Daojin

Category	Heroes
Region	Azrik
Race	earth elemental
Gender	male
Alignment	lawful neutral
Deity	none
Birthplace	Tachylyte
Born	29 Bloom 1096

For much of his early life, Daojin was a worker for Rilirthad's dao masters. His name Daojin, means "dao servant".

In 1632, he was captured on a slave ship en-route to Paradomea City. The minotaur pirates took him back to Azrik where he found himself in the Lorfin-Bator Zoo. Two years later, on a routine tour of the empire's defenses, general Raxcvillibus saw him. Taking pity on the display of an intelligent sentient, he purchased him from the zoo. Over the next two centuries, they built up a closeness rivaled only by Raxcvillibus's adopted son Negral.

As an earth elemental, he can take many shapes and forms. Whatever form, he takes, he weighs 500lbs. In the Siege of Ilfongrak, he took the shape of The Wall, a squat humanoid five broad and four feet high, shielding Raxcvillibus and a half dozen others from a storm of arrows, hurled spears and javelins, thrown and launched rocks. After the enemy had expended their ammunition, Raxcvillibus and Daojin led the charge through the breach. The rest of his soldiers stood mouth agape, then voices near and far shouted, “Save the Emperor!�? Raxcvillibus remembers laughing at that rallying cry. He was in a good position at the base of a wall, while to reach him, his soldiers had to run through trenches and open fields under a rain of fire that would have met the approval of Asmodeus’s mightiest generals.

It was only five years later that he began to realize Daojin's full potential. He and his son re-purposed him; where once the earth elemental had only known mining, he learned etiquette, literature, mathematics, science, and close-quarters combat. It was an experiment, one that worked surprisingly well. After a decade of retooling, as they called it, Daojin became part of the Emperor's staff of personal assistants; in fifty years, he became one of his closest advisors.
- from the Godspawn Saga

Daojin has a quirk that comes out when he is confused about something, for whatever form he is trying to take has something about it that is out of proportion or even backwards. As an elemental, his reactions to things are elemental-like, meaning they are usually bodily movements, such as a snicker coming out like the sound of shaking a rain stick. This is caused by small rocks being moved around in his mouth.

Daojin, top advisor to the emperor in peacetime, has no political ambition, or dreams of glory, for him serving Raxcvillibus as his right-hand is the best post around.

In the Cinazan Front, he was a crew member of the Pillar of Horns.

Bits of writing on the shapes, behaviors, bodily emotions of an earth elemental:

He slides across the deck on feet that look like two rivulets of mud. Standing before his lord, the captain, he comes to attention on feet that have reformed into two-foot-long earthen pads with three big toes each.
his hand, in the shape of a stone hammer, reforms into his natural three finger hand. It's a large hand, the size of the captain' head
Daojin changes his stony form to expedite the process. He takes the shape of four arms mounted on a pillar attached to a single ball. Obsidian protrusions spring out from this ball, becoming brakes as he jerks back and forth, grabbing pieces of armor and attaching them to the captain's sturdy frame.
His faithful elemental has never been good things requiring the finer coordination that he lacks. It's probably why elementals don't wear clothes. Not that you could tell the difference.
Daojin snickers, the sound of loose gravel rolling about in a barrel.
Daojin raises his chest, with two boulders dotted with obsidians taking the form of human-like pectoralis major.
Daojin shoulders roll back and forth; he corrects himself, nodding his blocky stone head.
Rax sees the stones quiver around Daojin’s armpits. He knows this means he feels hurt.
As the earth elemental collapses into mud and leaves the room, she takes in his rich, earthy smell. Knowing that he cannot hear her in his mud rivulet form, only pick up vibrations of conversation,
"My lord?" Rax looks over to the only one on the ship who addresses him so; he wishes he would use "captain" like the rest of the soldiers.
With his mouth closed, he laughs, sounding like the rumbling of small rocks and stone plates rubbing together.
A little perturbed by her outburst, the elemental crushes a tooth in his mouth, swallowing the granules, which for him is just absorbing the stuff and then remaking the lost tooth.
in loose-form, recuperating
Up on the main deck, Daojin is down on all fours, his belly hanging down to the deck, merging with it. Now connected as one, he feels the thuds on the hull, gauging the enemy's firepower. He, of all onboard the Pillar, is the most connected with stone. As an earth elemental, he feels the earth energy in it; the more it has, the harder it is. Cannonballs blowing away pieces of the ship reduces the ship's total energy. Right now, he senses just pinpricks. If the enemy has big guns, like Colossus cannons, Hull Breakers, or worse, Cyclops Harbor cannons, then things will become more concerning. Those super-heavy cannons are more than capable of shattering a dacite panel or two with one round.
Daojin flows across the deck towards the Pillar's bow. His lower body is fluid-like, consisting of loose gravel and sand moving like earthflow, scouring the dacite.
Daojin changes shape to something more humanoid, yet still blocky and alien-looking, so that it's obviously not a natural form. Some earth elementals are so adept at smoothing out their shape that they can make themselves look like a master sculptor's statue
Daojin, in the form of a snaky puddle of mud, seeps under the captain's door. The mud rises up, hardening to the shape of a humanoid earth elemental, six feet tall and four feet broad, of shaped granite dotted with chips of obsidian.
In the form of a rivulet of mud, the earth elemental slides under the door. He reforms into a squat humanoid-form with crude bony appendages that look kind of like antlers. She laughs to herself. Not all druids have kinship to animals; some take up druidic arts for the powers it gives them. She considers herself a mix of both. Lying, she says to the captain's aide, "I'm not amused. Do you know what your captain would do if he saw you fooling around like that?"
Daojin changes his stony form to expedite the process. He takes the shape of four arms mounted on a pillar attached to a single ball. Obsidian protrusions spring out from this ball, becoming brakes as he jerks back and forth, grabbing pieces of armor and attaching them to the captain's sturdy frame. Rax's body is tough; not as tough as stone, but enough that he doesn't have to be handled gently, like something made of flesh, blood, and life-energy. Necromancers refer to the undead as machines, often saying that a wounded one has lost some of its effectiveness.
Daojin thinks that maybe she can help him convince the captain to countermand himself, quell that thirst for revenge. He looks to her, focusing on conversing in long speech, something that took five years to master:
He whispers in her direction, "Thanks for the help." He then ponders what she said, looking down at his arm where he made tiny runes form in his body, copying her every word. He smiles broadly at the myth that his kind can't multitask. All it takes is time, and a lot of practice.