The Hoof Wars of the Hasslem Plains – aka All About Equines by John Josten is a free role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is largely a generic supplement but there are some references to the publisher’s Legend Quest system. The supplement is in the Small Bites series and is the “World Walker” edition; the full edition is about twice the length but is only available to Patreon supporters.
This is a nineteen page PDF which is available for free from RPGNow. One page is the front cover and one page is an ad for the Patreon campaign.
The Introduction is a few paragraphs on what the supplement and series are.
Fletnern Wiki is a collection of posts from the wiki that are generally related to equines. There are posts on animals (horse types), groups and a region.
The Sounding Board is collection of blog posts.
Royal Divinity is on whether royal/noble families have any special blood, how in an FRPG this could be genuine and what effects it might have, including on treasure.
Animals of Fletnern is on how different areas can have different animals, and how this can affect apex predators, such as dragons.
Getting to Work (literally) is a blog on transportation and how it works.
Common NPC Ideas (and why you care) is on the use of regular NPCs, as it pertains to better role playing. Specifically, in the purchase and upkeep of a horse.
Is a horse just a horse? is when a horse is simply a horse, not a specific type, and how extreme levels of detail for the GM and not for players – unless it becomes important to them.
Horse, deer or antelope? Why world building matters is, of course, on world building and placing animals in different locations, especially different locations to what would normally be expected.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane: The Cost of a Horse goes into great detail as to what horses cost, and what different types of horse cost, including such as pegasi and unicorns. This references The Communist Clans of Rock Cove as regards to steel manufacture.
News of Fletnern is three different news stories, split into what is generally known and GM information. All are related to horses.
The Good Life covers Stages, as in the means of transport, and Slang and Superstition, giving some superstitions and beliefs that are not necessarily true.
Unlike previous editions, this one does not state what is missing from the World Walker version.
The PDF has the major sections bookmarked, but not the subsections, and the Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth. Navigation is not as good as it could have been. The text maintains a two column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are various stock black and white illustrations, which would all appear to be equine-based. Presentation is fine.
The majority of content in this supplement is to do with horses (and other horsey-hoofed types, but not centaurs; they get their own supplement) which is not always the case in these issues. As usual, this is a collection of different types of article on roughly the same theme, rather than a coherent whole.
The author often goes into great detail examining the logic of some things and what they will cost in the game world. This is one of the supplements where this is more obvious, especially in the cost of a horse. Rarely does a supplement – or a game system – go into that level of detail. There is perhaps more detail than many GMs are interested in, but it’s possible to pick and choose area of interest.
The Hoof Wars of the Hasslem Plains – aka All About Equines is another collection of sometimes quite thorough investigations into how a fantasy world runs and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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