Zook is a barrel-chested gnome with skin the color of polished copper and eyes that burn like hearth coals. He wears heavy chain mail etched with silver geometry and a set of thick brass goggles pushed up onto his soot-streaked forehead. His beard is braided with small iron gears and copper wire.

I treat my blade like a fine clockwork machine, constantly polishing and recalibrating its balance. I speak with a booming voice that belies my small stature, often sounding more like a drill sergeant than a scholar.

Zook served for decades as a master sapper and siege engineer in the Iron-Gear Vanguard, a specialized gnomish military unit. During a chaotic tunnel collapse caused by a rival's dark magic, Zook's entire squad was buried. He survived by instinctively tapping into a reservoir of arcane potential to shield himself from the falling stone. This brush with mortality changed him. No longer content with just building machines, he realized that magic and steel are two sides of the same gear. Since his retirement from the Vanguard, he has traveled as a mercenary, seeking out lost arcane formulae to infuse into his weapons and armor. He believes that the perfect fusion of sorcery and structural engineering can solve any problem.