Bromm moves like a compact siege engine: deliberate, resonant, and calibrated. He stands with a slight forward tilt as if forever leaning into a blueprint. His beard is braided in tight, utilitarian plaits threaded with brass rings that double as tiny toolcases; the beard's lower half is singed in a tidy crescent from an old forge accident. His skin has the weathered grain of kiln-fired clay, freckled by sparks; fine burn scars map his wrists and throat. He wears a leather apron mottled with oil stains and metallic filings layered over a studded coat of chain-and-plate hybrid—beautifully overbuilt, ornate with clan runes and functional riveted pockets. Around his right forearm is a bellowed gauntlet—dented, polished, and fitted with folding tools and a small clockwork eye that blinks when danger passes. Contradictory to his heavy, industrial look, his eyes are unnervingly bright and inquisitive; they track with the soft, distracted attentiveness of a scholar more than a blacksmith. When he walks he tends to tap an invisible rhythm on his thigh, counting beats, drafts, and timetables in the soles of his boots.