Whether the elves and dwarves of Harn recognize the Gargun as being an old enemy from long ago is a side thing. The Ilme definitely recognize the Gargun as an old race, and the Ilme are also egg-layers.

I'm fine with the idea that Robin borrowed a Tolkien word to name the Gargun. I'm fine with that because Robin clearly borrowed words and sounds from a lot of Fantasy ideas and those words were probably borrowed from somewhere else so a word from the woeses that means "orc" makes sense. That doesn't mean that Harn's orcs are related to Tolkien's orcs.

Tolkien's orcs are twisted from elves, although that opens a big debate can of worms on the Tolkien boards about whether or not this makes orcs "children of Illuvatar" or means that orcs might be immortal like elves. I like to think that they're not immortal, and instead have brutally short life-spans if they were to somehow live to a normal natural death, and that the whole "twisted by Morgath and Sauron" means that the descendants of the original proto-orcs are mortal (although their ancient ancestors might have been).

From my perspective as both a Tolkien enthusiast and a Harn enthusiast, there are enough large glaring canon differences between the "orcs" of the two fantasy worlds that it is very difficult for me to see the Robin's Gargun as having any relation to Tolkien's Orcs. Tolkien's orcs could be interbred with humans, as Saruman experimented with breeding orcs with Dunlendings. The only way I can is to use Feanor's suggestion that the p-World transit warped them somehow. I think that any recognition of elves and dwarves for gargun can be easily explained as being the elves and dwarves of Harn have a history of a similar conflict with orcs in Middle Earth, and gargun are filling that same "enemy" role in Harn. Dwarves are going to hate them for what happened at Kiraz, regardless of any Middle Earth grudge. In fact, if they ARE the same then the old anti-orc animosity/grudges should have brought the dwarves and elves out in force in a flood and stopped Lothrim in his tracks. Instead, the dwarves sat back and watched Lothrim expand his empire until Kiraz was sacked.

Perhaps Lothrim visited Middle Earth, saw Saurn's orcs, and decided he wanted an army like that only "better" (ie, more controllable by him) so he went a different path. I think that the Gargun are alien to Harn, and far more alien than humans, elves, or dwarves (all of them "children of Illuvatar" according to Tolkien). If Lothrim could have visited Middle Earth, he could have visited somewhere else (presumably just as easily, maybe not, I don't really know how difficult a p-World transit would be having never done one myself). He found a p-World somewhere that had breed-stock that he could use, and brought them to Harn as Gargun because eggs were easier to move through the Godstones than live orcs.

I really do see the Gargun as being entirely alien biology. They're egg-laying mammals which are clearly more highly evolved than the very few rare examples of egg-laying mammals on Terra. It turned out to be a dead-end evolutionary niche on Terra, but not somewhere else (or some-when else). I seriously doubt that Lothrim created them himself out of nothing. They came from somewhere. I just don't know where.

I have always thought the drawings of gargun resemble monkeys etc...or perhaps early humans of some description...the evolutionary aspects of species existence is a very juicy topic indeed.

Elves and dwarves in Tokein and Harn to me are clearly set down as non evolutionary...they started like that that, have not changed, and like the way they are...

Humans...well are presented imho as 'inheritors of the earth' due to their ability to adapt if not their ability to evolve...?

Orcs/Gargun come across as the result of BAD science/magic to me...somewhat chaotic, defininately not happy with the status quo, but hamstrung by aspects of their nature that do not enable them to evolve/adapt like humans....or at least as quickly....but clearly manifest human characteristics that can handily can be bundled into a different looking being that one can execute easily without the bother of de-humanising...it has been done for you already!!

However I await the genome project to prove that humans interbred with gargun in early history.... . Not with Elves or Dwarves

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

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

The thing to remember is all those pesky p_worlds. Which Terra did the Earthmasters import Terran lifeforms from?

