Harvester

The goliath warlord, Lazaros Inulethai, had always been a commanding presence; striking fear into the hearts of his many, many enemies for centuries on end, but when he came into possession of the great axe he called Harvester, his persona was elevated to supernatural heights.
With this dark axe in hand, Lazaros brought together legions of otherwise disparate factions under his banner: from roving orc tribes to bands of dragonborn to deserters from both sides of long-standing feud between nations to the archaic Ordning of Giants. And the secret to his success, beyond his innate force of will, was Harvester itself.
In 1202 EP, Lazaros stumbled across a long-abandoned ruin containing still active --and quite lethal-- traps and wards. Lazaros proved stubborn (and unkillable), and eventually retrieved the prize that called out to him: the prison of Cataclysm himself. Lazaros took the totem with him, and all the while, the dark essence within it fed into his ambition and zealotry. It gave him supernatural influence over those he would have follow him, and helped him amass his first army of giants, orcs, and other "lesser" factions with which he enacted The Day of Long Shadows in Crucible. During the battle, the idol was broken and the spirit of Cataclysm was set free for the first time in over a millennia, but his connection with the totem's fractured pieces remained.
After the battle, Lazaros' forces found the totem's remnants and brought them back to the Warlord, who had it reforged into the head of a great axe with which he would maintain his connection with the newly freed Cataclysm. Over the next decade, Lazaros reconvened his army and travelled to The Province of Requiem, where he would use the axe to unleash and steer (if not outright control) the Tarrasque, a world-shaking beast of legend.
Ultimately though, Lazaros and his Tarrasque were vanquished and Harvester claimed as a spoil of war. Later, when it was learned it was made from the fragments of Cataclysm's prison, it was remade using dark secrets gleamed from The Malefica Occultum so that it would once again bind Cataclysm within it.
In 1219 EP, it was carried into battle against Cataclysm himself by the lizardfolk barbarian Zel.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Harvester provides a direct conduit between its wielder and Cataclysm, allowing them to speak telepathically as well as channel Cataclysm's beguiling influence. With the axe in hand, the wielder could influence the minds of even the most powerful creatures and halt a charging enemy in its tracks. The axe also held enchantments that made it difficult for it to be taken from its intended wielder, including protections against unwanted attunement and the ability to autonomously return to the wielder's hand so long as it had a direct flight path.

Item type

Weapon, Melee

Creation Date

1202 EP

Rarity

While the axe's enchantment that allows it to hold the spirit of an extraplanar being is not unique, only this one has been paired specifically to Cataclysm.