It has been a very big month for HARP so far with the release of HARP Martial Law which is available now for only $5.00, the release of AutoHARP Fantasy, AutoHARP-SF and the upcoming release of HARP College of Magics, so we thought we’d take some time to introduce those of you who haven’t played it yet to High Adventure Role Playing (HARP).
Are your fantasy role-playing games epic in scope and focused on a grand struggle against evil? Do you want all the excitement of high adventure role playing without the subtle details and unneeded complexity? If your answer is “Yes”, then HARP fantasy is for you. HARP includes Iron Crown’s exciting inventions of critical hits, the extraordinary results of open-ended dice rolls and the full flexibility of a skills-based system but in a faster paced, simpler and more 
flexible system.
HARP Fantasy
HARP Fantasy is a complete set of core rules in a single book, with comprehensive yet swift, “high adventure” play, supported by mechanics such as fate points, a scalable spell system and story-driven character advancement.
HARP is designed for players and Game Masters looking for clear core rules combined with guidelines that provide advice for the resolution of any action.
HARP Fantasy is available now from the OneBookShelf network in softcover, hardcover and pdf.
HARP-SF
The roleplaying game of the future has arrived
Whether your game focuses on events on a single inhabited world in the near future or is a galaxy-spanning epic set millennia hence in the far future, HARP SF is the right choice for you.
HARP SF retains all the simplicity and flexibility of the original HARP Fantasy game but expands its reach to a whole new universe of infinite possibilities.
HARP-SF is available now in softcover, hardcover and pdf from the OneBookShelf Network.
HARP Martial Law
The new road to High Adventure
How do monsters and magic affect weapons, armor, and fighting styles?
Martial Law breaks new ground in the field of fantasy role playing combat rules. Martial Law expands the fast, dramatic combat of HARP (High Adventure Role Playing) Fantasy to include detailed hit location criticals.
Martial Law also includes a section on creating and playing warriors in fantasy settings and cool new moves and equipment for fighters.
HARP Martial Law is available now for ONLY $5.00 for a limited time only.
HARP-SF Xtreme
Take your HARP SF game to the next level of excitement!
HARP SF Xtreme expands the HARP SF system with: A complete set of vehicular rules for both slower-than-light and faster-than-light travel, whether you fly at the speed of plot or like to crunch the numbers; An extensive catalogue of land, marine, air, space and hybrid vehicles to get your heroes from Alpha Centauri to Betelgeuse and everywhere else; Deck plans of the featured starships and interplanetary craft; Vehicle combat rules that scale from starfighter dogfights to epic battles between mighty dreadnoughts that will engage the entire party in the action.
HARP SF Xtreme is one giant leap for your HARP SF gaming!
AutoHARP Fantasy and AutoHARP-SF
AutoHARP software combines a Character Creator and a Combat Tracker, both of which are fully compatible with HARP Fantasy or HARP-SF.
The download contains the HARP Fantasy/HARP-SF database and for convenience, a copy of the executable software application. The software works under Windows and most Linux distributions. Use the exe files for Windows and the jar files for Windows or Linux – note the jar files require the Java Runtime Environment. Note that updated versions of the executable are available via the developer’s Sourceforge page.
AutoHARP Fantasy and AutoHARP-SF are available now for just $10.00 (50% off the normal retail price.
Friends and Rivals
Bring your campaign to life with Friends and Rivals: A Character Collection for HARP. A compilation of twenty-four highly individual and comprehensively described characters. Each is revealed in terms of physical description, background, and possessions, both mundane and magical. Where appropriate, further notes detail special aspects of the character, such as spell sphere listings for clerics. Each writeup is also illustrated by a splendid black & white portrait.
All 24 characters have also been fully implemented as HARP characters, consistent with and fully compliant with the HARP rules as published in HARP. Each character is represented in statistical terms by ten spreadsheets, one for each level from 1st to 10th. Five characters (the Gryx Ranger, the Halfling Rogue, the Human Cleric (Combat), the Human Elementalist and the Human Warrior Mage) are in Open Office format; all others are in Excel format.
The Guild Adventurer
The first issue of The Guild Adventurer has arrived. The Guild Adventurer is a compilation of original adventures and adventure-related material for Rolemaster, Shadow World, Spacemaster, and HARP. Our all-star cast of contributors have created the following rich and diverse set of scenarios to put the adventure back into your games.
