Sparky is a stout dwarf with soot-stained cheeks and a meticulously braided beard woven with small copper wires and gears. He wears well-maintained scale mail over fine silk tunics. A pair of bronze goggles usually sits atop his head, and he is followed by a mechanical hound made of brass and iron plates.

Sparky is an odd mixture of high-born courtesy and frantic, blue-collar obsession. He speaks with the cadence of a diplomat but the vocabulary of a mechanical engineer. He is fiercely optimistic, believing that every problem in the world, including social and political ones, is simply a puzzle that lacks the right blueprint.

Valerius Flint was born into a prestigious family of architects and governors in the mountain halls of his ancestors. While his brothers studied law and commerce, Valerius was found repeatedly in the heavy smithies, trying to make hammers that could swing themselves and lanterns that captured starlight. His family viewed his technological pursuits as a base hobby, unbecoming of a Flint. His nickname Sparky was originally a derogatory jest from his father after Valerius accidentally magnetized the family's formal dinnerware during a royal visit. Seeing his potential was wasted in the stifling courts, he gathered his tools and his mechanical hound, Gearbox, and set out into the world. He intends to find ancient relics and new materials to prove that his 'artifice' is the true future of dwarven nobility. He treats adventure as a field test for his latest inventions, always looking for a way to improve the mundane through the spark of his imagination.