Korr is a broad-shouldered mountain dwarf with iron-gray hair braided close to his scalp and a square beard marked by one deliberate strip of white thread. His nose was broken long ago and never set properly. He wears his chain mail beneath a faded red military sash, and his shield bears three shallow notches, one for each family member he failed to save. His hands are heavily callused, with old burns across the left palm.

Korr is disciplined, dryly observant, and more compassionate than he wants people to notice. He distrusts grand speeches but respects anyone who keeps a promise when doing so becomes difficult. Around campfires he tells precise, strangely funny stories about army life, though he always leaves out the names of the dead.

Korr grew up in a mountain settlement where his parents repaired mining equipment and kept the village signal fires burning. They were not warriors, but they understood danger better than most. When a band of raiders came through during a winter blackout, Korr's parents were killed while helping children escape through an old ore tunnel. Korr survived by hiding beneath a collapsed cart, listening to the settlement burn above him. He was fifteen, furious, and convinced that courage without training was only another name for helplessness. He joined the regional army as soon as he was old enough, first as a porter, then as a shield bearer, and eventually as a line soldier trusted to hold difficult ground. He learned to fight in tight formations, to read the silence before an ambush, and to keep moving after fear had emptied his limbs. Years later, Korr left the army after refusing an order that would have abandoned civilians during a retreat. He now travels as a hired fighter, taking dangerous work because it keeps his skills sharp, but secretly searching for the raider captain whose insignia was found among the ashes of his home. He does not seek revenge in the heat of anger. He wants the truth recorded, witnessed, and impossible for anyone to bury.