Just musing about spell casters, priestly invocations, etc...

I know that magic is secretive and the Shek-Pvar don't let much get out; but I've noticed something in the Harndex and the history of the kingdoms, is that there isn't much of a magic footprint on Harn. Why is that?

Magic and its implementation into a Harn campaign is tough for an experienced player to play a Shek-Pvar (priest included), which is a reason that I don't let new players, play one as their first character - best to get the basics of the system down before trying to tackle the magic systems as well.

So what are your thoughts on the lack of magic (footprint) on Harn, and the HarnMaster, HM1, HM2, HM Gold, and HM3 systems.

Are there any solutions? Alternatives, like other other magic/invocation systems (I was looking at RoleMaster's Spell Law for example) that could be graphed into the HarnMaster version X, system.

Cheers

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For what it's worth, that's the way I see it

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "footprint", but I've always taken the presence of magic on Harn to be "rare and subtle" rather than "common & overt" as it is in other fantasy games. It's not LOW magic (by which I mean not very powerful), just understated and used almost covertly by its practitioners, who may be more numerous than anyone thinks. I have less exposure to priestly magic in Harn, but I'd say there's a common element of subtlety about it. Likewise with psionics. In fact, I tend to treat them all as different facets of the same ... skill/power/knowledge (or whatever you want to call it).

And I'm not at all certain you could map Spell Law over Harn magic without fundamentally changing the nature of the game. It's been difficult enough to map the spells out of Savage Worlds over HarnWorld, and that's about the simplest list of spells/powers you could ever hope to have.

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Leitchy
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What Leitchy said!

For me there is a dissonance with the prevalance of arcane powers (Psionics,magic,invocations) possible to the general populace if one expands the character generation process into said general populace....and evidence of this in the general history. Surely there would be more evidence/footprint of said folk using said abilities I hear you say!!

Well; there are explicit and implicit social constructs that limit the rawness and 'boot weight' of such powers:

Magic: The Shek Pvar and the Pvaric code; and renegades. Almost all Magic is learnt in secret (Chantries), and/or taught by masters...who themselves have mostly been indoctrinated (in a positive way ) into secret practices. There is an explicit code to follow that instructs secrecy. This is enforced if it is not followed; public mages do not last very long

Religious invocations: To employ them one has to be accepted and taught by a church hierarchy that by implication is as secret and punitary as the Shek Pvar. IMHO the gods often employ them in a 'hidden' way (although this is easier with the vaguer divine interventions); and often take place in the physical buildings of the churches....de facto excluding the non-faithful and leaving them open to scepticism.

Psionics: Withcraft!! And also people with psionics will often be co-opted by the shek-pvar; dampening the wider social effect by amalgamating them with 'magic'.

All of this ameliorates the evidence of magic use. However; two vast uses/users of Sorcery have massively defined Harnic history to the current day: Lothraem the Renegade and the Sorcerous defence of the Elven realms. And whilst his magic may not be evident Genin does have a road named after him


Despite this however; I still feel that the magic footprint is very shallow. One could use activities the council of Eleven order of the white hand to explain this; a common idea is that they use Men in Black savoryan type memory swiping. Whilst not my cup of tea; it could be an extra layer of suppression to explain the relative mundanity of the Misty Isle.


The other thing I do is suggest that the character generation process is for players to make them special and noteworthy for play. So I do not give all my my NPC priests invocations; the public loads of psionics etc. Controversial; but it does stop players whining 'lets take him to the temple where they have truthsense etc'

(Oh and I forgot to mention Godstones and Earthmaster sites!!!!)

Using Rolemaster spells for me would add nothing or detract nothing to the mix. It might make starter characters more spell replete...depends how you do it...but these spell-casters should be just as wary as following the code as Pvaric ones...or they are renegade


Also; if a player does let rip with a fireball in a city shall we say.....I make sure some local say's 'sorcerous fireball!' but two others say 'Don't be a fool; did you not smell the corpse gas from the embalmers! and see old jambers carrying a naked flame the fool! That chanting loon has tricked you!'

The next day the visit from a couple of powerful observant masters reminding of the code usually ameliorates future behaviour.

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Harn is intended to be "a REAL fanstasy world" meaning that the world has day to day activities, farming, social, economical, etc that act in a real way without being requiring magic.

D&D has cities of hundreds of thousands of people with no food support. They are surrounded by hundreds of miles of wilderness full of dangerous creatures and no farms. How to they survive? "Magic" The food appears out of thin air. There is no need to examine or explain these things as it is accepted that not everything in D&D has to make sense.