The Guild Adventurer #1, The Guild Adventurer #2 and The Guild Adventurer #3 are available now as pdfs from the OneBookShelf Network.
AppEndix releases Sherlock Holmes 2 – The Black River Emerald
Our friends over at AppEndix have just released: Sherlock Holmes 2 – The Black River Emerald “gamebook” app which is available now from the AppStore!
Sherlock Holmes 2 – The Black river Emerald is both: a book and an interactive app, in which you attempt to uncover the mysterious theft of the famous Black River emerald from the once-exclusive Belton School for boys in Shropshire. Theft, blackmail and attempted murder are not yet part of the curriculum! And if mystery and danger abound, can Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson be far behind?
Featuring a fully interactive interface with dice rolls, character sheet, sound effects, atmospheric music dynamically adapting to the story and more, this unique app for iPhone and iPad is now available on the AppStore for just $1.99!
Sherlock Holmes 2 is the second of eight Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries gamebooks by Iron Crown Enterprises to be published as interactive apps, including one title which was never available in English before. The app is universal (iPad/iPhone) and multi-language.
Buy it now!
AutoHARP available now!
In addition to the recently released Martial Law (which you can now buy from the OneBookShelf network for only $5.00 for a limited time only), we now have two software releases to support HARP, namely AutoHARP Fantasy and AutoHARP SF.
AutoHARP Fantasy software combines a Character Creator and a Combat Tracker, both of which are fully compatible with HARP Fantasy.
The Character Creator has:
- Full Wizard for creating new characters. Hybrid race creation included as well as full support for human based characters and clerical based characters. Full support for Adolescence and profession rank selection, cleric base spell lists and talent selection for certain professions.
- Easy access to character traits, offenses, defenses, skills, talents, magic, statistics, and equipment
- Ability to print full character sheet with avatar, frequently used skills, RR information, Initiative information, BMR information, offensive attacks: both melee and missile, skills, spells, and equipment.
- Fully customized database written in XML allows the user to easily adjust information as specific worlds or house rules.
The Combat Tracker has the ability to:
- Create, edit, open and save encounters
- Create, edit, import or duplicate characters which make up an encounter.
- Customize the character’s level, hit points, power points, Stamina, BMR, Armor, talent and shield DB, size, focus item, casting penalty as well as create a character that doesn’t take stun, penalties or bleeding criticals.
- Keep track of all spells, attacks, maneuvers, initiatives, character statuses, etc.
As a special introductory offer, we will be offering both products at half-price, so 10 USD instead of 20 USD. Again this is a strictly limited offer, so follow the links below –
AutoHARP Fantasy
and
AutoHARP-SF
Director’s Briefing – June 2013
This is our twenty-third Briefing and is the sixth scheduled Briefing for 2013. This Briefing is deliberately late as I wanted to release it when the next wave of products were ready to go on sale. And they are now.
Martial Law
The first supplement to be rereleased for HARP Fantasy, Martial Law has received a series of rules enhancements, many corrections, some additional material, a new layout, and a whole gallery of wonderful new art. In detail, the changes are as follows
- Flying and Influence skills made consistent with both HARP Fantasy and HARP SF
- Intuition talent removed, while Swashbuckler and Toughness talents made consistent with both HARP Fantasy and HARP SF
- Underwater Combat and Maritime Combat updated to be consistent with HARP SF
- Costs for superior and magical materials have been adjusted
- Damage Adjustment by Armor is now an optional rule
- The sample characters have been updated for consistency with HARP Fantasy
- New sample characters have been added for the Cleric, Harper, Mage and Thief professions
As promised, we will be offering Martial Law in pdf at a special price of 5 USD for a strictly time-limited period, so that you can update your HARP collection. Even if you do not own the original 2004 edition of Martial Law, you can still take advantage of this offer. Go straight to this link and buy it right now. Tell your GM, your (fellow) players, and your friends.
We had a trio of independent proofreaders go over the pdf, but some typos may have escaped their eagle eyes. If you should find any errors, please post on our HARP Martial Law threads on the ICE forums as soon as possible as we will be sending it into the OneBookShelf print-on-demand system in the next two to three weeks. We will then release it in both softcover and hardcover formats.
