Knights

This is a contemporary redesign of original characters I've created in 2006, when I was 11-12 years old, as part of a comic book series I used to call "BYDURAK"
As you can tell, these have major influences from some medieval and fantasy fiction.

The BYDURAK story series followed mostly the point of view of a protagonist, in this case, "Bill" (in previous installments he was known as "Byduchi". This time, he's also known as The Knight of Cipactli [named after the nahuatl name for crocodile, or the primordial waters' crocodile from the Mexica Cosmology]). In the story arcs running from late 2005 to early 2007, Bill and many other characters, including allies, foes and neither (like Drake, who starts as a villain, then turns into an ally, and later has a neutral stand), are people living part-time in a modern world and part-time in a land of war, chivalry, and so on - the realm of the Vohk Knights. Bill starts the story as a Vohk Knight, as well as a Bydurak (a race of reptile humanoids based on the Aztec culture - pretty much like the Cuetzpalin), who sides alongside his friends to defend the realm from the dark forces led by Lord Topa.

-> This story is set between 2005 and 2007, a time when these characters are about 14-17 years old

KING
    Eventually, after defeating Topa and saving the day a couple of times, Bill becomes the king of the Byduraks and Vohks - chosen by the former kings of both kingdoms, Huitzopoca of the Byduraks and Soolieh Vohk of the Vohks, to succeed them. The Bydurak Kingdom is located near the mayan city of Uxmal, in nowadays state of Yucatán, Mexico. It's implied Bill is from there, despite he has lived in the US to attend school, alongside several of his friends - who are also Vohk Knights in the meantime for some years. The Vohk Kingdom, on the other hand, was located somewhere in Europe (possibly around Andorra). The Byduraks have been an ancient people from the realm of "Cosmixmal" who arrived on Earth during antiquity, and coexisted with the Mesoamerican cultures. The pre-Inca Moche culture, from the northern Peruvian Coast, were an authoritarian Empire and enemy to the Byduraks in this series. The Vohks had a slightly more complicated origin, they were created from an elder order of "time-keepers" (guardians of the flow of time, who prevented time travellers from twisting time) that was born in the Maya culture, and was somehow brought to Europe, as well to the realm of the ghosts (there were several afterlife locations in this series, the ghost realm is just one of them), where the shadow demons led by Topa (who was also the leader of the Moche, and later, the series' antagonist - he's the incarnation of a shadow entity, part of an unholy trinity of father - Ai Apukon; son - Topa and unholy spirit - Chicopaec) were invading. The shadow demons were defeated by an army of "ghosts of light" led by Soolieh Vohk, the "Sun Knight" who was himself guided by Mayan principles translated into a medieval reality, as he was inspired by two older heroic time-keepers, Byduvohk and Kovohk (who were considered Xbalanque & Hunahpu, the Hero Twins from the K'iché Maya Cosmology).

ONE TO RULE 'EM ALL
    Before all of that, in this universe there was a creator god - Tempo, god of time; Khaos - the spirit of Chaos; and Chicopaec - spirit of darkness, from who Ai Apukon and Topa descends (I'll call Chicopaec "Topa", because he's the more material and recognizable part of the trinity). Tempo has created some elemental spirits, including Huitzopoca, Spirit of Wind, who would later create and lead the Byduraks, as well guiding several Mesoamerican peoples. Another spirit, Lapolakh, spirit of fire, rebelled against his brothers and father, and rather sided with Khaos - thus forming another side in the war, the "No Fayans", followed by twisted principles of chaos and authoritarian rule under Lapolakh. Tempo has attempted to rejoin his sons against the threat of the No Fayans and the Moche (who, in this story, have remained a great civilization many years after), and from this attempt have been born the time-keepers. The grandmaster of the time-keepers is the Crossbill (named after the eponymous bird, because he's in fact a bird), a sage figure who has helped Bill and his friends more than once. Eventually, the "Vohk Kingdom" founded by Soolieh Vohk has merged with the order of the time keepers, and made itself present on the political matters of most of the kingdoms of earth that have followed Tempo and his sons (excluding Lapolakh). This means the Vohk Kingdom has great influence over other nations, and also means that there are several countries unaware of all this fight going on.
    In this universe, there are also several immortals from diverse backgrounds throughout history whose deeds granted them passage to a mystical realm, the Hall of Heroes - and both Drake and Bill here have statues there. But there's some suspicious hierarchy in this Hall of Heroes as much as there's in the kingdoms and the order of the time-keepers - and Drake believes that he's not getting what he deserves.