Harn "makes sense". Even without magic cities have food, trade happens between countries and towns, kingdoms maintain armies to defend themselves, employ seige engines, ride horses, employ physicians, have courts, etc.

In the history of Harn there is nothing that is specifically caused by magic or religion. It is posible for the GM to decide that despite the belief of those on Harn that magic and gods actually DON'T exist.


Changing the footprint of magic on Harn would probably require either re-writing the entire history of Harn or explaining why starting in 720TR magic suddenly dominates every aspect of Harnic life.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

..Except the importation of Gargun; and consequences thereof.

..and The creation of Ivashu.

..and the Balshan Jihad/Theocracy of Tekhos......

...and pretty much the early history of Melderyn...

....and the assasination of Queen Erila? in that Kanday/Rethem war.....

.....and the Cape Renda disaster (probably )

......and on and on and on...

I jest for comic/annoying effect. Of Course I assume Feanor meant 'religious invocation' not just 'religion'. Almost all of Harnic history is caused by Religion in quite specific ways as well as in general terms. However; the hands of the gods on History are as vague as on Terra imho. So I agree with what I think he is saying

The importation of the Gargun I actually do see as the singlemost specific 'magical' causal factor in Harnic History....but root of this importation is not defined and many on Harn will not even know the inferred stance: That as it was done by a powerful magician, therefore magic must have been involved.



I do not wholly agree with this; unless the magic dial is turned up to Eleven IMHO one can have the input of more frequent sorcery than is implied by Harnic history; by the application of the mechanisms I mentioned above; or by refocusing...miracle like acts in Harnic History by presenting them as miracles...rather than the 'it was a big natural storm' reading of Harn as it is.

Rather like one can deconstruct history from a Marxist or Feminist perspective (to give two random examples); one could read Harnic history from a 'magist' perspective. In fact; the rather dry economist model (which we all love ) presented in the Harn texts is hardly likely to be how your average peasant thinks of things. He probably thinks his world FULL of magic. Just like Terrans...even to this day

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I have just thought of another mechanism of putting sorcery in the historical cupboard which I believe was Favoured by Mr. Crossby.....Yashain. Having mages go Offworld to do their Shenanigans is most useful for brushing over trails with branches.....why I do believe they even get +20 to spellcasting! I imagine the Shek-Pvar would permanently reside on Yashain if it were not the adventures being s**t (Poor old curse of Hlen..never a good word )

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Peter, I'm afraid I can't agree with you here. The importation of gargun from a different world via the Godstone portals does not necessitate "magic". That can easily be 'justified' as people being ignorant of the 'science' behind the portal. However, there is no doubt in my mind that everyone would call it magic. So there is no need for Harn to have magic at all. Some things which are called magic could be justified as super-science*, and the rest (spells, invocations, psionics, etc.) could be dispensed with.

Switching to another train of thought...

The psionics in Harn is (or can be) very subtle; without access to my books I can't be definitive, but as far as I recall, most if not all psionic powers can operate with even the person with the talent being unaware of their power, or what effect it has. This is how I run my Harn campaign; some of the PCs have psionic talents but the players of those PCs are unaware of them. I'm careful to avoid overt uses or manifestations of their powers/talents. Instead, the PCs have 'hunches' or there is some sort of coincidental happenstance that the players see, but is unexplained...and usually doesn't need explanation.

In fact, I try to arrange things so what occurs is so obvious it is self-explanatory...and wrong. It wasn't a rotten tree that just happened to fall on the bear before it could attack PC_No_1, instead, PC_No_2 pushed the tree over other the bear with her telekinetic talent. And so on.

It makes GMing sessions a lot of fun for me.



*Yes, I'm aware of the Arthur C. Clarke quote...

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Leitchy
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I put 'magical' in parentheses because of this...I said (adopt snippy tone ) that the root of the importation was not defined..what more do you want me to say!!!! I also went on to say that one could read Harnic history with a magocentic view....implying that already a scientific/skeptical 'o' centric view is already taken...I was trying to big up the possibilities of a deeper footprint of sorcery existing as asked for by the OP.....not re-iterate the mago-sceptical view implicit in Canon or promote the Mago-absent view obviously easily jumped to from this!!!!

FWIW I steamroller as much magic as I can to into the less than 'super' highway of my own mundane Harnic roadmap...........

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

What...you're not feeling very well? Too many work Christmas parties?? Not up to a vigorous debate??

Going back to the OPs point, then...

