Diya (Genshin Impact)

Overview

Diya was originally a student at the Sumeru Akademiya that graduated well before his thirties. Over time he grew to detest the lifestyle and weather, so he disavowed his scholarship and ventured to dragonspine for a change of pace. In dragonspine, he wanders the trails selling wares to the few people he encounters and saving unfortunate souls from a frosty demise (never forgetting to ask for a pretty penny in return, of course!). if mora or supplies run low in the moutinains, Diya will venture out to the surrounding adventure camps to buy necessities or to sell dragonspine-sourced materials to the adventurers unable or unwilling to harvest it themselves. He is always followed by his trusty companion and life-saver, pyro seelie. No one is entirely sure as to why the seelie is so attached to the merchant, but Diya is eternally grateful for the constant warmth and company. But even with a warm companion, Diya still has to be wary of the harsh weather, the incessant hostile hilichurls and the fatui camps littering dragonspine. Generally Diya will just keep his distance from hostile creatures, but he will also camouflage as a hilichurl if the circumstances permit (does not work on fatui foot soldiers). Despite the constant hardships, Diya is satisfied with his choice to leave the akedemiya and enjoys sustaining himself through hard work and scummy practices rather than 'wasting' his life away studying himself to death. Lorewise, Diya holds no importance in any major storylines or quests, he's just a little npc with his own little lore.

How They Met

Diya encountered his pyro seelie friend during one of his first surveys of dragonspine. He followed the pyro seelie around to return it to its court, but the two ended up wandering through the entirety of the mountain without finding anything. annoyed with the fruitless multi-day journey but, still sympathizing with the dehomed seelie, Diya told the seelie that it could stay with him until they found its court. To this day, the court still hasn't been found. Rumors say that Diya is actually the seelie's court; or in a past life, Diya's previous incarnate was close to the seelie before the species went extinct, but he finds it hard to believe that this seelie was destined to accompany him, and instead insists that he just hasn't found the seelie's proper home yet.

About Diya

While not immediately apparent, Diya is a very intelligent man that does not socialize well. He is in no way a genius or prodigy, but he would certainly be able to hold a deep, intelligible conversation with someone like Albedo or Lisa, though he is not interested in doing this in the slightest. His colleagues back at the Akadeyima say Diya was full of potential, but Diya was never interested in fulfilling this potential for himself nor others, whether it be in the pursuit of knowledge, fame and money, or to aid those in need. Diya was even nominated to recieve the Pir Kavikavus Prize: an award of great renown given to young scholars with ground breaking discoveries. In the end, he did not win the award and soon after separated himself from his alma mater. Many fellow students, scholars, and Driyosh at the Akademiya do not think highly of Diya, but still come for his help occasionally when they require dragonspine materials for their thesis.

Ingame Mechanics

Diya's ingame mechanic as a merchant would be so stupid... he would have a normal shop with common dragonspine materials or foods but would also have a secret special shop with banging stuff. to unlock the special shop, you would have to solve a riddle or something. you'd get one chance a day to answer it and if you get it right you unlock the shop, if you get it wrong you can try again the next day with a new riddle. you get to attempt the riddle omce every day until you unlock the special shop, which can only be unlocked once a week. Diya's special shop would contain rare materials like weapon billets, artifact essence, and stuff like that. how does he get that stuff? dont think about it (being serious, i suppose he barters it from fatui foot soldiers and receives it from offerings to the frostbearing tree.)

Player Interactions

Being the two-faced scammer that he is, Diya will be a total suck up to the player if they buy anything from his shop, but cold and apathetic if you just skim through without purchasing anything. He does not have a good relationship with paimon, who inadverdently insulted his intelligence and hair upon their first encounter. He retaliated and recieved a mean nickname from Paimon and ever since then, the pair have been at each other's throats.