Nikolai appears to be a young man of perhaps eighteen years of age, with very dark hair and eyes. He is quite attractive, but shows a frailty of body. He moves with simplistic grace, yet seems to virtually float, so perfect is his balance.
Outgoing, friendly, and honest, Nikolai is generally eager to please and often goes out of his way to help people. A touch of naivete and uncertainty can be seen in his behavior, but he clearly means well. He dresses in ordinary clothes, dark greys for the most part, in a vaguely military cut.
He wears a variety of strange objects on his person, most notably a brown floppy hat, a wooden buckler carved into the likeness of a scarab, a black scale earring in his right ear, what looks like a lucky rabit’s foot around his neck, a ring of intertwined golden and silver threads on his left hand, a dark brown fingerless glove on his left hand, a dark golden ring on his right, a nearly-transparent ring also worn on his right hand, and a pair of jet-black roller skates. Additionally, on his back are a pack filled with strange materials and an old military saber (from the days of Pax). Often one or two ioun stones orbit around his head, one a black stone emitting a soft white glow, and the other a dark grey stone leaving a trail of golden shimmering dust in the air as it moves.
Most recently he has taken to wearing a long black coat, and seems to have misplaced his saber and lucky rabbit’s foot somewhere.
Those who can see past the illusions wrapped around him view an entirely different creature. While the clothes and miscellanious baubles remain (though the roller blades are in fact bright pink), the being itself is clearly not human, but a being of endless, shifting darkness punctuated by points of deep blue starlight that correspond to the starscape behind him. His form is indistinct, as bits of the void extend and contract around the edges.
More recently, his body seems to have solidified somehow, giving him a distinct outline with a sheen like obsidian. As well, some sort of tendril can now be seen writhing about inside of him.