Character Design Brief - Warlock

For university, I was tasked with making three design briefs. This was the third and final project: a character design brief. The outline was to make a wizard/ witch/ warlock based on an ancient civilisation, either from Feudal Japan, Ancient Egypt or the Aztec Empire. I chose a Warlock from the Sengoku period of Japan, who has made deals with a number of Yokai that give him his magical abilities.

My original idea was a wizard with the powers of the sun, inspired by Amaterasu, the Shinto goddess of the Sun. But that idea very quickly shifted to a more intimidating Warlock. There is a giant yokai by the name of Gashadokuro, who is made of skeletons of soldiers who have fallen in battle. To show that, I gave the Warlock a bandolier of skulls to carry around, as a show of dominance, but as a show of dedication to his skeletal patron. 

He wears a long-nosed Tengu mask, a black-winged trickster being. That gave me the idea to have the warlock wear a cloak made of black feathers. He wields a katana, and also an umbrella, which is not just a monstrous kasa-obake, but also his spellcasting focus.

We were also asked to make a familiar for our character. I choose for mine to be a Tanuki, a raccoon-like creature that is a real animal, but in Japanese mythology, they are fans of sake, and are infamously well-endowed. The warlock's familiar does not have an enlarged testicular region, but it carries around his alcohol for him.