AutoHARP Software
In addition to Martial Law, we now have two software releases to support HARP, namely AutoHARP Fantasy and AutoHARP SF. These software packages combine a character creator and a combat tracker, with the necessary data files to support the HARP Fantasy and HARP SF core rulebooks. Further databases will be released in the near future for HARP SF Xtreme and Martial Law. AutoHARP runs under Windows and will soon be available for most Linux distributions
As a special introductory offer, we will be offering both products at half-price, so 10 USD instead of 20 USD. Again this is a strictly limited offer, so follow the links below.
AutoHARP Fantasy
AutoHARP-SF
College of Magics
And that’s not all coming for HARP. A complete layout pdf proof of College of Magics has been delivered and is now being reviewed by me. As soon as I have checked all the enhancements have been made to my satisfaction, the proof will be sent to the independent proofreaders for checking. All being well, we will have College of Magics available in July.
Shadow World Early Editions
All of the collected RMSS stat blocks and suggested corrections for five Shadow World products have been sent to Terry Amthor so that he can incorporate these changes into his new layouts for Emer I, Emer II, Haalkitaine, Jaiman, and Eidolon. As these products will be receiving some art adjustments, it is hard to say which one will be released first.
RMU
If you have been paying attention on the ICE forums, we have requested a pause to the discussion portion of the RMU playtest, so that we can focus on getting the next versions of RMU out for review. Thank you for all the feedback to date as it has been very useful.
We are not pausing the actual playtesting – indeed we would encourage anyone actively playtesting the current beta files to carry on doing so, as actual play may well reveal further insights into strengths and weaknesses of the new rules.
I cannot say yet when the next version of RMU will be released as there is a limit to how fast things can be done when everyone involved (on RMU, at Aurigas/ICE and at GCP) has a day job. But it will come as soon as we can get it out.
Until next time
Completing the review of HARP College of Magics is my next task; the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in July and will include the special discount for HARP College of Magics.
Best wishes
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
HARP Martial Law out now!
HARP Martial Law is back as a shiny enhanced pdf. Buy it now for only $5.00 for a limited time.
How do monsters and magic affect weapons, armor, and fighting styles?
Martial Law breaks new ground in the field of fantasy role playing combat rules, expanding on the fast, dramatic combat of HARP (High Adventure Role Playing) Fantasy to include detailed hit location criticals.
Martial Law also includes a section on creating and playing warriors in fantasy settings and cool new moves and equipment for fighters.
Drawing upon years of actual play from the fan base, HARP Martial Law is an enhanced version of the original HARP supplement published in 2004.
Buy your copy for $5.00 now and make the most of this limited time offer.
Rolemaster at Fantasy Grounds Virtual Con – The roundup
For those of you who couldn’t make this years Fantasy Grounds Virtual Con, one of our fans, the brilliant Bennis1980 who GM’d one of the Rolemaster games, has put together this brilliant round up of how it went:
“The Fantasy Grounds Online Con had a good RM contingent present. I ran one game (my first at a Con) and I feel I could have run one or two more as all the RM games were fully booked.
I sent a survey before I started to check who was familiar with RM and who had experience with using Fantasy Grounds. About half the players who joined had little or no FG knowledge. I ran a tutorial for these players after the game was finished.
So the game:
I ran a module of A Wedding at Axebridge (converted from HARP). We skipped the wedding and went straight to the after-party, a romp through an evil fey temple! I managed to include three combat encounters in the 4hr game (RM combat is super quick in Fantasy Grounds – tables are automatically retrieved for the GM when the dice are rolled so no searching). The party also had time for a spot of treasure fishing in a 15′ pool and had to figure out how to deal with a particularly nasty trap. We had one PC death (well it was only a flesh wound) and from the feedback I received afterwards, everyone seemed to have a good time.
We hope more RM players join us over on the FG forums so we can really grow this ruleset for Fantasy Grounds. Remember, you don’t need to purchase FG to enjoy it if the GM has an ultimate licence.”
-Bennis1980
So if you’re interested in seeing what Fantasy Grounds has to offer, or if you’re simply looking for a game, pop along to www.fantasygrounds.com and have a look. I can’t recommend it enough.
Iron Crown Newsletter – May 2013
Ordinarily I’m not a fan of this time of year. I think somewhere down the line, one of my great ancestors must have been a polar bear and as such I tend to spend the hotter months growling at people for suggesting that it would be “nice” to go and sit outside in the sun. Luckily I have a whole host of exciting news to bring you to help get me through the summer.
Catch up on what you’ve missed with this month’s Director’s Briefing.
