Parn is a half-elf man with a square, soot-darkened face and a broad nose dusted permanently with fine charcoal. His skin is weathered copper-brown, roughened on the forearms by heat and winter wind, with pale crescents where his leather cuffs cover his wrists. His black hair is clipped short at the sides and tied in a stubby knot at the nape, usually escaping in bristly wisps. He moves with the measured economy of someone who has spent decades lifting hot iron: feet planted before hands move, shoulders rolling rather than jerking. His apron is patched in three different leathers, but he carefully oils a tiny green-glass button at its throat, an unexpectedly dainty keepsake that flashes when he leans over the forge. He leaves an impression of warmth, weight, and watchfulness, like a banked fire that has not decided whether to welcome you.

Parn is patient with a novice and impatient with a bully, but he is not as even-tempered as he first appears. In the shop he is methodical and quietly generous; when someone threatens his family or apprentices, he becomes blunt, confrontational, and difficult to redirect. He dislikes being praised, yet notices when his craft is overlooked. He wants people to be self-reliant and repeatedly steps in to make sure they are not left alone.

Parn grew up at the Tenth Nail, a smithy and roadside hamlet named for an old military survey marker. His human father, Orven, taught him to judge iron by its color; his elven mother, Sella, taught him to listen before deciding what a customer really needed. At nineteen, Parn was apprenticed to a master smith in the river town of Ketter Ford. During a spring flood, a cart carrying a family's household goods broke through a bridge rail. Parn and his fellow apprentices could not save the cart, but he watched the master smith abandon his expensive tools to pull two children from the current. That choice changed how Parn understood a trade: the work mattered, but people mattered more. He later returned home and took over the failing Tenth Nail. He has kept it alive by repairing farm tools, shoeing animals, and making reliable hinges rather than chasing commissions from the wealthy. His sister, Nerys, runs a ferry at Ketter Ford and sends him news; his former apprentice, Iwan, now works for the baron's armorer and has begun supplying weapons to a private militia. Parn is trying to stop that trade without publicly accusing the young man who once called him family. Meanwhile, a tax collector has demanded payment for a road levy that Parn believes was already paid by the village.