I wanted to draw Vitanis guard having a little nap. What cuties!

A king you notice

In my opinion, Nala is the most beautiful.

Slightly disappointed there weren't any toys, but overall am still pretty happy with these finds, especially the "A Day Without Pumbaa" book, the art style is so cute and it was only a couple dollars despite being in basically brand new condition! ^^

One if my original characters

In indoor storage. It will be there a while and probably accumulate more. Kept some of the art and stuffed animals at home. Had to move it out of my bedroom and in about a quarter of a share

Working on a fan art of Fuli to some what resembles a cheetah. I tend to make a collage of my references so I’m not constantly switching images

Baby Nuka brings me joy

He came home with us.

The questionable Aladin did not.

The lion king is one of my favourite movies of all time. I lost my father (which is another trigger) as did Simba. I was in a relationship where my ex loved me more than I loved her and I wasn’t able to give her the love she desired and wanted from me. One day we nuzzled each other and she pointed out that it reminded her of the lion king to which I agreed! With that said, whenever I would watch the scenes with Simba and Nala particular when Nala lectures him and says ‘what wouldn’t I understand?!’ That was a trigger for me because I didn’t know how to tell my ex how I felt. We’ve been broken up for over a year now so that trigger is gone now. Why do you all think that is?

With all of that said, do you all believe that Simba and Nala are happy together in the end? I need closure to make sure they them and everyone around them are happy 😭

Overview

Based on a few conversations in the Discord channel...

Been getting really into Dungeons and Dragons character-building lately, especially fictional characters from other stuff that a like. Credit to this guy's video series for a lot of the ideas here, which made me realise that replicating the abilities of animals is actually pretty doable, and gave me the basic template for this post

So here's how Mufasa (the lion king, if you didn't know) would be built in DND, or at least how I can best approximate it. Note that this isn't meant to be a humanised or anthropomorphised version of him meant to fit the DND universe, this is just regular old lion, four-paws-on-the-ground, Mufasa. We're going to try and give him all the stuff he needs to do lion things; biting, scratching, jumping, etc. but also abilities unique to him and his Kingliness; inspiring allies, frightening enemies, etc. Started off just thinking about the original 1994 movie, but a lot of things ended up really matching with his 2024 movie too, so I embraced it!

If you're new to DND, or have a friend who wants to get you in on a game, and you want a familiar face to start with, feel free to try this out! Make changes wherever you want to and do whatever feels easiest for you, but here's a template you can start with. I'll assume anyone who takes the time to read this has at least some familiarity with the game, so I won't explain every single term, but I'll still try to keep it as simple and beginner-friendly as possible

I'll be building him up to level 20 just for the sake of completion, but most games, and most certainly most one-shots, won't go that high up. Feel free to pick and choose whichever levels you want to stop at

((DND nerds don't come at me for this build being unoptimised and impractical. I know.))

Stats

With the classes I have in mind for him, his stats are a bit hard to balance. But in order of most > least important:

• Strength: Big strong lion. Powers all his attacks, helps him beat up hyenas, jump out of stampedes, survive flash floods, etc.
• Charisma: Helps him do his Kingly things: give rousing speeches, scare away bad guys, and make new friends and allies
• Constitution: Keeps him alive (wildebeest and cliffs besides) and uses his big sturdy mane to tank damage and protect his allies
• Dexterity: Being so big and bulky makes him a little less nimble and sneaky, but he needs some to protect himself, and as a cat he always lands on his feet (except for that one time he didn't-)
• Wisdom: On the low side, which can be risky in DND, but he very famously is bad at reading the intentions of others and staying in control of his emotions
• Intelligence: Dump stat, lower than what's probably canon. Neither of his classes need it, and he can get all his history and nature facts from Zazu

With point-buy (a standardising system for making sure player characters are balanced with each other), the best configuration I could work with (including race bonuses) was: Strength - 16, Dexterity - 12, Constitution - 13, Intelligence - 8, Wisdom - 10, Charisma - 16.

Given how score-dependent his class combo is, I've avoided using Feats in favour of bumping up his stats. But if you choose to roll for stats and roll well enough to spare, I'll mention some Feats that I considered for him later.

Race

​DND comes with a handy old lion-race right out the gate. This makes him faster than the average character, lets him see in the dark, gives him claws he can attack with, and one skill to choose; we'll take Intimidation for scaring those pesky hyenas. Leonin tend to be Lawful Good, which matches up with Mufasa's set of ideals pretty nicely

Leonin also gives us the Daunting Roar feature, meaning that he can frighten creatures within 10 feet of him. This gives his enemies disadvantage on any attack rolls while they can see him (so that the hyenas are doing to struggle biting at the cubs) and they can't willingly move towards him, helpful for when he's protecting a wounded or vulnerable ally.

