Well, after reading the comments, I'm very interested. :O

I'm willing to bet that he's trying to take people out...hunt them down... 😉

Only time will tell...

Lookin' ready for a shoot out.

Sometimes, the poster says "wanted, dead or alive" and, well...

This does raise some interesting questions about how cowboys would function in a world where most critters have magic powers to some degree, and it makes me wonder if the use of firearms and similar "artificial" weapons would be considered dishonorable or cowardly as a result. Such a cultural viewpoint could actually make him more sinister and threatening and morally dubious if he just pulls out a revolver or two and starts blasting--or save the backwater town he's tracked his target to a lot of trouble by reducing collateral damage from everybody breathing fire and shooting lasers from their mouths or eyes and conjuring giant spears out of thin air. Probably a bit easier to replace a broken window or two than rebuild an entire saloon after some angry wolf burns it down!

Not all cultures will ever agree on what is "honorable" and what isn't, or even if "honor" is an important thing. And even in high-fantasy worlds, there are often those who don't or can't use magic...

For example, in Skyrim, we've got dragons, all manner of mages/sorcerers/magical creatures. But those who use magic are looked down upon as being "weak" for using magic. No one complains when you use a bow or crossbow to put down a dragon or the vampires or evil magic users trying to burn their cities, either. It's not a far stretch to assume that firearms would simply be considered another pragmatic solution for normal folks to deal with enemies who can throw fireballs and lighting at them.

Speaking of Skyrim... During the Boethiah's Proving sidequest, we are given this bit of dialogue:
Boethiah: "Well done. You have proven the strength of your will and your tongue's gift for lies. You have shown ferocity and prowess in combat. Now the time has come for a final proving. Are you able to cast aside your honor and strike with the hidden blade?"
Player: "Honor" is a coward's tool.
Boethiah: "An astute observation. Skyrim is a beautiful and harsh mistress, but her people cling to such a petty notion of honor."

I guess I should clarify--the inspirations for my earliest anthro work included Pokemon and Digimon, so at the time the concept of "the wolves metamorphose into bigger wolves that breathe fire and the antelope can channel electricity through their horns" didn't seem odd at all. Making this fit into a wider galaxy where such abilities are seen as fantastical has proven a bit challenging, but doable.

This does, however, bring up a few questions related to their use of technology and their cultural norms--I can see smaller, physically weaker races finding firearms and artificial weapons a great way to even the playing field, even if there's little reason to believe that the wolves and raccoons have ever not gotten along to a degree where hostility would be commonplace.

There's also something I've thought about that applies galaxy-wide, as creatures with special powers are not all that rare, and that's the idea that using abilities that might be considered "magic" would still consume energy. While powering up and and throwing energy blasts around is probably a great way of dealing with a "boss" type threat, blasting through waves of foot soldiers might prove tiring after a while--not to mention that revealing such abilities might enable an enemy force to study them and adapt their tactics accordingly. There's also concerns surrounding collateral damage, friendly fire and noncombatant casualties when you start spamming energy blasts or spraying fire everywhere--these aren't an issue in some wide-open wasteland where the only beings present are part of the fight, but in an urban environment like where most combat actually takes place nowadays, such tactics could prove very dangerous not just to enemy forces, but to allies and civilians as well. Not to mention, you might end up bringing a building down on yourself if you damage the structure too severely. That's why even super-fighter characters of mine like Dominic Wolff still primarily fight using firearms. That, and bullets travel quicker and are a bit harder to evade than a glowing fireball of death, and tend to ignore magical resistance attributes by virtue of being fast-moving metal projectiles and not some sort of directed energy.

Finding ways to balance things is good, but can get a bit involved at times. Vlad Yvhv's origin is as a fire dragon, on a world called Vess, which was populated mostly by various elemental dragons who evolved differing types of breath attack. These are not magical, but biological in nature, so it's a bit easier to balance out the ability to spray a biological thermite-like napalm on an enemy/threat. Vessian dragons' spit acts as a retardant to the combining of the chemicals from their left and right venom glands. Separately, these chemicals are mostly inert. Combined, they create various types of reactions when exposed to open air. As with other venomous creatures, it's biologically expensive to create these venoms. And certain ones require intake of elements not in the normal diets of off-worlders, such as aluminum for the thermite half of the bio-napalm (I forget what the auto-igniting chemical is offhand, at the moment). Thus, only the foolish go around spitting Vessian dragon venom on people without good reason. And while each species has a fairly high degree of resistance to their own element, spitting on someone who isn't badly harmed by it was seen as highly disrespectful and typically resulted in someone getting their ass kicked.

