Sinlen Reichardt is a Bherigan mage and oldest child of the rich and famous Reichardt family, a family whose reputation for magical ability is rivaled only by the dark rumors that surround them. In reality, the Reichardt are... weird, and live in a giant haunted house and yes, they do practice blood magic, but it's not as bad as it sounds.

Even among the Reichardts, she is a prodigy, becoming one of the leading writers on magical theory by her mid twenties. She's also totally kinda a bitch.

Sinlen was a socially awkward but curious child born to Adelbert Reichardt and Sigrid Novik. She grew up in the Reichardt Family Mansion, a complex of buildings, additions, demolitions, and rebuilds, situated deep in the hilly wine country north of Stenin. Naomi's mother and Sinlen's mother are friends, which makes them, as children, friends. A jock and a nerd can co-exist, if you introduce them to each other young enough.

• Basically her mom is a washed up Elvira, and her Dad is some bookish nerd in suspenders that's oddly handsome that a tumblr artist would draw.
• Sinlen is, to some degree, autistic, and in her youth grabbed onto the more sociable Naomi as a shield.
• ... Her Dad is probably also Autistic.
• She was also a mousy, styleless child. Just looked like a huge dork. Never went outside, barely got to hang out with normal kids.
• Growing up in a spooky ghost house in the middle of nowhere generally does not lead to well adjusted children.
• The Reichardts, while rich, are not nobles, and interacting with nobles is frustrating to a young Sinlen.

As she grew older, the weird creepy ghost looking girl with the spooky red eyes realized how off putting she was and started treating people and her appearance in the same way as she treated her magical studies.

• People are a SOLVABLE problem. You just need a SYSTEM.
• Style is... less solvable, but you can do research.
• Ultimately she's still feral under the facade, but she can keep the mask on, usually. The intimidating aura certainly helps keep the conversations where she's comfortable.
• The longer someone knows Sinlen, the more they see through the illusion. Getting her out of her comfort zone of rehearsed behaviors can expose her much more emotional side.
• ... Also sex. She's feral, okay??? She ends up pretty promiscuous and experimental, though it doesn't always work out well for her partners or... honestly her, sometimes?
• Reichardt blood magic left her with... kinda a blood fetish and... 😬
• She desperately needed to grow up with tumblr, but Aistoria doesn't have easy internet access. Learning about proper BDSM would have done wonders for her.
• Look she's mostly terrorizing noble boys, does it really even count as problematic?

Basically her late teens into her twenties, she's an absolute bisexual menace with a powerful, often dreadful reputation. In this era she acts as foil for Naomi, pushing at her Church-centric view of religion, the world and history, while also acting against Aistorian social norms.

Eventually for various reasons I shouldn't get into because they constitute spoilers, Sinlen travels to the east, getting regular access to technology and the internet... Or the weird fractured set of constantly disconnecting networks that counts as The Internet in the future. She takes to computers quickly and finds ways to integrate them into her magical research. There is a strong overlap between the magical systems she uses and programming. Unfortunately, this is inconvenient because magic and technology do not function well in the same area. She has to work on certain tasks out in the Free Cities while doing other higher magic tasks back home.

• The "aether" that interferes with technology is mellowing out slowly over the centuries. The Free Cities is probably the place where the two function the most reasonably in close-ish proximity. You still probably shouldn't be casting intense spells next to your computer, though.
• Sinlen figures out some reliable methods of personal fast travel which makes balancing these two locations easier.
• She becomes more of a dork. She'd read the equivalent of imported manga when she was a kid, but now it's full on... whatever you'd call anime now. IDK, it's still anime.
• She kinda gets more out of shape and heavier. It suits her -- this picture at the top of this post is probably closer to Sinlen reaching her 30s -- but it of course frustrates her. Like at the time of Brave Earth Prologue she'd honestly in great shape and becoming an older computer dork doesn't help her maintain that.
• She becomes more queer. Like obviously she's already bisexual, but she definitely had less exposure to openly queer people, especially since she mostly was around upper class people and the nobility.

Sinlen's Magical Ability

The Reichardt reputation for magic is strong, but the actual ability varies throughout the generation. While her dad is on the higher end of the talented mages throughout the family's history, by the end of Sinlen's life she'll certainly be on top. She combines a naturally high level of control with a programmatic mind, that allows her to design spells on the fly. On-the-fly spell creation is not a strong suit of the Aistorian Academic Magic System, but she can basically brute force it. Things she can't brute force are made up for by the many spells and enchantments she has hidden all over her.

That said, besides for a few adventures with Naomi, that's not an ability that comes up a lot. Her bread and butter is more detailed and complicated spell creation and enchanting. Many of these spells end up engraved on her jewelry, or as invisible tattoos on her body. Even her fake nails, made of expensive and pure mage metals, have useful spell components engraved into them.

• When Sinlen works, it's spell commissions and enchanting.
• Her magical research is unpaid, but she contributes to magical journals for the love of the craft.
• She becomes more opinionated on spell conventions and advocates adding new concepts to the Aistorian Academic Magic system. Since such additions require a large amount of users to internalize them (basically reinforcement through belief), there is usually tons of arguments about what is or isn't worth adding.
• Turning magic metals into jewelry is a difficult process so Sinlen prefers digging through pawn shops and antique stores for old rings which have accrued a magical presence. She's a powerful enough mage to etch spells onto these otherwise indestructible objects.
• This leads to her wearing a kinda eclectic mix of jewelry.
• Her nails retract and extend at will. These CAN be used for self defense, but honestly, claws aren't that useful on someone who isn't a practiced fighter. But they DO look cool.
• She can retract them to type better!
• Or you know, lesbian sex.

The Worst Girlfriends

At some point Sinlen meets Ari, a fuckboy girltwink and courier who rides a giant Rok Falcon.

Ari and Sinlen are terrible for each other. They are both awful partners, and stuck together because the sex is great and they're the only two capable of tolerating each other. Both have a history of selfish and potentially traumatizing hookups, and both are rarely in relationships long enough to see the consequences of their actions. They suck and deserve each other.

Even then, they both hurt each other. Sinlen's judginess causes Ari to break down. A year or so of Sinlen dealing with a broken down Ari causes her to break down and have her own mental health crisis. Somehow they eventually both come out the other side of this a little stronger. They suck, but slowly, they both learn to suck less.

I DREW art???

Me? Drawing a picture? When was the last time that happened? 2015, actually. Anyways. I did use Koi for reference, but 3d ref is too common to even be remarkable anymore. This was my first time doing a picture in Clip Studio Paint, which is awesome and also sucks in equal measure. I ended up doing some things in Photoshop, including fixing things up with some liquify passes.

I also did most of this on a screenless, oldschool tablet. I busted out my old Ssurface for the hair, but honestly drawing on an dumb old tablet just feels more ergonomic. Hunching over my Surface felt awful compared to just drawing, looking at a normal screen, with my tablet on my desk. Anyways after almost 11 years this is... kinda one of the best things I've done in terms of drawing. I've done better pieces for sure, but I guess all that pixel art and 3d art and just staring at art in general really helped out.

Anyways her boobs are kinda ridiculous in this but look, it's been awhile and I figured if I was gonna draw, I was gonna go big. 😓