Eber is a tall, long-limbed young man with pale skin overlaid by olive-green scales, most visible along his temples, knuckles, and the ridge of his jaw. The scales have a dry, leaf-veined texture and catch the light like glazed pottery. His pointed ears angle slightly outward, and his broad, carefully closed mouth gives his face a thoughtful, almost solemn cast. He moves with a craftsperson's economy, placing each foot as if testing a workshop floor for loose boards. An unexpected detail: despite his practical work clothes, he wears a tiny, carefully mended lace cuff beneath each sleeve, made by his younger sister and treasured without explanation.

Eber is methodical but not cold: he will interrupt a tidy experiment to help someone in pain, then stay up late reconstructing the lost data. He is proud of his skill and uncomfortable with pity, yet welcomes sincere questions about his condition. Around family he is teasing and stubborn; among strangers he is reserved until a practical problem gives him common ground. Frustration makes him more blunt, while fear makes him over-explain.

Eber Waldner was born into a stout-family line of makers who built hinges, hand drills, and small mechanisms for the settlements along the Sedgewash. He was apprenticed early and seemed destined to inherit his mother's bench. In his sixteenth year, a change his family calls the High-Blood took hold: olive scales spread across his pale skin, his ears sharpened, and his jaw stiffened until chewing became impossible. At first, he hid the difficulty, swallowing food too quickly and suffering for it. A patient traveling healer named Selaith showed him that smooth, clean stones could help him manage the strange pressure in his digestive tract. Eber began keeping notes, then testing his own routines with the caution of a craftsperson measuring a new hinge. He now studies his condition in hopes of helping other Verdant-Blooded people, while still repairing tools for income. His mother, Heva, fears his experiments will make him a spectacle; his younger sister, Othwen, quietly helps him collect observations. A local apothecary, Sitha, has offered access to her shelves but wants his notes for a private patron. Eber recently discovered that some of his early records have vanished, and suspects someone is trying to claim his findings before he understands them.