Max is a wiry human teenager with shaggy black hair tipped in vivid purple. He wears a battered purple hat, a long dark purple coat, a black shirt, patched green pants, and scuffed black boots. He tends to stand too close when speaking, as if testing whether people will back away. His eyes constantly track doors, windows, pockets, and the hands of everyone in the room. A pair of playing cards is usually fanned between his fingers, and he wears a crooked half-smile that suggests he has already guessed how a conversation will end.

Max is quick-tongued, suspicious, and restless. He treats conversation like a card game, constantly bluffing, probing, and watching for tells. He acts cocky around adults but becomes fiercely protective of frightened children and anyone being pushed around by someone stronger. Beneath his bravado is a lonely boy desperate to prove that he can protect his father and uncover the truth about the thing that broke his mind.

Max Hattax grew up in the narrow streets behind the market district, where a quick hand and a quicker exit mattered more than family names. His mother disappeared when he was young, leaving him and his father to survive by repairing cheap toys, running errands, and occasionally taking things that did not belong to them. Max learned to sleep lightly, read a room before entering it, and use city routes that even watch patrols forgot existed. A pair of playing cards became his favorite tools for practicing misdirection, timing, and the art of making people look exactly where he wanted them to look.