Now it's time for a formal introduction to one of my other OCs. This is Captain Diego Carranza. He's the leader of a band of air pirates who features prominently as an antagonist to my character Shane.

Believe it or not, this was originally a pencil drawing that I started work on way back in October of 2020! Later on, after getting my tablet, I decided to finish it digitally. It's literally taken me almost three years to finally finish this! I know it shouldn't have taken that long, but that's just how it goes sometimes, though I'll admit that was partly due to laziness and procrastination on my part as well.

This character was heavily inspired by Don Karnage from the '90s Disney series Talespin, though Diego is a lot less comical and a lot more competent at what he does. That show was one of the inspirations for Shane's world - kind of a Casablanca-esque adventure setting with aviation as a central theme.

I'm glad to finally be able to share this with you all, it's been such a long time coming! This was already finished weeks ago, but I wasn't ready to share it until recently.

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Introduction:

The lawless skies and waters of the Caribbean are prowled by a sundry collection of thieves, thugs, guns for hire, and other unruly social outcasts who lurk in its many uncharted islands and cays, and in its rowdy portside taverns and seedy inns. Among the criminal inhabitants of this Darwinian world, perhaps none are more feared than the infamous Captain Diego Carranza and his tough, hard-bitten crew of air pirates.

Carranza's ship, the Cazador, is a large hybrid airship built as a flying aircraft carrier. From this heavily armed flying fortress, Carranza leads his band of swashbuckling rogue aviators and aircrew in plundering escapades across the Caribbean and Latin America - seeking out fortune, notoriety, and adventure in a cutthroat world of high-stakes criminal enterprise.

With the fearsome reputation Carranza gained for himself over many years, there were only a hardy few left who were brazen enough to cross him, and fewer still who lived to tell about it. But one such exception, by chance, would be a plucky American airman named Shane McNair, who would become a persistent thorn in his side whilst evading all of his attempts kill him.
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Background:

Diego Carranza Villanueva de Santo Domingo was Born March 16, 1898 near the town of San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela. He was the youngest son of a wealthy and very old family of Spanish Criollo descent that raised cattle on a massive hacienda in northern Apure state - in the heart of the Llanos.

Inquisitive and adventurous at a young age, Diego spent much of his youth immersed in the cattle and horse culture of the Llanos, and often spent his summers riding on long cattle drives across the hot, wet tropical floodplains. He grew into a fine horseman who was very adept in the saddle. For him this world was an escape from the rigid conventions and demands placed upon him by his family life at home, and by his education. He attended expensive boarding schools abroad in England and Spain, where he stood out as something of an oddity among his peers. This exposure to life outside the Llanos enabled him to greatly broaden his perspective on the world. It also gave him a reprieve from the bitter realities of life in his home country.

Diego grew up against a backdrop of violence and instability that would mould his character and disposition for life. Throughout the 19th century, most of Venezuela's territory was isolated by difficult terrain, the lack of roads and infrastructure, and the country was politically disunited with a series of weak central governments that were overthrown in successive rebellions and coups. Power was mainly concentrated in the rural regions of the country, among competing factions who controlled specific geographic areas and engaged each other in armed power struggles. This political zeitgeist remained even into the beginning of the 20th century, despite success by President Cipriano Castro and his supporters at establishing strength and stability in the national government. Diego's father, Francisco Laureano Carranza, was one of the country’s regional "caudillos" - a charismatic land-owning military strongman who exercised power in a form of paternalistic rule, which was characterized by political barbarism and legitimacy by force. The system of caudillismo had become dominant over the Latin American political and social landscape following the 19th century wars of independence, and in Venezuela this remained the case for decades. Don Francisco Laureano Carranza commanded the loyalties of the local clergy, landowners, and a large "montonera" - a local rural militia force comprised of armed civilians - which mainly took the form of llanero cavalry formations trained by European mercenaries.

This state of affairs was the product of a post-colonial, post-revolutionary world in which a legacy of armed struggle and the militarization of politics led to violence becoming normalized as a lifestyle. This was the world that Diego Carranza grew up in - the crucible that forged him from an early age into a warrior and a hard, uncompromising leader like his father, with the same charismatic bent and force of personality. It was under his father's tutelage that he along with his two older brothers, Victoriano and Alfredo, learned the principles of leadership and fluency in violence that would serve him so well later in life. The brothers were groomed to succeed their father as leaders and protectors of their people, and stewards of the family's domain, power, and wealth, but at the age of only seventeen, Diego's life would take a dramatic turn, leading to the most tragic and traumatizing chapter of his life.

In 1908, General Juan Vicente Gomez had seized control of the presidency, and as dictator, he sought to consolidate power in the national government, eliminate the control of the caudillos over the country, and unify the nation. To do this he would use the force of the recently created professional state armed forces - which were made up entirely of supporters from his home state of Tachira - and his ubiquitous secret police force. Resolutely opposed to the centralizing of power in Caracas, Francisco Laureano Carranza, along with a few other caudillos, found themselves on a collision course with the Gomez regime. Together they promoted regional autonomist movements while their montoneras repelled incursions by federal troops during the following seven years. Finally, in the summer of 1915, Francisco Laureano Carranza made a drastic decision that would forever change everything for himself and his family. He, along with his allies, made the decision to organize a military expedition to the capital with an aim to descend from the mountains on the city in a multi-pronged surprise attack and oust the government from power - as had happened so many times before in the country's history.

