Sheila Silvear

Origin

When Sheila was a small child in the Jade Realm, the Were Jaguar tribe of her and her brother, Gar, was raided during a strong winter by Orkrist Marauders lead by the deadly Warlord Serpentus and his Reaper magics. Most of the families of the clan village had been evacuated, though in some cases suffering great wounds as in the case if their parents, but Sheila and Gar had become trapped. Things looked grim for the siblings until they were saved by the Edge Guard and the werecat, archmage Gaja. The Edge Guard function as the police to the Jade Realm. They have branches in the four points of the compass to investigate and enforce the laws of the land. This was a defining moment in Sheila and Gar's lives. Seeing the Edge Guard as great heroes. They both grew up and joined the Northern branch of the Edge Guard, along with Onoli, the team leader (werelion), Thorpan (werepanther), and Tigra, a womanizing weretiger and tracker Sheila has a romantic interest with but hasn't acted on due to desiring a longer term relationship. As a high ranking member she was tasked with the training of two new members for Edge Guard, Calandra (were-lion) and Raphiel (were-cheetah).

Creation

The character of Sheila Silvear is a supporting character in the Gold Digger series that is created by Fred Perry. The series first began as a four issue mini in September 1992. Sheila's first appearance in the story was in Volume 1 of the series in Gold Digger #24.

Over the years and throughout the series, Shiela has had her name spelled two different ways. Normally, with the "I" and "E" in her name inverted. Much in the same way the Gold Digger character Stripe has had his name spelled as Stripe, Stryyp, and Strype.

Major Story Arcs

As Sheila was just beginning to start the training of Raph, on the request of Julia Diggers, when the Edge Guard had received information from the other Edge Guard teams that criminal forces were starting to pool together for something large. The investigations lead the Northern Edge Guard to believe that this plot was somehow involved in the Arms Master Tournament that was to be held soon.

The team choose to infiltrate the tournament as human entertainers. The boys were dressed as minstrels, with enchanted instruments to allow them to play; and Shiela was convinced to take the part of the belly dancer. It was her brother, Gar, that noticed that since one of their targets, G'nolga, is a woman. A female dancer would not be that distracting. Shiela turned her attention to her fellow Edge Guard member, Tirga. He suddenly became bashful as she offered to be the one who would select his dancer clothes. The topic of 'butt floss' was raised.

It appeared that the team was going to easily infiltrate the tournament grounds when the undead knight Rook appeared. He requested that they would play for him while he practiced. As he spoke to them he was constantly dropping small hints that he suspected their true origin. They had depended on their enchanted instruments to keep up the ruse. Once inside the practice room. Rook explained that the practice area was created out of the same materials that repress magic in the Arms Master tournament arenas. Magical instruments could not play, enchanted weapons couldn't be summoned, and werecats couldn't transform into their more powerful hybrid forms. It was then that the team realized they were completely helpless against Rook. Luckily for the Edge Guard. Their member Thropan could play without the need of enchantments. On his lute he plays a beautiful melody. Convinced that he had been wrong, Rook left the team to prepare for the feast at the Main Hall that evening.

In the late night hours Shiela was sent out along on a stealth mission. She followed G'nolga to the residence of Tirant and over heard their conversation. Through the window she over heard almost every detail on the plot the Edge Guard had come to investigate, but before she could do anything. She was attacked and nearly sliced in half by Hanza. Curious of how she could of sneaked up on her with her were-jaguar ears. Shiela realized that Hanza was under a silence enchantment. She couldn't make any sound if she had wanted. The two fought on the ledges of the building until Shiela was knocked to the ground level. This alerted Rook's armored ghost guards. Now out numbered the problems were looking bad for Shiela. Until Brianna and Gina Diggers, Luan, and Carla, who had been watching, presented themselves to knock out the armored ghosts. Unfortunately, their sudden appearance distracted Shiela and gave Hanza the opening she needed to knock Shiela out cold. Brianna was able to fire a blast at Hanza, but barely missed. This was enough to scare Hanza off. Luan gathered the unconscious Shiela and despite complications everyone made for an escape.

In a second attempt to infiltrate the villains, all went well at first, until Hanza recognized the Edge Guard for what they were, especially Sheila's distinctive humor form, and pointed them out to everyone. This time the fight went differently, however, as working as a team, armed, and authorized to use the full power of their elemental weapons, the Edge Guard were able to overpower the villains, and even when an opposing adventuring party- in the form of Array- they had little problem until the villain Tirant tapped in to the power of an artifact and teleported them all away. Then trapped inside the artifact, they assisted Gina Diggers in overcoming it's defenses and turning it off from the inside, foiling Tirant.

Some time after Sheila was given the task of training the new recruits to the Edge Guard, Calandra and Raphiel. Showing them the basics, it was very soon that they ran in to trouble, when Raphiel stirred up a nest of Wabbits, a magically-created species that while harmless-looking at first glance, possess large weapons attached to their tails and hunt in packs. Using her skills, Sheila managed to protect the rookies and fend off the large pack, but was disarmed when an exceptionally powerful Wabbit, the original Alpha Wabbit, struck. Fortunately for them a pair of Amazons stepped in and in turn de-tailed the Alpha.