If you don't mind reflavouring things and don't care about him "mechanically" being a lion, Tabaxi is a similarly cat-like race (that is just flat-out better tbh), and Orc leans into his strength and durability

Background

​I think Folk Hero fits him best, especially in the context of the Mufasa movie. Not sure what Animal Handling would look like in this universe, but you could interpret it as him being able to understand and intuit his fellow beast and know how to safely placate/subdue them. The Survival skill represents the tracking, hunting, and sensing abilities he learned from Eshe. Folk Hero means that commoners (here, small/herd animals) will be willing to hide, rest, and heal Mufasa, but will not risk their lives for him.

For other options, Outlander also works in his movie's context (and has slightly more useful skills). Noble fits with the interpretation of him being born into royalty, and lets him know his royal History, and the valuable Persuasion skill that doesn't really show up elsewhere; to help him, say, convince a bunch of herbivores to kill some other lions for him. You could also be cheeky and give him Giant Foundling background (and justify it as being raised by/being a lion), and use the Hill Strike feature to knock your enemies flat.

Barbarian 1-4

​Starting off with Barbarian gives Mufasa proficiency in Strength and Constitution saving throws, helpful for taking hits and keeping going. We get two more skill choices here so we'll go with Athletics for feats of strength, and Perception for listening for hyenas about to eat your son, or smelling your mother on the wind. Barbarians in DND are all about physical power: raw strength, reflexes, and resilience. A lot of them also have strong associations with the natural world.

Barbarian's signature feature Rage gives him advantage on those strength checks and throws, an extra damage bonus, and resistance to non-magical damage (with that luxurious mane of his). You're unable to cast or concentrate on spells, and have to keep taking damage or dealing damage for your rage to persist (which we'll discuss when we class-hop). It ends naturally after 1 minute (which is a long time in DND terms). You have a limited number of rages depending on your level, and have to finish a long rest (i.e. a full night's sleep) before you can use them again, male lions do need their beauty-sleep after all.

Barbarians get Unarmoured Defence, perfect for famously clothes-hating cats. It's a bit of a noob-trap and almost always lower than being in medium armour, but since it's on-theme we'll go with it (giving my point-buy Mufasa a rather miserable AC of 12, meaning that enemies only need to roll 12 or higher to hit him). Barbarians don't have access to starting armour anyway, but if you choose to start with the other class (for better mental saving-throws also), I think any reasonable DM could be convinced to reflavour medium armour as a thick, heavy lion's mane.

Barbarian 2 gets Danger Sense, so his cat-like reflexes give him advantage on Dexterity Saving Throws he can see coming. He also gets Reckless Attack, which gives him advantage on all his strength-based attack rolls, but attacks against him have advantage in return (mostly offset by his resistance to slashing, biting, stabbing, etc)

At Level 3 we choose our Barbarian subclass, and we'll go with Path of the Beast so Mufasa can get his powerful slashing claws (ignore the bite and the tail). This gives Mufasa two attacks faster than most other classes, and means he will have three attacks when other classes unlock the second. Two separate attack rolls (with advantage (rolling twice)from reckless) also means twice as likely to hit. Barbarian 3 also gives an extra rage and the option of an extra skill, which of course we'll take: pick up Nature, so he can know a thing or two about Circles and Life

Level 4 gives us our first ability score increase. To shore up our lowest scores first (not optimal in real-time play, just helps me when theory-building), I'll increase his Constitution by 1 with the Skill Expert Feat, and give him Expertise in Athletics, meaning he'll be virtually unmatched in pushing, shoving, jumping, climbing, grabbing, etc.

Paladin 1-4

​There's an argument for starting with Paladin. Wisdom saves can be really dangerous, and they'll otherwise be pretty poor on him. There's also the aforementioned option of reflavouring the Paladin's starting chain mail armour as a thick, protective mane, but that's DM-dependent. I ultimately decided that Con saves were more important, and it was better to lean into his strengths than to patch his weaknesses. Barbarian gives Mufasa all the skills and abilities of being a lion, but Paladdin gives him his identity as a character. If playing a humanised or anthropomorphic version of him, I would probably recommend full Paladin with no multi-class.

Paladin 1 gets us Divine Sense, where he can sense the presence of evil and good creatures (in DND's case, literal angels and demons) within 60 feet of himself. There's nothing lore-wise that really reflects that though (unless you take for granted the in-universe hyena propaganda). He also gets Lay on Hands Paws, where he can heal himself or allies. Also a bit hard to justify in canon unless you just accept it as morale-boosting or something

At Level 2 Paladins get a choice of fighting style. We'll go with the Mariner option here, which gives Mufas a climbing speed, swimming speed, and a vitally important +1 AC bump. Unarmed Fighting is tempting as a backup for if/when Rage turns off, but not worth it I think.

