HMG "Reality" article.

The Melderyn module includes the Gelimo article, which includes the Kasp of Haus story. Kasp, from "Nurumbern" appears in 582, disappears in 585, and reappears 93 years later in 678 showing no sign of aging and with detailed memory of the chantry as it existed in 585 as if he had not been gone but a day. The article also explains that a Shek-P'var reported a parallel story from a p-Terra, tying the "Kasp of Haus" story as a likely Terra-Kethira traveler.

Kasp of Haus from Nurumbern, a noble boy who grew up in a windowless dark cell, died of being stabbed to death.

Sounds an aweful lot like the story of Kaspar Hauser of Nurenberg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser

The point of this sidebar is to note that it is possible that time passes very differently in Kethira, compared to Terra. A week or a month in Terra might be a hundred years in Kethira. Which brings to mind the idea that Lothrim might have been buried alive, transported himself to Terra, lived a period of time, and then returned to a Kethira which had aged some 600 years in his absence but for him less than a year had passed.

So, 20,000 years BT on Kethira compares with what date on Terra? Hard to say.

Also trips through Barasi points may not be instantaneous. Time could be faster or slower at the destination and/or what seems like a brief trip through the Barasi point may take months or years.

Time loss each jump using Gate of Kemdal is intrinsic. Robin mentioned a short series of jumps that spanned 4 years of game time.

I favor slow Barasi point travel explanation to large time rate differences. Lothrim could still pop up 600 years later but for different reasons.

Also "better propelled" Barasi point travel and/or higher complexity Kemdal's Gate spells for faster/more accurate travel with less time loss. With complexities in the ~14+ range single jump to destination gates with no time loss (that can be passed through in either direction, etc while it remains open)



Well that depends a lot on which p-world of Terra. Each can be in a completely different peroid of history. Players could visit one and pick up some M-16s and visit another and be facing dinosaurs.

I prefer using Terra in the Lionheart supplement time (1100AD?) peroid corosponding to Harn 720 to Midgaad-Middle Earth in the Fouth age and Shereme-Forgotten Realms in 1380'ish DR.

But If I'm feeling like some time traveling action than p-worlds in vastly different time peroids from dinosaurs to spaceships is available - and still get back to their home worls when they left.

Anyone going back in time is actually dropping into a p-world that is not passed that date yet. Fixing thier future is nice for them if you can (assuming the world is similar enough to the one you left) but the original world is right where you left it following it's time line (minus the guy who left to go back in time).


After eliminating the different time rates via those other posiable explainantion I can face different rates of time in two different worlds. I Tend to keep the differences minimal 150% 200% rate and it may not last on the longer timescale. Within a couple hundred year peroid I prefer that it steadies out or reverses back the other way, maybe several times - so that on long time peroids it averages out close to 1 year = 1 year.

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Yap but Tolkien wrote most of his stuff long before the now current studies of genetics entered the main stream. In fact most of Tolkiens work was in the pre WWII period and he was professor of literature with an interest in Finish mythos. Don't think he ever gave a thought to the problems of interbreeding between species. Of course Tolkien inflenced all fantisty Role Playing games with his ideas but still I think a more up to date idea of origins of elves and dwarves should be considered.

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

There is an assumption I find odd in all this - that the Terra referred to in the canon is our Terra. It most obviously is not, since I know for a fact that I am not writing this from NRC's Terra, or from any of your p-Terras. The canon doesn't explicitly state this, but I'm pretty sure that the Terra NRC was referencing is the one with Doc Savage and Buckaroo Bonzai and dinosaurs roaming near the South Pole.

And who knows what the genome holds in that Terra?

Its Fantasy. Our current (mis)understandings about genetics are largely irrelevant in a genre that can see the interbreeding of bears and owls with a straight face.

In AD&D yes but not in Harn

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

He may have had some good reasons for one but not the other. By Tolkien's mythology the elves and humans and almost all other creatures were created by the gods as part of the song of creation. Even orcs are just mutilated and mutated elves.

But the Dwarves were created seperately by one god working alone in secret. (The smith god.) It didn't work because he could give them shape but not life. But the head god granted them life and sealed them away in stone so they didn't come before the elves who were intened to be the first to show up.

So in one way of thinking anything else breeding with dwarves could be harder than breeding owls and bears.


(The smith god's creative bent was always getting him and his followers in trouble. Both Sauron and Sauroman were demi-god followers of the smith seduced by love of knowledge etc and the love of things of metal and gears. The Noldor elves also were great crafters and were often driven past reasonal actions by love of the things they could create.)

If the smith god of Middle Earth has an analog for Harn it would definitely be Ilvir who cannot create life himself but seeks divine essences from the gods with which to give his creations life. IMC the Dwarves have especial respect for Ilvir but worship the eldest, first-god of Aman (who sometimes appears to Harnic folk as Seim) who gave them life.

