Harvalent Irsaron

B-class article · First seen: s2 · Last seen: s9
Harvalent Irsaron
Harvalent · Irsaron
Portrait of Harvalent Irsaron.
Character
StatusDead
First seens2
Last seens9
PlayerMordane
FactionSevryn's recruits

Harvalent Irsaron, known to the party as Harvo, was a half-elf artificer from Arcanthys, played by Mordane from session 2 to session 9 (deceased). Sent to the party by Sevryn’s letter, he built Sevryn’s Egg-Carrier for the Egg and was the party’s tinker, identifier and most cautious planner through the Wyrmbough Grove, Mirestrand, Warrens and Black Vein Quarry arcs. He was killed in session 9 when Hugo, dominated by a Succubus, took his head with a hand axe [6]; his last words were “Well, fuck.” [65].

Appearance and personality

Half-elf. Cautious, technical, slightly pompous. Slight Eastern-European tinker accent. Heavy “well”: the word more often than not opens a Harvo line.

His preferred phrasings give the voice its shape: “Greetings.” “I will… pull out the contraption.” “Force Ballista at the things first.” “I have a method, I’m sticking to it. I’m not being derailed by some possible loot” [9]. “Bonus action, fire it.” (recurring with Eldritch Cannon.)

Background

From Arcanthys, the Floating Metropolis: “I am originally from Arcanthys” [10]. He claimed in his s2 self-introduction to have no official affiliation with anything based in Arcanthys: “I am very much not part of anything official that is involved in Arcanthys” [3]. Sent to the party in session 2 via a letter from Sevryn, the same recruitment pattern Sevryn would later use for Earthwing the Owlin, Terry, and Ruin.

Build

  • Race: half-elf.
  • Class: Artificer. Magical pistol +1 (carried as a magic-item-as-weapon), alchemist’s supplies, healer’s kit, Eldritch Cannon (“Force Ballista” mode his go-to). Bonus action fire pattern.
  • Dwell-on-method optimiser, with a stated table commitment to not chasing loot at the expense of the plan.

Equipment

  • Magical pistol +1: converted via infusion. The infusion lapsed on death; the pistol became non-magical.
  • Alchemist’s supplies, healer’s kit: standard kit.
  • Eldritch Cannon: the Force Ballista mode his preferred deployment.
  • Sevryn’s Egg-Carrier: Harvo’s contraption, built for the Egg and gifted to the party in s2. The Egg has lived in this carrier (or in Caelumn’s backpack) ever since.

Campaign role

Harvo was one of the original party of five, with Cholmondeley, Caelumn, Hugo and Vasquez, although he joined on the road: Sevryn’s letter brought him across the continent to the treeline of the Corrupted Redwood Grove, with a carrier for the Egg already built. A man of Arcanthys meeting an Aurelian soldier, he was wary of Cholmondeley from the start, and he stayed guarded about himself; asked about his past, he would say only that he could build things [11].

Through the Wyrmbough Grove arc and the lair of Sunset is Nigh he was the party’s investigator and identifier of potions and magic items, a role he kept to the end, and the only one to see the ghostly echo of Edvan at the burial mound. On the road through Mirestrand to Umbrafall his Eldritch Cannon became his signature. In the Warrens, against the Hollow Guardians, the Titan and Maelis Dirn, he was the voice of method, holding the party to the right-hand rule through the Maze of the Minotaur and patching Vasquez up with his healer’s kit. In Umbrafall he did the party’s quieter business: the trade that fleeced the Whisper Coil Emporium and the bribe that bought Vasquez out of the Nightwatch jail. Vasquez came to see him as more a superior than an equal, a better adviser than he had ever been himself, and wore a charm cut from his weapon after his death [12].

The Black Vein Quarry job ended him: a spectre drained his life force, and in the succubus’s chamber the dominated Hugo’s hand axe took his head. Sevryn’s next letter admitted he had known Harvo would not come back and had sent him anyway, and announced Mordane’s second character, Ruin.

