Well thank you for taking such an interest in HML, we love that you're deep in it.
It's about time we reread the original stuff so we could better answer questions like this.
In the meantime, here are two bits of general advice that we hope will help:
Generally, we suggest defaulting to the player folio for guidance as it was updated more recently than the handbook.
Beyond that, do what is more fun and cool at your table.
We know these aren't the specifics you're hoping for, but thank you for your patience while we get back to our oldest game!