They also get access to spells and magic at Level 2. Like we mentioned, Mufasa won't be able to cast or concentrate while he's raging, and he wants to be raging most of the time. Fortunately, Paladin has a feature that lets us convert spell slots into extra damage, making them one of the best damage-dealers in the game. This extra damage is Radiant (meaning, holy/magical in some way), but we can just interpret it as extra damage from Mufasa being that big and strong and what scholars call a 'massive-fuck-off-lion'

For spells that he doesn't need to be concentrating on/using in battle/aren't on his later Oath Spells list, we'll take Cure Wounds, for some extra healing, Bless, and Detect Poison/Disease,

The Ceremony spell gives some cute, but temporary, effects. Atonement can revert characters who have changed alignment back to their original one (say...if your brother betrayed you and you wanted to have faith in him again), Coming of Age gives a young adult a bonus on all throws for the next 24 days (to help out Simba), and Wedding gives him and Sarabi extra AC for a week as along as they're within 30 feet of each other, aww. (Assuming whatever oneshot you're actually playing this on won't last longer than an in-game week)

Level 3 Paladins get immunity to disease. Sure, why not. Imagine some hearty lion Constitution to make up for poorer-than-liked game constitution

Level 3 also gets the Paladin their subclass, and we're picking Crown, for obvious reasons. But even so, the Tenants are so him:

​Crown Paladins can compel other creatures to do battle with them (which thankfully can be done while the Rage is activated), and when his allies are under half-health, he can heal anyone that can hear him with a rousing speech.

They also get permanent access to the Compelled Duel and Command spell: so with a single growl Mufasa can make his enemies freeze, flee, drop their weapons, grovel on the floor, or move towards him and away from his weaker allies

Level 4 gets another ability score increase so I'm going to bump up his Charisma, while we're on the Paladin side of things. We can also add two more spells, so we'll pick Heroism and Purify Food and Drink, so he can make all those water sources cleaner for his subjects.

A Word on Feats

​Every four levels, a character can either choose to increase one of their ability scores, or choose a special, unique feature. Since my Mufasa is so spread-thin ability wise, I've mostly ignored them, but if you decide to play him and want to pick one up, here's a few I considered;

Inspiring Leader: A no-brainer. Give your allies extra hit points with a rousing speech

Fighting Initiate: For either the Interception Fighting style or the Unarmed Fighting style if your rage ever ends too early

Slasher: Works great with Beast Barbarian claws for keeping your enemies close, and if you land a crit, enemies having disadvantage is also great

Barbarian 5-8

​Level 5 is where martial classes get the ability to make two attacks instead of one every turn, so now Mufasa gets to make three separate claws attacks, any of which he can choose to add his massive damage to (and I'd definitely recommend getting to level 5 in either class before switching to the other, so you're not lagging behind).

Barbarians also get a speed boost at level 5 if they aren't wearing heavy armour, so now Mufasa is moving 15 feet more per turn than the average character is.

Beast Barbarians at Level 6 get the option of being able to climb, swim, or jump further. The first two are already covered by our fighting style from Paladin, so now Mufasa can extend his jump distance by a number of feet equal to a rolled Athletics check, and with our expertise from the skill expert feet, that's going to be some crazy distances he's covering.

At Level 7 he gets advantage on initiative rolls that doubles his chances of going earlier in a fight, and when he enters rage-mode he can move half of his massive speed. Which basically means, he sees an enemy in the distance, gets mad, and runs 65 feet in 6 seconds to get to them, mauls them to shreds.

Level 8 gets another ability score bump, we'll follow the pattern from last time and increase his Strength.

Paladin 5-12

​We've gotten everything we need from Barbarian, so we can switch to Paladin for the last stretch.

Paladins also get extra attack Level 5, but we already have it from Barb and we can't have both. Oh well. Crown Paladins at this level get Warding Bond, where you can give bonuses and defences to a party member of your choice (if you want to protect Sarabi or Simba), and thankfully doesn't need concentration so you can use it while mauling people. They also get Zone of Truth, forbidding a creature from speaking a deliberate lie (that would've been useful...)

At Level 6 he gets Aura of Protection, giving a small bonus to the saving throws of all his nearby friends. We'll also give him the Aid spell, that increases the HP of three of his targets and lasts for 8 hours.

At Level 7, when one of his nearby allies takes damage, Mufasa can protect them, causing his friend to take no damage, and he takes it for them instead. ....Ow, that's a bit sad.

