"Great. Now I'm the bad guy."

********************************************************

Name: Rowin

Meaning: Dark head (of hair)

Pronunciation: Row-win

Gender: Male

Rank: Prince (formerly), Prisoner (formerly), warrior & King (currently)

Appearance: Rowin is a darker brown lion with a golden  underbelly and golden front paws. He has rimmed ears and darker eyelids/undereyes. He has a black mane that transitions into a golden-brown underneath. His eyes are green rimmed in orange. He has a scar on his mid-back, two claw marks across his right front leg and another claw mark on his left front leg. He is very stocky and tall. While not shown in his profile, he typically wears white and black paint on his face, especially during war.

Siblings: Two younger brothers (Theo and Goro)

Mate(s): Amahle (former), Deana (former/not much interest), open! (PM me with your ideas and we can hash something out.)

Cubs: Tojo, more to come!

Personality: Rowin is a very reserved lion who often hesitates to follow through on any course of action before truly considering all his options. As a regular lion, he is quiet and prefers to spend time alone or training. Born as the first prince to a large pride that was often in skirmishes, Rowin was made to train relentlessly by his Queen and mother; because of this he possess great fighting skills and is terrifyingly capable of overtaking anyone. Despite his renowned skill in battle, Rowin is not much of a showoff, preferring to go unnoticed until he needs to strike. One of his most dangerous character traits is the fact that he simply does not care what others think of him. This disregard for others’ opinion has allowed him to pursue his darkest intentions without remorse. He is very intelligent and quick to pick up on the true intentions of those around him. Rowin is not inherently evil, but he has an appetite for revenge and like the soldier he is, his emotions rarely affect his choices of whether or not he should do something. He operates on a very loose code of morals. His one somewhat redeeming trait is his tendency to be honorable when it comes to upholding deals or promises.  

