Doran is either a yordle or an ascended (Homecoming spoilers/speculation)

So, in the Yi story "Homecoming" we have a Yi who is visiting the remains of his home. Now, what is interesting about this is that he leaves a peach (courtesy of Wukong) for Doran, who worked at the forge and made Yi's helmet and Wukong's staff. This implies that Doran was the major weaponsmith of the Wuju, and was around and died in the Noxus bombings.

Now here is what gets interesting, remember Ornn?

: I taught Doran everything he knows.

According to Ornn's background lore, after the death of the Heartblood, Ornn disappeared for a period of time. "Wracked with guilt, he retreated to the isolation of his foundry, and buried himself in his work for an age."

So it makes sense that Ornn wouldn't be teaching anybody while he was buried in his work, especially since he was probably really difficult to find. While there is a possibility, I don't think it is likely.

Back to Doran. So if Ornn is correct in his teaching of Doran, that probably means Doran could have been around during the age of the Heartblood, learning and honing his craft amongst the other smiths and artisans of Ornn's domain. Given that this was a long time ago, that would imply that Doran is really old, so it's unlikely he is human as there's no way a human should have lived by the end of the Wuju (somewhat modern times).

So what is he? Well, there are two possibilities.

1. He's an ascended, who instead of vying for control or dying to become a Darkin, decided to continue honing his craft. I don't like this option because I find it hard to believe an ascended would die in the Noxus bombing. If the writers wanted it to happen, it could, but I think my other theory is better.

2. He's a yordle. Yordles, as far as we are aware, do not die of old age. Thanks to 's lore, we learned that Yordles can live from the birth of a civilization to modern day and not show any major signs of aging (this is further proven by who is as batshit insane as he was the day he first appeared). We also know that yordles have huge ties to the spiritual realm/might be spirits themselves. So land that is tainted by destructive magics or things that hamper energy in an area may kill them.

Other things that support the yordle theory is how yordles like to integrate themselves into other cultures when they find ideals they relate to or respect. There's for Demacia's sense of order and uniformity, there's sense of glory with Noxus, and there's who I'm still not sure why he's in the Kinkou in the new lore but apparently he's a wise sage like character, (idk, feels like a 180 from hyper kid Kennan). So a yordle seeing the Wuju as something they relate to and deciding to use their skills in creating weaponry and armor for them could be possible. It would certainly explain the long life.