Session by session

Session 2: The Bark, the Dryad, and the Riddle that Wasn’t a Tree

Main article: Session 2

Harvo was waiting at the treeline of the Corrupted Redwood Grove, a half-elf with mechanical hands and a humming brass-glass device, sent by a letter from a Sevryn he had never met [13][14]. He gave his name and his home, Arcanthys [10], recognised the Aurelian crests on Cholmondeley’s armour as the mark of a people his own had long fought [15][16], and offered his contraption as a safer carrier for the Egg, which steadied once it was inside [17][18]. He denied any official tie to Arcanthys [3]. During the day he noticed strange footprints and large canine tracks round the bandit camp [19], and used his alchemist’s supplies to identify the Dryad’s potion as healing [20].

Session 3: The Lair of Sunset is Nigh and the Death of Cholmondeley

Main article: Session 3

Harvo took Gwen Homora aside, out of the others’ hearing, to ask what the corruption was and what her potions were for, since his new companions were, he said, not the sharpest [21], and slapped Caelumn out of his vision on the burial mound [22]. He came through the lair fight in which Cholmondeley died. That night he walked alone to the cleansed mound and saw its ghostly warriors; a natural-20 Insight told him Edvan’s figure was an echo on a loop, and its empty scabbard would fit the Dragonslayer Longsword from the hoard, which he reported to the others [23]. At the feast he told the newly arrived Earthwing to find a remedy for his throat or stop making that voice [24].

Session 4: The Still Current, the Black Mask, and Hugo’s Pact

Main article: Session 4

Harvo travelled with the party, now joined by Terry, from Wyrmbough Grove towards Umbrafall. When three sabretooth tigers ambushed them on the road [25] he deployed his Eldritch Cannon for the first time, a turret that unfolded on spider legs from a packet on his belt [26]; its first shot killed one [27], and on his next turn the cannon killed the tiger mauling Caelumn while his pistol’s fiery bullet dropped the last before it could finish off Vasquez: “that’s three for three” [28]. At The Still Current Inn in Mirestrand, asked about himself, he would say only that he could build things and that his people were very secretive [11][29], and he went to bed before The Black Mask drew Hugo, Caelumn and Terry into his void [30].

Session 5: Black Hollow Market Tunnels and the Hollow Guardians

Main article: Session 5

In the Warrens beneath the Black Hollow Market, Harvo’s Detect Magic ritual was swamped by the corrupted magic soaking Umbrafall, and he wrote it off as “about useless” [31]. Once Caelumn’s blast had burned the fungus off the walls, he followed the runes it exposed to a hidden entrance [32], and advised the party to ask themselves whether an idiot would do a thing before doing it [33]. He cut a sample of flesh from the fungal-zombie giant for later study [34], could not tell what the red vials from a hidden satchel were [35], and twice used his healer’s kit and Battle Medic to put Vasquez back on his feet, the second time as the session ended [36][37].

Session 6: Maze of the Minotaur and the Titan

Main article: Session 6

The phase spider’s bites dropped Harvo and left him poisoned and paralysed for an hour, which kept the party in a barricaded storeroom for a long rest [38]. The next morning he spent ten minutes working out that the resin-coated shield from the rubble was a Gloom-Touched Buckler [39], and from Maelis Dirn’s desk he took a jar holding a violet biogloom cap that seemed to try to bind to him through the glass, so he sealed it tighter [40]. In the Maze of the Minotaur he would not be drawn off the right-hand rule by possible loot [41][9]. In the Titan fight his fire set Caelumn’s Web alight [42], and when the Titan smashed his turret with a thrown stone he summoned another [43][44].

Session 7: Maelis Falls, Vasquez Captured

Main article: Session 7

With the Titan turned on Maelis Dirn and the contract paid, Harvo pressed The Broker for the basics of the next job, above all when the missing miners of the Black Vein Quarry had last been heard from [45], and at the inn identified the loot as a soulbinder’s ring and a greataxe of frost [46]. At the Whisper Coil Emporium he told Vasquez there were scientific ways to identify a potion besides drinking it [47], then traded the biogloom jar and his samples from the fungal giant for the five healing potions, a deal the DM confirmed had ripped off the shopkeeper [48]. When the party picked a fight with the Nightwatch outside, Harvo never rolled initiative: he was browsing the street vendors [49], and took no part in the brawl that ended in Vasquez’s arrest.