I agree with Feanor's point. HarnWorld is a mundane setting with a light leavening of magic, and would be completely at home without any magic at all. Whereas the Rolemaster game system almost demands a magic-rich medieval fantasy setting to operate normally, which HarnWorld fundamentally isn't. Trying to map the spells from that system onto Harn could alter the HarnWorld setting into uselessness. All those unintended, unconsidered, consequences...you may create more problems than you solve, especially once the characters reach high level.

This is exactly what happened with my ShadowHarn campaign, when I used my own adaptation of the Shadowrun 3rd Ed (SR3) rules. In what turned out to be the second last game session, the magician of the party created an illusion so immense and so real that he over-awed an army of 10,000! I knew then that the campaign was dead, so I used the last session to wrap up the campaign.

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Leitchy
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Robin had a discussion somewhere on the issues brought up by the introduction of a "Fly" spell to Harn. I don't have it but it mentions the same ideas where the indroduction of the posibility of a Fly spell to Harn has vast consequences.

He wasn't saying that indroducing a Fly spell is specifically bad or un-Harnlike but that it wasn't included in Harn and that a GM adding it has to consider the various things such an ability would have on the world and on a GM's campaign.

If anyone has the article it would be pretty germane to the orignal question.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

I guess we are talking moderately high level rolrmaster spellss then However; there absolutely nothing in the magic rules to indicate such as spell is not possible with Pvaric magic. I guess this is more a debate about magicians than magic; on Harn they start rubbish and take years and years of gameplay to become competent. I guess in Rolemaster the nod is towards faster progression.

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I strongly disagree with the idea that the presence of a "Fly" spell - or even much more powerful magic - would have any apparent affect on Kethiran history. It only matters if such magic is applied towards historic ends. Arguably, a far greater "magic" exists in on Terra, but a naive reading of the history of the last sixty years could easily omit nuclear weapons altogether.

There are many reasons why powerful magic might not be applied in any way visible to historians. The canon description of the GoAL and Shek P'var gives both institutional reasons - it's against the rules - and psychological reasons. (I particularly agree with the latter explanation - that the pursuit of magical skill is psychologically incompatible with the pursuit of temporal power. Unfortunately, players like to cast fireballs and GMs like to run Sauron-lite villains, and I've never seen a campaign based on that idea implemented.) But there are other possible limiting factors. On Harn, even Sauron-lite is vulnerable to the assassin's knife. It may be that high-profile wizards are too easily taken out by the kvikir.

You can run a high-magic Harn without disrupting history. You just need players whose goals are compatible with that. It would be hard to run a political campaign this way, but a straight adventuring campaign would be fine. The goals of the dragons and dark wizards of such a world can't be simplistic "world domination", but there all kinds of evil that doesn't fit that description. Personally, I ran a Harn campaign in which the players fought as proxies for a dragon of world-shattering power in a millennial battle against dark demigods and rival dragons - when they weren't scrambling to foil the political manipulations of Clan Elernin.

One option is to go with the Ars Magica "Gift" which marks Mage Aura and comes in three degrees. [Akin to a Psychic Signal Generator or Transmitter since most social contact and interaction is at short ranges even low aura mages affect people they interact with].

Standard strength (and default) which makes people uncomfortable around you with negative social modifiers and is why Mages tend to remain in their chantries isolated from the world.

The Blatant Gift really negative social modifiers (witch burning devil spawn) which the PC has to choose in return for other bennies.

The Gentle Gift you appear normal.

P.S. The Gift is Rare in Ars Magica 1 in 10,000 or so [That would be 10 to 12 in Kaldor plus who ever is passing through the kingdom]. You could go the route that it is rare to pass The Gift on genetically as a latent gene talent or that it is a dominant gene that many mages choose not to pass "Their Gift" on to children and many children could be traced back to itinerent mage and youthful mage bastids before their Gift awakened or the odd Fyrian with a calling.

I use Rolemaster straight up with Harn and don't see any bit of a conflict. The Harn world, as I see it, supports the use of a game system where magic can be used. Rolemaster does well paired with such a world, and the game system itself meshes well with a game world that also lends itself to a bit of gritty realism. It is a good pairing.

That said, if you don't want a Fly spell in your game world then don't allow it. Even with Rolemaster Spell Law you can delete individual spells or entire spell lists if you don't think they fit. Have fun with the red pen if you want.

Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine, but frankly I don't get it. I realize Harn somehow has the feel of a "low magic" world or somehow lacks a level of excitement for some because there frankly aren't wizards running around casting spells willy-nilly. There is plenty of magic available to a GM in the game, and there is ample ability to reconcile that with Harnic history and the mundane material. This belief that Harn is somehow a Mundane place is simply B.S.

