Knok is a wiry goblin with moss-green skin, oversized amber eyes, a crooked nose, and uneven teeth. His ears are nicked from old beatings, and a faded scar crosses his left cheek. He wears patched leather armor beneath a soot-stained burgundy coat, with numerous hidden pockets sewn into the lining. His fingers are stained with ink, lock grease, and old blood. A tiny brass key hangs from a cord around his neck, the only thing he refuses to sell.

Knok is wary, soft-spoken, and painfully eager to be useful. He apologizes before asking for anything, assumes compliments are traps, and tries to help people in small practical ways rather than making grand promises. Beneath his suspicion is a desperate tenderness. He wants friends badly, but he is convinced that wanting them is proof that he will eventually lose them.

Knok grew up in the alleys behind a crowded market, where goblins were blamed for every missing coin, broken window, and frightened child. He learned early that a frightened face made people reach for clubs, while a quiet shadow could pass unnoticed. His first theft was a loaf of bread. His second was a purse from the merchant who had beaten him for taking the first. After that, the city decided what he was, and Knok slowly learned to become it. He became a burglar, lookout, and occasional messenger for a criminal crew that valued his nimble hands but never trusted his heart. Knok took jobs because hunger was easier to understand than cruelty, yet he secretly returned small portions of his earnings to street children and old laborers. When the crew discovered this, they made an example of him and left him in an alley with a broken rib. Now he travels as a rogue-for-hire, hoping that doing enough good deeds will somehow prove that he was never truly the monster everyone expected him to be. He still asks himself, in moments of quiet, why everyone has to hate him, and why nobody seems willing to like him before he has earned it.