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Autolycus

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This is my entry for November '16 Character Design Challenge organized by the Character Design References page/group on facebook. The monthly theme was "Gladiators".
If you'd like to, you can also check my previous two characters: Centaur (September) and Vampire (October)

Like most of my art-related work, this character, too, is part of my personal comic book story project, the IN LAK'ECH Mythos. He's an ancient human turned into a Triton (and who eventually became a Glaucian, something like a half-human half-Triton), the bounty hunter who was himself uncle to Odysseus, protagonist of the Odyssey and the history-changing hero who'd centuries later be hated by the Romans. By that time, when Caesar ruled, and when later generations would claim to be "the dawn of a new age", Autolycus, like his nephew, was more concerned with riches and keeping his immortality. At the age of over a thousand years, Autolycus had found priceless treasures, which kept not only his immortality and vitality (at the cost of his humanity, if there was any of it left), but also his ability to transform into other creatures, which he gained from one of his lovers, Mestra (who used to be a lover of Poseidon before she was sold to slavery by her father, Erysichthon, a 8th Century b.c ruler of Thessaly, cursed to never satiate from his ever-lasting hunger. Some say Erysichthon died, but in truth he left for the far north, where he was met by the Hyperboreans). As time goes, Autolycus has kept his life as a mercenary and lost contact with his nephew. Either way, he managed to organize an international association of mercenaries, which would later include the infamous Toltec Cuetzpalin Axayacatl, a general from the Toltec civilization of Tollan who was led astray alongside a pack of his own into the european continent, and after meeting and helping the "new Asgardians" to get rid of the predation they suffered at the hands of the Jötunn in the north, has established a village alongside locals - the Banterans - only to betray and sell them to slavery under the Palarokhian (a secret order of necromancers from all the western world, based in Eastern Europe) in the matter of 30 years. The Banteran were only freed by the aid of the unnatural Jentilak and the leadership of Cuauhtemoc, Axayacatl's former right hand and eventual rival. Axayacatl has escaped and made fame in the underground as the reptilian "Iguantus", and that's how he would meet Autolycus and other demons.

Axayacatl would return to the American Continent before Columbus ever reached it, and during this time Autolycus accompanied him, right when the Mexica Confederation was expanding, using the same resources that the Tepaneca used against them - the collection of tributes and taxes for conquered city-states - years ago, as Axayacatl and Autolycus made some fame (there, Autolycus was called "Ahuitzotl", from the nahuatl "spiky water creature", a generic name for spiky inhuman underwater beings, once the proper name of a historical figure turned into legend, and also the name the Second Sun Era Cuetzpalin used to refer to the race of Tritons), but were forced to leave one year before the expansion brought the Mexica far south the realm of the Tairona (nowadays Colombia), where they'd meet their deadly enemies to date, the ruthless Tahuantinsuyu (a.k.a Inca Empire). That's not our fight, Autolycus and Axayacatl thought. But then, what's their fight? Those that a pile of gold are worth for, and those that won't get them killed.

Autolycus believe to have a particular sense of honor, but in the end what matters is to find reasons to keep living, and extending that life far beyond what death decided. After the battle of Tenochtitlán, in April 1520, the world politics was changing towards the construction of a global power where human slaves inhabited the surface and the inhuman ones the undeground, and such establishment was partially planned by human and nonhuman fronts alike. Amidst of this, Autolycus was aware he would become replaceable anytime soon, so he became more selective on which work to follow. Like his longtime fellow mercenary Axayacatl, Autolycus has earned some fortune in his century-spanning life, however he prefers to keep it secret. Lately, most of his works were related to the interests of the Saqraruna (evil people in quechua, a secret organization mostly composed of super-powerful military from Tahuantinsuyu and White Russia's KGB, the successors of the Medieval Palarokhian Council and the current generation of the followers of Tupaq and his disciples, the Ta'tal), like persecuting the political opposition of Tahuantinsuyu and White Russia, most notably the anarchist Schwarze Ritter (Black Knights), a group of mercenaries who stood against the first Empire of Palarokhiel, during the Black Death outbreak in the 14th Century, and who were themselves disciples of two of Cuauhtemoc's many forms (Aradia and Veneficus) in his century-lasting life of fight against the spirit of darkness.

Autolycus' involvement with the Saqraruna and their past incarnations, as well his early centuries alongside his nephew brought him vast knowledge concerning the hidden elemental gods who practically control most of reality, even though some of them fight each other. In 2011, his mercenary pride would team him up with Axayacatl once again, this time to fight the Cuetzpalin Paynal, persecuted by INTERPOL as a major threat.

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