Peer is unusually tall, with pale grey skin that looks like smooth weathered stone, pointed ears, sharpened teeth, and eerie silver-blue eyes. His once-golden hair has dulled to straw blond and grows fast, so he cuts it close with a knife. A heavy wool cloak hides his build and the coarse hair on his arms. His broad, work-worn hands are permanently roughened from hauling timber, splitting kindling, and handling cold iron. He tries to keep his nails clean, though soil and ink always gather beneath them.

Wry, resourceful, and more tender-hearted than he lets on. Peer prefers a clever shortcut to a fair contest, but feels a fierce, almost bewildered protectiveness toward people who are hungry or left out. He wants to be welcomed again, though he distrusts anyone who praises him too easily.

Peer Ludvik grew up among the scattered farms beneath the northern mountains. After his parents died, his uncle abandoned Peer, his younger brother, and two cousins in the woods. Peer was clever enough to make himself useful, and lazy enough to look for the easiest way through every hardship. He traded labor and favors with trolls for food and tools, dismissing his family’s warnings. He told himself he was only borrowing their ways. The changes came slowly: night-sight, a temper that arrived like a storm, and a hunger that made ordinary meals seem mean. Cold iron finally forced the truth into the open. Peer’s body shifted into its trollish shape, and the people who had praised him as a hero drove him from town. Before that exile, Peer had been celebrated as the swordsman who slew a troll king. He had married a rich farmer’s daughter, gained a home, and was soon to become a father. Some of the tale was true, though the brave version leaves out how much luck and borrowed magic helped him. Now he carries a spellbook wrapped in oilskin and studies practical magic: wards, tricks of light, and spells that keep danger at arm’s length. His older cousin, a hard-bitten berserker, has taken him adventuring for gold and glory, insisting the road will make a real man of him. Peer goes along, but thinks often of his wife and unborn child, and wonders whether his younger brother and other cousin still consider him family.