Kora is a compact, broad-shouldered human with warm brown skin and a face that seems built around her unusually wide, square jaw. When she eats, she cracks nutshells between her back teeth with a tiny, alarming crunch; when amused, her grin arrives all at once. She walks with a brisk, heel-first shopkeeper's stride, then can go perfectly still while listening, as if the shelves have begun whispering. Her hair is a dense black cloud threaded with gray, pinned up with bent spoons. She leaves the impression of a person who could sell you a teapot, a curse, and the exact rag needed to clean up after both.

Kora is generous with useful advice but guarded with affection, and she can be sharply funny while performing a kindness. In a busy shop she is brisk and theatrical, making a show of haggling; when someone is sick or frightened, the performance drops and she becomes focused, even tender. She loves oddities but distrusts anyone who claims a magical object is perfectly safe.

Kora inherited Crusty Kora's Stuff and Shit Imporia from her aunt, who left no will, only a shop full of mislabeled jars and a debt to the local miller. As a young apprentice, Kora once brewed a fever cure from a recipe she had not fully understood. It saved a village child, but the fumes also caused half the street to sleep for two days. The experience made her meticulous about testing her wares and stubbornly honest about what she does not know. She now keeps the shop open, sells useful oddments beside questionable curios, and quietly searches for the missing final page of her aunt's recipe book. The miller's daughter, Tavi, is her closest friend and fiercest critic; the two argue over rent, remedies, and whether Kora's shop sign is a public menace. Kora's current trouble is a string of customers reporting that harmless trinkets bought from her shelves have started answering questions in voices they recognize.