Word of these plans had leaked, however. After Gomez's spies had informed him of the impending attack, the alliance of rebel forces was repelled in large ambushes along key points while bottlenecked in the mountain passes leading toward the city. Many of the Carrancistas were wiped out in a torrent of fire from machine gun and pack howitzer emplacements along the mountainsides. Diego's eldest brother, Victoriano, was killed. Following this rout, Francisco Laureano Carranza and the other caudillos aligned with him would never make another attempt to seize the capital. Instead, they shifted to fighting a defensive war on their home territory.

With home ground advantage and utilization of guerilla strategies and tactics, the Carrancistas and their allies held out against the onslaught for a year, but isolated and cut off, they ultimately couldn't overcome the superior forces and resources that were sent against them as federal troops and the secret police flooded into the interior of the country.

Before then, it was decided that for their safety, Diego's mother, Cornelia, along with his sisters should leave the country and stay in Cuba for the time being. She implored him to join them, but never being one to back down, Diego insisted that he remain with his father and brother and continue to fight on for as long as they could.

Eventually, the brutal pacification measures taken by the Gomez regime ultimately forced Carranza's supporters to abandon him, and the war ended with Diego's father, his brother Alfredo, and the remaining Carrancistas finally making a brave last stand as the army finally caught up with them and wiped them out. Diego, however, survived and fled into exile in Colombia under the assumed identity of a campesino. He followed the rivers west on an arduous journey on horseback, and at one point stowing away aboard a steamboat. After some time, he eventually ended up in the mountains of Boyacá - one of the world's richest emerald mining regions.

Broken and dispirited from the loss of his family and home, Diego was forced to eke out a hardscrabble existence for a time as a guaquero. He spent his days sifting through the mud and rocky debris washed downstream from the Muzo and Coscuez mines, trying to find small emerald stones to sell, with limited success.

Naturally, this didn't last very long. The young aristocrat refused to resign himself to such a lowly and pitiful existence. Eager to do something to improve his lot, he fell in with a violent rural gang that robbed emerald stones and payrolls from the mines. They would often get into shootouts with mine guards and were always on the run, hiding in the region's cloudy, rainforest-covered mountains. This was a tough life, and the murky and lawless world of Colombian emerald mining, so far removed from the reach of government authorities, was fertile ground for violent feuding between bandit gangs and the powerful mining czars. Diego, however, managed to get along well in this new life of crime, coming from a tough background and being no stranger to armed confrontation. The wealth that the gang accumulated from these activities was very sizeable. Just one or two large stones of good quality and clarity would command a veritable fortune. Diego rose through the ranks of the gang quickly, and after the gang's leader was killed, he became it's new head.

Carranza continued to build up his wealth by robbing the mines as well as overseeing his own illegal mining operations for a time, and eventually the gang started to branch out into other activities. They headed north to the coast and started making their first forays into smuggling emeralds to foreign buyers, then seeing further opportunities, they got into high-seas piracy. Diego's personal wealth, resources, and power in the criminal underworld continued to grow. Shortly following the end of the Great War, commercial aviation was beginning to make an impact on travel and commerce in South America and the Caribbean, and with it came new opportunities. Seeing the potential of this in his criminal activities, Diego learned to fly and started to acquire a small fleet of airplanes - beginning with a pair of German-made Junkers F13s equipped with floats. These aircraft were used for smuggling contraband and cash, and were ideal for the Caribbean islands and the many rivers in the rugged South American interior.

Also following the Great War, Carranza's pirate gang took in many disaffected European expats, most of whom were seeking an escape from war-torn Europe and a fresh start elsewhere. As the Roaring Twenties gave way to the Dirty Thirties, their numbers grew significantly as many newly unemployed commercial pilots and aeronauts, especially from the United States, sought out opportunities elsewhere as the Great Depression deepened and forced airlines to downsize and air cargo firms to shutter. Of these Europeans and Americans, many were war veterans, and some were pilots and aircrew who had served aboard dirigibles - including the famous German Zeppelins. There were also mechanics and technicians who had the expertise to maintain a fleet of aircraft. These individuals formed the nucleus of a private air force, and bolstered the gang's transformation into a professionalized pseudo-military entity with a level of formal training and specialized technical ability. Through his connections with the black market arms trade, private industry, and certain corrupt government officials, Carranza was eventually able to start acquiring purpose-built combat aircraft and spare parts from the United States - managing to circumvent US State Department arms export restrictions through various third parties and middlemen.

