Dorking is a scruffy half-elf with unevenly trimmed dark hair and restless grey eyes. He wears heavy chain mail under a tattered green traveler's cloak that is stained with the mud of a dozen provinces. A thick, jagged scar runs along his jawline from an old wolf bite, and he rarely bothers to shave the coarse stubble on his chin.

He is a man of few words and even fewer patience for noble etiquette. Dorking trusts a well-made blade more than a well-spoken promise. He lives entirely in the present moment, reacting to immediate threats with a pragmatic, often brutal efficiency that makes more civilized folk uncomfortable.

Dorking was born from the brief and scandalous union between an elven archivist and a human woodsman in the Deepedene valley. He grew up in the cracks between two worlds, too wild for the archives and too strange for the village square. By his fifteenth year, he had abandoned the settlements entirely to live among the peaks and thickets, learning the way of the sword by necessity rather than instruction. For years he served as an unofficial and somewhat feral guide for smugglers and deserters, preferring the company of the wind to the demands of a king. His life in the wilderness has forged him into a survivor who treats every new acquaintance like a potential predator. He has no loyalty to any banner, finding the very idea of national borders as ridiculous as trying to fence in the rain. He has recently emerged from the deep woods only because the coin of adventurers is the easiest way to replace his aging steel.