Jor is 5 feet 10 inches and still growing, with a young man's narrow shoulders beginning to broaden. Sea water beads on his skin and mats his pale blond hair into fine, stringy ropes; the ends are bleaching toward white. His blue eyes keep tracking exits, hands, and the gaps beneath doors rather than meeting anyone's gaze for long. When startled, his breath catches in a dry, clicking hitch and his voice drops into a rough, low growl. His fingers and toes are webbed, subtle until he spreads them. Faint ridges at his neck hint at gills forming beneath the skin, painfully sensitive to touch. He moves with a careful, rolling balance, as if every floor might pitch like a deck. Though held by trolls and dressed like a wreck survivor, he has the unexpectedly tidy habit of folding scraps of cloth into precise little squares.

Jor's old eagerness to prove himself now fights against a careful, unnervingly calm watchfulness. In a safe moment he can be curious and unexpectedly frank; under pressure he becomes still and studies people instead of answering. He wants to trust anyone offering escape, yet tests every promise for a hidden cost. Hunger makes him impatient and possessive, a sharp contrast to the controlled expression he tries to keep.

Jor is the fifth son of Heimskr, raised amid the expectations and rivalries of a family caught in a succession crisis. As a boy he was excitable, quick to volunteer for guard service, and quicker still to turn an insult into a brawl. Hearing how the succession crisis was consuming the household changed his plans: he decided that Iceland might offer land, wealth, and a name of his own, far from the struggle. He sailed north with that hope and a small bundle of possessions. A storm wrecked the ship; Jor was presumed drowned. Trolls found him alive among the wreckage in the North Sea and kept him as a captive. They are teaching him to serve as a spy and an imitation of human behavior, though he has not learned to transform his body. His changed calm is not peace but a practiced stillness. He speaks in the troll language because he assumes others understand it until they prove otherwise. He is connected to Jekt, whose involvement in his captivity or escape can become a crucial lead. Jor's body is adapting to the sea, and he has developed one troll-like affliction: ravenous hunger. He is still trying to understand whether his family mourns him, whether his captors intend to use him, and whether he can escape without being sent back into the succession crisis he fled.