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I think the point is that Tolkien's mythology makes sense within the context of his mythology, not within the context of our current (mis)understandings of modern biology and genetics. Nevertheless it does seem intentional (and internally consistent) that his elves might be able to breed with humans, while his dwarves can barely breed on their own.

Harn's orcs are clearly not Tolkien's orcs. Where they came from is a disconnected mystery. I suspect that NRC's pre-Harn Sherem game world had a gargun-like race in it somewhere and that is where he imported them from.

As for a smith-god, Ilvir does fit but would hardly be worshipped by the dwarves. I have the dwarves worshipping a demi-god as part of Siem's pantheon who is a smith. My pHarn is not only polytheistic, but polypantheonistic. It is rare for people to sincerely revere more than one deity (Larani+Peoni a possible exception) for the simple fact that every one of the "10" comes with a whole sack of baggage in the form of separately revered saints and demi-gods with some of one deity's demigod pantheon merely being aspects of some other "major" deity or a demigod from someone else's pantheon with a slightly different name.

akdave wrote:

I wrote a paper on the origins of Harn's Orc (Gargun) you can access it at: http://www.jswatson.info/Gargun.htm

I think we can go much to far in accepting Tolken's mythos as cannon in Harn. Robin, like many other RPG desingners obviously drew up on Tolken for ideas but Tolken's mythos is not set in stone as the past history of Harn or it's peoples.

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

Note of technicality, your paper mentions Sauron making Orcs by "twisting men". According to Tolkien's writings, Orcs were actually made by "twisting elves" and were first made by Morgoth. Which does nothing to detract from the arguments made, in fact I think it bolsters them as Morgoth was much much higher on the power tree than Sauron could dream of (well, maybe he could dream that big), and even Morgath could only create Orcs by twisting Elves.

I personally don't think the Middle Earth Orcs and the Gargun of Harn have anything in common

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The venerable James
Web Site: http://www.jswatson.info
Seeking Harn Players in Madison, Wisconsin

Agreed: Harn's Gargun could not possibly have come from Tolkien's Middle Earth. At least not the Middle Earth as I understand it from Tolkien.

I really enjoy taunting and tormenting players who want to get too "anthro" about the Gargun and trying to figure them out. The only clue I've seen to the origins of the Gargun is that the Ilme seem to know them from some ancient time. So, solve the Ilme and you solve the Gargun. The theory that I am currently the most fond of is that both the Ilme and the Gargun are remnants of the Earthmasters and the "Great Enemy" respectively.

And again, we're far afield of a topic regarding the population of Kethira and ought to have a separate thread to ponder these great mysteries.

Thanks for the link!

I think that Harnic Elves and Dwarves clearly came from the Elves and Dwarves of Middle Earth. There are histories saying so in addition to similarities but also a number of details and clues. The only real questions are when and under what circumstances.

Robin even left a "Strait Path" for the elves by which they can enter the world of Kethira and leave it to sail onto Aman. There is a city of the dwarves in Lythia where the seven families arrived on Harn before splitting up and going there seperate ways. The Dwarves of Kiraz had a Palantir with which they could communicate back to the Dwarves of Middle Earth for several years before it went silent.

The gargun seem a little less certain. It turns out that the word "Gargun" is a Middle Earth word used by the woeses meaning "Orc". Probably means that they were imported from that portion of the landscape. But at that point things get confusing... Lothrim imported gargun to Harn from Middle Earth.

Is this the form Robin believes the orcs of ME are like? It this what orcs metomorphize into moving thru godstone/etc into Harn? and/or is this what Lothrim mutated them into when he got them here in order to transform them into the army he wanted?

Some of the basics of orcs came through. They breed in pits of $#@!, they have several different basic breeds, don't do well in sunlight, evil, etc. Female orcs? Not a question I ever heard answered in Tolkien. Betting not qute what Tolkien had in mind. But I think the "Strait Path" Robin used isn't exactly right also.

I'd say the orcs of Harn are barely recognizable as having developed from their ME counterparts - but I think that is where they came from. Harn should be glad that Lothrim didn't import any of the improved Human-Orc half-breeds (Urk-hai, etc) into harn.

Anyway the elves and Dwarves seem to recognize the Gargun as old enemies from before the crossing. That should be evidence enough.

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While this is a perfectly good theory, and you did discuss it with Robin, I don't think it's correct to suggest Robin agreed with this idea. As was generally his way, he indicated "it could have been like that." Definitiveness on these matters from Robin was extremely rare; and for good reason.

So - let's happily continue the conversation, but let's not assume this theory is an 'official' one.