Building Harrowhark Nonagesimus in Legend in the Mist

Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth below.

After building Gideon Nav in Legend in the Mist, Harrowhark Nonagesimus was the obvious next character to tackle. She’s also a much trickier character to pull apart. With Gideon, the big pieces are pretty easy to identify. She is a swordswoman, a prisoner of the Ninth House, an irreverent smartass, and Harrow’s reluctant cavalier.

Harrow has a lot more going on at once. She is the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, an incredibly gifted necromancer, a secretive little genius, and someone carrying the survival of her entire House around on her shoulders. On top of all of that, she has Gideon. So rather than trying to make a giant list of every necromantic trick Harrow can perform, I wanted to focus on the parts of her that actually drive the story.

For me, that gives us four Themes.

Theme One: Bone Witch Extraordinaire

Type: Prodigious Ability, Adventure

We have to start with the obvious one. Harrow is an exceptionally talented necromancer, and bone magic is very much her specialty. She can build skeletal constructs, manipulate bone with incredible precision, and generally turn a handful of remains into something deeply unpleasant for everyone around her. Necromancy is central to who Harrow is.

Power Tags:
Raise Skeletal Constructs
Necromantic Genius

Weakness:
Physically Frail

Quest:
Master the secrets of Lyctorhood.

I especially like Necromantic Genius as a broad tag. Harrow does so many clever things with necromancy that I don’t think every technique needs its own tag. When she comes up with some awful, brilliant use for death magic, this is the tag that covers it.

Theme Two: Reverend Daughter of the Ninth

Type: Background, Origin

Harrow doesn’t just come from the Ninth House, she’s responsible for it. She is its heir, its leader, and possibly its last real chance of survival. That responsibility hangs over almost everything Harrow does. Becoming a Lyctor isn’t about personal power. She believes it could restore the Emperor’s favor to the Ninth and save a House that is slowly dying, so I would make that responsibility its own Theme.

Power Tags:
Commanding Presence
Raised in the Locked Tomb Cult

Weakness:
The Ninth Is Dying

Quest:
Save the Ninth House at any cost.

“At any cost” gives the Narrator something to push against. What happens when saving the Ninth requires hurting someone Harrow cares about? What happens when her duty and her increasingly complicated feelings about Gideon start pulling in different directions?

Theme Three: Horrible Little Genius

Type: Personality, Adventure

Harrow’s intelligence deserves its own space too. Once she arrives at Canaan House, she immediately starts investigating. She explores, maps, studies, tests things and generally behaves as if everyone else is wasting valuable time. Harrow is suspicious of everyone, which is occasionally very useful and occasionally makes her absolutely impossible to work with.

Power Tags:
Always Three Steps Ahead
Nothing Escapes My Notice

Weakness:
Trust Absolutely Nobody

Quest:
Solve Canaan House before anyone else does.

This Theme gives Harrow plenty to do outside of necromancy. Nothing Escapes My Notice might help her spot a clue. Always Three Steps Ahead could help when preparing a trap or anticipating someone’s plans. Sometimes the reason nobody betrays you is because you’ve made it impossible for anyone to get close enough to try.

Theme Four: Gideon Nav, Unfortunately

Type: Relationships, Origin

And then we get to Gideon. You simply cannot build Harrow from Gideon the Ninth without making that relationship one of her Themes. At the beginning of the book, the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is spectacularly unhealthy. They have spent years tormenting each other. Harrow destroys Gideon’s escape attempt and effectively forces her into becoming the Ninth House cavalier. But that relationship starts changing.

Power Tags:
Perfect Necromancer-Cavalier Team
I Know Exactly How Gideon Thinks

Weakness:
Would Rather Die Than Admit I Care

Quest:
Get Gideon and me through this alive.

This would probably be the Theme I would watch most closely during an actual campaign. Harrow begins the story treating Gideon as something between a servant, an enemy and a necessary inconvenience. That doesn’t remain true. A changing relationship like that is perfect for Legend in the Mist, where Themes and Quests can evolve as the character changes.

Finally, the Backpack

For Harrow’s Backpack item, I’m going with:

Bone Rosary

It is useful, flavorful and extremely Ninth House. More importantly, it gives Harrow a physical supply of bone she can potentially work with when there isn’t a convenient skeleton lying around.

And that’s Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

What I like about this build is that it doesn’t make her interesting just because she’s a powerful necromancer. The necromancy is actually the easy part. The interesting stuff is everything Harrow is carrying with her. Her House. Her secrets. Her ambitions. Her guilt. And, whether she likes it or not, Gideon Nav.