Name: Daurin Eko
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Race: Hylian
Appearance: Tall, burly, and bearded, with some scars. He has minimal armor and dresses in a green tunic that used to act as camouflage when he was poaching... Rather like this fellow:
Personality: Bitter, self-loathing, usually drunk, pragmatic, and generall not at all happy about the way anything is right now or back then.
Background: Daurin had always been good at working with his hands. He made useful things for himself and for the townsfolk as a blacksmith, carpenter, and several other crafts. But he was only one man, prickly at best, and his teaching ability and teamwork faculties were beyond questionable... While his work was very good, he was soon driven out of business by other shopkeepers who could actually keep up with the large amount of demand. He lost his house, and most of his things. For a month, he was a beggar, and for two years following, he was a poacher. He got good at it too, but was eventually caught and had to pledge his life to the king to avoid going to prison. He seemed convinced enough, and there
As a city guard stationed in the warehouse, he had little else to do but stand about being bored and angry. Occassionally, he was called in to investigate crimes and settle disputes, he loved that part, he was good at it. But something he was awful at was standing still, alone in a room somewhere, having to make sure nothing was out of place or tampered with, even in the least... One day, after a few drinks (he did have a bit of a reputation for alcohol consumption in town...) he decided to "Let off some steam" by opening up a crate of surplus pottery and smashing all the pots on the wall, one by one. It wasn't like the city would desperately need an entire crate of pots like this anyway. He was having a lot of fun with this, way too much fun, actually. He laid out pots all over the floor and on the kneeling steps to the castle portholes, at the tops of their separators, and then he would break them all. A guard walked in on him when they were changing shifts, and had him brought in for questioning.
Daurin, grasping for reeds as he was on the verge of getting imprisoned again, remarked that he had been finding unusual things in the supposedly empty pottery shipments, like bombs, arrows, ruppees... As it turned out, Daurin was actually "Investigating" some smugglers who were sneaking stolen, bootlegged, or illegal products and money through castle customs and bribing the increasingly desperate potters' guild to look the other way. Daurin was let go, but charged with community service anyway due to suspicion and a certain unknown vandal who was destroying Hyrule's pottery supply at an alarming rate. His job, outside of guard hours and security calls, was to make pots and deliver them to the people of Hyrule.
In fact, that's what he was doing whenever Ganon's army invaded. Unarmored and barely armed, he fought what he could and then bunkered down in the bomb shop once he was wounded. Through the windows he saw Hyrule Castle being sacked, and he knew that the man he had pledged his life to was dead. Quietly, he stocked up on explosives, then, as moblins marched in in droves to secure the castle, bombchus ran out from the alleyway and up, over walls into the fronts and flanks of their formations. The Bombchu onslaught continued until he ran out of the unfortunately limited stock, which was when he then decided to light all the bombs he couldn't carry on fire, then run and hide in the opposite side of the alley. The massive explosion caused enough fear, distraction, and chaos in the ranks of the monsters that, though he had to walk through a few fires and some burning buildings, he was able to make it out of there unnoticed.
From that point on, he took on the life of a poacher once again, living in the Lost Woods and "Befriending" a business scrub named Riko, who knew the woods very well and made sure they wouldn't get lost and become monsters. Anonymous packages of well-crafted weapons and supplies arrived in the Kokiri village at night with words of warning, and Ganon's forces were sabotaged repeatedly during their multiple attempts to take the forest, but Daurin was only one man, and the Kokiri were only children. Completely unable to stop the invasion, Daurin fought them ruthlessly in denial, raiding camps of smaller minions and setting bear traps in the patrol paths of mighty Moblin guards. But eventually Wolfos caught his scent and he was forced into hiding again. When Riko returned from the edges of the woods with news that they'd be cutting the forest down, Daurin escaped through the secret passage to Goron City and journeyed with (Or dragged) Riko along with him to Gerudo valley. Here, he would cut off the Gerudo King's war machine at its source!
But then he found that the Gerudos in the oasis he had found actually had no loyalty to Gannodorf whatsoever, and that he had failed his liege three times, broken his oath, and sullied his name for absolutely nothing. Indignant and curmudgeonly, he works as a blacksmith, armorer, and fletcher for the rebel army. If this wasn't bad enough, he knew that Gerudo water must have parasites in it or something. (Or he was drinking much more than his
usual massive amounts of alcohol) Not long ago, he hallucinated some sort of ember in his furnace that wouldn't go out, and when he reached out to touch it, it disappeared. Ever since then, he's been feeling a bit more energetic about his bitterness, and very stubborn, even in the face of clearly dangerous Gerudo women who would rather he stop drunkenly hitting on them... Almost more
courageous than usual. Or maybe just more obnoxious...
Skills: Craftsman: In his youth, Daurin's father was deeply indebted to multiple shops in Hyrule and had nothing to pay them back, except for his one son. He spent his entire young childhood into his adulthood apprenticing for all of them, and now he is a skilled leatherworker, metalworker, carpenter, and general craftsman. With money and time, there's almost nothing Daurin can accomplish. Though it doesn't often show, he has quite a bit of intelligence and ingenuity, having been able to reverse-engineer bombs and create new ones made from pots and pressurized alcohol. He could probably put a real one together on the spot, if he had any actual bomb flowers on hand. (Well, his "replacement" bombs were really round, blue molotovs, but the shrapnel was surely a plus?)
