rowan

just pasting my tweets from when i explained his backstory on twitter once until i can make everything flow nicely

(tw for: body dysphoria, self-mutilation, religion, parental abuse)

basically rowan was born w the name lilitu (after his mother, lilith) (his father was the archangel samael) and he was condemned as an abomination BECAUSE he was lilith's child and viewed as inherently evil, and the combination of powers resulted in him being the first witch. lilith defended him and raised him for several years but she was a strict mother and really Tough Lovey and it only got worse when he realized he was trans. because of adam and god lilith HATED men and condemned him for "choosing" to align himself w them. she disavowed him entirely when he was around 17 because he cut his hair off and he began down an even darker path afterwards. he spent a lot of time studying about shapeshifting and how to modify his own body to quell his dysphoria but never really got it. he ended up mutilating himself a lot and then eventually taking out his anger on others, because he was viewed as god's mistake for more than one reason. if he was going to be a witch he was going to be the most powerful and make the world remember his name. he caused harm to a lot of people and himself and became notorious all throughout the land and feared by everyone. and the more he studied, the more he learned of magic, the more he learned to use it and more powerful he became. there was a nonbeing (cal) who rose from the fabric of space and time with the sole purpose of stopping lilitu from destroying the world. cal had mercy on him and instead of killing him on the spot, sealed his memory (his shoulder tattoo) and put him into a very deep sleep. cal faded back into nonexistence and lilitu slept underground for many centuries. during his slumber all he dreamed about was his own body dysphoria and the pursuit to "fix" himself that sparked everything... and some of cal's shapeshifting power transferred to him thru the seal. when he woke up, a few hundred years before present day, he was in a slightly different body, with no scars, and no memory. he named himself after a tree (rowan) and lived in solitude in the forest for many more years, as witches were still hunted by humans. eventually he was caught and killed and when he woke up in hell he met cal. there was that journey (another story) and at the end the two of them regained their memories from "past" lives. double whammy for rowan remembering how he hurt not only others, but himself too.