While the classic nagas of Indian mythology bore many forms, Dhumavarna is of the naga-kind most commonly envisioned: a creature that is human from the waist up and snake from the waist down. His human half is thin and scrawny, sickly-seeming even with his warm brown skintone, and he usually keeps his torso covered with a long vest. His face is long and lean, his cheekbones too prominent and his nose very thin beneath his small black eyes. He keeps his black hair cropped short and sometimes wears a red headband.

If there is any handsomeness to Dhumavarna, it is only in his serpentine aspect. His snake-half is slender and streamlined, rather than frail, and is marked in the manner of a striped kukri. His scales are a pale greenish tan, marked with lateral lines of black and a bold orange-red stripe along his spine.

Dhumavarna is, rather ironically for being a snake-creature, a somewhat mousy character. Though not shy, he is quiet and subservient, and not quite the type one would imagine to be the owner of an entire facility. He might not be gregariously charismatic, but he is agreeable and seemingly impossible to anger, using kind words and a warm, level tone of voice to keep his many subordinates in line. His overall image is one of moderated restraint, as if he would be better off in a distant temple meditating with Tibetan monks rather than weaving through the organized chaos of a cyborware installation facility.