Joran is a soot-stained human with a square, weather-cut face and forearms corded from decades of lifting stone. His skin is permanently darkened around the knuckles and jaw, as if smoke has settled beneath it. One fingertip is missing from his left hand, the scar polished smooth by years of work. A brass measuring compass is always tucked behind his right ear, its legs clicking softly when he turns his head. He moves with the slow, balanced caution of someone walking across scaffolding, yet when danger comes he becomes startlingly quick, folding his broad body behind cover with almost graceful precision. His beard is stiff with gray mortar dust, but he keeps one tiny section braided with bright blue thread, a delicate and almost cheerful contradiction to his grim, industrial appearance.