Bellundra Sootvalor is a compact, broad-shouldered dwarf with the dense posture of someone who has spent a lifetime bracing against collapsing stone. Her skin is deep copper mottled with permanent gray smudges that no bath can remove. Her hair hangs in thick iron-black braids, each bound with a different fragment of ruined rune-metal. A pale burn scar crosses her left cheek and disappears beneath one eye, whose iris glows faintly amber whenever she lies. She moves with deliberate heaviness while standing, yet becomes startlingly silent when approaching a forge or a frightened person. Her beard is trimmed into two short points, both dusted with silver ash. The unexpected contradiction is her immaculate hands: despite her soot-stained face and clothing, her palms are soft, carefully moisturized, and marked with tiny blue ink diagrams.