Full name: Nicodemus Isaiah Rowe Nicknames: Nic, Father, The Alchemist, The Wizard, The Mad Hatter Date of birth/age: September 5th, 1978/35 Occupation: Groundskeeper on Devil's Island Education: Earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry prior to attending St. John's Seminary to become a priest Residence: Rockway Heights (though he spends most of his time on Devil's Island) Appearance: Nic is of fairly average height coming in at 6'0". He's of medium build and rather muscular because he works out regularly. He has brown hair and blue eyes, and he generally avoids shaving if he can help it. His appearance is typically rather unkempt, though he does have the potential to clean up nicely. One of the most noticeable things about Nic are the scars he has on both of his palms in the shape of a cross. These serve as a reminder of the incident that cost him his faith. PB:Jamie Dornan
Personality: Nic is what one would refer to as very intense and unpredictable. Once, he was a relatively normal man, full of faith, full of the desire to help others, but the trauma of what happened in 2006 after spending his entire life dedicated to God was a bit too much for his psyche to take. This has left him a bit unstable and unpredictable at best. There are times when he will go into these nearly frantic states where he will talk endlessly about God and the Bible and his faith, but there are other times when he barely even speaks.
Although Nic has renounced his faith, he has yet to break his vow of celibacy. He gets quite angry when someone touches him and can even be provoked to violence in those moments. And yet he has developed a taste for watching others indulge in carnal sin and does so quite often. For those who can't pay for his product, he is oftentimes willing to make an exchange. He has often considered breaking this vow, and has been tempted quite a number of times, but he feels as though that would be the last straw, the point from which he could not return, and he is not quite ready to give up on the possibility of one day returning to the fold.
Nic is quite antisocial, rarely seen in and around town or engaging in any social activity. He has very few friends. He is slow to trust in anyone, but extremely loyal to those who manage to earn his trust. Most would say that Nic takes his job as groundskeeper of the island very seriously. That is because this is where he grows a number of his plants which are very precious to him. He definitely takes an active role in watching those who come out to the island to explore or party, often times taking measures to scare them away from certain areas so they won't stumble across any of the more fragile or dangerous of his precious plants.
History: Nic was born to a set of devout Irish Catholic parents in the city of Boston. The only thing more important to his family than the family itself was their faith. And Nic was raised in the church from the moment that he was born. He served as an altar boy as a child and his greatest ambition in life was to one day join the priesthood. Second to that was his hobby. He had a natural green thumb and was fascinated by plants and the healing powers thereof. He excelled in Science all throughout school and was urged by his peers and teachers to go on to University to become a doctor or pharmacologist. But as much as he loved Science, he knew what his destiny was. He had been called to God's service and there was no talking him out of it.
Nic applied to St. John's Seminary as soon as he graduated from college and was accepted. He was ecstatic, and continued to show great promise while a student there. Nic remained at St. John's for nearly 8 full years before he received the call from the Bishop and was at last ordained a transitional deacon, making his vows of celibacy and obedience. A year later, he became a fully ordained priest, achieving his goal of having his own parish before the age of thirty. It was 2006 and Father Rowe was serving as parish priest in a church in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in all of Boston. But he had his faith and wasn't afraid of reaching out into the community to help. Perhaps if he had felt a bit more fear, he would still be a priest today.
Nic unwittingly ended up on the bad side of a group of men who ran an international sex slave ring that had settled into the community. The group had several underage boys and girls that had ended up in their grasp and when one showed up at the parishes soup kitchen one day, he had to reach out to the girl, Anabeth. He invited her to come by at any time, and she took him up on that offer, showing up at all hours, hungry and dirty and obviously abused, refusing to speak a word about her parents. Eventually he managed to earn her trust, and it was at that time that she confided in him about the people she was living with and the other young men and women that were there. Nic did the only thing he could think to do at that time, contacting Child Protective Services and sending them to the location that the girl had described.
After a bit of a mess, most of the youth were taken into custody by CPS with most of the men managing to flee captivity, but not before one of the other girls told them what Anabeth had done, told them all about the priest that she had been spending time with. It was easy to know where to place the blame for what had happened and it was clear that retribution was well deserved. This came in the form of catching Nic away from the church one evening after he had visited the nearby home of one of his parishioners and punishing in the way that seemed to best suit the crime.
Nic was kidnapped and taken to a nearby warehouse where he was tortured for days. The men burned the image of a cross into both of his hands as a reminder of a God that didn't save him from their torment. Anabeth, who had been out when the cops raided the house, had been tracked down and brought to the warehouse. As a final punishment for his meddling, the young girl was brutally murdered right before his eyes. Nic was certain that he would suffer the same fate, but he was left alive. It seemed only fair that he were forced to suffer the burden of life after all that had been done. And a burden it was. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for his involvement, more than he could bear, and it did a real number on both his faith and his psyche.
After renouncing his faith and leave the church, Nic eventually left the city, taking up residence in upstate New York in a farmhouse that was rather secluded from the world. For several years, he had very little contact with the outside world, venturing into town only to gather supplies. The only solace he was able to find was in his old hobby of growing plants and exploring their medicinal powers. He had a real passion for plants, felt a real kinship with them, one that he didn't feel with actual people any longer.
It was during his toying around with various plants and herbs, most of them highly toxic in nature, that he was able to concoct a mixture that generated within him the most euphoric feeling he'd ever experienced. From there, he kind of fell into the role of drug dealer as one of the very few friends he had made in the area had tried his mixture and had told some of his friends about it and so on and so forth. Soon he found himself being called by a number of different pseudonyms, the alchemist, the wizard, the mad hatter, and he had developed quite a notoriety on a local level. But when the heat turned up in the area he was living, the DEA catching wind of what was going on in the small New York town, he was forced to relocate.
Thanks to a connection that he had made, he was turned onto the town of Lakewood Shores, Maine. He moved into a house there in the worst neighborhood the city had to offer, then took a job as Groundskeeper on Devil's Island. There he found the perfect location to grow and harvest his plants which could then be used to create his particular brand of bliss. His brand has since developed quite a reputation in the area, though very few people know the mastermind behind it.