The Dragon's Den

When it comes to the concept of Sins of the Fire, I was about… 13 or 14 when I designed the pen. I still have the art somewhere archived in paper.

I made this for another character at the time, but the concept was somewhat similar. There was no dragon in this concept, but when the pen became ‘capped’ or ‘uncapped’ it changed the way the user fought. Originally, the pen was designed with the bonus of having increased speed, strength, stamina, etc, while the drawbacks were physical exhaustion.

Over time, I refined the pen’s appearance, what it looked like, how it worked, and, more importantly, what powered it. I think it was… maybe around college that I decided to make changes to what, or rather who Mysherra was.

I viewed a lot of different communities, from the Wings of Fire community to different facets of furry communities, and I came to a realization when I was learning about various cultures of Africa during a study– I’ve never seen, or heard of an Egyptian dragon. Perhaps Apep was the best representation of a dragon, but that was wrong because Apep was a snake rather than a dragon. On top of that, cultures across the world acknowledged dragons as creatures. Sure, historically, the world was largely unknown to humans across stretches of time– turtles, sea snakes and other scaley creatures could have been misinterpreted as something greater like dragons or sea serpents, but for many cultures to have dragons in thier mythos, legends and stories, and even on their maps?

It’s incredible that all of these pieces exist and they were all a part of various cultures– not just one. Were these creatures real? Were they part of someone’s imagination? Were these creatures inspired by other creatures that existed? Or is it something else? Each one of these beings were designed with enough unique features to be different but they’re similar in their species! They made a book about dragons that’s still printed to this day!

It’s what inspired this altered take on the story– dragons DID exist in the past. The depictions of every creature in those paintings were real because humans were, in some ways, connected to them. But this is about Mysherra. How exactly did I come up with her design, and why is she Egyptian?

Well, to answer the second question, I just thought ancient Egypt was (and is) neat. And to the first… At the time, I took little tidbits of Mythology– figuring out what would represent a royal beast meant taking a little bit of inspiration from Ra, the Sun God, and forming something that would look like they were divinity, which is why I chose feathered wings over the standard membrane for Mysherra’s design. With some added details and some jewlery, I had sketched out a few doodles from time to time, and eventually I came up with the base concept that was made somewhere in 2020.

Now, of course, the information on this page is mostly outdated, but this is where it all began– This is where Mysherra’s ‘true’ origins were made, and I find it to be pretty neat. An old design, but one that was built with time.