As for magic... In much of my works, magic isn't so much in having power, as being able to redirect existing external power. As one might expect, attempting to bend the universe's power to one's own will is risking fates worse than death, on each attempt. I call this Magical Backlash. In my works, only God is immune to it. The ability to use magic varies, depending on the nature of the character. Fred Yvhuce and Coyote (within my Yvhuce Industries reality), Vlad (who is an inter-reality traveler), and Vance and Rax (who are part of my Oktahv reality) are good benchmarks.
God: Omnipotent and Omniscient and beyond Eternal. If He is doing something against you, you're history. This is why my works (and most of my caracters) all have a monotheistic view.
Coyote: As God's Best Friend and Heaven Court Jester, his technical ability to control magic is nearly-unlimited. However, this is balanced by his personality. He lacks the actual focus for sustained high-magic use.
Fred Yvhuce: As descendants of Coyote, the Yvhuce clan can't be killed. They live roughly 150 years, then die of old age. This does not, however, prevent temporary death while their bodies regenerate from lethal scenarios. As such, there is a physical limit to how much any of them control and for how long, before their bodies are ripped apart by the magical backlash caused by channeling magic. As bloodline of Coyote, they do, however, get a slightly less amount of feedback for minor magical use, resulting in many within the clan using parlor tricks or using minor magic to merge with high-tech stuff to improve Yvhuce Industries' products. Individual limits vary, depending on one's own tolerance to pain and drive to use magic towards whatever goal one has. Fred Yvhuce is a character who can have a very strong drive, if he feels there's a need to call upon strong magics, and the focus to concentrate "slow moving ball of death" type spells into "laser beam of death" precision. For scenarios not requiring such displays of power, he's the owner of a company that makes advanced weaponry and combat vehicles (usually as a contractor for the government), and can have a heavily armed hover tank ready to roll out in about 3 minutes notice. He's also an extremely good shot with a rifle or shotgun, fair with a bow, and in close combat fights like a rabid hyena/badger. Largely balanced by not normally being aggressive. It takes someone intent on harming someone he cares about, or being a danger to the public, or otherwise someone being a villain, to get him riled up.
Vlad Yvhv: Omnians and Omnian Colonies are unusual in their paradoxical nature. Vlad's own colony is roughly 300trillion cells in biomass. That's 300trillion sentient beings packed into one "body", most often taking direction from Vlad for any not-autonomic functions. Any specific cell (Vlad included) would individually be incapable of using magic. But acting together to imitate a body with one mind calling the shots, they are capable of feats of magic slightly above that of Fred Yvhuce's level in terms of magnitude and focus, but lack the capacity for very much prolonged magical use of any level, due to the feedback trying to force the cells out of cohesive body structure. Combined with the sum total knowledge of all that every cell in the body has ever learned, Vlad often knows how to maximize the effectiveness of most types of magic (such as using a more minor spell to cause a cascade effect that culminates in a similar effect to a more powerful spell), and how to nullify most incoming magical threats, or how to turn them back against the caster. Vlad prefers not to rely on magic, and enjoys a more "hands-on" approach to combat, as it puts the odds more in his favor than using magic or tools/weapons. Ability to assimilate biomass on contact makes him enough of a threat to close quarters combatants.
"Vance Ravenhawk" (real name as yet unknown, this is his "seedy underworld alias"): Your more typical person, with a few cybernetic enhancements. He can preform a few parlor tricks, often reworked into "dirty fighting" tricks, as is popular amongst the space pirates and raiders he's often sent to infiltrate. Really much more of a shotguns/rifles guy, he's more likely to opt for a good shotgun or assault rifle over a pistol or magic. Fair skill with small/medium blades and close combat. Low skill with handguns. Though decently skilled with archery, this is more of a hobby than something employable in combat very often. His cybernetic right eye helps a bit with iron sights aiming, but is really more for IFF/recording use than combat stuff. Though he could train to be more adept at magic, that would make him suspect, as most pirates/raiders have no such training. For him, each magical feedback is similar to a strong static electric shock.
"Rax" (this is a nickname, his real name is yet to be figured out): Rax is neither cybernetically enhanced, nor experienced with magic. He's more of your typical person, in regard to is use. To him, magical feedback is actually often accompanied by strong static shock, causing noticeable static electric arcs and pops, along with that "OW, DAMMIT!" knee-jerk reaction to it. This leads to him being a bit more directly skilled in weapons and non-magical combat than Vance. He's still just as likely to throw dirt in your eye, though. So don't expect a fair fight if you get on his bad side.

