Sierra Woderose

Sierra Woderose
First Appearance: Comic #43
Race: Red Reyn
Faction: Caerreyn
Occupation: Level 2 Mage
Relationships:
Gerad & Madam Woderose-Parents
Sierra's Spirit Guardian
Lucian Urocyon-Friend & Mentor
Archmage Kesnar-Boss

“Do you remember when you tried to block that wyvern's breath? Your shield was perfect – you just lacked power.” –Lucian

Sierra was the daughter of level 3 mage Gerad Woderose and his yet-unnamed wife. From a very young age she showed talent with magic, eagerly showing off her abilities to her parents. One day while practicing her magic, she accidentally summoned an ice spirit taking the form of a blue dragon. When she told a Priest of the Stars, they reminded her that spirits were evil and forbidden by the Lady. She told him she could have imagined it, and began insisting to herself the spirit wasn't real. During her father's funeral, she again was visited by her spirit, though she refused to listen to it.

Not much is known about her early years with the Mages of Caerreyn, but it is known that Lucian Urocyon conducted her examination at the end of her Level 1 training. It is implied she had an accident during this examination involving a wyvern, and Lucian reveals that she used a shield that was performed perfectly but lacked power.

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Sierra's first appearance showed her having newly achieved rank 2 mage, when Sir Bryce ran up to her and demanded to have her perform a tracking spell to locate the kidnapped Queen Avelina. When Sir Bryce attacked Lucian believing him to be traitor, Sierra defended him, stating tearfully that Lucian saved her life less than two months prior. She followed Lucian and Bryce when her tracking spell located the queen.

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When Bryce attempted to board the Death Evan, Lucian enlisted her to throw up a magical shield around Voltar's airship. While her shield successfully blocked the initial shot from the Death Evan, when faced with more shots she was overwhelmed, falling to the ground and saying “I can't.” During the resulting loss of control of the airship, she became nauseous while they righted it.

When the ship was later shot down above the Auberwood, she successfully healed and revived Lucian, who had been injured in the crash. During the following fight with Lucile and her contingent of scouts, she was attacked by a large reyn weilding a battle axe, her shield shattering from the swing of his axe. Voltar saved her by throwing an exploding nut at him, killing him. When Lucile summoned her spirit guardian and attacked Bryce and Lucian, she reluctantly let her own spirit out to battle it. When Lucile was defeated by Voltar's chakram, she expressed her fear that now they know about her spirit that she'll be kicked out of the Academy for breaking a tenant of the Church of the Stars. Those present however turned a blind eye to the transgression.

When Sierra and Lucian were climbing the Relran Tree, they were attacked by the Fen-Daha. Her shield was easily crushed, so she sent out her spirit to fight him while she attempted to free Lucian from magic bindings placed on him by the Fen. The spirit even managed to freeze the Fen solid, but he broke out of the ice and continued his attack. When the Fen launched himself at them for another attack, Sierra caught him with lightning magic throwing him against a tower at the end of a tree bough, giving Lucian an opportunity to sever the bough magically and send the Fen tumbling to the ground with the tower.

Sierra continues with Lucian to the throne room, where Julian lets them in and shows them the power of the Divine Staff by transforming Queen Avelina and Sir Bryce into ferals. Lucian calls Sierra to his side, saying he needs her shield, and Julian boasts that nothing he has found can deflect the staff. Sierra calls out her spirit instead when he fires the transformation beam at Sierra and Lucian, stopping it successfully. Julian praises Sierra for using a summoned spirit, but then has Emiline attack the spirit, crushing it. This causes Sierra's staff to break, and the resulting magical surge knocks Sierra out.

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While unconscious, Sierra dreamed of her childhood, learning magic and discovering her spirit. As a child she pushed her spirit away, but she apologized tearfully to her spirit in her dream, embracing it and asking what it was. The spirit only replied that long ago they were banished. Sierra then awoke in bed, receiving care from an old medicant.

Back in Caerreyn, Sierra attended a service at the Church of the Stars. Here Commodore Alastair approached and introduced himself, and due to her naïveté successfully tricked her into revealing information about Julian's Divine Staff, despite having received orders from Archmage Kesnar to not talk to the soldiers. Sierra even confirmed to Alastair that the motif on the staff was similar to the winged serpent motif on the Temple of the Stars. Vance Celena then approached and pulled Sierra away from Alastair, reminding her that she was not subordinate to Alastair and showing concern at her shaking. She stated she was fine and rushed away.

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When a spell to communicate with those affected by the feral curse was developed, Sierra volunteered immediately to use it to act as Lucian's interpreter. While playing chess with Lucian, Lucian received a letter from his stepmother Aila, who was in exile in the cold northern realm of Alopexia, home to the Snow Reyn. Sierra encouraged him to go, and while wondering where they would find an airship on such short notice, she was surprised by Voltar, who offered to transport them to Alopexia.

In Alopexia, with cloaks purchased from Voltar, Sierra and Lucian left for Aila's castle in the Alopexian countryside. When they arrived, they approached Aila only to watch her get shot by the female Fen-daha. Lucian and Sierra gave chase, Sierra sending her spirit out to fight the Fen. At one point Sierra was forced to bloc the Fen's sword with her shield, and did so successfully, indicating she had grown stronger since Auberwood.

