Nikolai Lantsov is the second son of renounced businessman Alexander Lantsov and is currently studying Mechanical Engineering at Ketterdam University. His hobbies include experiments that involve explosions, frequenting the most Instagrammable spots in town, being a nuisance, and flirting.Ever since he was a child, Nikolai enjoyed tinkering with things (to the dismay of his mother who rather liked her clocks in one piece), so Mechanical Engineering was the natural pick for him. When not puzzling through his Thermodynamics homework or tinkering with Control Systems in a lab, he can be found at or hosting a party.
He is the party.However, his aspirations lie outside of engineering and his father's business. He's a natural leader and has gravitated toward politics for as long as he can remember, especially since he disagrees with many of his father's ideas.

A long, long time ago, there lived a king who had given up his crown for the sake of his country. His days were filled with diplomacy, still, seeing as he found his way into the heart of Ravka's new queen. Legend has it that she herself was part dragon, though nowadays even Grisha are a thing of myth.It took a very long time for friends of the former king to discover he was not aging as an otkazat'sya should. He should have been greying, wrinkles adorning his features, yet instead he looked just as youthful as his Grisha counterparts. He was advised to have his features tailored when it became far too obvious to ignore. Next thing he knew, he was advised to fake his own death.Ravka is no more, reduced to a few sentences in a history book or a story. The tale of King Nikolai has become a legend told by parents to their young children, belonging to a time when Grisha were more than just fairytales.Meanwhile Nik Lark still sails what was once the True Sea, adventuring into eternity.

Facts about Nikolai "Nik" Lark

When Nikolai was growing up, his father encouraged him and his older brother to be involved in wealthy person sports. Much of Nikolai’s childhood was spent on the back of a horse or sailing (or there was this one time he tried to get into racing sports cars and it did not go well).Of course he’d kicked the ball around between classes when he was sent off to boarding school. He was good, but he just didn’t have the time or focus to dedicate to training as a child. Not only that, his father was under the impression that Lantsovs shouldn’t be playing team sports as much as profiting off of them as an business investment.However, as soon as Nikolai put nearly 3,000 kilometers of distance between himself and his father, things changed. He shipped off to Cambridge to study engineering at university and tried out for the football club. Though a walk on in his first year, he became team captain by his fourth. A contract with FC Zenit was soon to follow.Nikolai hires his brother Vasily to be his manager, a relatively easy gig since he adamantly says he can handle his professional matters on his own. He plays two successful seasons with Zenit before he becomes one of the youngest captains in team history. At least, that was how it was supposed to go…He visits Vasily at Richmond for a weekend and suddenly he’s on loan to The Greyhounds. Although he’s smiling in his team photo here, he’s not too happy about it.

Nikolai Lantsov knew he was a bastard. The rumors had been circling for as long as he could remember, since the Lantsov family was very much in the public eye with Alexander Lantsov’s empire of a business. So imagine his surprise when Vasily turned out to be a son of Demeter. He distinctively remembers glancing toward his mother to see her lips pursed, while his father clasped his firstborn on the back and told him how very proud of his demigod son. He would come to realize what she’d done was revenge.Every summer, Tatiana and Nikolai would drive to Long Island to drop Vasily off at camp and every summer, Nikolai would watch his brother run off over the hill and towards the cabins in the distance. Vasily had told him about the protections around the camp, but he’d never realized that he shouldn’t be able to see it. He thought nothing of it, so it went unmentioned between them.However, that would all change when one hot July day, not soon after Vasily was deposited at camp, Nikolai has a vision. One minute he’s lounging by the pool reading the Iliad (of all books) and the next he’s on the ground next to his chaise lounge, panting like he’s just run a marathon.Camp Half-Blood is under siege. Several cabins are on fire. The screams. Oh, the screams. He sees Vasily in the distance, fighting for his life. He looks down and sees a sword in his hand, then feels the bow slung over his shoulder. He hears an explosion...Nikolai quickly packs a bag and hightails it to Camp Half-Blood. As soon as he finds his brother and the words, “the camp’s in grave danger,” leave his mouth, he passes out.He awakens surrounded by his brother, a group of strangers, and, um, a centaur. His head spins as he’s asked how he found the camp and why it’s in danger and, eventually, who? He at least has an answer to one of the questions. The centaur gives him a once-over and mentions how he reminds him of one of his former pupils.