Tüdü Kopo
Tüdü Kopo was a much-beloved Gillikin Püroki during the First Age of Eden and is an ancestor of nearly every halfling alive today. In the year before The Calamity ended his universe and brought him here, Kopo made a name for himself by leading his people to an archipelago further north than any halfling had traveled before. And though the people of Kopo’s tribe didn’t have long to enjoy the place they ended up calling O‘hoi Lena—“last sands”—many women in the tribe decided they needed to thank him with a night spent in his iwo. The end result of that was that nearly every Gillikin baby born during Year 1 in Eden was a child of the famous navigator.
Appearance & Personality
Tüdü Kopo was tall for halfling and a bit stockier than average. He kept his curly black hair long and preferred to wear naught but a loincloth when he could get away with it. This was both to show off his many tattoos, but also because he hated the feel of cloth against his chest—his nipples, in particular.
Kopo’s most striking feature was the size of his feet. They were big and had been since he was an infant, which is actually why his parents named him Tüdü in the first place. It’s Lüota for “big foot.”
Despite his size—or perhaps because of it—he was a gentle soul. Kopo checked in regularly with every person who traveled the seas under his direction. He double- and triple-checked his calculations each day they sailed or rowed, to make sure that he never led his people into danger if he could help it. And while he could hold his own in any fight which came his way, Kopo strongly preferred talking through a problem if he could.
Biography
Tûdü Kopo was born in the year 434 of the Earth-665 iteration of reality. Legends say he was born on a double-hulled sailing ship and that his mother only paused paddling for long enough to cut the umbilical cord, but the truth is that he was likely born on the island that we in the Real World call Tahiti.
He was a navigational prodigy and was guiding expeditions northward by the time he was 18. At 21, one of those voyages brought him and his people to the islands that we call Hawaii and that they would end up calling O‘hoi Lena. They were thrilled at the beauty of these new islands, and even more thrilled that they seemed to be entirely free of the time-displaced dinosaurs which plagued the rest of the world. But they had only a few months before it all came to an end and all of reality was swept away by the vengeful goddess Mira.
Some of the people of that lost world, Tûdü Kopo among them, survived and found a new life in Eden. There, on the shores of what would one day be called Lake Viridescent, the people paused to collect themselves and to make a few babies in their spare time. Then, eventually, Tûdü Kopo led his people northward toward the lands of the future Gillikin Country. Up there, they founded Uptown and transitioned from fishing the seas to farming the land—and mining it as well.
Along the way, Tûdü Kopo had at least 27 children with his wives and other partners. And because the halflings have remained in Eden ever since and never returned to the universe at large to try and start over, those 27 children had lots of children of their own. And those children spread out and married not just Gillikins but Quadlings, Winkies, and Munchkins too—the end result of which is that pretty much every halfling since has had a credible story about how they’re related to the most famous navigator outside of Lüe herself.
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