A compact gnome with a forward-tilted stance, as if listening through the soles of their boots. Soot and powdered copper settle into the creases around their mouth, while their knuckles are polished smooth from years of handling small parts. Their jacket hangs too long in the sleeves, repeatedly folded and stitched at the cuffs; one square of faded yellow sailcloth is carefully darned over the heart. Pip moves in quick, precise starts, stopping abruptly to study a vibration no one else can hear. Most unexpected for an engine mechanic: they carry a tiny pressed-flower album in a waterproof sleeve and treat it more carefully than their tools.

Pip is brisk and resourceful when a machine is failing, yet evasive when someone asks who put it in danger. They can be tender with frightened workers and sharply impatient with anyone who treats a repair as simple. In private, they are sentimental about small living things; under pressure, they pretend not to care about anything that cannot be fixed with a wrench.

Pip learned machinery in a cramped repair shop beside a wind-battered landing field, where every broken propeller meant someone missed a meal. Their mentor, a patient human mechanic named Olo, taught them that a machine's noise was a kind of testimony: listen long enough and it tells you what was done to it. Years later, sky-pirates took Pip aboard their vessel and forced them to help assemble the mana engine now hidden in the quest's clockwork chamber. Pip complied under threat to Olo and the rest of the captive crew, then secretly altered one coupling so the engine would run but never reach its full, catastrophic output. During the final rushed test, the engine began ticking out of sequence. Pip recognized the failure and saw the party arrive, but froze when a pirate lookout turned toward them. They have since been sleeping beside the engine, trying to delay disaster while planning a way to get the prisoners clear. Olo is still held aboard the pirate ship, and Pip has not told anyone that the engine's instability is partly their doing.