Good old Terria which we happen to live on. But it was along time ago

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

The p-a-Earthmasters imported the p-1-lifeforms from the p-1-Terra in p-A-Harn-year-xxxxx-BT. The p-b-Earthmasters imported the p-2-lifeforms from the p-2-Terra in p-B-Harn-year-yyyyy-BT.

The p-c-Earthmasters went to the p-2-Terra in p-B-Harn-year-yyyyy+n-BT and didn't find many lifeforms they actually cared about because they had already left with the p-b-Earthmasters. And The p-d-Earthmasters "hit the jackpot" and grabbed the humans from p-3&4&5-Terra and dropped them all in p-F-Harn. That greatly confused the p-f-Earthmasters because when they showed up in p-F-Harn with pre-humans they found in p-6-Terra they found Harn already occupied but not knowing what else to do with them they added them to the pile.

Unfortunately the intense interest in p-6-Harn by so many groups lead the p-b&j-airmasters right to them and almost all the p-d&e-Earthmasters were wiped out and the p-j-airmasters opened the plane as a hunting preserve for just about any human/earthmaster/airmaster/sentient animal race that found use in killing humans for fun or food.

Then the p-x-airmasters found out about the terrible and illegal way they were hunting other sentient races and went back in time to warn the humans on p-3&4&5&6-Terra. They trained and armed the humans so that when the Earthmasters showed up they were ready for them. They waited until they had visited each of the worlds and first shipments of humans were exported before the humans and airmasters ambushed the Earthmasters. They then followed the Earthmasters to p-6-Harn, killed them and freed the humans there. The humans and p-x-airmasters again employed time travel to get the jump on the Earthmasters and sent warning to most of the early p-airmaster planes and worlds which resulted in the Air-Earthmaster wars which not only spanned the universe but also into most p-planes and led to the destruction/disappearance of both races in most p-worlds (but at different points on the timeline as not all p-worlds are at the same point of time). It also led to the abandonment of the various human and sentient animal half-races under various conditions that existed at the time all were wiped out.

There are still various groups of each race who didn't figure out about the p-world issues and got lost from their own worlds & times and so missed the great war. Whether they eventually figure it out or not they end up on random worlds seeing the devastation and confusion left behind and took various actions in the aftermath to either help/hurt/leave/set-up kingdoms in the places discovered, etc.

Oh, I forgot about the planes where the Earthmasters never existed, didn't discover inter-world travel and/or other random races showed up instead...

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Correction - not in your pHarn. I would far rather have bears and owls be crossbred by Ilvir in my pHarn than to state that Earthmasters brought humans to Harn and then played with genetics. Every pHarn is different. My Earthmasters were just an ancient race with psionics, not god-like powers. I see no need for genetics in mine at all. I want fantasy, not science. My elves and humans may be able to interbreed, supposing an elf would ever lower itself to that level, but it is because of magic, not similar genes. On my pHarn, the gods created the sentient races and placed them where they felt like. Some may interbreed, some may not. No further explanation is needed.

akdave wrote:
To each his own as far as P-Harns go. But I do have a prolbem with taking Tolken as Canon and in the use of mega-magic or the gods as an explanation for what happened. I am not, by nature, a creationist, I prefer an evolutionst explantion for how thing came to be. In relation to the development of Harn it is obvious that Robin drew upon Tolken, just as creators of other swords and sorcery RPG games did, for backgroud ideas but for me the real beauty of Harn is its real world feel, the fact that it is much closer to the way things were then say AD&D. I prefer my P-Harn to be a low magic campaign without the kind of mega-magic that gives fantasitic mosters like Owl-bears, and yes I do see limits on what the EarthMasters could do. As I see it they had a very advanced technology and psionics but they also had limits as I mentioned in a prior post. So, as I said, to each his own. we all like to introduce our own ideas into our favorate gaming systems I just find it easier with HarnMaster rules and background modules then I do with other sword and sorcery RPGs.

