"Lady of Paladins" is a source article for Columbia Games Harn role-playing setting. It was written by Kerry Mould, author of the adventures, "The Bastard Bailiff" & "The Sleeping Heir".

For those not familiar with the setting, Harn is a Madagascar sized island, loosely based on 11th/12th century Britain. It is a place of mystery and strange happenings, on the island are nine states, seven human (Chybisa, Kaldor, Kanday, Melderyn, Orbaal, Rethem & Tharda) and two non-human (Azadmere & Evael). To the east lies Ivinia, the original home of the rulers of Orbaal and the great continent of Lythia.

The article is available from Lythia.com in the form of a 2.18MB ZIP file containing a 22 page PDF file and a JPG file showing the insignia used by the order.

HARNWORLD:LADY OF PALADINS, OVERVIEW.

Known as the Lady of Paladins, Larani is Harn's Goddess of Chivalry, Just War and the arts of the Paladin (A rough equivalent for D20 GMs/Players would be Heironeous.). As might be expected of such a martial deity, one of the more visible aspects of her church are the Fighting Orders, bands of knights and footmen sworn to her service.

There are two such orders on Harn, the first is the western Order of the Chequered Shield, largely confined to the Kingdom of Kanday. The other is the eastern Order of the Lady of Paladins, which operates in three of eastern Harnic Kingdoms, Chybisa, Kaldor and Melderyn.

The article itself focuses upon the Kaloric branch of the Lady of Paladins. It opens with a brief history of the Order, with an emphasis upon the deeds of the Kaldoric branch. This history is followed by more detailed background information covering the organisation and beliefs of the Order, including information on those figures the Order considers as Saints of Larani.

The next section deals with the current situation facing the Kaldoric branch of the Order. Aside from the looming sucession crisis caused by the refusal of the King of Kaldor to name an heir, there is a growing movement demanding that the Kaldoric Order split away from the Melderyni Order, a demand bought about in part due to fears that the Melderyni branch has lost sight of its faith as the 'crusade' against the barbarian Solori turns into a brutal campaign of extermination.

A description of the manors held by the order follows, aside from thumbnail descriptions of each manor, information is also provided upon the forces available to the Order. The last text section of the article is a description of rank structure, uniforms, training and recruiting procedures used by the Order.

The last page of the article contains NPC character sheets for use with the HarnMaster rules system.

HARNWORLD: LADY OF PALADINS, COMMENTS.

"Lady of Paladins" successfuly carries out its primary job, anyone who reads this will come away with a clear impression of how the Order functions, what the members believe in and most importantly its present situation within the Kingdom of Kaldor. Most importantly for first timers, the information is understandable even without recorse to the official Harn material published by Columbia Games.

The text is easy to read and largely free of error. The exception is found on page 19 where the line beginning "Since most of them have never left their home village..." is repeated twice. The uncredited artwork is by Eric Hotz and comprises some of his better pieces, the best of which is probably the picture of the Laranian Chapel on page 11.

One thing which would have greatly improved this article would have been the inclusion of a map showing the location of the various manors in relation to one another.

In conclusion, this article will provide the GM with a pregenerated organisation that can be used in whatever role the GM decides, and while some GMs may balk at the thought of detailing 25 locations, three locations have been detailed by members of the HarnFan community. These are 'Abriel Abbey' and 'Iversen Manor' by J. Patrick McDonald and 'Whyce Manor' by Kerry Mould & Kenneth Malcolm, all of which are available from Lythia.com.

As with all HarnFan articles this one is entirely stat free, save for the NPC sheets that conclude the article and can be used with any system.

HARNWORLD: LADY OF PALADINS, VERDICT.

"Lady of Paladins" is a well written article which provides a description of an interesting organisation which is in a desparate political situation.