Dorran Kaide

Soldier, Scholar, Scientist. Spy.

Quick Hooks

A Bozjan, who left his home before the Incident. A mercenary, with a knack for Magitek. A man looking for a someone or something worthy of giving his all to.

Personality

Dorran is a man with many scars, including a most prominent scar across his face. But perhaps his most interesting feature is the kindness in his eyes. A few minutes with Dorran, and anyone would be able to see that he smiles easily, tells his stories openly, and is more than willing to show kindness to strangers for no more than a story or a conversation. This all belies a hardness and stoicism, a fierce loyalty, and firm convictions that can't be shaken even by something like Dalamud falling on his head.He can be a hard man, at times - especially when working on something that could potentially become a big problem later. But his anger is slow, hardly ever truly rising to the surface. Occasionally, someone might catch a glimpse in a steely glare or a stoic frown, only for the light to flash instantly back to his eyes and the smile to play across his lips as if that flash of anger was nothing more than a cloud passing by on a summer's day.But that's not always the case. When pushed, the easy smile and laid-back persona fall away, replaced by that professionalism and pragmatism that kept him alive so long while others around him weren't so lucky. Dorran has no problem doing what needs be done - and he'll gladly do it so that others don't have to carry that burden. His shoulders are broad, he'll always say; broad enough to carry the weight of the world, if that's what the world asks of him. Which, of course, leads to bouts of deep thought and irritability, and some might think him distant as he works through the problems he's facing.Most important, however, is his analytical mind. He's a prone to acts of passion or brashness as anyone - but more often than not, his mind is constantly racing with trying to find solutions that no one has thought of yet. There is no arrogance in his offer for help, and no hurt feelings if people don't wish to listen, but he offers them all the same.

Background

Dorran is a Bozjan, as he'll tell anyone who asks. He's very proud of his heritage, even if he's the first one to warn against his young and foolish countrymen running back to his homeland with the promises of righteous causes. He's spent half his life on some battlefield or another, and his jaded weariness of that sort of life shows whenever it comes up or he returns to Ul'dah from one of his excursions.
Magitek is his first passion, though. He's always fiddling with some device, or trying to unlock the secrets of some Allagan bauble. If he'd been born somewhere else, or in another time, or come of age in pre-Incident Bozja, he might have gone to the Magitek Academy in the Empire. Alas, it was not to be, as his mother arranged to have his father, brother, and himself secreted from the country as the Empire tightened its grip on his homeland, spiriting him away to Eorzea and Ul'dah.
His education would suffer while spending his teenage years in Ul'dah, and he wouldn't be able to really start tearing into magitek until he was an adult. Even then, it was more about taking apart the various machines of war that the Empire employed, using that knowledge to perform specialized missions for Bozja or any of a dozen other employers over the years. The missions were shock-trooper work (due to his specialized knowledge and other skills he's acquired) but he's done more than his fair share of infiltration and assassination over the years, as well.
Dorran has been many things in his lifetime - a soldier, fighting for his homeland in Bozja as a shock trooper and combat engineer; a magiteknician, working on clever solutions to problems; an engineer and for a minor noble house of Ishgard; and work as a mage for that same house thanks to his comprehensive study of aetherochemistry and it's supporting fields (not to mention the half-baked idea to ingest powdered auricyte).
Most recently, though, he's had to suppress his aether due to a sickness caused by the aforementioned poor choices. Relying more and more on his magitek devices and with a few magitek implants placed inside his own body, he's taken the change in stride - turning what many would think a handicap into something that he can use in ways that many have likely never considered.
Innovation, luckily, is one of the cornerstones of his personality, and he's started working something that melds magitek and the arts martial into a true "Magitek Knight" - a term that he gleaned from some left-over Allagan database on one of his many adventures. The techniques and forms are still in their infancy, and Dorran is always looking to test himself, especially for a good or just cause without needing much in the way of convincing.
But it's not all about fighting for Dorran, either. He's more than willing to help a stranger find an interesting solution to their problems - and given enough time Dorran can find at least a partial solution to most problems he's presented with. He's even been known to work for free, coming up with brand-new devices just because he feels a cause is good or right or just enough. To Dorran, all that matters is the world is better off in the end, even if it means that there's no calling for a man like him in it anymore.
To this end, he's always looking for people who can show him something new, or give him inspiration for some new and dangerous device that he's working on. Or even just a conversation and companionship to waste away the hours and keep his mind busy. Conversations are always welcome, and he's always looking for some cause or some reason that he might be able to do a little more good in the world.