A lean human man with sharp, observant eyes and a perpetually thoughtful look, Dylan wears soot-smudged work clothes under practical artificer gear. His belt is crowded with wrenches, springs, pipe fittings, and small brass gizmos. He has rough hands from building contraptions, a few faint burn marks on his sleeves, and the faint smell of oil and smoke clinging to him. He usually looks quiet and unassuming until he steps up beside one of his absurd homemade launchers.

Quiet, patient, and intensely practical, Dylan prefers letting his work speak for him. He is gentle with people, ruthless with problems, and weirdly proud of anything that can launch a potato farther than seems reasonable. He does not seek attention, but when the moment is right he will say exactly one line, usually calm, usually perfect.

Dylan grew up on the edge of civilization, where farms gave way to fields, fences, and then open country. Most children learned to hunt, track, or haul water. Dylan learned how things failed, how wood split, how pressure built, and how to make broken parts work together long enough to do something impossible. He rarely talked unless there was a purpose, and when he did speak, it was usually after a long silence and with the sort of one line that made people blink, then laugh, then check whether the machine he built was about to explode. His talent for invention first became obvious when he built a crude potato cannon out of scrap pipe, sealing wax, and an attitude that should have been illegal. The thing launched a baked potato clean through a barn door, and then another one over the neighbor's fence, and then a third one into legend. Since then, Dylan has traveled as an outlander tinkering with tools, repairing gear, and turning field trash into practical miracles. He became an artificer not because he loved theory, but because magic and mechanics both answered the same question for him. How do I make this work better than it should?