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

In real life, I am an atheist, and so follow a strictly scientific outlook. But when doing FRP, I am strictly a creationist. I want the wonder and mystery that real gods could bring. I want a god to have done something, this to have been affected by another god, and almost destroyed by a third. I don't need clear answers - in an FRP, faith is good enough, and "it don't make sense, but that's how it is" should be a common answer to "why?".

We both have clear answers to why humans are on Kamerand, and why elves and humans can interbreed, and various other subjects that will probably never matter a bit to an actual game session, but we have fun making it up. What I had a problem with is your stating categorically that "In AD&D yes but not in Harn". If you had said "not in my pHarn" I wouldn't have blinked an eye. Perhaps it's just me, but I feel it critically important to denote when something is canon, and when it is just the rule for a pHarn. Harnic owbears are two of those matters that has no support either way, but not everyone would know that. I'm sure you think your campaign has a better explanation for certain things. Heck, I'm absolutely positive that my pHarn is significantly better than canon on several points, and have no problem trying to convince others of NRC's errors, but I try to always state when it is just my pHarn I am talking about. It's not what you said, but how you said it, that got me.

I guess we can both say we were got on this one. I like my P-Harn and you like yours.

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

Just my 2d worth, but when I sdtart seeing "science of genetics" bandied about...well, I just have to pipe up. Take into account, regardless of whether or not your p-Harn has gargun being the self-same orcs from ME, the orcs of ME and the orcs of Harn are definitely the result of intensely powerful magic in ME, and heavily implied by Robin's written works that the gargun of Harn may have been created by Lothrim...or perhaps (his tease as he was wont to do from time to time, and by doing so, making our vairied p-Harns all different in their own way) they were just brought in from another world (as I recall, the tease was that they may have come from ME). The fact that they are vastly different in biology misses the point in my estimation.

Why must they be EITHER from ME OR created by Lothrim? Who is to say they were not imported and then modified by the villain of yore? Certainly Tolkien's writing showed this capable of being done to this vile race...indeed, the vile races is supposed to be magically twisted elves in the first place, opposing all that the good elves stood for. Who is to say that the original influx of gargun many ages ago resemble the creatures roaming the world today? As many eggs as they lay, and as short lived and violent as they are, perhaps this change in the creature resulted in a smaller breed than might have roamed ME. Recall though, most orcs in ME other than the Uruk-Hai, which were yet another alteration by another wizard were the only truly large orcs (all things in perspective to hobbit eyes). My impression of the smaller orcs is that they were considerably smaller than the Uruk-Hai, and probably only seemed large to the smaller heroes in the tales. I do not recall any accurate description saying they were thus and thus tall. I can well imagine the trade off being a reason behind the Foulspawner altering the race. Perhaps, in light of there being no females, he saw fit to modify the race rather than try and figure out how to make them from scratch...surely a vastly more difficlut task than in ME. Perhaps, with magic being weaker, shifting the function of the races, altering them to have small numbers of females and mimicking other creatures in nature, living in a hive mentality and breeding like mad to overcome the violent nature, perhaps this was within the abilities of a villainous and unscrupulous mage in Harn. Perhaps no Uruk-Hai were able to be further altered (may the people of the world rejoice), having already been heavily altered in the first place.

Just a thought.

Indeed the Orcs of Middle earth have had a number of probably modifications done to them in coming to Harn.

Being brought through by Godstone/ Barasi point there is in an inherent metamorpasis to make them approprite to the world they are going to.

Once there I have had Lothrims have a lab under the tower at The Trobridge Ford where lothrim further modified and enhanced orcs into gargun serving him. Though orcs do tend to buckle under and serve any powerful evil being some of the spells hinted at in Lothrim's research may have gone even farther in that direction to bind them to his will.

Questions remain if some origianal unmodified subects may be available at the site also.

Though the Gargun may have been enchanted into serving him thier violent nature seems that Lothrim going down into the caves at Elkall-Anuz and beating heads liberally was an importat part of the leadship process.

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