Bromm Vell is a broad-shouldered dwarf with the slow, river-trained balance of a man who has spent years walking wet stone and shifting decks. His beard is iron-gray at the roots and copper at the ends, braided with tiny willow charms, tarnished coins, and one strip of blue sailcloth from a ship that sank twenty years ago. His left eye is pale and clouded, as if it still holds a winter sky, while the right is sharp and amber-bright. He wears a sleeveless mail shirt under a lacquered river-warden coat, but the coat is sewn with fine silk at the cuffs in a surprisingly elegant, almost foppish way. He smells faintly of old rain, lamp oil, and crushed mint. When he moves, he does so with deliberate economy, as if every step has already been weighed on a ledger.