Harrowbearer Kethrik

Harrowbearers are produced by a grim ritual practiced by the Company of the Iron Censer: a mixture of martial training, binding oaths, and shards of sanctified iron hammered into the ribs. Kethrik was once a company sergeant whose dying vow to protect General Vorund became the chain that tethered his spirit. Where other warriors die and are mourned, Harrowbearers remain—silent sentinels whose memories are mostly duty and the face of the leader they swore to defend. Generals and commanders prize Harrowbearers for the stability they bring to a battlefield, but scholars like Magister Ruld of Fort Karr warn that such servitude erodes the human will. Tales tell of Kethrik interposing himself between Vorund and a treacherous blade so often that the general learned to rely on the ward rather than on his own caution; in other regions the Warded Marchers cult worships these guardians as embodiments of perfect obedience. Harrowbearers are rarely turned from their charge—if the general falls, the ward pursues the killer with relentless vengeance and mourns by standing watch over the corpse until consumed or broken.

Kethrik stands as tall as an average human warrior (about 6 ft). His ceremonial plate is dented and mismatched—shoulder guards of beaten iron overlap a cuirass marked with the seven-rayed sigil of the Iron Censer. Where flesh shows at the neck and wrists it appears sallow and scarred, faintly veined with a bronze dust that shimmers when he moves. His helm is a simple open-faced iron skull with a vertical slit across the forehead where a blackened iron shard is riveted. He carries a heavy longsword whose blade is nicked and inlaid with tiny filigree runes; a broad, scarred kite shield hangs from his back when not used. The overall texture should look lived-in and functional: scratched metal, rough leather straps, and the ragged remnants of a red-and-iron banner wrapped around his left forearm.