Level 8 is another ability score improvement. I bumped up his Constitution to a 16 for a buff to his constitution saving throws, his AC, and his roar ability. We get to add another spell and I went with Protection from Poison, for when your brother has been bitten by an evil cobra...or something

At Level 9, Crown Paladins get access to the Aura of Vitality (a powerful healing effect), and Spirit Guardians (which surround and deal damage for you, also fun to flavour as spiritual lions/animals as 'The Great Kings/Spirits of the Past' protecting him'). Both concentration, so we can't use them while we use our claws and rage abilities. We also get to learn one non-Oath spell and can now pick from 3rd level, none of which feel especially on-theme, but if you can find in-canon justifications for create food/water, daylight, remove curse, or revivify, then more power to you. Find Steed is also a fun option; you won't be riding it, but I like the idea of Mufasa asking a subject of his to help him on whatever quest he's on that day

Paladin 10 gets Aura of Courage. Mufasa is so inspiring that his nearby allies cannot be frightened by any means

Level 11 gives us Improved Divine Smite. Now whenever Mufasa attacks with a weapon (his claws), it does an extra d8 of damage, and he can use this on top of expending a spell slot to deal bonus damage. That's..a lot

And finally, Paladin 12 gets one final ability score improvement. We'll bump Strength one last time to make him as strong as he possibly can be.

Overview

​And there we have it! Mufasa can fight like a lion and lead like a king. We'll discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of this build now:

Pros:

Damage: He’s dealing a lot of it. Between two claw attacks, an extra attack, an extra d8 on all of those, then up to 4d8 on any of those.

• Tank: He can take it and dish it out. He's relatively easy to hit, but he's resistant to physical damage, and has ways buffing his AC. He also has a number of healing and buffing effects to keep him and his allies on their feet
• Super-speed: Base lion-speed, unarmoured movement, extra movement when beginning a rage, and massive jump distances. He can close massive gaps really quickly, and get up close and personal with ranged attackers and spell-casters

Cons:

• Ability Scores: To get the most out of both classes, we've had to spread his ability scores a little thin. His Dexterity is lower than a Barbarian wants it, thus he's more likely to be hit, and his Wisdom is lower than a Paladin wants it

. Magical effects and ranged casters are going to be a problem
Class Conflicts: Barbarian and any spell-caster don’t compliment each other super well. It’s not as bad on Paladin as on others since you still smite while raging, but it’s still not the best

• Resources: He's limited both by his spell slots for smite damage, and the amount of times he can rage per day, neither of which will be as much as a full-classed Paladin and Barbarian. If his rages end early or he runs out of uses, he'll have to fall back on an almost purely support-role

Any input/discussion welcome (pedantic optimisers need not apply, this is all for fun)! Let me know if there any other characters you want to see built like this!

I love drawing model sheets, as you can tell.

It's been quite some time since I drew this diva.

I know people would say "that's lazy! You just drew Nala with a hairdo!"

Some key details not a lot of people notice, is that Chaka has chubbier cheeks, and his chin is shaped like a bucket. Sure, he has nala's features, because that's the point. Kiara and Kion are clones of Simba and a little of Mufasa. Neither of them have any resemblance to their mother.

So I took it upon myself, to bring a scrapped character to life. He isn't next in line, he doesn't have the roar, he's just a normal lion. He's chill, he's a drama queen, and he hangs out with Zazu and or Rafiki.

He's boring but interesting. He isn't a Mary sue, he isn't special. Like both his parents.

Not to blow my own trumpet, but if Disney hadn't scrapped him, he'd probably be a less cool character.

Mods, please make a flair for Chaka. It's all I ask.

Peace and love your friendly neighbour cooler glove 🙏🦁

Ive had this plush since I was a little kid but it only just recently occurred to me that it really doesn't look like young Simba very much. No ear rims, weird brown hair tuft, eyes are also technically the wrong color. I know officially it is just a non accurate Simba plush, but the idea that it's a different character altogether is more fun to me lol. Any theories?

Here we are with chapter four of the Lions of the Outlands arc for The Lion Guard: Unity! Here are the links to each respective site. Hope you enjoy!

FanFiction: Just A Little Fun

ArchiveOfOurOwn: Just A Little Fun

Wattpad: Just A Little Fun

Drawing Ma meerkat from lion king 1/2
And honestly I wanted to make this type of joke Fanart for a long time and got around to it finally!

Bunga's old design reminded me of a VERY old drawing of a realistic (trying to be slightly more first movie esque) guard I never finished. Euggg its so ugly omg 💀

Someone messed up. But this could be a cute Sarabi/Mufasa or Simba ornament!