Hargus Hurryhouse

Overview

Hargus Hurryhouse is a Nuvolycan — the Orsholonian term for a dragon-blooded human — born to a silver dragon of the Orshogoth bloodline. A legendary adventurer, the patron of the Lawcrane expedition, and one of the most celebrated figures in modern Orsholonian legend, he is spoken of in hushed tones: those who have felt his kindness speak highly of him; those who have crossed him fear speaking his name again. He has many friends — and likely as many enemies.

Appearance

Hargus is tall and athletic, with a strong build that speaks to a life of physical action. He dresses impeccably — normally in a nobleman’s long coat over a vest and partially open shirt, with comfortable trousers and fine leather boots. A ring on his hand bears his initials on top and dragon images on the sides, the dragon eyes set with red gems.

Those who look carefully can spot silvery scales on his chest and abdomen, like a breastplate of dragonhide. As a child these began as dry patches of skin; over time they spread and became unmistakably scaly. He once kept them hidden beneath two shirts, but today they are simply another part of the mystique that surrounds his name.

Early Life

Birth and Abandonment

Hargus was born in a small village in the southwest of Orsholon. His biological mother is Joie Riviere and his biological father is Rehonu Orshogoth, a silver dragon of the Orshogoth bloodline — making Hargus a Nuvolycan, a dragon-blooded human. He was raised by Icarion Riviere (his adoptive father) and his stepmother, Lady Wogsteff. It is believed his mother died in childbirth.

As Hargus grew, patches of dry skin appeared on his chest and belly. They changed over time — becoming scaly, taking on a gray-silver tint. His father and stepmother forced him to hide his chest at all times, terrified of the social consequences. She called him a freak and an abomination. Other children mocked him for his strange habit of wearing two shirts even in summer heat.

One day, a gang of children decided to learn his secret by force. They pinned him down and tore his shirts away. When they saw the silvery scales covering his chest and abdomen, they recoiled. “He’s a monster!” they cried. One lunged at him. Hargus threw up his arm instinctively — and a massive thunderclap erupted, hurling the attackers backward a dozen feet. One boy struck his head on a rock and died.

Hargus ran home, but his stepmother had already heard. She screamed for him to be gone before he killed them in their sleep. His father said nothing. They put together a small sack of gold coins, some clothes, and a few rations, then took Hargus to Orsholon City and abandoned him in the streets. His stepmother’s final words: “Good luck, you monster. May the streets swallow you up.”

Life as an Urchin

Hargus was nine or ten years old, alone in the capital. He learned to keep a low profile, to navigate the city’s back alleys and sewers, to avoid the City Guard’s patrol patterns. He made connections in the seedier parts of the city — thieves, smugglers, the desperate and the dispossessed. He took the name Hargus Hurryhouse, blurting it out spontaneously when a guard asked his name, and set it in front of the Royal Castle, feeling it carried an aura of nobility. His birth name — Fitzcarion “Fitz” Riviere (“Fitz” meaning “bastard” in old Urnati) — he abandoned along with the family that had cast him out.

He was taken in by Patrick Duggin, a pickpocket whose life he saved from the City Guard. Duggin taught him the ways of street survival, fed him, and gave him shelter. The bond was genuine — Duggin became something like an uncle to the boy.

But Hargus was never drawn to the criminal life. He saw how many in Orsholon struggled — the poor, the shunned, the broken — and recognized himself in them. He decided he would use his growing network to help people, not exploit them.

Education

Hargus’s education was on the streets. He was bright, quick to learn, and charismatic. He hung around the crafting quarter in northwest Orsholon City, learning skills from master craftsmen; he listened to students and professors in the taverns near the academies on the west side of the city; he watched Royal Guard cadets practicing on the proving grounds in the southwest. He observed, took notes, and practiced.

Adventuring Career

By his late teens, Hargus had built enough wealth to support himself and began his career as an adventurer.

The Three-Year Disappearance (~1188–1190 ATG)

Before his most famous exploits, Hargus vanished for three years. He simply disappeared. When he returned, he carried a confidence and strength that was unmatched. No one knows where he went. Hargus is not telling.