ICED EARTH
    Drake (a.k.a "The Knight of the Wolf" or "The Werewolf Knight") comes from the "Iced Earth", a realm by the Baltic Sea that's not part of the Polar Kingdom, whose rulers follow Polaris, the spirit of ice. The crossfire between the polars (who are stylized after the norsemen), their allies the Vohks, the Norvagen (some people may remember this name from a toy line - in this story they're an order of independent marauders and traders who eventually come to support the Vohk Kingdom), and enemies, like the Palarokhians (the medieval counterpart of the Moche) strikes down the Iced Earth, that for years following a bloody battle, becomes part of Palarokhiel. Drake is estranged from his homeland, he eventually meets and befriends several other characters in the school, including Bill (despite he always harbored a rivalry against him, one he cared more than Bill did), before being invited to return to his homeland - by the forces of darkness. In the first story arcs, he accepts, and even come to fight Bill, but after realizing his people were just being used, he decides to use all help he can to free them from the Palarokhian rule in the realm - led by an undead necromancer named Yulmar, and also a cunning sorcerer named Shaldor. Drake only manages to release his realm from the grasp of darkness after Bill has become king, and in time, he believed he would become a king, too. But as it looked like, Soolieh Vohk didn't plan to give the Iced Earth any autonomy, nor a king of its own (even though it had, before it fell to the hands of the Palarokhian). Bill, too, didn't seem to care, or to trust the people from the Iced Earth, who "lived under the yoke of the Palarokhians for too long". Even after, with much effort, Drake has earned his own place in the Hall of Heroes - after helping to liberate the Dragon Kingdom of Terraurgen (ruled by an authoritarian dragon, Draguongu, who's an ally to the Vohk Kingdom) from the Moche and No Fayan invaders - no one heard a claim that the Iced Earth had its own king. While originally not so bothersome about being a king or not, in one of the alternate timelines which the Vohk Knights had to enter and save (read it as "preventing it from existing"), the Drake from that dystopian future has been a king sometime in his life.

    Another friend of Drake and Bill, Robert Pinosson, was the King of the Polar Kingdom, and every map which the Vohks read counted the Iced Earth as a part of that kingdom. It changed, however, when Robert's influence began to drop in favor of the queen, Katharina, who used her power to give control of the semi-autonomous Norvagen fleet to the Aplôrak Kingdom (the Aplôrak are undersea creatures, their kingdom is like Atlantis, and their latest ruler, Gus, was born as human. He's also Bill's long-time best friend). Eventually, Katharina and Robert separated, as did the Polar Kingdom - Robert's loyalists remained in Nordland, while Katharina's supporters earned more political autonomy in Karelia. This marriage was meant to last forever, as the Polars traditionally believe, when they select children to marry during the fire ceremonies, so this breakup has shaken more than one kingdom. This, is when Drake decided to act.