Poacher: After spending long periods of time in the forests and mountains of Hyrule, he's become quite a good survivalist. With a good knowledge of plants and the proper use of a knife, he can set up a reasonable campsite in a few hours. He's also quite skilled at making bows and arrows from past experiences, and over his years hunting he's gotten quite good at using them. He's an expert at making and hiding traps, as well as hiding other things he doesn't want people to find, like stashed items, entrances and exits, and even himself. He can pick landmarks out of otherwise monotonous or confusingly repetitive landscapes and navigate around them efficiently without getting lost, can spot traps, tracks, and hidden things pretty well, and can move relatively quietly.
Guard: Daurin was trained vigorously in the art of combat in the city Barracks for the whole of his employment as a castle guard, but also in the streets as an urchin, an apprentice competing with other, bigger boys, fighting in the streets as a beggar, and a guerilla of sorts during his poaching days. While he can hold his own in a tight combat formation, where his true mastery of physical bodily harm shines through is when he's fighting in a loose battle formation or as a single man. Be it with a sword, a spear, his hands, or even something like an improvised farming tool, he is absolutely dangerous. (Though he becomes exponentially more dangerous when the weapon he's holding happens to be an actual weapon.) He fights hard, fast, and dirty, and will use absolutely anything to his advantage. This hasn't won him any valor or honor whenever the guard and the knights of the realm got together for tournaments, but he did earn a reputation as a force to be reckoned with... Until he
bravely ran and hid when Hyrule was taken. Time has only made him harder and more ruthless, and the armies of all sorts of 'Blins and 'Fos showing up certainly sharpened his skills against more trained and challenging foes.
Magic: Daurin isn't quite fond of magic, in fact, he's rather hated it ever since a dirty fraud in red robes set up shop next to him and started selling "Magic Rings" for the most exorbitant prices, which supposedly would protect the user from harm. Of course, he was obviously a swindler, but more people were buying
rings than were buying
actual armor. The concept of "magic" has disgusted Daurin ever since, and he would never think to look into any hokum of that sort. Real magic is dust heated to thousands of degrees and pounded into something useful.
Gear: He wears plated gauntlets and boots that provide him with some protection and give his blows a little more heft in very close quarters. He also carries a shield, the standard Hylian Fare (He made it himself!... Well, a blacksmith's opened up across from him, it became a hot item, and he made a similar one with the last of the steel he could afford just to spite him... Then nobody bought it...)
His longest range melee weapon is his custom longsword, which he requested he be allowed to make for himself. Apparently he had some... Unsavoury descriptions for the standard issue swords given out to typical guards. He carries it primarily out of routine, but also because the Guards' sword is the one thing about him that has any honor attached to it anymore. Though he likes using his axe, he uses the sword quite often when he needs a weapon with more flexible defensive capabilities, and whenever he's being charged at and doesn't have enough time or space to pull out his shield.
His other weapon is a big, double-edged axe that someone of Daurin's considerable strength can wield with surprising speed and versatility. He usually wields it in compound with his shield, but whenever he was faced with hordes of unarmored foes like the Stalchildren and tektites, he knew they were just asking to be hacked apart by an angry man wielding his mighty axe with two hands. Because of its many uses as a weapon and as a survival tool, Daurin absolutely adored his axe, and it's one of the few varieties of tool/weapon that he's had in his employ for the past few decades. This one he made shiny and new at his forge in the Gerudo Desert, and he loves it more than he loves most people... Although that's not really saying much.
He has a strong willow bow and plenty of iron arrows. Not too much to say about those, except sometimes, when he's feeling especially ballsy, he'll poke an arrow through one of his bombs and launch it at something that needs blown up. He also has a long, sharp, broad knife (More like a langseaux, but he rarely, if ever, weaponizes it) which he uses for carving, whittling, digging, and, on rare occassions, eating.
He also carries three bottles, each full of a hearty portion of... Uhh.. "Yellow Potion", a "magical" golden beverage that "Restores energy" but "Kills the performance". Whatever that's supposed to mean. It also makes him talk funny and stumble around.
He used to have some bombs, but he didn't have any use for them in the Gerudo Settlement, so he sold them off. He's always kept his dodongo-skin bomb bag around, though, just in case. He's also brought his fishing rod along. Can't go wrong with one of those.
Weaknesses:Decidedly Un-Heroic: Daurin is selfish, prickly, rude, uncouth, petty, and generally very difficult to get along with by nature. Not even
he believes he'd be the one to receive a piece of the triforce. If Farore herself came down from the sky and presented him with his piece of the triforce of courage, he'd laugh in her face at the absurd prank. He's mostly just along on to make sure Riko doesn't get himself killed as he aims to stop Gannon with his fraction of the Triforce of Wisdom.
Might have a Problem: Of
all the useful things you can do with bottles, Daurin is very hesitant to fill his with anything other than
whisky Yellow Potion. In fact, he's quite prone to drinking it, even though it doesn't serve much practical use for anything other than recreation.
No Wallet: Daurin isn't good with money. He's known that ever since his shop went down the tubes the moment competition was introduced. He let Riko handle the bartering whenever he set up shop in the Oasis. He's also noticed that you tend to get more free stuff whenever you literally have no money on your person, but... Nobody functions very well on their own in a town when the only money they have is whatever spare, disorganized change they can fit in their pockets and in their hands.
Simple Unicycle