This is basically my situation. If you’re reading this review, know that I won’t be reviewing how well the product fits within the Hârn setting, or whether or not the rules are put to good use. Instead, I’ll treat this .pdf as a generic “story seeds” supplement, which can be used in any fantasy setting.
Hârn Pottage is a 8.91 MB .pdf document written by Mike St-Pierre, available for free download here. It presents various items and locations meant to be used anywhere in Hârn’s setting, as a sort of filler in-between adventures.
Style – an overall impression
Visually, Hârn Pottage is quite impressive. Almost every page has at least an illustration, most of them being maps of one kind of another. Both the drawings and the maps are very well drawn, and evocative. With the exception of one map, all the illustrations are in black and white. The choice of fonts is also very appropriate, establishing a kind of quiet low-fantasy sort of feel, which ties in nicely with the product’s content.The product’s prose also fares quite well. Every element presented in Hârn Pottage has enough details to make it interesting, detailed, and unique… but not so many that it ends up being tedious to read. In a collection of “setting snapshots,” achieving that kind of balance isn’t as easy as it seems. Also a testament to the author’s skill is the fact that a majority of the snapshots managed to feel evocative to me, even though they contained plenty of references to a setting I know exactly nothing about.
Finally, I have to tell you a bit about my computer. It’s an old machine, almost ten years old now, which runs on nothing but some electricity and a huge amount of faith in the fact that the Universe won’t screw me over completely. As such, it usually has a lot of trouble handling .pdf documents. Even the simplest character sheet usually slows it down to a crawl. Yet, for a reason I can’t quite understand, this humongous 9 MB document filled with illustrations runs as smoothly on my computer as the RPG.net forums do. Unless it’s a fluke, I have to applaud such brilliant encoding of the document, which saved me from being on the brink of a nervous breakdown yet again. Seriously. I consider this to be the electronical equivalent of super-high quality binding.
Substance – By category
Basically, you can pretty much divide the snapshots provided in Hârn Pottage into three distinct categories: locations, adventures, and items. What I’ll do here is share my impressions with you by looking at each of these. The locations presented in the product are by far the most numerous of the three categories, with ten entries out of eighteen being locations. Those ten entries all feature simple locations, from which characters can usually purchase goods and services. Some background information (history, NPCs, details, etc) is provided on each. This background info has the virtue of imprinting a clear impression of what the author was trying to do with each entry. In other words, even though the background is Hârn-dependent, it’s pretty easy to take out the Hârn references while retaining the same sort of feel that was initially intended for the location. The sections presenting the locations all end with a few plot hooks. Sadly, I’ve found most of the hooks provided to be sort of weak. Don’t get me wrong: “You’re looking for a blacksmith and… here’s one!” is a perfectly fine plot hook, but you might want something a bit more engaging for something about which you have that many details.The adventures featured in Hârn Pottage, of which there’s three, are fairly low fantasy. Things like “save the kids who are trapped in the bear cave.” This is actually very much in line with the locations presented above; in both cases, the author stays away from epic, and aims for a more “everyday” sort of feel. For me, that’s a good thing. I find these “ordinary moments” contribute a lot to the suspension of disbelief in a fantasy game. Anyhow. Again, as with the locations, the information provided here is easily liftable – change a few names, maybe a monster or two, and you’re good. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the plot hooks provided for the adventures are much more engaging than those of the locations.
I can’t tell you much about the items, because they’re deeply linked to Hârn. The information for each item is much more setting-dependent than the other two type of entries, and a good chunk of the descriptions are linked to Hârn’s system, since we’re talking magic items here. None of the five items presented felt like they could be much use to me outside of the world for which they were imagined.
The Bottom Line
Style-wise, Hârn Pottage is easily on par with the top tier of the published fantasy roleplaying products I’ve come across since I’ve started gaming. That’s quite impressive, and it earns a 5.Substance-wise, thirteen out of the eighteen entries found in Hârn Pottage ended up being useful for any fantasy setting you might fancy using them in. Since I’m reviewing this from a “generic” perspective, that’s the basis on which I’ll assign my rating. Usually, I base my substance rating on how much bang you get for your buck. Since this is a free product, I’ll base my rating on how much bang you get for the time you spend reading Hârn Pottage, looking for a generic fantasy resource. Overall, I’ve found this product to be mostly helpful if you’re looking for non-epic, low-fantasy seeds. Therefore, I’m awarding it a 4. My feeling is that it’d earn a 5 if I was at all familiar with Hârn, and reviewing it as a straight-forward Hârn supplement.
In the end, it’s free, so you can’t really afford not to check it out!
Happy gaming,
Jocelyn
