Harlan is one of the brutals, the bosses of The Relic: First Guardian. His full title is Harlan the Elder, Mentor of Looters, and he was the tenth entry in the numbered Meet the Brutals showcase series, published on 31 July 2026, the day the game launched. The patch notes call him simply Harlan.
The showcase entry introduces him with a single line, "His hammer built more than battlefields". That line and his title are the only characterisation the developers have published. He is one of two brutals tied to the Looters, alongside Looter Dunt. See Bosses for the wider roster.
The Encounter
The fight is preceded by a wave of Looters, the ordinary enemy class that shares his title, and the patch notes also refer to wave monsters during the boss fight itself. No moveset has been published. One attack is named: Patch 16 corrected Skill04 of Volgar, a name that appears only in connection with this encounter, whose second to fifth hits had been wrongly set as unblockable. Where the fight takes place in Arsilthus and what it rewards have not been published.
Detail | Information |
|---|---|
Full title | Harlan the Elder, Mentor of Looters |
Showcase entry | Meet the Brutals 10/80, 31 July 2026 |
Preceded by | A wave of Looters |
Named attack | Volgar's Skill04, blockable again since Patch 16 |
Moveset, location and rewards | Not published |
Patch History
Harlan's encounter has been changed in five separate patches, which is why more is known about it than about most of the roster.
Patch | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
Patch 8 | 7 August 2026 | Fixed his health bar staying on screen after a death, and moved the checkpoint so that dying restarts at the Harlan encounter instead of replaying the initial Looter wave |
Patch 12 | 17 August 2026 | Fixed the arena wall failing to spawn after a player death |
Patch 13 | 19 August 2026 | Fixed the map breaking after the fight |
Patch 15 | 27 August 2026 | Fixed fallen wave monsters staying floating in mid-air and no longer attacking during the fight |
Patch 16 | 2 September 2026 | Fixed hits two to five of Volgar's Skill04 being wrongly set as unblockable |
The Patch 8 checkpoint change matters most in practice. Before it, a death meant fighting through the Looters again before getting another attempt; since it, a death returns you straight to Harlan. The Updates and Patches page lists each patch in full, and the defensive rules that the Skill04 fix affects are covered on the Stamina and Dodging page.