Out of the Darkness (A Harnic RPG) OOG and Control Thread

It is indeed.

As well, this might be a good place to pick the brains of Dopers who are smarter than I am.

In addition to meats and berries, what sorts of foods might an agrarian but nomadic (as in, they move yearly) society be likely to eat, especially in an alpine environment? Tubers are not an option, nor is maize. Wheat, rye, and barley seem unlikely. What would they grow, and what could be preserved through the winter?

My brain is full of excitement at winning a Vegas Poker tournment!

Bear in mind you are injured and have little to go on.

I would ask one (or two) questions at a time and proceeed cautiously. (There is no-one to help you if you offend them!)

Compliment them on their kindness and care.
Explain that you don’t remember anything.
Ask the name of their people and if the foulspawn are their enemies.
Next ask who else lives near here and do any of them look like you.
If all is well, ask if travellers come up here much and do their people like visitors.
Perhaps (if all has gone well) ask who their Chief is and whether he has travelled much.

Congratulations!

He is well and so are you. You are all ready for the next part. You are all healed and equipped for Part II.

My foot has healed?! :cool: You’re not just … pulling my leg? :eek:

I would quess meat would be the primary food in a high alpine or high latitude forested mountain area. (Unless they can digest acorns and pine cones…)

Deer/caribou, bear/wolf, beaver, birds, squirrel, rabbit, river and pond fishes, anything they can catch, basically. Stay moving so that you don’t overhunt one area.

They can also trade for food stuffs from the south. Maybe they carve bone items that are prized elsewhere.

These people definitely plant crops.

On the significance of Passage of the Soul:

This goes a bit into game mechanics, so bear with me.

When a person dies, his soul goes to Heaven. In the case of Laranians, it goes to Tirathor, Laranian heaven. Or, maybe, his soul doesn’t make it. Perhaps it is claimed by demons, or wanders the land as a ghost, or meets some other dreadful fate. In game terms, what determines that?

Piety points. Every character who is not an atheist has piety points, and also has a skill called ritual. Ritual is basically your skill at saying the Lord’s Prayer, knowing how to take communion, etc. Most characters have ritual at around 10-15, enough to get by in church without looking like a fool. Priests, obviously, have a much higher ritual skill. (NAF has 72.)

Piety points are sort of like god money. The more you have, the more your god likes you. Jesus had a few thousand of them. Fred Phelps probably has negative six. You earn PP by praying, going on holy quests, helping little old ladies across the street, etc.

“How many PP do I have?” You don’t know. You can only hope you’re in good standing with your god. Feeling all high and mighty is no guarantee that your god likes you. Likewise, some very humble people may be the holiest of all.

So what happens when you die? If your PP equal or exceed your ritual skill, you die in a state of grace and go to heaven. If not, well… And obviously, a priest needs to have more PP than the laity.

When Passage of the Soul is invoked, the priest gives piety to the deceased. The hope is that this will give the deceased enough piety to make the journey.

Does this mean that everyone with piety points can use them to e.g. heal?

There’s a difference between using rituals for things like healing and making a special plea for a miracle. Only NAF has rituals. Anyone can make a special plea, but making one is a huge deal. You’re calling in a special favor of God. Asking that a special loved one be cured of cancer might be a worthy use of that plea. Asking for a ham sandwich would not.

Even so, you have to have a good reason for asking your favor, as well as having a lot of piety points.

Harn is the brainchild of N. Robin Crossby, who claims he was working on it as early as 1967. It got published by Columbia Games in 1983.

Four years ago, I attended HarnCon II in nearby Plymouth, MA. Robin was there. He only participated in a little bit of it, because he wasn’t feeling well. He had a pain in his gut.

That pain was the start of the cancer. Yesterday was the end of it. :frowning:

That’s terrible. :frowning:

That is terrible. He will be missed.

In the other thread, I mentioned the need for money. While your characters have forgotten who they are, they know a little about how money works. If I got amnesia tonight, I’d probably remember how many quarters make up une dollar.

On Harn, the basic unit of cash is the penny. (This is probably similar to the English system of X years ago.) A penny is a silver coin debased with a bit of tin. It’s a little smaller than a US dime. The nomenclature is a d, so a pence is 1d, tuppence is 2d, and 139 pennies 139d. Pennies can be clipped into quarter pence, like a pie cut into four slices. 1/4 of a penny is a farthing. 1d 3f is 7 farthings or 1.75 pence.

12d is a shilling, but no one really counts money in that way. 240d is called a pound. Any wild guesses as to how much that weighs? :wink:

Gold coins are minted only in Azadmere, are about the size of a US dollar coin (SBA or Sackies), and are worth 360d. They are so rare that they are almost legendary.

A minimum-wage peasant might make around a pound or two per year. That’s a seriously poverty wage.

I am so enjoying reading this game, if an opening happened, I would love to be considered to possibly run a character!

Why thank you! I guess it turned out to be an interesting idea after all. I had serious doubts about it.

I’m not sure when or if an opening will come up, but I’ll add you to the list.