After the female Fen was defeated and turned feral by Lucian, Sierra and he returned to the castle to listen to her story about Emiline, Sierra acting as his interpreter. After Aila recounted her story, Sierra and Lucian retired to their quarters, where Lucian revealed his discovery and newfound ability to transform himself and others. He demonstrated this on Siera, transforming her into a feral and back. This also resulted in her clothes falling off, leading to a rather awkward scene with the butler Jeeves. Sierra pointed out afterwards that the Divine Staff was glowing with an aura that Lucian couldn't see, and infered this transformation ability is either unique to grays or blocked to reds.

Sierra and Lucian returned to the Alopexian capital and went to see the governor, intending to inform them about Lord Julian and the Fen. In the lobby while waiting, a picture of them was taken by Earl von Snickerhoss. When they were granted an audience by the governor, they were informed that there was a warrant for their arrest signed by Chancellor Giles, delivered by two shadow reyn. Sierra could tell they were evil with her spirit's help, alerted Lucian to this, and they escaped the governor's mansion.

While trying to return to Voltar's airship, they found themselves stuck at a guard checkpoint. As Sierra insisted they can neither leave their stuff behind nor turn more guards into ferals, Lucian changed each other's gender. A muscular, male Sierra and a female Lucian approached the guards pretending to be a married couple. The plan failed however when Sierra panicked and fled past the guards towards Voltar's airship. Sierra was cornered while Lucian tried to get Voltar to leave, so Sierra blurted out the truth. The guards didn't believe the still-male Sierra, so Sierra began fighting his way through them, surprised by his strength. When the Shadow Reyn appeared and attacked Lucian with black oily tentacles, Lucian returned to him the staff. Sierra found he can't perform magic in this form, and Lucian realized he had redirected Sierra's magical talent into raw strength. Lucian returned Sierra to her normal form, and Sierra called her spirit, who carried Lucian to the shadow reyn to kill it.

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On the ship, Sierra suggested she and Lucian try to use their disguises again to sneak into Caerreyn, though Lucian disagreed considering how the last attempt went. Sierra then admitted sheepishly she'd like to be strong again. The ship was then attacked by a large swarm of wyverns, so Lucian and Sierra rushed out to defend the ship. While leaning over the railing firing at a wyvern, the ship suddenly leaned sharply, causing her to fall over the side. Lucian, to save her, hopped over the rails and grabbed hold of one of the wyverns, merging with it. The merged Lucian-wyvern grabbed Sierra and carried her to safety. He then was overcome with the wyvern's insticts and flew off, leaving her on the ground.

Sierra and Voltar went to search for Lucian and found him still merged with the wyvern. Voltar attempted to sell the Lucian-wyvern a cloak, leading Lucian to attack him. Sierra sent out her spirit to help Lucian remember his “great comrade”, but his mixed-up memory lead him to attack the spirit too. Sierra then became angry and fired a lightning bolt at the Lucian-wyvern, knocking him out. Immediately she rushed to his side, afraid she had killed him. The jolt was enough though to get Lucian to split from the wyvern, after which she takes the rather confused Lucian back to the airship.

Sierra at the beginning of the comic was generally a meek and subordinate person, showing fear and uncertainty in dangerous situations, though as the comic has progressed she has grown more courageous and confident in her abilities. She is young and naïve, quickly trusting, leading her to reveal information about the Divine Staff to Commodore Alastair. She has little patience for arguing and fighting between allies. She appears to have a particularly close friendship with Lucian. She, like most Red Reyn, is a follower of the Church of the Stars, and for much of her life has been conflicted between the church's ban on spirits and her own use of an ice spirit guardian. However after the events at the Relran Tree, she has embraced her spirit and began to trust it in many situations.

Sierra is a naturally talented mage, showing remarkable skill with several magical abilities. While she is still inexperienced with magic and lacks power in her casting, her casting-form is described as “perfect” by Lucian. She has also gotten stronger as the comic has gone on. In combat, Sierra defaults to her shield spell and lightning bolt spell. She also has become increasingly reliant on her summoned ice spirit.

• Sierra's name means “mountain range” and is derived from the latin word for saw, serra.
• Woderose is of uncertain origin, but is probably an altered version of “Woodrose”.
• Sierra's last name has been misspelled twice in the comic. Both cases have been fixed but you can see the original misspelled versions in the gallery below.
  • The first time was in comic 212, when Virmir spelled it Wodrose.
  • The second time was in comic 233, when Virmir spelled it Woodrose.
• Lucile is capable of merging with her spirit Pyro. It is unknown if Sierra is capable of this in the comic's canon, but Virmir has drawn non-canon art of Sierra merged with her spirit, which is included in the gallery.
• Sierra is one of a handful of characters Virmir draws non-canon art for.
• The comic's artist, Virmir, has stated in the caption for a non-canon image that Sierra is one of his favorite characters to draw “mainly because she's nice and simple and super adorable.”
• Along with Lucian, Sierra is one of only two characters to be drawn by every artist to have worked on the comic, including Virmir, Tod Willis, and the Guest Artists.
• Sierra when first drawn had a different hair style than she has now. Part of this appears to be the differences between Tod and Virmir's styles, though even during Tod's tenure drawing the comic her hair would eventually take on a style closer to its current appearance.

Categories: Major Characters Red Reyn Mages