Session 8: Bruise the Cellmate, the Succubus, and the Quarry Ghosts

Main article: Session 8

Harvo, whom the Nightwatch had not seen in the street fight, went into the jail posing as the agent of an organisation that wanted its young recruit back, and talked the clerks Jorin and Harak down from the official 500 gold to a 150-gold bribe for Vasquez’s release off the books [50][51][52][53]. On the road north he tinkered a spade for the fire pit [54]. In the succubus’s ambush she dominated him, made him heal her and drained him with a kiss, until his bonus-action cannon blast knocked her back and broke the charm [55][56][57]. He identified her Charlatan’s Die [58], set the party’s rules for the Black Vein Quarry, starting with “think before you act” [59], and ended the session with a spectre draining his life force and cutting his maximum hit points [60].

Session 9: The Death of Harvo

Main article: Session 9

Harvo’s Detect Magic found the one-way illusion wall that hid the succubus’s chamber [61]. In the vision she forced on them he relived his greatest failure, the hand he had lost in an accident that no magic could heal and no research in his city of wizards could explain; he told her it was not his failure alone and broke free [62]. When she dominated Hugo a second time, Harvo was the one standing in his path [63]. His Shield turned the first hand axe, but the second was a natural 20, more than the spectre’s drain had left him, and it took his head off [64]. His last words were “Well, fuck.” [65]. At the pyre Vasquez made a charm from his weapon, Hugo spoke over him and Caelumn lit the fire [12][66].

Death

Session 9, lines 1316-1318. Mid-fight at the Black Vein Quarry crystal chamber. The succubus dominated Hugo a second time, and Harvo was the one standing in his path [63]. Harvo’s Shield turned Hugo’s first hand axe; the second was a natural 20 critical for 23 damage [67]. Harvo’s max HP, cut by a spectre’s necrotic drain at the end of session 8 [68], was lower than the crit’s damage [69]. He died on the spot, head severed. Cannot be revivified.

Last words: “Well, fuck.” [65].

Funeral

Pyre in the alley outside the Black Vein Quarry mine.

  • Vasquez cut a small piece of metal from one of Harvo’s weapons and turned it into a charm to wear [70][71].
  • Hugo gave a brief eulogy: “you were smart, probably smarter than a lot of us here” [7].
  • Caelumn said burial rites and lit the pyre.
  • Terry attempted his people’s Rite of Returning to bring Harvo’s soul into the harmony, rolled badly on the Performance check (he was not yet proficient), and took -1 Charisma as DM-imposed ritual-significant consequence [8], a loss that stood until session 20, when Terry finally hummed Harvo’s melody [72]. The voice from the failure-vision returned: “it’s your fault that she’s not part of the harmony.” [73].

A sealed letter from Sevryn appeared at the pyre confirming the death was foreseen: “I knew Harvo wasn’t coming back from this I still sent him”, because “the path you’re on only stays open if the wrong thing happens at the right time”, and “there are more sacrifices ahead bigger ones and the kind you don’t recover from” [74]. The same letter introduced Ruin.

Player

Mordane, full handle his Discord name. Played Harvo from s2 to s9. Returned to the table with Ruin in s10 after the death-scene break, and left the table around session 15 (see Mordane).

Notable quotes

“I have been called worse, so…” — Harvo, [2]

“I assure you I am very much not part of anything official that is involved in Arcanthys.” — Harvo, [3]

“I have a method, I’m sticking to it. I’m not being derailed by some possible loot.” — Harvo, [9]

“You’re not my type. I’m not smelling what you’re selling. Sorry. Gold only.” — the jail clerk to Harvo (Nick, DM), [75]

“Well, fuck.” — Harvo, last words, [65]

