Born in the halls of the manor of the house of Vlastos by a family of servants and raised near the nobility, Nicholaos is well acquainted with the noble and courtly .The materialist views of the noble class don't amaze him though and he wishes not to pursue conquest and power. (Not that he doesn't respect the royal lifestyle, far from that, he follows that lifestyle). Instead Nicholaos looks up in the sky for something higher.
When growing up his education consisted of only what the house provided to his family. Any teacher or academic material he had access to was only because the house allowed him to. So when it came to the palace's library he was only given limited access and that included only the religious and philosophical texts and some literature. Nicholaos was intrigued by the many faiths and when opening a religious text he would spend nights pondering the existential. But Nicholaos was a down to earth man, he didn't only ponder but he also saw, he saw the rituals and beliefs of the common people, he saw the impact of religion as a whole and he saw that spirituality is ultimately what comes from inside and not only from above.
Thanks to upwards social mobility that his parents Cecilia and Leonardius Doukas achieved threw hard work, by his late teens he was training to be an advisor for the court and appointed as the court chaplain. For his 19 birthday the Pater Familias appointed him as the house's Bishop a great achievement for only being 19 years of age but overshadowed by the orenian civil war that started only weeks later. His parents after the war started had to migrate for their own reasons: maybe they were hunted or maybe they seeked a more peaceful existence. Anyhow they left the 19 year old boy in the houses protection and gave him a blue amulet, family heirloom they said. He still remembers the conversation he had with them before they left, he also remembers that hey promised they would come back. One day, one day...
