Diego de la Luna

**Diego de la Luna** (formerly **Toro Dorado**) is an excentric leonin bullfighter from the island of Rosso. He is one of the most renowned bullfighters currently active in Redwain. Diego was taught by his legendary mentor the masked bullfighter Toro Blanco who is generally accepted to be the greatest bullfighter in Redweni history.

## Early Life

Diego de la Luna was born to the son of a Leonin soldier and a Leonin priestess. Naturally whilst growing up he was expected to become a soldier like his father or a priestess of Meriala like his mother, but neither would eventually come true. Unlike his father who was freakishly strong and stood seven and a half feet tall, Diego was nearly two feet shorter than his father and more swift than strong. He instead was chosen to pursue a life in the church of Meriala like his mother did since he was too short and weak to join the Lion Guard in the Redweni Army.

Although his life in the church of Meriala was cut abruptly short when during the Spiral March festival, instead of leading the sacred bull to the temple Diego was nowhere to be found, putting the entire festival on hold whilst the festival goers frantically searched for their sacred bull on the island of Rosso. Dawn turned to dusk as the 3000-strong search party scoured the island. Finally in near darkness when the day had nearly expired The High Dreamer of Meriala found a young 11-year-old Diego riding the raging two-ton bull. A trail of destruction of trampled houses, fences and crops were found in his wake several miles from where the festival was to take place.

After being expelled from his life to become a dreamer of Meriala the entire island of Rosso, including his father and mother, wanted nothing to do with the young troublemaker so Diego fled to the Redweni mainland in desperation. There he would scavenge for food and beg for gold just to survive. When he was young and hungry he would follow around the travelling bullfighting acts as he knew there would be plenty of wealthy spectators who would take pity on him and also get a sight of the famous masked Toro Blanco.

Whilst at one of Toro Blanco's games in the city of Tressaire Diego snuck around to the back of the stands to prop himself up to get a sneak peek into the games without paying for the ticket prices when disaster struck. The cages that held the massive snorting bull for the match had malfunctioned and the bull was loosed behind the arena and instead of heading towards Toro Blanco instead the bulls tore onwards towards the market where hundreds congregated. The bull rampaged through the streets, crushing, goring and trampling those could not flee. Instantly the bull had claimed several lives and it raged on hungry for more. The narrow streets of Tressaire became a bloodbath. The bull thundered back and forth crushing the corpses beneath its hooves until they were simply a red mush on the cobblestone streets.

But young Diego had nothing to lose and ran towards the bull like he saw his hero Toro Blanco do hundreds of times. Running through the bloodied streets in a whirlwind he picked up a man's leather cloak that was so stained with blood it became a crimson red just like Toro Blanco's own matador cloak. As the bull stomped on towards more trapped people on the narrow streets of Tressaire Diego pushed past them to stand at their head waving the bloodied cloak to draw the bull's attention. With a flourish and a whip of the crimson cloak, the young Diego safely guided the frenzied bull away from the people trapped on the streets and led it into a house where the bull was then contained.

After seeing what transpired the legendary Toro Blanco approached the young Diego and swore to take him under his mentorship to hone his skills as a bullfighter. In line with his master's methods, young Diego wore a mask for the majority of his life as a bullfighter, adopting the name Toro Dorado in honour of his master's name Toro Blanco.