Maxim is a broad-shouldered human man of average height, with weathered olive skin, dark brown hair kept short at the sides, and an expressive face that rarely manages to look entirely innocent. His clothing is practical but unusually well maintained, with a charcoal-gray coat, a muted red waistcoat, fitted leather armor, and polished boots. He keeps a small brass signet ring on his right hand and unconsciously turns it whenever he is thinking. His voice is warm and conversational when relaxed, but becomes clipped and breathy when he is frightened or improvising under pressure.

Maxim is observant, quick-witted, and unfailingly attentive to people who are being ignored. He enjoys playing harmless roles, from absent-minded clerk to overconfident noble, and is most comfortable when everyone else is underestimating him. Beneath his practiced confidence is a genuine tenderness for frightened people and an intense dislike of bullies who use rules as weapons.

Maxim grew up in a crowded human river district where people learned early that a confident voice could open doors that a key could not. He began by carrying messages, then graduated to small deceptions, selling counterfeit travel papers and theatrical love letters to people who wanted a different life for an evening. His natural talent was not charm, exactly, but observation. He noticed which questions people avoided, which names made them straighten their backs, and which promises they desperately wanted to believe. He became a charlatan because it paid, and because the work let him move through the world without being trapped by the circumstances of his birth. The change came after one of his schemes was used to frame a group of harmless refugees for a crime committed by a wealthy merchant. Maxim had forged the documents that made the accusation convincing, and he could not forget the faces of the people who were punished with his lies. He stole the merchant's records, exposed the fraud, and fled before the authorities could decide whether he was a hero or another criminal. Since then, Maxim has used the same skills to protect people who lack money, status, or the right name. He still lies readily, but now he tries to make his falsehoods fall upward, toward the powerful, rather than downward onto the helpless.