Vassago the Vile - Character Concept

This seedy-looking gentleman is Vassago the Vile - professional burglar, mercenary, and killer of wizards. He is the POV character for a short story I've been working on recently - a sort of grimdark, roguish, sword-and-sorcery yarn in the style of Robert E. Howard.

Behold! My masterful drawing skills!

Amateurish art aside, I've been really digging this character lately! I usually cast noble heroes and loveable underdogs as the protagonists of my stories, but Vassago is neither of those. He's an old-fashioned rogue, a morally flexible thief-for-hire who has no compunctions about who he steals from or who he has to kill to get the job done.

But trust me, Vassago's story won't be wallowing in pretentious philosophy or constantly questioning his motives and mental stability like most modern stories with dark antiheroes. It will be a hard and fast, action-focused bit of pulp fantasy that sees this brooding thief attempting to pull a heist on the tower of a dangerous enchantress.

A.I. generated concepts, based on my original sketch

The story (working title: Witching Tower) is still a work in progress, but I should have it finished sometime soon. I'm hoping to submit it to one of the many indie-focused web magazines once the final draft is done. If it ends up in publication, I'll be sure to update this post.

If not, I'll probably put it together with some other unpublished stories of mine in a fix-up novel sometime in the future.