Harrier Wren
The traveling necromancer Harrier is an exile from the College of Maesters in Elbion. She generally goes around in a hooded cloak and the clothes of a traveling pedlar or tinker. Harrier makes decent money under the table, but there aren't many who'll take a necromancer's coin, and her lifestyle isn't conducive to the accumulation of worldly goods.
Harrier studied for years at the Maesters' College in the Free City of Elbion. She was acknowledged as a Maester of the First Order (a midgrade rank normally requiring around ten years of study) before her abrupt and total fall from favour. She is a well-rounded, competently educated magician, though you wouldn't call her a great power. She is a highly skilled necromancer.
She constructed Crossroad Mire, a refuge and resource for other fringe magicians, in the Bayou Garramarisma.
Biography
Harrier was the child of a minor noble family in the Free City of Elbion. She was accepted into the Maesters' College on the strength of aptitude, blood, and dedication.
At age seventeen, Harrier was part of an ill-fated College expedition into the Blight Lands. Her beloved mentor died by suicide after giving birth to Argath of Molthal, son of the fire-giant king. Laying her mentor's troubled soul to rest was Harrier's first experience with necromancy.
Some years after Harrier reached the rank of Maester of the First Order, her longstanding interest in spirits and haruspicy took a more explicitly necromantic turn. She believed she could explore necromancy without ill effect or discovery. She was comprehensively wrong.
The College stripped her of her rank and exiled her from her hometown.
Her love for Elbion, and desire to return someday, kept her from striking back. Instead, she went in search of the sort of work she preferred. She became a consulting necromancer.
At age seventeen, Harrier was part of an ill-fated College expedition into the Blight Lands. Her beloved mentor died by suicide after giving birth to Argath of Molthal, son of the fire-giant king. Laying her mentor's troubled soul to rest was Harrier's first experience with necromancy.
Some years after Harrier reached the rank of Maester of the First Order, her longstanding interest in spirits and haruspicy took a more explicitly necromantic turn. She believed she could explore necromancy without ill effect or discovery. She was comprehensively wrong.
The College stripped her of her rank and exiled her from her hometown.
Her love for Elbion, and desire to return someday, kept her from striking back. Instead, she went in search of the sort of work she preferred. She became a consulting necromancer.
Skills and Assets
Harrier earns her living as a necromancer. Typical jobs involve helping people speak with spirits about unfinished business, lost secrets, buried treasure, and so forth. Harrier can provide skeletons and other undead for combat or labor purposes, or as unrelenting couriers. Notably, she mobilized dozens of skeletal pirates to construct Crossroad Mire in the Bayou Garramarisma. She also helps clients deal with hauntings, infestations of undead, and so forth -- typically by acquiring new servants.
She has been known to pit the dead against those responsible for their deaths. For example, Harrier earned a modest windfall when skeletons tore apart the Matron of the Aviary, a noted slaver and sex trafficker in the Amol-Kalit city of Mardiakhor.
Harrier's approach to magical combat relies on the dead and undead, plus a comprehensive and studied background in College Magic. She can hold her own with wards and countermeasures as needed, like any Maester of Elbion, but focuses on supporting rituals. With enough time, she could turn the tide of a given battle using any convenient dead. For example, at the Anirian invasion of Coraliv, Harrier attacked Vel Anir's navy using the bones and ghosts of butchered whales.
Harrier considers herself an expert on portal stones and sells keys when necromantic work is sparse or inadvisable. She has used magically fortified messages and undead to learn more about the one known undersea portal stone.
She's competent with a knife or a staff, but nothing more serious. Shades and skeletons tend to do her fighting for her.
Her most prized possession is a jade pen containing the soul of a cryptic scholar named al-Kaateb. She also kept a ghost scout named Mathquil in a plain silver ring until he betrayed her during the Anirian siege of Coraliv.
She has been known to pit the dead against those responsible for their deaths. For example, Harrier earned a modest windfall when skeletons tore apart the Matron of the Aviary, a noted slaver and sex trafficker in the Amol-Kalit city of Mardiakhor.
Harrier's approach to magical combat relies on the dead and undead, plus a comprehensive and studied background in College Magic. She can hold her own with wards and countermeasures as needed, like any Maester of Elbion, but focuses on supporting rituals. With enough time, she could turn the tide of a given battle using any convenient dead. For example, at the Anirian invasion of Coraliv, Harrier attacked Vel Anir's navy using the bones and ghosts of butchered whales.
Harrier considers herself an expert on portal stones and sells keys when necromantic work is sparse or inadvisable. She has used magically fortified messages and undead to learn more about the one known undersea portal stone.
She's competent with a knife or a staff, but nothing more serious. Shades and skeletons tend to do her fighting for her.
Her most prized possession is a jade pen containing the soul of a cryptic scholar named al-Kaateb. She also kept a ghost scout named Mathquil in a plain silver ring until he betrayed her during the Anirian siege of Coraliv.
Chronicles
- The Forbidden City - Gal, Sigfrith Runecarver - Amol-Kalit
- Been Called Worse by Better - Kasim Areth - Cerak At'Thul
- Call of the Dark Arts - Sparhawk, Gerra, et al - Bayou Garramarisma
- Dumb Ways to Die - vignette
- The Gem, the Soul, and the Unknowing - Al'Kaliit - Bayou Garramarisma
- Bones in the Bayou - Velaeri - Bayou Garramarisma
- The Eternum Crosses the Channel - cameo
- Grangomelle's Dark Place - loot running - Allir Reach
- The Capitulation of Coraliv - The Thronebreakers - Coraliv
- Premonition - Susanna, Freya Thrakin - Allir Reach
- The Harlot of Mardiakhor - the Harlot - Amol-Kalit
- We Built This City on Muck and Souls - various people - Bayou Garramarisma
- The First Law and Other Sundries - Ava Gilleth - letters
- Killing Grief - catcalling cameo - Beybrook, east Liadain
- I Demand Justice be Served! - the trial of Steve son of Will - Elbion
- The Burning of Elbion - Zafira Jade Carson, Maho Sparhawk, Alistair Wren - Elbion
- Within the Marsh - Lia - Bayou Garramarisma
- Shattered City - Ava Gilleth, Selene Avar, Steve son of Will - The Spine
- Heartwood Bleed - Gunnar Bergstrom - coast of the Allir Reach
- A Professional Interest - Movrin - Bayou Garramarisma