Harnworld has been my primary game world for almost 30 years. I can say without hesitation that there has been plenty of magic in my games and campaigns. Some of it has been subtle, some of it not and some of it absurd. I can't once remember a player complaining about the magic not "fitting" into the campaign or that it somehow elevated the level of magic above that which is described in the background material. Even in the absurdly high magic (definitely turned up to eleven) "Men in White" games I've run at HarnCons where wheel of extremely powerful pvarists tackle the most outrageously powerful foes imaginable, all while keeping the kviker in the dark about the level of arcane power in the universe.

(I particularly enjoyed the team that Nuked the Balrog deep in the mine with a triggered compound rainbow total release/Unfortunate natural mining accident)

Of course it's not necessary to go to that extreme, but even the canon material speaks of a wheel of mages who tracked down and killed Lothraem (Nurisil).

Magic is a dramatic element, it is deeply present within HarnWorld, and has dramatically influenced the course of history. Not just the introduction of the Gargun. There are frequent references to great magic throughout the history. The battle of sorrows, the carnage of Kiraz, the founding of Kaldor and many other historical facts that have key elements that may (or may not) have magic or divine drivers. This is really up to the GM and the player group and their individual tastes.

So no, I don't believe it is necessary to re-write the history of Harn to have a high magic level. Harn HAS a high magic level. It also has some important social constructs in place to ensure that it's use is controlled. I think it would be necessary to re-write the history for a low-magic world....

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There is no truth to the vile rumor that I am a fireball throwing Peonian Priest!

I don't see how your examples support that view.


Kiraz? The forced march that brought Lothrim's army to Kiraz exhausted and probably would have been slaughtered if the male-dwarves hadn't been out hunting?

Not much evidence of great magic in any of the above cases. The Battle of Sorrows was won by a ground war despite the King of the elves slain by magic (after the battle was already won).

Definitely difference between that and "Lothrim cloaked his armies in magic and snuck up undetected" or "transported his armies to Kiraz by magic thus avoiding the notice of the elves" or "put the guards to sleep so his army invaded Kiraz before an alarm was raised". There are no castle sieges in all of Harnic history in which magic was listed as a factor (one mysterious beheading). Castles are practically indestructible and there is no mention of Agrikian priests blasting down the front gates by summoning a "Pilliar of Fire" from heaven. No flaming maces. History shows Agrikians take over fortress by stealth, deceit and luck not divine power.

Famines and disease happen and no mention of mages or priests showing up to make any difference. One eyed kings stay one-eyed and crippled heros remain crippled. Any mention in all of Harnic history saying otherwise? Kings that extend their natural lives? Based on the dates and histories: No. (exception: Melderyn).

There are a few historical magic events such as Cape Renda disaster and the storms that did damage all across Harn that year. The Red Plague was possibly caused by magic but the only magic mentioned to effectively to combat it was a fire in Cherifir that amazingly only burned down the plague infected parts of the city. The Battle between the Tulwyn and an unseen elven army where the Tulwyn were killed by flying trees. Lothraem taking over (Nurisel was it?) and eventually opposed by other mages. A red figure that darted through the armies and killed a Larani blasphemer.

The examples above are listed as possible magic events of significance despite their relatively minor effects on events and impossibility to prove magical involvement. If an Agrikian priest ever summoned a Pillar of Fire and struck down a soldier on the field that would have definitely made history.

The history of Harn is presented with the ability to omit the Gods and Magic entirely without changing history. It is hard to see how magic on Harn can be changed to have always been common and obvious and yet never had any observed effect.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

We may have to agree to disagree then... I read the history differently. Renegade Mage Lothraem at Nurisel has an epic battle that blasts his tower to ruin, leaves a prophetic warning and reappears with a new name imports an alien army from another world, and conquers much of eastern Harn by elevating himself to god-hood for his fowlspawn followers. Desperately seeking the Pentultimate Tome which he believes to be in Kiraz he marches his forces around Kiraz. He casts spells for three years to suppress the crops to weaken his enemy, and when he arrives most of the men are out foraging. Even so, his force would have been slaughtered by the small force (and women and children) unless he'd been able to penatrate the gate, which was done by torturing a dwarf. I don't think so. Not without arcane means.




It passed that the folk we dwelled among grew weary of peace and crossed the Ulmerien to do battle with the Sindar devils and their Jarin slaves. A great and terrible battle raged back and forth. We eight watched in dismay, O my brothers, as the everliving broke our folk and went amongst them slaying and rending.

We eight gathered our strength and exerted our sacred arts and summoned forth the one called Aedlad, the beast soul of the Sindar King. And came he among us, O my brothers, with aspect fell and might beyond measure. And looked he down upon the field of battle and beheld the Sindar King and made way towards him, slaying all that stood between. His very glance was death and his touch dissolution.

