House Gehwær #8 – The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

a digital painting of a medieval building

Welcome back to the eighth part of my HârnMaster solo campaign. After the last part, I decided to do a character sheet for Moire, because I thought that a second character would come in handy and balance out Essryd’s skills a little. With both now as the protagonists, I have a good mix of melee and ranged combat but also someone who is really good at survival, trecking and … cooking.

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House Gehwær #7 – Flames of Agrik roar

a digital painting of a bonfire

Things are escalating quickly in the Fiefdom of Nurien. Welcome back, dear reader! Today marks a very special episode of Essryd’s adventures on the Misty Ilse of Hârn. I always have a safety net below my characters when I do a solo campaign, and I always just let them perish when nothing else remains. This time I resorted to means so stange, I never did before.

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House Gehwær #6 – Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are

a digital painting of a deer with a large antler

Raise your horns to Essryd as we approach part 6 of her adventures in the Kingdom of Rethem. After she decreased the maintenance costs for the household of Sigeric by executing his sorry excuse of a son, Essryd is now preparing her next step to get revenge.

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House Gehwær #5 – Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon

a digital painting of a ruin in the woods

Greetings fellow roleplayers and Hârniacs! Welcome back to my solo campaign in the Kingdom of Rethem where we play Baroness Essryd, head of House Gehwær. I really start to love this little sociopath.

FYI, I implemented a little mechanic (call it houserule or whatever) where I keep track of a mental stability using the Mythic Chaos Factor of each scene. I multiply the chaos factor by three and use the resulting value to generate an EML value for WIL checks. If Essryd is in control of the situation and the chaos factor is low, she tends to get her act together, if the chaos factor is high, she easily gets into rage or tends to questionable behaviour.

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House Gehwær #4 – Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy

a digital painting of a tree

Welcome back, dear reader! We left Essryd in Nurien after returning from Tormau and now, after 7 days we join her when she receives a strange note from her stewart. In this part, I was finally able to make use of the conspiracy rules in HMK and started investigating further for who exactly the instigators of her family’s assassination were.

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House Gehwær #3 – Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception

a digital painting of a bedroom in a medieval castle.

Welcome to part 3 of my Hârn solo campaign. Today we will do some fancy stuff, not only that I touch the travel and trekking procedures for the first time, you will also be in the front row of me having a very hard time to decide whether or not to use Hârnic language equivalents for some titles and names. For example the term Baroness would be Esúrua, and Earl would become Málnîr.

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House Gehwær #2 – Uninvited guests seldom meet a welcome

a digital painting of a medieval keep

Since last session, I though about including something like the Winter Phase from Pendragon and to throw in a “slice of life” or socializing session every once in a while. I hoped to test out some other rule concepts and routines in this process.

I think that this would really suit this campaign. Let’s be honest, Essryd might be quite a good melee fighter and she might have been more on the tomboy side of things in her past, but it is not that appropriate for a recently designated baroness to run around the woods, chasing the thiefs who stole some grain from the warehouse.

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House Gehwær #1 – Youth is sweet and well, but doth speed away!

a digital painting of a room in a medieval castle. blood covers the stone tile floor.

After creating Essryd in the last post, I had a really hard time to find a plausible first scene for the solo campaign. Starting an investigation of a murder years after it happened is not really what makes a good start, so I decided to jump right in after the assassination of Essryd’s family happened.

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She is persistent, unscrupulous and very, very angry

a digital painting of a medieval keep at a river with mountains in the background

I bought the latest edition of HârnMaster – Roleplaying in the World of Kèthîra (HMK) in early November last year and loved every single page of it. It is very well written and easy to understand, given how crunchy the system is. The layout and design of the book is so lovely and fitting for the setting and theme that it hurts.

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