Peer stands far taller and broader than he once did, with pale grey skin rough as weathered stone, pointed ears, a blunt jaw full of sharp teeth, and eerie silver-blue eyes. His short, dull-blond hair grows at an irritating pace, and coarse hair shows at his wrists and throat whenever his wool cloak shifts. He smells unmistakably of damp earth, woodsmoke, and the sour edge of old cave air. Wind and hard labor have left his hands cracked and his skin dry, but he keeps them scrubbed as if cleanliness could make him human again.

Peer is sociable, quick-witted, and practiced at making himself sound more capable than he feels. He offers help readily when people are watching, but he is still learning to stay when the work becomes difficult. Under the charm is a persistent fear that the people he loves will see only the troll in him.

Peer Ludvik grew up in the cold country beyond the North Sea, where his uncle abandoned him, his younger brother, and two cousins after their parents died. The boys survived by trapping, scavenging, and doing whatever work they could find. Peer was clever enough to bargain with trolls for food, tools, and strange bits of magic, and lazy enough to prefer those bargains to the warnings his family gave him. He learned a few spells by watching and trading, then passed himself off as a gifted swordsman. When a troll king was slain, Peer was near enough, and boastful enough, that the locals made him its hero. He believed the story as readily as they did. Fame brought a rich man's daughter, a warm home, and a child on the way. Then raiders came, and cold iron and hostile magic opened Peer up to a rage he could not master. His shape changed in the middle of the fight, revealing the troll nature he had spent years bargaining around. The townsfolk drove him out, and his wife and home were lost to him in a night. Now his older cousin, a true berserker, has dragged him onto the road in search of gold and glory, insisting that hardship will make a real man of him. Peer fears what his wife thinks of him, misses the brothers he left behind, and feels the old troll hunger stir whenever he smells a cooked meal. He hides what he can beneath a wool cloak, and calls the rest a curse rather than admitting it may be part of him.