These aircraft - mainly Curtiss designs - were used to ambush and attack cargo planes carrying valuable goods, as well as in supporting airship hijackings by fending off rival air pirate gangs who, though not as well equipped, might otherwise interfere. When Carranza's gang came into possession of the Cazador, it gave them a mobile base laden with firepower that truly transformed them into a force to be reckoned with. With these advantages, most of their rivals were either eliminated or subsumed into a loose network of aerial bandits working semi-independently with them.

Carranza's relationship with his gang is one based on mutual respect more than anything. Not only does he very consistently prove that he, and he alone, has the vision and leadership ability to keep their pockets flush with cash, but he also endears himself to his men through displays of genuine concern for them, by leading from the front and putting himself in dangerous situations with them, and by fostering among them a sense of belonging and camaraderie that binds them all together through their shared identity as outcasts, their sense of personal loss, and the economic privations forced on them by corrupt, wealthy elites and the authorities that do their bidding. Carranza's argument is that by sticking together and following him, they are taking back what is owed to them. He values and demands loyalty and respect above all else, and any act of betrayal is met by swift and brutal action.

Carranza and the other pilots in his organization are all skilled combat fliers, and although they are relatively few in number, they seek to stay abreast of developments in aviation technology and use every advantage available to them. Their tactics and equipment are as effective as those of many of the world's air forces, and Carranza tries to keep his aircraft fleet as modern and capable as he feasibly can. While the older Curtiss F8C-4 Helldiver remains their workhorse plane, they also have a number of the newer BF2C Goshawks - a light and nimble, single-seat biplane fighter with retractable landing gear. Carranza flies one as his personal aircraft, and prefers it for its greater speed, power, and maneuverability.
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Activities:

As of 1937, Carranza is still involved in the illicit trade of Colombian emeralds, but the focus of his thieving is mainly on two broad areas. The first is hijacking commercial airships to hold for ransom along with their crews, and stealing the cash from the safes on board. On rare occasions they may steal an airship along with its cargo to sell under a new name and false registration if they have a buyer for the ship and ready access to a market for the goods. However, since airships are more specialized machines that are less common than oceangoing ships, and the majority can only land at a limited number of airports with the necessary facilities and ground crews to handle them - usually in jurisdictions that are not sympathetic to pirates - this is uncommon. The Cazador, being a less common hybrid airship design rather than a conventional lighter-than-air ship, isn't constrained by such requirements, and Carranza's crew is able to operate her from a location that is as yet unknown to any law enforcement or military authorities.

Stealing a ship and its entire cargo to sell is more common in the case of oceangoing vessels, which are the other major target of Carranza and his crew. This activity is mainly focused on lucrative Venezuelan oil exports, and tankers carrying petroleum products from the refineries in Aruba and Curaçao. Stealing a single load of refined oil, gasoline, or diesel can net Carranza's gang millions of dollars at a time.

Other than emeralds, Carranza's smuggling activities are based mostly on the black market arms trade. During the Chaco War, he was a major supplier of weapons and munitions to both Paraguay and Bolivia - landlocked states whose neighbors wouldn't allow passage of war materiel through their territory during the conflict. During Prohibition, Carranza also made immense profits from smuggling rum into the United States by way of Florida.
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Characteristics:

Diego Carranza stands about six feet tall, with a lean, fit, and strong build. He has amber-colored eyes with fur that is mainly dark gray and red in places, with black fur on the tip of his tail and on top of his head. He also has small black markings under his eyes, and larger black marks on his forearms that are characteristic of his species. He has white fur around his muzzle and neck, inside his ears, on the underside of his tail, and on his chest and abdomen. He carries himself confidently and purposefully with a clean and neat presentation, and a posture that is always erect and commanding. When captaining the Cazador, he wears a military-style dress uniform consisting of a navy blue, double-breasted tunic with red and gold accents, a matching peaked cap, a Sam Browne belt, dark gray trousers, and a pair of black leather boots.

He is typically armed with a German-made Mauser M712 machine pistol, but sometimes chooses to carry a cutlass as well under some circumstances.

Diego is fluent in both English and Spanish, and can speak a bit of French as well. He has a deep voice with a clear, intentional, and articulate manner of speaking. He is thoughtful, mentally strong, perceptive, alert, and measured in his actions, with a calm and composed demeanor. He is observant, calculating, and always seeks to be in control of a situation, "reading the room" and processing situations as they change while trying not to broadcast his own thoughts or intentions too much.

Diego can be quite vicious and is unfazed by violence. He knows how to apply force appropriately to keep his enemies at bay, and sometimes to keep his own men in line in the rare instances when this is necessary. However, his use of violence tends to be more measured, pragmatic, and businesslike. To him it is a tool of self-preservation and getting what he wants, and is rarely something employed out of malice. If possible, he prefers to use other means of accomplishing his aims, sometimes through negotiation and the use his charismatic personality, by outsmarting his foes, or by simply threatening the use of violence rather than actually employing it - though he can and will if needed. He is wily and will not get into a fight if he can simply avoid one, but he is always ready to flip over a table, draw his pistol or sword, and go into battle mode at the drop of a hat.