During those years he began to receive visions — draconic dreams that led him to Mount Niaholm, in the Muioqa Desert, where he met his half-brother Faasnu (Orshogoth Huth Faasnu), the Mount Niaholm silver dragon — the same dragon who would later walk beside him as Fazius Argenta. The confidence and strength he carried back came from that meeting. He has never spoken of it; the mystery of the disappearance is part of his legend.

The Fight at Kinntor (1191 ATG)

The most famous of his tales is the Fight at Kinntor — a battle in which Hargus faced an orc horde in the Kinntor Region east of Orsholon City and south of the Rinzeremel Mountains.

Hired to clear orc raiders from the trade roads, Hargus had been making steady progress when the orcs laid an ambush. They disguised a wagon as traders, knowing Hargus would offer escort. When he climbed aboard, a dozen orcs sprang from hiding. Hargus leapt from the wagon and summoned a hailstorm that pummeled the attackers, giving him time to escape into the hills.

The orcs pursued. Hargus found himself cornered against a cliff face, surrounded and outnumbered. The orc leader taunted him. Hargus crossed his arms and grinned. A shadow swept across the horde. An immense silver dragon dropped from the sky — beating its wings, knocking the orcs flat with the downdraft. The dragon breathed a freezing blast; half the orcs fell and did not rise. The leader was swatted aside by the dragon’s tail. The survivors fled. Hargus called after them: “Tell your friends — this is just a start!”

No one knows where the dragon came from. Hargus neither confirms nor denies any part of the tale. When asked, he simply says “Is that what they say?” and laughs.

The historical basis is real: there was indeed a band of orcs roaming the Kinntor region, and Hargus did take a commission to eliminate them. After he did, the attacks stopped. However, the remainder of the story — the dragon, the hailstorm, the last stand — has never been confirmed. The most common embellishment claims Hargus summoned the dragon himself. Orc versions are the most exaggerated; another variant claims there was no dragon at all, and Hargus sprouted demonic wings and attacked with dark magic. The story was first recorded in 1192 ATG, one year after the event.

The dragon’s identity was never confirmed. Many observers assumed it was Rehonu watching over his son — but the dragon was Fazius Argenta in his true form, the half-brother watching over his sibling in their father’s absence. It is a secret Hargus has never told.

The Kerran Incident (~1197–1198 ATG)

When miners in the Dead Hills discovered yellow powder — uranium ore — and began falling ill, a mysterious stranger offered to pay handsomely for it. Hargus warned the villagers against the deal, advising that the substance would poison them all. The Kerrans refused the stranger’s offer, mentioning Hargus by name. The stranger returned on the 2nd of Prima, 1198 ATG, and unleashed a chemical fog that blighted the village. Hargus does not speak of Kerran.

The Jarth Fendwyr Kidnapping (1199 ATG)

Hargus was summoned by the Royal Guard to investigate the kidnapping of seven-year-old Jarth Fendwyr, son of a wealthy jeweler family. Together with Fazius Argenta — his half-brother and a silver dragon in human form — Hargus identified the kidnapper Bellatrix Delacroix and tracked her to the ransom exchange in the Royal Forest. They arrived too late to prevent the fatal blow, but Fazius shed his human guise and teleported Hargus and the dying boy directly to the Orsholon Medical Academy. The boy survived with permanent damage. Hargus personally funds Jarth’s ongoing medical care, carrying guilt for not arriving sooner.

Personality and Philosophy

Hargus is genuinely good-hearted. He looks for ways to help others, particularly the disadvantaged. His difficult youth could have hardened him, but instead it gave him purpose — he works to ensure others do not suffer as he did.

He feels strongly that he must do what benefits the most people, even if that means bending or breaking rules. But he also knows that working within the system creates lasting change, so he maintains relationships across the spectrum — from underworld contacts to the Royal Guard and Palace.

He is fond of a good strong ale and is a devout carnivore. He loves giving gifts and has a knack for choosing just the right item. He does not tolerate dishonesty and has a particular dislike for those who take advantage of others — whether thief or authority. Cheaters and bullies have a way of disappearing or suffering catastrophe after crossing him, yet he is never connected to the events.

Motivation

Hargus Hurryhouse is the man the streets built, turned deliberately toward good. Abandoned at nine or ten for the scales he could not hide, he grew up among the poor, the shunned, and the broken — and recognized himself in them. Where he could have hardened, he chose purpose instead: he would use his growing network to help people, not exploit them. He works to ensure others do not suffer as he did.

