Marn is a narrow, stooped human with a scholar's hands and a caretaker's stubborn endurance. His skin is pale brown and finely weathered, textured by decades spent hauling books through unheated corridors and climbing damp stone stairs. His lower jaw juts slightly when he concentrates, giving his mouth a perpetually skeptical shape, while his broad front teeth show prominently whenever he laughs or eats. He moves with a slow, careful shuffle until a rare manuscript is threatened, at which point he becomes startlingly quick and sharp. His spectacles are almost always missing from his face, despite usually being tucked into his collar, his sleeve, or the crown of his cap. He smells faintly of rosemary, dust, and wet wool, and leaves people with the impression that he has already catalogued them.