N. Robin Crossby, Author of Harn, Dies
This terse announcement at Kelestia.com was not unexpected, but it is still very sad.
On July 23rd 2008, Robin succumbed to his cancer at a hospice in Coquitlam, BC.After Harn came out, I often dropped the island of Harn into my Arn campaign, replacing a similar sized close group of islands on the original Arn map. What drew me to Harn originally was the incredible coincidence of the name "Harn" and the size of the island (about the size of Madagascar) with my own island of "Arn" which was also about the size of Madagascar. Robin and I even had a brief correspondence over it. (No, not the "threatened lawsuit" type but the "isn't this a really weird coincidence" type.)
However, what kept me using the island of Harn after I got over the weird coincidence phase which made me buy it to begin with was the incredible detail and believability of it all. It was -- and still is -- great stuff. Robin and his unique vision will be missed.
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July 24, 2008 at 8:22 AM
Crossby was one of the underrated giants of our hobby and he'll be sorely missed. It was always obvious that everything he did was a very personal labor of love. It's a shame that so much contention arose over the rights to his work, but that'd never have happened if it wasn't so good.
July 24, 2008 at 9:14 PM
The rights problem was a shame -- and it seemed to happen to a lot of early RPG designers. It reminds me of how comic books creators and writers would get screwed before the 1980s.
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