Aedlad and the Sindar lord met upon that bloody plan, and they did smite each other with fell blows that echoed from the hills. And Aedlad slew the Sindar, and possessed his very body. ...

Sounds like a bit more than a minor magic event after the battle was already won...



Except for the aforementioned entrance to Kiraz, the founding of Kaldor, the Baronial revolt, even the most mundane siege of all the Burzyn and the Treasure war has an element of magic that forces one to ask questions. If the Sword was so powerful that it built a kingdom, why wasn't it used to quell the Baronial revolt? Who broke into Torostra's treasury to steal it? etc.

I would not expect Agrik to grant a "Pillar of Fire" to break down a Laranian temple door, lest the Knight of heavan return the favor... but I can see that routinely Agrikan battle fields would have a fair amount of fire damage.



Umm, Balsha? Miginanth?




I would agree that they are examples of possible events, but I disagree that there are minor. If an Agrikian were to bring a "Pillar of Fire" on a soldier in battle it would likely result in a legend similar to the battle at Nurisil. Not sure I see the difference.



I never said common and obvious. I said deeply present and has dramatically influenced Harn's history.

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There is no truth to the vile rumor that I am a fireball throwing Peonian Priest!

The Spanish Armada was defeated by magic, too. So you need to count that.

As the canon is written, you are free to posit that Lothrim was a hugely powerful spellcaster, or he didn't have one jot of magical ability. The story of Nurisel is clearly just that - a story - that you may take as absolute truth or just a fanciful local legend. Aedlad? All the canon says is that there is a book that tells the story - but why would anyone expect that account to be unbiased? It is your choice to interpret Harn's history according to your own taste.

Just like in the real world.

I have no issue with deeply present and dramatically influenced. Quite a bit is implied to have occured - though infrequently enough that it is almost always unexpected and/or so quietly unobservable or away from perception that it is rarely identifiable.

Lothrim does tend to be the exception to the "quiet" or "unobservable" rule. (Summoning slave armies and establishing an empire, towers melting down in flames, etc.) Though IIRC the attack on Kiraz itself was mundane enough - especially afterward with Lothrim staring intently at a book when the men-dwarves reappeared uncharacteristically offering no resistance to being captured.

By most understandings "deeply present and dramatically influencing" is the reason why magic isn't seen even though it exists.

While I could accept an explanation like "in 720TR something changed and now mages are running around indiscriniminately casting magic in public and/or the gods are suddenly allowing their priests to bring pillars of fire from the heavens - but I can read the history of Harn and be pretty sure that such things were not going on in the previous 600+ years.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

Lothrim had magic? Sorry, I never gleaned that from the canon. I caught that a lot of stories are told about Lothrim, but frankly better ones are told about Charlemagne and Alexander the Great. What makes anyone believe that Lothrim "created" or "summoned" the gargun? "Stumbled across" is equally plausible. All the rest are simply stories told about a 600-year old bogey-man.

And per canon - I don't see any obvious magic at work making history today. The Cape Renda disaster? Oh, pleeeeze. The logistics involved in pulling something like that off - creating a huge storm precisely as the armada arrives - it's ridiculous. But the Melderyni are desperate to believe that their wizards keep them safe - after all, their conventional military has lost all credibility in Solora. So they tell and retell stories about how their wizards saved them from the Red Death, saved them from the Ivinians, saved them from Lothrim . . . since the alternative is telling their children that their safety is entirely in the hands of a noble class that is clearly flaccid and incompetent.

The only history-changing magic out there is the magic of the adventurers - which is as it should be. The adventurers should be special.

At least, that's how I like to play it today. But I'm an old man, and I role-play like I drive - slowly and with the blinkers on. When I first got Harn (and we only had DnD) I ran Harn as Greyhawk-on-an-Island. That worked, too.

Looking at the "facts" we know about Lothrim, I'd guess he actually was a player character

Xris

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Ich mag den kleinen blauen Elephanten!

No. The bard that came afterward . . . he was a player character!

In my eyes this is already a interpretation—in the original canon neither chantries nor shek pvar mages was really secret. They were not allowed to bring their knowledge to the common folk, and shouldn't use magic to gain power over them. But the idea to keep the guild and chantries hidden from them came up much later.

I did not know this. I have Shostim which says the chantry is hidden and I think this is original Canon..?

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Chantries are only hidden where there is good reason - e.g. places Workol ever walked. The GoAL is a full member of the Mangai and participates in public life just like every other guild. Their members have to make a living of course, and customers have to be able to find them.