Everyone who has encountered a "Traveler" during their journey knows that Yiga disguise themselves as Hylians in order to trick Link into interacting with them, but did you know that these "disguises" are 1:1 clones of other, properly named NPCs that exist somewhere else in Hyrule?
In order to demonstrate what I mean, I took 14 pictures of the Yiga at the Hebra Trailhead Lodge in different disguises and tracked down the "real" NPCs he was pretending to be.
This is the same Yiga pretending to be more than a dozen different people.
Here are their counterparts:
- Rik is a Hylian traveler who makes his way between Wetland Stable and Kakariko Village. He worries about pretty much everything, except for getting his identity stolen.
- Ronn was a bit harder to track down as the wiki doesn't have a description about him, but I found him near the Forgotten Temple. His horse wanted to be in the picture so badly that I wasn't able to get a better picture of the rider.
- Spinch the Hylian - Not to be confused with Spinch the Horse. The wiki doesn't have much information about them, but I found "the Spinches" at Lakeside Stable. That guy basically only talks about horses.
- Zorona is a gossipping traveler who can be found riding his horse along the shore near Zelo Pond in Eldin Canyon. He doesn't sell anything, but offers useful in-game advice and lore background.
- Spoone is a doctor that travels between Wetland Stable and Riverside Stable in search of patients in need. He looks like Rik's less worried brother, but has a different hairdo and wears different clothes.
- Chumin is a Hylian merchant from Lurelin Village who travels with his donkey along the Faron Highroad, where he sells fruits and fish to other travelers. I followed him around for a while but couldn't get a clearer picture as the environment in Faron is weird.
- Bugut is another traveling merchant who appears on the path between Kakariko Village and the Dueling Peaks Stable. The Yiga near the Kakariko Bridge can actually appear "as him" which is especially awkward if Bugut happens to pass by that very moment and neither one acknowldeges the existence of the other.
- Teli is a treasure hunter and a merchant who deals in Guardian parts. He travels between Fort Hateno and Hateno Village, selling parts he acquires from broken Guardians near the fort. He looks a bit startled in the picture because it was raining, he was running for cover, and I had to "gently persuade" him to stand still for the picture.
- Baumar is a Hylian who travels a portion of the Hilltop High Road between Serenne Stable and Snowfield Stable with his horse "Bamboo". That poser talks a lot about shield surfing, but never actually surfs anywhere and doesn't even seem to own a shield.
- Kanny is a Hylian merchant who travels on horseback. He follows a portion of the Hilltop High Road between Serenne Stable and Snowfield Stable, at which point he continues on to Rito Stable. He's one of the few NPC's that wear armor / clothing obtainable by the player (Snowquill Armor dyed grey)
- Glendo is a Hylian who travels on horseback from the Outskirt Stable to the Sanidin Park Ruins. Sometimes he stops in the middle of the road to admire the scenery, and some of his dialogue sounds like backhanded compliments.
- Savelle is a traveler who can be found passing through Tabantha Bridge Stable. He's one of the most obvious examples that Yiga do not only copy the look of other people, but their equipment as well, even down to the shape and color of the backpack. The helmet looks like it could be a Soldier's Helmet from Hateno.
- Endai is a Hylian who rides back and forth between Riverside Stable and Wetland Stable. He might be the only green-haired NPC in the game, but at least he has a matching horse.
- Cambo is a Hylian with a ridiculously small face who travels between Wetland Stable and Kakariko Village with his donkey, selling groceries. Or maybe the donkey travels with his Hylian. I'm not entirely sure which one of them is the boss and who is the pet.
The descriptions of the NPC's were partially taken from zelda.fandom.com, but the pictures were taken by myself in-game.
Another little fun fact is, that some Yiga obviously prefer to impersonate male NPC's while others solely stick to female NPC's. None of them seem to impersonate "important" characters - most are just wandering people with a couple lines of random dialogue, some are travelling merchants, but I've not yet seen a Yiga impersonate an NPC related to any quests, shrines, minigames or the main story, or the ones working in a stable or shop. Maybe it would have been too obvious to randomly run into someone like Robbie or Riju in the middle of the jungle.
In fact, there are only 35 possible disguises for Yiga, all from the "NPC road group" (credit for that information goes to _pe53_ on reddit)
Yiga also only pretend to be Hylians (and maybe Sheikah, since some of the wandering NPC's have white hair despite being classified as Hylians, and some are obviously from Lurelin and I'm frankly not sure whether they're considered their own separate tribe) but never Gerudo, Zora, Rito or Gorons, so talking to NPC's from those tribes is always safe. They also never impersonate children or "very old" NPC's.
In case you want to mess around with them as well and see for yourself, here is also a little map with stationary "Travelers" in Hyrule:
Saving and; reloading or using a campfire will make the Yiga change into someone else.
Additional little fun fact: In the Champions' Ballad cutscene featuring Urbosa and Zelda, two disguised Yiga can be seen. THOSE do not resemble any of the "current day" NPCs wandering around Hyrule, but since that cutscene is a memory flashback from a century ago, there might have been people who looked like them back then.
Thanks for reading =)