Chandler T. Harrow

Ability Scores

Personality

Traits:

• I have a personal ritual, mantra, or relaxation method I use to deal with stress.
• I must know the answer to every secret. No door remains unopened in my presence.

Ideal: Truth. I care about the truth above all else, even if it doesn't benefit anyone.

Bond: A great evil dwells within me. I will fight against it and the world's other evils for as long as I can.

Flaw: I've done unspeakable evil and will do anything to prevent others from finding out.

Backstory

Chandler Harrow learned three things before he turned eighteen: how to play a C major scale with perfect embouchure, how to structure a lead paragraph, and how to lie without blinking.

The Flute. Sister Margaret at St. Brigid's insisted every child learn an instrument. Chandler chose the flute because it was quiet. He was never gifted, but he was precise. Sister Margaret said precision was its own kind of prayer.

The Journalism. At fifteen, Chandler became a copyboy at the Boston Evening Observer, a four-page rag that survived on dog shows, local politics, and lurid crime. By sixteen he was writing filler. His editor, Mort Slattery, taught him how a single adjective could turn a bar fight into a bloodbath. Mort called it seasoning. Chandler knew better, even then. He hated it. He was terrifyingly good at it.

The Lying. His mother pretended his father didn't drink. His father pretended he didn't hit. Everyone went to Mass on Sunday, smiled at Father Doyle, and said everything was fine. The Harrow household ran on silence. Chandler learned to move through it like a submarine, surfacing only when necessary.

He never went to college. The draft notice came.

Vietnam.

They didn't give Chandler a rifle. His CO saw "journalist" on the file and put him in Public Affairs. War correspondent. Official storyteller. His job was to turn chaos into coherence, jungle firefights into paragraphs that could sit comfortably beside refrigerator ads.

He was too good at it.

In March of 1969, embedded with Captain Wesley Drummond's company in Quảng Ngãi Province, Chandler watched a village called Phan Lộc get erased. Sixty civilians. Old men. Women. Children.

Chandler did not fire a weapon. He wrote the report.

The massacre became a firefight. The dead became enemy combatants. The truth sank quietly into the mud. Drummond received the Silver Star. Others were decorated. Chandler received a commendation he has never opened.

The lie lived.

The Long Penance.

He came home in 1971 to a country that wanted forgetfulness and a Church that required confession he couldn't give. He tried once. Sat in the booth at St. Brigid's. Opened his mouth. No words came.

Instead, he buried himself in real journalism. The Boston Globe hired him in 1973. Over the next decade, he dismantled crooked cops, exposed City Hall kickbacks, traced organized crime along the docks. He earned respect. Not affection. He never married. He drank alone. He attended Mass every Sunday and never took Communion.

October 1986.

Wesley Drummond is pulled from Fort Point Channel. Drowned. Terrified. Rope burns on his wrists and ankles. No water in his stomach. The police call it an accident.

Chandler recognizes the name immediately. Phan Lộc is not buried anymore. It's floating.

He investigates. The names surface again. Roy Tillman: gone. Peter Vance: erased. The harbor is the common thread. Drummond had nightmares about water. About children. About drowning. Chandler begins dreaming again too — clearer now, sharper. A voice beneath the current speaks of testimony and weight. THE WITNESS MUST SPEAK.

The Night at Long Wharf.

The investigation takes Chandler to the docks, where he sees a young man with homemade equipment — EM meters, jury-rigged traps — talking to empty air. Arguing with something Chandler cannot see. That young man is Leonard Holloway. A ghost manifests, briefly. Chandler feels it before he sees it. Leonard banishes it. They lock eyes across the pier. Neither speaks.

Then the harbor flares — green and blue light blooming on the horizon over Spectacle Island. Something inside Chandler's chest shifts. Whatever just happened, it wasn't small.

The Awakening.

That night, Chandler walks back to the water and confesses. The harbor listens. Something ancient answers — not a god, not a spirit, but a function. A memory. The Scribe of the Drowned, keeper of truth submerged and lies made heavy.

Words settle into Chandler's lungs like breath. Speak truth, and it will cut. Speak lies, and you will feel their weight.

When he lifts the flute he hasn't touched in decades, the notes pull emotion from the air itself. The College of Lore is not a school. It is testimony.

He now knows three things: Someone is killing the men of Phan Lộc. The harbor is involved. And Boston is waking up.

Class Features & Spells

College: College of Lore
Features: Bardic Inspiration, Jack of All Trades, Song of Rest, Cutting Words
Feats: Resourceful, Versatile, Lucky

Cantrips: Vicious Mockery, Prestidigitation

Spells: Cloud of Daggers, Detect Magic, Detect Thoughts, Dissonant Whispers, Hideous Laughter, Command

Equipment

• Military Trenchcoat (his signature garment)
• Flute (from St. Brigid's; never abandoned, rarely touched)
• Magnifying Glass
• Disguise Kit
• Clothes, Common / Clothes, Reporter
• Bedroll, Rations, Waterskin
• Unarmed Strike

Connections

Secrets

Session Notes

Notes updated each session.