Rolemaster
We understand better than anyone that real life often gets in the way of what we really want to do. That’s why we have simplified the rules of our Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition. You can now submit entries to any category for Character Law until the 6th June. We’re looking for your best, most exciting, funniest or most imaginative character and will be judging them in the following categories:
- Character from the realm of Arms
- Character from the realm of Channeling
- Character from the realm of Essence
- Character from the realm of Mentalism
- Character from the Hybrid realms
You’ve got until the 6th of June to submit your characters via our forum, so get posting.
For more information and further rules on this and other upcoming competitions please visit our website.
HARP
There is lots of exciting news to report on HARP Fantasy this month. For starters the new HARP Fantasy book is now available in softcover and hardcover via print-on-demand from RPGNow and other OneBookShelf outlets.
In other news, the long awaited HARP Martial Law and HARP College of Magics are due for release very soon and soon respectively. A complete pdf of the enhanced Martial Law is currently with proofreaders for a final typo catch. College of Magics has been updated to its new layout and updates are being made to its interior text. When they are released, both books will be available on special offer for a limited time to give all HARP fans the opportunity to upgrade to the new enhanced version.
It is expected that Martial Law will hit the pdf “shelves” before the next newsletter so keep and eye on our website / social media outlets / forums and we’ll let you know the second it is available.
Settings
This month has seen the release of the brilliant Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara in hardcover and softcover color via print-on-demand.
Shadow World: Cloudlords of Tanara is a classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.
The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.
Partners
Thanks to some brilliant work carried out by some of our amazing fans, there is now an updated version of Rolemaster Classic available in Fantasy Grounds with a whole bunch of improvements including two entirely new modules.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Fantasy Grounds is an application that acts as a virtual gaming table which allows you to play with players from across the world as seamlessly as if you were sat in the same room.
The update includes:
- Initial stat generation rolls (all 3 character law options included)
- Stat Gain rolls (All 10 rolls can be completed in seconds)
- Skill Development (Lots of options to help with adding and changing skills)
- Spell Lists can be added quickly
In addition to this, the new version includes modules for The Armory and Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons, making it even simpler to play Rolemaster in Fantasy Grounds.
To get Iron Crown Enterprises’ newsletter straight to your inbox, sign up to our mailing list.
Cloudlords of Tanara available in softcover color and hardcover color NOW!
Cloudlords of Tanara available now in softcover color and hardcover color copies!
Get yours now!
A classic module of Shadow World, set in the east of the continent of Jaiman, and updated by Terry Amthor for play in both its original time era and the current Shadow World timeline.
The original Cloudlords of Tanara was set over three thousand years before the present time of 6056 in the Third Era. Some things are the same, but many things have changed. Groups dormant for ages have awakened again: The evil Cult of Ezran, the Priests Arnak, and even the Cloudlords themselves have returned from legend into stark reality. And the Elven-realm to the east, Urulan, long thought lost, has awakened again with a Queen wearing the ancient, magical Unicorn Crown. Turning back an invasion by the imperialist Rhakhaan Kingdom, she threatens the peace of Tanara, which now finds itself caught between two realms.
Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition – Character Law
To celebrate 30 years of Rolemaster, each month we’re giving you the chance to win some great Rolemaster prizes. This month it’s character law and all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is submit a character.
There will be five different categories and in each of them we will be looking for the best, most imaginative and most original character and crowning them the category winner. The category winners will then be considered against each other and an overall Character Law winner will be announced. The Character Law winner will then be considered against the overall winners for Spell Law, Treasure Law and Creature Law and Arms Law (they will also have sub contests) to find an overall “Rolemaster’s 30th anniversary competition winner!”
So here’s April’s schedule:
Character from the realm of Arms (eg Fighter, Warrior Monk, Thief, Rogue, Laborer, Scholar etc) – 5/2 – 5/9
Character from the realm of Channeling (eg Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger etc) – 5/9 – 5/16
Character from the realm of Essence (eg Magician, Illusionist, Bard, Dabbler etc) – 5/16 – 5/23
Character from the realm of Mentalism (eg Mentalist, Lay Healer, Monk, Magent etc)- 5/23 – 5/30
Character from the Hybrid realms (eg Healer, Sorcerer, Mystic etc) – 5/30 – 6/6
Start submitting your characters now. We want to see them all.
Submit them HERE.
Director’s Briefing – May 2013
This is our twenty-second Briefing and is the fifth scheduled Briefing for 2013.
