Harri is the only child of a Travar guard sergeant, Tarrien Rorschach, and his housewife mother, Jenna. He had a fairly normal upbringing. Though his father has a dangerous job, Travar is a pretty boring place and not much ever happens there.

From the age of eight, when a boy wants to do more with his dad, Jenna convinced her husband to start taking Harri on outings. Unfortunately, they always seemed to end up at his father's guardhouse; so, rather than being taken fishing as most dads do with their sons, young Rorschach tended to spend a great deal of time at crime scenes.

Of the few times that exciting things did happen (like murders), Harri became fascinated by Can'trell, an ork Nethermancer who acted as a mortician for the Guard. Since his father seemed to be too busy for him most of the time, Rorschach started talking with and visiting the Nethermancer at his home. It didn't take long for him to discover that a Nethermancer did more then muck around with dead things and he became fascinated enough that Can'trell began letting him help around the shop.

At age sixteen and a half, Harri started dropping hints to his parents that he would like to be a Nethermancer. His father had growled that he couldn't understand where any child of his could have gotten such a ridiculous idea and ordered that the subject be dropped. Harri continued to see Can'trell (he was at that rebellious age) and eventually the ork agreed to take young Rorschach on as his apprentice.

From the day he informed his parents, Tarrien Rorschach has refused to talk to his son and threw him out of the house. Harri moved in with his new Master. Once she got over the initial shock, Jenna came to accept her son's career choice and now encourages him when he comes home for secret visits.

Harri is still very upset about his estrangement from his father and would love for that rift to be healed. To make matters worse, Can'trell still performs his mortician duties for the city guard so young Rorschach can't avoid firey confrontations with his dad.