Dorran Kaide — 39 — He/Him — Crystal/Mateus

ㅤbiography.ㅤ Born before the Incident, Dorran still remembers the way that Bozja was. Or at least in the way that childhood memories color such things - a grand and sweeping city, the sort of place that may as well have been plucked right from the pages of a storybook.It wouldn't be until years later that he'd look back on those memories and see it for what it really was - living in the shadow of the Garlean occupiers, while his merchant father pretended everything was normal and his scientist mother slipped further and further away as she was consumed by Project Meteor. Some heavy thing weighing on every aspect of life, even as he went through his lessons with the best Garlean and Bozjan tutors that his mother's prestige and position could give, running through halls and rooms that most would consider opulent as he lived the sort of unconcerned and carefree life most eight year old boys would dream of.But that life wouldn't last forever. Soon, he'd find a life of running from the ever-expanding Empire before finally coming to rest within the shadows cast by Ul'dah's high walls with dozens of other refugee families. Hunger and pain and predation before a return to something resembling a normal life as his father's money and determination finally earned them a place within the city proper. And with that renewed normalcy, he'd gain opportunities. Tutors and books and apprenticeships to those versed in magitek, before his father decided to purchase him a prestigious apprenticeship with one of the city's Paladins. A life of opulence and duty and comfort opening wide before him.Only for all of it to be dashed by his own choices. Choices he keeps close to his chest, sharing with only a few. The sort of choices that drove him to flee Thanalan and Eorzea itself, returning to his homeland of Bozja to fight for its freedom with the small but determined Resistance. Cold nights in the wilderness, harsh conditions, surrounded by constant death as he and his comrades fought a losing war against a much stronger opponent. The sort of life that shaped him into the professional that he is today, giving him the skills that would see him survive almost two decades of asymmetric warfare against the Garlean Empire. He served as a combat-tek and engineer, repairing stolen warmachina, performing demolitions, or sabotaging the weapons and magitek of the Garleans - eventually rising in rank to command a squad of shock troopers tasked with the most important and dangerous assignments. But magitek is and always has been his first passion, and has given him skills that are useful now that the War has finally ended.These things would shape Dorran into the man he is today. The man with the easy smile and kind eyes, always ready with a story or a truthful line - but capable of a hard professionalism at a moment's notice or when his ire is piqued. But that anger fades as quickly as a cloud passing on a summer's day, replaced once again by that practiced, unbothered smile. Dorran is often the first to stand up and go off on some adventure, for no better reason than the cause is good or just; he has become a man willing to do what others cannot or should not, to spare them the burdens of those decisions - he has broad shoulders, he always says, broad enough to carry the weight of the world, if that's what is asked of him.His experiences have colored his outlook, and his learning serves him well; when taken together, Dorran is rarely off-balance, whether on the battlefield or in deep conversation. Add to that a growing list of what he calls "happy misadventures" in a tone that suggests they were far from what most would consider "happy", and he very well may be all that he so proudly claims to be. There is no arrogance to his claims, no condescension to his offers of help - only that level tone that comes from the sorts of people that absolutely mean what they say.

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