Orsted is a tall, broad-shouldered human man with weathered olive skin, ash-brown hair tied at the nape, and sharp gray eyes that rarely stop studying his surroundings. His hands are calloused from years of copying manuscripts and traveling rough roads. He wears a practical dark-blue scholar's coat beneath a weather-stained cloak, with a leather-bound spellbook secured by two brass clasps. A faint burn scar runs from his left wrist to the base of his thumb, a lasting reminder of his first uncontrolled magical experiment.

Orsted is patient, observant, and sincerely compassionate, though his curiosity often overwhelms his sense of caution. He treats every mystery as a conversation waiting to happen and every person as a possible source of insight. He is more comfortable with ancient texts than social rituals, but he makes a genuine effort to listen when people describe their fears or troubles.

Orsted was born in a small human village whose only claim to distinction was an abandoned observatory on the hill above it. As a boy, he spent long evenings exploring its cracked halls, copying symbols from ruined star charts and asking questions no one around him could answer. His curiosity eventually attracted the attention of a traveling scholar, who recognized the signs of an untrained mind brushing against real magic. The scholar brought Orsted to a distant academy, where he learned to read ancient scripts, compare contradictory histories, and approach spellcraft as both a discipline and a responsibility. Years later, Orsted discovered that one of the academy's oldest records described a magical disaster that had been deliberately erased from public history. The surviving evidence suggested that innocent people had been sacrificed to contain the catastrophe. When the academy's masters dismissed his concerns, Orsted left with a copied fragment of the record and his unfinished spellbook. He now travels as a wandering sage, seeking the truth behind the disaster and helping ordinary people whenever his knowledge can prevent suffering. He believes that learning has little value if it is hoarded by the powerful, and he is determined to prove that magic can be used to protect rather than control.