History: Rowin was born as the eldest prince in a fairly large pride in a region filled with lions. His mother went on to have two other sons after him, but he was often in the spotlight. Due to the nature of the territories in which he lived, Rowin was trained as a warrior from a very early age. Despite doing everything that his mother wanted and more, Rowin always found himself to be lacking in her eyes. She did not like him or his siblings much, preferring the company of a vicious young lioness named Hediye who she took under her wing. Rowin often felt slightly unsure of himself and his position in his pride; he took solace with a young lioness named Amahle, who was not born into the pride and thus, had radically different views about many of the things everyone else accepted as normal. Amahle was an outsider; a cub that the pride healer had stumbled upon and taken in on a whim. She was an idealist who viewed the skirmishes as unnecessary, and Rowin enjoyed her difference of opinion. During the drier months of the year, when it became difficult to find much food, the huntresses were tasked with hunting in the crocodile lands. Rowin, as well as his younger brother Theo accompanied a hunting party out. During a take-down of a gazelle, Amahle slipped and fell into the river, instantly finding herself surrounded by crocodiles. Rowin was the quickest to spot her and thus helped her fight off the three crocodiles. It was after saving the young lioness from certain doom that Rowin found himself looking for reasons to see her. The two soon became inseparable, and Rowin was glad to have her. She made him happy, and despite her own views of what was right or wrong she never tried to change him. When his mother found out about the two of them, she forbade them from being together, telling Rowin that a prince of her pride would not be with such a “lowly nobody”. Rowin and Amahle continued to meet secretly for a time, until Amahle was found dead near the border of a neighboring pride. Enraged, Rowin swore vengeance, and began multiple attacks that resulted in the injury of many lions and even the death of some others. The attacks, which were originally Rowin’s way of dealing with his grief, soon turned into a full-scale war. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Rowin begrudgingly attempted to reach a truce with the other pride. He sent his brother Goro in his place as a delegate. Peace was almost reached, but the other pride’s warriors wanted justice for their dead, and so they killed Goro and sent him back as a warning. This action was enough to drive Rowin over the edge. Any thoughts of peace, or treaties or compromises went to hell as he prepared to destroy the other pride completely. He spent countless hours strategizing attacks. It eventually came time to deploy one of the plans, and despite his and his mother’s resistance, Rowin’s youngest brother Theo was also revenge-bound, and wanted to participate in the upcoming battle. Theo snuck his way into the battlefield halfway through, and Rowin watched in horror from the other side as his other brother was torn to shreds. Unbeknownst to him, his mother was making a deal with the other pride that involved his imprisonment. After the battle was over, Rowin returned him and found himself escorted by four other males from the enemy pride. His mother made it clear that she believed it was all his fault that his brothers were dead, and thus she told him that he would be residing in the enemy pride until she could no longer rule. Only then would he be allowed to return home. Rowin of course knew this to be a lie; his mother loved being Queen. She had no intention of giving up her throne to anyone, not even her own sons. He knew that she would sit on her throne until the day she died, and then she would pass it on to someone else; perhaps her star pupil, Hediye, who sat waiting and following his mother’s orders around like a mindless worm. Rowin was then taken to the other pride and forced into their caves, where he was kept under constant watch, barely fed, and forced to eat ill-smelling herbs that served to weaken him. He was left like this for a long time, until one day he was visited by the ruling queen who offered him a deal: if he would hunt down an enemy of her new mate, and deliver the lioness unharmed to them, then he could return to his own pride. Rowin agreed to the deal, requesting that he be able to build up his strength so that he could complete the mission quickly. The queen obliged, and Rowin gathered his strength. After his temporary release, Rowin tracked down the white lioness to the territory of her former pride. On her way out, he cornered her and knocked her unconscious, carrying her back to the queen. When he returned, he was yet again forced back into his cave. The lioness he had brought back was also thrown into the cave with him, and Rowin felt slight remorse for having kidnapped her. He promised her that when freed, he would help her to escape. For a time, she reminded him of Amahle. He helped take care of her after every session she had with their captures. He almost fell in love with her, until he learned that she didn’t just want the world to be better and lions to stop what they were doing, but that they had to. That she wanted to make them. She believed that together, they would be able to make a change, but Rowin did not want to change. Realizing that she would dislike him if she knew who he truly was, Rowin continued to pretend to be someone else, if only to keep the peace with the one lion who he could speak to. After much time in captivity together, Keyvan, the cowardly lion who was torturing the helpless Deana came to Rowin with a deal. He had heard tales of the terrifying fighting prowess of Rowin. Keyvan claimed that if Rowin were to kill Deana where all would see, then he would convince the queen to let Rowin go. Of course, Rowin was not going to fall for any “deal” that was proposed by either Keyvan or his queen, for they’d both betrayed his trust not too long ago, but he agreed anyway because it gave him the opportunity to escape. Like the time before, Rowin was finally given proper meals and was no longer forced to eat the herbs that sapped his energy in preparation for the killing of Deana. When the two lions were let out of the cave and the reality of the situation was revealed to Deana, she was understandably afraid. Rowin proceeded to shock everyone that had gathered by killing Keyvan, the queen, and many of their most loyal supporters. He declared himself the new king of the pride and proceeded to make an example of anyone who dared to question his position. Using fear tactics, he was able to secure himself as the king. As promised, he let Deana go, despite the fact that she was carrying his cubs. He had no intention of keeping her around since he knew she could never care for him as he wanted her to, nor did he want an unsatisfactory replica of his past lover Amahle. Above all else, he disliked Deana because she reminded him of the fact that he could be a better lion, but that he was always choosing not to be. Despite his new role, Rowin had no intention of sticking around in this enemy pride. He wanted to go home, a feat he could not accomplish while his mother and her pet Hediye still lived. He was forced to continue ruling his enemy pride while he tried to find a way of getting rid of the two of them without it leading back to him. Most lions knew of the harsh reality surrounding the death of his brothers, but they would never take him back if he killed their Queen and a member of her guard for no apparent reason. Thus, he plots to get rid of them while creating a stronghold in the pride he had overtaken.

Relation to TLK: Father of Tojo

Original images and background © Disney

Rowin and Render © me