Harlan McCraw is a compact halfling with the dense, practical build of someone who has spent his life hauling locked cases through back alleys. His skin is weathered bronze, roughened across the knuckles and forearms by salt air, cheap leather, and years of handling objects that should not be touched barehanded. His sandy-brown hair falls in soft waves to his jaw, always slightly damp at the temples even in dry weather. His eyes are warm hazel and perpetually amused, but his breathing changes when he is frightened: it becomes shallow, measured, and almost noiseless, as if he is trying not to alert an unseen creditor. He moves with a rolling dockside gait that abruptly becomes perfectly still whenever someone lies. The unexpected contradiction is that his hands are exceptionally gentle. He handles cursed relics like sleeping infants, yet treats ordinary coins with sharp, suspicious impatience.