If he doesn't shoot any innocent people. Or himself.

He's after Texas Red. XD

On a slightly less comical note, this somewhat reminds me of how I started Ryktor Yvhuce off as a one-off badguy concept and he would up hijacking the roll of the main character of the narratives that the "hero" character was intended to fill, and effectively making the "hero" his side-kick. You've certainly got yourself a potentially very interesting character with this guy.

I have a similar issue with characters that should ostensibly be antagonists--characters like Charley and Domingo that are thieves and bandits wind up being far more interesting in their exploits than the so-called "heroes" I send in to keep them in line, and the should-be protagonists, the law-enforcement types, wind up in the antagonist role.
I wonder if this guy would be more interesting if he were less interesting, if that makes sense. Keep his development as a character limited (or at the very least, secretive), and effectively portray him less as a character and more as a force of nature. Drop little tidbits that might hint at who he is and what he's about here and there, but mostly just have him lurking in the corner of a crowded saloon or leaning on a signpost on the outskirts of town, ever present and ever mysterious.

We all know what happens when I set out to actually develop a character, we wind up finding out what sort of underwear they wear and how big their butt is and what they like to eat and all this other silly stuff, rather than seeing them in action. Domingo went from semi-comedic outlaw to manic underwear fox, I'd hate to see this guy go from "sinister bounty hunter" to "he wears that long coat because he's actually dressed in drag under it" or something stupid like that!

Mystery can make things interesting. A good example of a character that doesn't have a bunch of actual character development, but is a franchise staple would be the Mysterious Stranger from the Fallout games. I have a couple of characters that every time I tried to figure out their secretes, I wound up with writer's block. They just work as they are, and people seeking answers just get told "I don't know". For "stupid scenario" stuff involving such a character, one could simply write such things off as something like internet/tabloid/conspiracy nut rumor things and claim it as non-canon.

Very true. I was tempted to compare this guy to Boba Fett in Empire Strikes Back, where he says very little and does very little, yet conveys this air of being a serious threat merely by his presence and what little he does say and do. Sometimes that's all a character really needs, the mystery makes them more interesting, what little is gathered from how they interact with others, their actions, and what other characters say about them being more than enough.

I'm glad you mentioned the concept of "non-canon", this idea seems to legitimately baffle some of my friends. The idea that I might draw a character in a different form or doing something just because I want to, but not having it be part of their canon character development etc. seems foreign. Maybe it's because I'm the official artist/author? I think of it more in terms of those pages in a manga or those shots in an anime where characters are shown riding strange vehicles or wearing outfits or having interactions that never actually happen in the story, sometimes an artist just wants to draw something or has a concept they want to put out there but decides not to develop further.

Some people just have a hard time with the concept of being able to divorce a character from their normal reality and into alternate non-canon reality scenarios, outside of fanfic stuff. Combined with the general tendency of creators to historically not create their own fanfic stuff, dating back to when things were literally written in stone. And then on stone. In ancient times, the concept was often discarded, so as not to confuse the issue since stories were passed along to later generations. There was the understanding and foresight that 3-5 generations later, sorting out what was serious storytelling and what was silly nonsense for giggles may become a bit hard for those tying to read/interpret the proper stories. Those who did make up some fantasy "here's something for everyone to laugh at" stories left behind stuff that's now the focus of the "ancient aliens" conspiracy nuts. When technology and education became to the point where literacy was widespread, so to did the understanding of the concept of things like "non-canon", fueled by things like political cartoons and satire. With the Internet, it's become more of an oddity that people would have troubles with the concept, still. I suspect that if there ever is a post-human society, there'll be some morons who mistake things like FA as part of our reality, and insist that humans must have lived alongside all manner of weird sentient beings, who must've been the ones to teach them the concept of the diaper. XD