See also

References

  1. ^ Session 2, line 177-249: Origin (Arcanthys) and self-introduction.
  2. ^ Session 2, line 216: I have been called worse, so....
  3. ^ Session 2, line 286: I am very much not part of anything official that is involved in Arcanthys..
  4. ^ Session 6, line 2538-2539: Maelis Dirn recognises the project's work on Hugo (Harvo present).
  5. ^ Session 8, line 570-582: Negotiates Vasquez's release from jail for 150gp.
  6. ^ Session 9, line 1316-1318: Decapitated by dominated Hugo's hand-axe nat-20 crit.
  7. ^ Session 9, line 1627: Hugo's pyre eulogy ("you were smart, probably smarter than a lot of us here").
  8. ^ Session 9, line 1646: Terry's failed Rite of Returning Performance check, -1 CHA (restored in s20, s20 L817).
  9. ^ Session 6, line 1348: Inline citation.
  10. ^ Session 2, line 212: Inline citation.
  11. ^ Session 4, line 1028: Inline citation.
  12. ^ Session 9, line 1521-1523: Inline citation.
  13. ^ Session 2, line 170: Inline citation.
  14. ^ Session 2, line 198: Inline citation.
  15. ^ Session 2, line 218: Inline citation.
  16. ^ Session 2, line 238-242: Inline citation.
  17. ^ Session 2, line 254: Inline citation.
  18. ^ Session 2, line 280: Inline citation.
  19. ^ Session 2, line 962-972: Inline citation.
  20. ^ Session 2, line 1996-2018: Inline citation.
  21. ^ Session 3, line 194-206: Inline citation.
  22. ^ Session 3, line 300-302: Inline citation.
  23. ^ Session 3, line 2128-2152: Inline citation.
  24. ^ Session 3, line 2286: Inline citation.
  25. ^ Session 4, line 328: Inline citation.
  26. ^ Session 4, line 454: Inline citation.
  27. ^ Session 4, line 480: Inline citation.
  28. ^ Session 4, line 698-722: Inline citation.
  29. ^ Session 4, line 1042: Inline citation.
  30. ^ Session 4, line 1060: Inline citation.
  31. ^ Session 5, line 236-240: Inline citation.
  32. ^ Session 5, line 378-384: Inline citation.
  33. ^ Session 5, line 392: Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 5, line 873-877: Inline citation.
  35. ^ Session 5, line 1527-1532: Inline citation.
  36. ^ Session 5, line 1278-1280: Inline citation.
  37. ^ Session 5, line 1797-1816: Inline citation.
  38. ^ Session 6, line 560-561: Inline citation.
  39. ^ Session 6, line 989-990: Inline citation.
  40. ^ Session 6, line 1247-1252: Inline citation.
  41. ^ Session 6, line 1341: Inline citation.
  42. ^ Session 6, line 1919-1922: Inline citation.
  43. ^ Session 6, line 2696-2701: Inline citation.
  44. ^ Session 6, line 2757: Inline citation.
  45. ^ Session 7, line 812-820: Inline citation.
  46. ^ Session 7, line 969-972: Inline citation.
  47. ^ Session 7, line 1167: Inline citation.
  48. ^ Session 7, line 1196-1205: Inline citation.
  49. ^ Session 7, line 1378-1381: Inline citation.
  50. ^ Session 8, line 528: Inline citation.
  51. ^ Session 8, line 543: Inline citation.
  52. ^ Session 8, line 564-572: Inline citation.
  53. ^ Session 8, line 581: Inline citation.
  54. ^ Session 8, line 1578-1581: Inline citation.
  55. ^ Session 8, line 1098-1102: Inline citation.
  56. ^ Session 8, line 1240-1244: Inline citation.
  57. ^ Session 8, line 1263-1268: Inline citation.
  58. ^ Session 8, line 1459-1460: Inline citation.
  59. ^ Session 8, line 1650: Inline citation.
  60. ^ Session 8, line 1950-1955: Inline citation.
  61. ^ Session 9, line 1009-1013: Inline citation.
  62. ^ Session 9, line 1111-1121: Inline citation.
  63. ^ Session 9, line 1279-1302: Inline citation.
  64. ^ Session 9, line 1303-1318: Inline citation.
  65. ^ Session 9, line 1317: Inline citation.
  66. ^ Session 9, line 1625-1627: Inline citation.
  67. ^ Session 9, line 1303-1310: Inline citation.
  68. ^ Session 8, line 1954: Inline citation.
  69. ^ Session 9, line 1313: Inline citation.
  70. ^ Session 9, line 1521: Inline citation.
  71. ^ Session 9, line 1523: Inline citation.
  72. ^ Session 20, line 817: Inline citation.
  73. ^ Session 9, line 1641: Inline citation.
  74. ^ Session 10, line 82: Inline citation.
  75. ^ Session 8, line 555: Inline citation.