A broad-shouldered gray-skinned goliath with dark slate markings across his arms and collarbone. His hands are large, callused, and permanently stained with ink around the nails from years of copying manuscripts. He keeps his black hair cropped close and wears practical wool robes reinforced with leather at the elbows. His voice is low and measured, with a faint rumble that becomes noticeably clipped when he is anxious. He carries his spellbook in a weatherproof satchel and keeps a small bone ruler tucked behind one ear.

Quiet, observant, and intensely practical. Tepoz treats every conversation like a problem that can be clarified through careful questions. He is patient with honest ignorance but has little tolerance for careless claims, needless risk, or people who destroy records because they find them inconvenient.

Tepoz Rauk was raised among goliath climbers who measured worth in endurance, judgment, and the ability to carry more than one person should have to bear. He was never the fastest on the mountain or the strongest in a contest of lifting, but he possessed an unusual patience. While others rushed to find a route, Tepoz studied the stone, the weather, and the old marks left by those who had passed before. An itinerant scholar recognized that patience and brought him to a remote archive, where Tepoz became a copyist, cataloger, and eventually a student of arcane theory. His education was interrupted when a section of the archive collapsed during an experiment involving protective magic. Tepoz survived because a half-finished ward absorbed the force, but the scholar who taught him did not. Since then, he has devoted himself to defensive magic and the preservation of dangerous knowledge. He travels with a letter from his dead mentor, seeking the missing portions of an ancient warding formula. He believes knowledge should be ordered, recorded, and used responsibly, but he is beginning to learn that the world rarely waits for a proper index before becoming dangerous.