Harlan Crowe
A weathered farmer clinging to the remnants of a life destroyed, Harlan tends the ruins of the stead, haunted by both its past and its secrets.
Name: Harlan Crowe
Race: Human
Role: Caretaker (Commoner with unique traits)
Age: 53
Appearance: Harlan is a wiry man with graying hair, cropped short and often hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. His leathery skin, darkened by years of sun and toil, contrasts with his weary, sunken eyes—eyes that seem to carry the weight of untold sorrow. His hands, rough and calloused, often grip a simple walking stick or a rusted scythe, tools of a trade he can no longer fully practice.
Harlan’s clothing is practical but threadbare: a patched shirt, faded overalls, and boots caked with mud. He wears a weathered satchel slung across his shoulder, containing small trinkets, tools, and keepsakes from better days. Despite his haggard appearance, he moves with a quiet determination, as if refusing to yield to the creeping decay around him.
Backstory
Harlan Crowe was once the head of a thriving farming family that cultivated these lands. But that was years ago, before the blight came—a strange, unnatural sickness that withered crops and drove the land’s caretakers to ruin. When famine struck, Harlan sent his family away to seek safety, choosing to stay behind in hopes of restoring the stead to its former glory. They never returned, and he never learned their fate.
Now, Harlan lingers on the farmstead, caught between the desire to leave and the guilt of abandoning the land that his ancestors cultivated for generations. He scavenges what little he can from the fields, occasionally repairing fences or tending to the broken well, as if trying to will life back into the soil. Though the farm remains abandoned, Harlan speaks of strange occurrences—unnatural whispers in the wind, shadows that linger too long, and eerie lights that flicker in the barns at night.
Personality
- Quietly Determined: “The land might be dead, but it’s not gone. Not while I’m still here.”
- Guarded and Mistrustful: Harlan is wary of strangers, particularly those who seem interested in the farm’s secrets.
- Haunted by the Past: He carries deep guilt over his family’s absence and speaks of them with reverence.
- Superstitious: Years of strange phenomena on the farm have made Harlan deeply cautious, and he often mutters prayers or charms when spooked.
