Zook is a small, copper-skinned gnome with shock-white hair that looks like he just survived an explosion. He wears tattered indigo robes that are heavily stained with ink and magical residue, and he constantly fidgets with a pair of brass clockwork goggles perched atop his forehead. He carries a massive, soot-stained spellbook that seems to be bursting at the seams with loose parchment.

He speaks at a blistering pace, often jumping between three different theories on arcane resonance before finishing a single sentence. Zook is fundamentally optimistic and endlessly curious, though his lack of concern for personal safety or social norms often leaves others bewildered. He values raw data and practical results over the stuffy etiquette of the high mages.

Zook spent the first sixty years of his life as a Lead Archivist for the Whispering Vaults, a gnomish library dedicated to the preservation of destructive arcane knowledge. While his peers were content to categorize and lock away dangerous spells, Zook became obsessed with the idea that magic should be witnessed rather than shelved. He believed that the containment of such power was an insult to the weave itself. This curiosity led to an unauthorized experiment involving a controlled mana collapse which, unfortunately, was not nearly as controlled as he had calculated. The resulting blast turned the restricted section of the library into a collection of glowing, purple ash. Zook was politely, yet firmly, exiled. Rather than mourning his lost career, Zook took his surviving journals and hit the road. He now views the entire world as his laboratory and every encounter as an opportunity to test a new variable in the equation of evocation.