His guiding belief is an arithmetic of harm — that he must do what benefits the most people, even if that means bending or breaking rules. He moves in both the elite and the underworld, from the Enchanted Jackal to the Royal Compound, and he has no problem working with underworld figures — after all, they raised him. But he works to right the wrongs of the elite against the underdog, whether that elite is royalty or criminal. He knows that working within the system creates lasting change, so he keeps a foot in both worlds: the benefactor whose name never appears on his charities, the patron who pays his friends’ inns generously and sends their crews away wealthy. He does not forget that generosity made Skaltar Shadowfall a wealthy man, and he means to be remembered the same way: “To being remembered.”

But the forward-looking man carries a guilt he cannot give away. The kidnapping of Jarth Fendwyr — the boy who survived with permanent damage because they did not arrive in time — is a debt no gift closes, and Hargus funds the boy’s care for life.

He is the patron of the Lawcrane expedition, gathering the party — Agnese, Courtenay, Ninette, Beivalur — through Elindine Raelle at the Enchanted Jackal. And beneath the kindness is a shadow he keeps deliberately unexplained: the catastrophes that follow those who cross him are never tied to him — he neither confirms nor denies, and the mystery is part of the life. Man, myth, legend, lie. You decide.

Relationships

Person	Relationship
Rehonu Orshogoth	Biological father — a silver dragon of the Orshogoth bloodline. Also father of Faasnu (Orshogoth Huth Faasnu), making Hargus the half-brother of the Mount Niaholm silver dragon. Many observers assumed the dragon at Kinntor was Rehonu watching over his son; the dragon was Fazius in his true form.
Joie Riviere	Biological mother. Died in childbirth (1171 ATG).
Lady Wogsteff	Stepmother. Cruel and dismissive; called Fitz a monster and orchestrated his abandonment in Orsholon City.
Icarion Riviere	Adoptive father who raised him. A cobbler in Fykic. Never defended Fitz against the stepmother.
Patrick Duggin	A pickpocket who took young Fitz in after the abandonment. Taught him street survival.
Elindine Raelle (“E”)	Close friend, information broker, owner of the Enchanted Jackal Pub. She taught him noble manners; he gave her street smarts.
Richa Springthorpe (“The Professor”)	Close confidant and frequent collaborator. Preeminent expert on the Orshogoth dragon lineage.
Royston Ranald	Friend, owner of the Dragon’s Stein Tavern in Tremer. Hargus helped clear his loan shark issues.
Bellasiel	Friend, owner of the Aerie Inn in Tremer. Hargus permanently rents a room at her inn and pays generously.
Skaltar Shadowfall	Business associate — hired as ship defender for the Kima during the Battle of Koru Boben.
Fazius Argenta (“Faz”)	Companion and frequent traveling partner. Quiet, known for banter with Hargus. It was Fazius in his true form — Faasnu — who appeared at Hargus’s side at Kinntor.
Mr. Kyte	Mysterious figure connected to Hargus’s past in Orsholon City. A sorcerer of considerable power.

Notes

• Hargus is a Nuvolycan — the Orsholonian term for a dragon-blooded human. Unlike lycanthropes, his nature is inherited from a draconic parent (Rehonu Orshogoth) rather than a curse. His ability to manifest draconic traits (scales, the thunderclap at the bullying incident, possibly the hailstorm at Kinntor) is innate and tied to his heritage.
• The silvery scales on his chest match the coloration of a silver dragon — Rehonu Orshogoth’s species. This is the physical marker of his true parentage.

Timeline

Date	Event
1171 ATG	Born in a small village in southwest Orsholon.
~1180 ATG	Dragon scales manifest; accidentally kills a boy; abandoned in Orsholon City.
~1181–1187 ATG	Street urchin years; self-education; builds wealth and connections.
~1188–1190 ATG	Three-year disappearance; returns transformed.
1191 ATG	The Fight at Kinntor — defeats orc raiders with Fazius’s aid.
1192 ATG	The Battle of Koru Boben — involved in pirate defense of the Kima.
~1197 ATG	Warns Kerran villagers about yellow powder danger.
~1197–98 ATG	Kerran blight attack; the stranger’s retaliation.
~1207–08 ATG	Present day — resides between his Lawcrane hillside estate and Dragon’s Stein Tavern.