Maxim Zoryan is a weathered, broad-shouldered, grey-bearded man well into his later years. His presence is austere and at times unsettling, yet his voice carries calm authority, the tone of a teacher who has long since ceased to care whether his lessons are comfortable to hear.

He is a man of disciplined intellect and unrestrained passion. He has spent decades in isolation studying the interplay between divine and arcane forces, seeking a unifying truth behind all schools of magic. He believes morality is a distraction from enlightenment, and knowledge itself is neither good nor evil, only the will that wields it gives it shape.

He reveres the Witch Queen not out of faith, but admiration for her dominion over secrets and transgression that embodies the freedom he seeks. Her darkness, to him, is merely another form of illumination.

In conversation, Maxim is contemplative and deliberate, often lapsing into long silences as if weighing every word against the sum of his experience. Yet, beneath his scholarly detachment, he hides a vicious ambition, a hunger to pierce the final veil of the mystic arts.

Despite this, he treats strangers and companions alike with quiet, grandfatherly kindness. As an herbalist and healer, he offers help where needed and rarely turns away the wounded or desperate. He measures people by their curiosity rather than their virtue.