The rest proved not to go too much better, when one of the pair of Amazons, Sil, decided she liked the look of the young werecheetah Raphiel, and decided to kidnap him. Waking to find him missing, and soon joined by the Amazon's enraged partner, they tracked them to what was once a temple- but unbeknownst by Sil, now served as the laid for a deadly adult Abyssalisk, a creature so dangerous even Dragons are hesitant to engage.

Fortunately an Amazon hunting party was already on task for trying to eliminate the deadly menace, but the presence a rookie in their midst disrupted their careful battle plan, though fortunately also saved Sil and Raphiel before she was paralyzed by the 'lisk, and to make things worse, the Wabbit pack had tracked Sil to avenge the Alpha's tail loose and attacked as well, and inadvertently managed to annoy the Abyssalisk, turning the thing into a bloody three-way brawl where one of the Amazon warriors was killed. All would've been lost if Raphiel hadn't used his ability in beast empathy, which the Amazons enhanced to put their foes sleep but also preventing them from moving, and allowed Sheila, Calandra, and their Amazon friend to arrive.

Sheila set to work freezing the entire Wabbit pack and Abyssalisk with Ice Scimitar, lowering the temperature around the Wabbits and the Abyssalisk to fatal levels, killing them all, but not catching the Alpha, who had managed to avoid the sleep effect and moved in while Sheila was busy with the other threats. Sil confronted the Alpha, but was bitten and transformed into a Wabbit herself, and almost controlled by it's powers over other Wabbits, before breaking free with help from Raphiel and fighting it off with her new tail blade. As punishment and protection against the domination powers of the Alpha, she was placed in Raphiel's care- and by extension Sheila's- until a cure for her condition could be found.

Years later, her brother Gar prepared for his 'master' trials as a Leep style martial artist, when word reached him that Serpentus had been returned, which he immediately relayed to Sheila. He, Sheila, and Luan immediately went off to confront the butcher, but when facing them, Serpentus was able to use their hatred of him to attack before they'd gotten in to perfect position, and then using his Reaper-magic blades forged from the hatred of one of his other victims, G'nolga, was able to slice through Gar's Lightning Edge and level him disarmed. Before Serpentus could do more than leave small wounds upon the trio, though, Julia Diggers stepped in, using dwarven iron chains to counter Serpentus's pure magic blades, and unflustered by Serpentus like G'nolga, Sheila, or Gar, was able to disable the warlord and trap him in the chains.

When Dreadwing invaded Jade through Jag's Lair, using ether to lay a trail to attract hordes of monsters of all sorts to the underdefended subrealm, Gar and his sister Sheila aided in it's defense, first helping topple a gigantic undead skeleton, then taking the much more difficult task of following his trail between realms to the villain's lair, where several members of their Edge Guard team had been captured. Fighting through the monsters on the path, they eventually reached the lair's prison, where they were confronted, but not attacked, by Dreadwing's two wererat slaves, Gothwrain and Sherisha, who 'accidentally' dropped a key for them to take and free their allies. Unbeknownst to the two, the key contained a curse, but as they discovered also an enchantment that hid them from all of Dreadwing's minions aside from Gothwrain and Sherisha unless they revealed themselves, so the two took it to conduct a mission to rescue Councilor Xercie, a weretiger from Jag's Lair and an old friend of Sheila's, who was captured by Serpentus, now Dreadwing's ally and free once more, linking himself to the Councilor to gain intelligence and use her image to conduct deceptive attacks.

Though Sheila came within a hair's breath of being able to strike a fatal blow, Xercie was severely wounded from trying to use the link against Serpentus, and the Butcher was able to escape once more while Sheila and Gar got her old friend to safety.

Powers and Abilities

Werecat Powers

As a member of the werecat species, Sheila possesses the ability to transform into a magical jaguar. These powers bring size, speed, strength, increased senses, and powerful regeneration that can only be overcome by magic or silver. Sheila has three forms of transformation. There is the basic human form, animal form, and hybrid form, which is a mid way level between the other two and normally gives the powers of a jaguar in humanoid form.

Due to a 'birth defect' Sheila's forms are different then most. Normally, a werecat's size greatly increases when they switch to their hybrid form from their human form. Sheila actually has a much smaller five foot two hybrid form, then her seven and a half foot tall human form. This does give her great strength and agility while still in human form, but when in combat she still prefers to have her hybrid form's regeneration and small size, allowing her ability and skill with Ice Scimitar to serve as her offense

Magics

Ice Scimitar

Sheila is permanently bonded to the enchanted elemental weapon Ice Scimitar and is capable of summoning it to her hand. This sword can cast off waves of ice that can hold and capture enemies, create ice shields against attacks or render the surface under their feet covered in ice. Given time to work, she can lower the temperature of an area to levels fatal even large and magic-resistant opponents, with enough precision to leave nearby allies alive and unfrozen. It's also great for frosting glasses for drinks.

In addition to it's ice powers, Ice Scimitar possesses an enchantment against projectiles, it will automatically block arrows or even bullets fired at Sheila.

Combat Training

As an Edge Guardian, Sheila Silvear is trained to fight a wide variety of foes, from other human-sized opponents to hordes of animals to even standing toe-to-toe with smaller dragons. With her skill and experience in wielding her elemental weapon, Sheila is a dangerous opponent to those who'd threaten the peace of Jade.