Yasei The Guard Dog

Gender: Male
Age: 69
Height: 8'
Race: Koma Inu (Lion Dog)
Nationality: Crescent Isles
Favorite Foods: Ramen, Grilled Fish, Peanut Butter
Hobbies: Drinking, Fishing, Painting, Board Games

Appearance: Yasei is a very large man standing at eight feet tall and is nearly as wide as he is tall, especially around the waist. Though he appears quite rotund, he's actually very well built, hiding a powerful, muscular body.

Yasei's face can be fearsome looking with the huge, curving tusks and pointy fangs in his wide mouth that's almost always open. He has a huge, lion-like mane of curly pink hair the color of cherry blossoms that goes down his back with matching, wild eyebrows and a mustache. It's hard to tell where his mane ends and his excessive chest hair begins. He also has matching pink fur around his wrists and ankles and on his elbows. His eyes are yellow with red pupils. His small ears and large nose are like a dog's. What fur isn't pink is a greenish blue. Behind him is a huge, fluffy tail the same cheery blossom pink color as the rest of his hair. His hands and feet have pink padding on the palms/soles and the fingers/toes.

He usually wears loose, comfortable clothing such as a yukata with a sash around his waist along with sandals on his feet. He always has a gourd of alcohol on him and his favorite weapon, a long red staff with images of black tree branches and pink cherry blossom flowers carved into it and painted. He also sometimes wears a conical straw sedge hat.

Personality: Yasei might look intimidating, but he's actually a very easy-going individual. He prefers to laugh off insults and forget it happened. He won't think twice about sharing a drink with a stranger or lending a hand to someone in need. He's a very jolly person, easy to get along with and hard to anger. He enjoys friendly sparring with other warriors to test his own skill and isn't above surrendering when he knows he's outmatched. He strives to improve his skills, learning from every defeat.

He enjoys drinking, relaxing, and napping. He might be considered pretty lazy, but he takes it very seriously when he has a task or goal in mind. He prefers to do whatever is easiest when choosing a solution to a problem, but won't resort to solutions that would be harmful to others. His favorite hobbies are fishing, painting, and playing board games even though he's not very good at any of them.

History: Yasei was born to a very wealthy and renowned family of Koma-Inu known for their fearsome strength and combat prowess. His family was cold, focusing on raising the young into strong warriors. He was always considered rambunctious by his family, but they saw his talent and strength, so they continued to support him despite his behavior. He left this family after falling in love and marrying Hana, a human woman, to the disapproval of his family. He lost their support. He became a guard in order to make a living and support himself and Hana.

Yasei found and adopted a human child that had been abandoned in the bamboo forest and raised her as his own with his human wife, Hana, naming the child Shukufuku and calling her Shuki for short. He worked as a guard that protected the home of a powerful sorcerer.

One day, another guard that was supposed to have been on duty slacked off. When he was caught, he blamed Yasei and claimed the Liondog had agreed to take his place. The sorcerer didn't question such a claim as Yasei already had a bad reputation for being a slacker and a drinker. As punishment, Yasei was petrified by the sorcerer and turned into a stone statue that was placed in the front garden outside the door as an example to the other guards the sorcerer hired not to slack off on their duties. His family was told he had died while guarding the house to prevent them trying to turn him back or wanting revenge against the sorcerer. The statue in the courtyard of him was made in his honor since his heroism had prevented anyone else from dying.

When he was finally freed from his petrification, the sorcerer was already long since dead and the home abandoned and in ruins. It had been a very long time since he had been petrified. He had no way of knowing whether his wife and daughter had moved on with their lives without him if they somehow weren't already dead by then. He hadn't aged a day while petrified while they surely had.

He hopes some day he might at least be able to find any of the descendants of his adopted daughter so that he can share with them what really happened to him. Despite his anger at the sorcerer and the other guard for what was done to him, they are both already gone and he has nothing to take it out on. He had no choice but to just try to let it go and live his life from then on.

Fun Facts: Yasei is lactose intolerant and unusually good at balancing things on his nose.
He's surprisingly good at braiding hair.