KING IN THE NORTH
    Claiming the "throne of the Iced Earth" for his own and gathering supporters, Drake fought for his title, and sought to reunite the Polar Kingdoms (or Northern Kingdoms) under his wings. Robert has become an ally of his, as long as he didn't threaten the autonomy of his people - who were, each day, becoming lesser than yesterday. Katharina, who didn't aspire to become a queen anymore - she preferred to become an artist, a poet, a musician, an actress - didn't acknowledge Drake as the King in the North, anyway, but because her allegiance was to the king of the Aplôraks, and the king of the Aplôraks was the most loyal ally of Bill, the Vohk King, that didn't acknowledge the Iced Earth even existed as a separate state. This entire thing of Katharina vowing allegiance to the Aplôrak Kingdom didn't sound well for Robert - Gus already had a queen, Anna. What neither knew, is that Katharina was allied to the Aplôraks because of Anna, who was important to her in ways no one should dare to know. Robert and Gus, who were long time friends, haven't talked for days after this political tragedy started, and Bill found it harder to keep the kingdoms united, and rumors of war silenced. But Bill, too, had his own matters to worry about.
    As for Drake, his best friend and perhaps only true supporter, Sidney Phillips, was an irreconcilable opponent of Gus' rule. Investigating some of his own past, Drake also made a shocking discovery, that Katharina was originally promised to him as the queen of the Iced Earth, and not to Robert as the queen of the Polar Kingdom. It was Robert's father, Pino, who has hijacked the Fire Ceremony, changing Drake's wife to "Kit" - but no one with that name has been found on any kingdom, until recently. Eventually, Drake has been deceived by his own prophetical narratives, aspiring to become king of anything, that when he met an inhuman lady named Kit he tried to force a marriage with her, but that didn't work out. After that, when he learned Katharina had chances of marrying him when they were children (this tradition was popular in the North, but considered primitive and ridiculous to other Vohk Kingdoms) he could just accept the fact that Katharina would never marry or even like him. Either way, each discovery made Drake feel like he's been deprived of his glorious destiny, and made him more angry at Bill, who, like Robert's father, "was spoiled and surrounded by influential friends who'd do anything for him - even preventing someone else to rise up". Bill, on the other hand, believed he was in his position, either the Hall of Heroes, the Vohk and Bydurak Kingdoms, because of "his merit" - but that's just what Soolieh Vohk and the Crossbill told him, and those two were just using Bill, and found no use for Drake.

    But someone else has found an use for him, and was using his angst in order to divide the kingdoms - a mysterious figure, stranded in another dimension for centuries, just recently breached, has claimed to know of his past, and offer him stories of his, in exchange of "conquering his autonomy" (in relation to the Vohk Kingdom). This figure claims to be neither Moche, neither No Fayan and neither Vohk, but neutral in this senseless conflict - it also recommended Drake to take this stand. Little did he know the one telling him those things is Moloch, the spirit of Death, ruler of alien legions called Claanists. But that's the story for another day.

WITCH HUNT
    There were more reasons for Bill not to care about Drake's complaining other than Drake's own pettiness - John, King of the Nibelangs (one of the largest, if not the largest European Kingdom associated to the Vohks) and long time friend of Bill, was requesting his help to "eliminate packs of witches that conspired against his rule" - one of them, Anasthasia, was his own sister. Bill's girlfriend (Soolieh Vohk prefers when Bill calls her wife or queen - he doesn't want Bill to end up like Robert), Nina, is a Nibelang herself, and because of that Bill is ever watchful of King John's decisions. Indeed, it was Nina who appealed for Bill to prevent John from ordering executions of girls he merely suspected were conspiring against him (John never had a healthy relationship with his sister, and he used that to act against others who he was afraid to have any remote links to her). Bill was reasonable, but reason wouldn't speak for John, so he tried to take a closer look at the situation. Interestingly, one of Bill's estates, the "Enchanted Earth" (an enchanted forest inhabited by animals not seen anywhere else), is where John has found to be "the witches' hiding place", and he requested Bill to go there and capture them... or else John would "burn the forest with them inside". With no choice, Bill tried to reason with the groups of people whom John claimed to be witches, and he realized they were just some girls trying to organize a life closer to nature, and away from taxes which John imposed over them, or sexist behavior present in the Nibelang towns. But yes, there were some people practicing magic (some that worked, some that didn't) there, and one of them, an influential one, was Anasthasia, whom Bill met years ago, in school, because of John. They never told him about this, but they had some thing years ago - Bill thought to have get over it, but after all these years, he just realized he didn't, and Anasthasia got to him easily. He didn't know, though, that Anasthasia had some relation to the Vohk Kingdom - as an enemy, that is. She's endured the Moche baptism and even has a statue in the Hall of Villains, and she just had the reasonable Bill falling into her spell.

    Eventually, Sidney Phillips found out Bill and Anasthasia kept an illicit relation, while Bill tried to keep John away from the forest, granting the "witches weren't a threat". Sidney, this time, had information able of igniting the fires that could bring not only the entire kingdom down, but ruin all their friendship and memories altogether. What will be of the Vohk Kingdom?