Shadow World: The Cloudlords of Tanara
Cloudlords of Tanara is back and is better than ever, combining material from the classic era and the current Kulthean timeframe, and includes RM2/Classic and RMSS/FRP stats. Available in pdf from the OneBookShelf ecommerce network (see RPGNow and also www.drivethrurpg.com ), it will also be available in standard colour softcover and hardcover. Indeed as I write this, the first hardbound copy has arrived with Terry and he’s indicated happiness with how it has turned out.
Shadow World: And More Early Editions
In last month’s Briefing, I indicated that the creation of RMSS stat blocks for the Early Editions was well underway. It is now almost complete – I have reviewed and approved the stat blocks for Emer 2, Eidolon, Haalkitaine, and Jaiman. The Emer I RMSS stat block is just awaiting some final material. These products need some replacement artwork and some new maps, so they will not instantly reappear, but while the artists and cartographers do their stuff, the next products to be released will be for:
HARP Fantasy
All the corrections have been made to the layout of HARP Fantasy and we’ve fixed the errata that eagle-eyed fans spotted. So if you have bought HARP Fantasy, please go immediately to www.rpgnow.com (or www.drivethrurpg.com or whichever OneBookShelf affiliate you bought it from) and download the updated version.
And that’s not all, the print-on-demand masters have been sent to OneBookShelf / Lightning Source and are now progressing through the system. At some point in the next couple of weeks, I will receive the proof copies and assuming no problems, we will be releasing HARP Fantasy in black&white softcover and hardcover formats.
And there’s more, layout has now commenced on HARP Martial Law with HARP College of Magics queued behind it. I hope that we will be able to release HARP Martial Law either at the end of May or the start of June, with HARP College of Magics a month later. You will remember that we ran a one-month special offer on HARP Fantasy in order to provide all HARP fans an opportunity to upgrade to the enhanced version. We are going to run special offers for both HARP Martial Law and HARP College of Magics – these will be time-limited again, so pay attention to the forums, our Facebook pages and the newsletters as Colin will be getting the word out, and you don’t want to miss these offers.
The Printing Survey
And speaking of Colin and of printing, many thanks to everyone who completed the print survey. Reading through the comments, there are a few misunderstandings that need to be cleared up as they may be preventing some of our fans from getting their hands on print copies.
1. One respondent indicated that he/she used DriveThru as a reason for not buying print-on-demand books from RPGNow. RPGNow.com and DriveThruRPG are the same company, merely different storefronts, so anything available on one site is available on the other, and in particular all our products are available on both.
2. One respondent was worried about being in the UK and whether the books could be shipped to the UK. OneBookShelf’s printing partner, LightningSource, uses two manufacturing plants for products printed through the programme. One of these is based in the USA, the other is based in the UK! So I get my proof copies made by the UK plant and delivered by Royal Mail.
3. One respondent was worried about how long it would take to get copies, and that it might take as long as four weeks. It takes two to five working days for the book to be printed; thereafter the shipping depends on how far it has to travel to reach you and how much you are prepared to pay for the shipping. Virtually all non-US customers get their books printed in the UK because it is easier in terms of customs and duties than coming from the USA plant – in particular customers in Canada normally get their books from the UK which is why shipping seems high for them.
Of course ordering a book over the internet lacks the immediacy of being able to walk into a store, make a purchase and walk away with the product in your hand. However, many of our customers no longer have the luxury of a friendly local games store, so print-on-demand really is ideal in that instance. It also has the advantage that once we make a book available via print-on-demand, it need never go out-of-print. A fan wants to buy a physical book, they pay their money, Lightning Source prints a copy of the book and ships it, and the postman delivers it. It is that simple. From GCP’s perspective, it means we don’t have to invest in warehousing, lock up capital in inventory which may or may not ever sell in a sensible timeframe (Aurigas still has unsold copies of Old ICE books published in the 1990s), or handle the logistics of shipping and handling (i.e. the company and you are not relying on my ability to package books or get to a post office).
With regard to the quality of the print-on-demand books, I’m certainly happy with them and I know that GCP freelancers and Aurigas staff who’ve received copies have been equally happy. Buy one and see for yourself.
Until next time
Rolemaster, Cyradon, HARP Bestiary and more projects are clamouring for my attention; the next scheduled Director’s Briefing will be in June, but keep watching for HARP Fantasy going to print and HARP Martial Law coming to pdf and the special discount offer for it.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.