A fiery gal, her concerned friend, the boss's niece and a dangerous bio-weapon become friends?
Wychwood
is a sci-fantasy Webcomic by Varethane.
Over twenty years after the world was invaded and then rescued from a terrifying alien force, humanity has begun to master the strange magic their enemy left behind. After spearheading the wartime research efforts, an organization called Wychwood has become the leading authority on magic and is aggressively hunting for new things to study.
This is kind of a bad thing for Tiara, a delinquent who has been using a mysterious power to goof around for years without realizing the kind of attention it could attract.
General Tropes:
- After the End: Humanity just had a devastating war with extradimensional alien elves. What little we saw of the infrastructure outside of the titular organization is mostly either badly damaged or abandoned.
- Affably Evil: While nothing clearly states that Wychwood is an evil organization, this surely is the vibe they give.
- Dungeon Bypass: The layout of the place doesn't matter much when you have terrifying fire powers and all gloves are off.
- Facial Markings: Felix gains lines on his face whenever he's "activated". The marks eventually scar and become permanent along with some new less than human features.
- Frustrated Overhead Scribble: When Julian realizes that the woman he and Tiara do not trust enough to give the location of the refuge they're headed to is the only one who knows enough to try and navigate the alternate dimension they accidentally ended up in his speech bubble consists of a dark angular scribble.
- Glamour Failure: The group is disturbed to realize that their magically hidden car is being chased by a monster that seems to be able to see it. Felix is also able to see through magic glamours, though Julian thinks he's adapted his to compensate for this.
- Grand Theft Me: Lizard has the option to take over Felix's body at any moment during a mission, whenever Felix likes this or not.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Felix has been told he's a biological defensive weapon created by mixing human and alien DNA. However, there are some hints that juvenile pure-blooded aliens just look somewhat human naturally.
- Insectoid Aliens: The aliens wear living insectoid armor with wings, use ships that look like giant bugs, have a lesser hive mind, and are ruled/controlled by queens.
- Human Aliens: Other than that, it's noted that the aliens are disturbingly human, to the point that Wychwood was able to create a viable human-alien hybrid. (At least, that's what Wychwood claims. )
- Magitech: To the point that the spells feel and are handled more like computer programs or circuits rather than something arcane. Probably because humans encountered magic when they were relatively advanced already by themselves.
- Our Elves Are Different: They came from another dimension to conquer the world! They also have insectoid features, including wings.
- Nightmare Sequence: Tiara had one of these. It is unclear yet if it is a Flashback Nightmare or Dreaming of Things to Come.
- People Jars: Wychwood has preserved the alien queen in a jar filled with some kind of green liquid.
- Perception Filter: Julian has cast on his house to keep Wychwood from noticing that it's occupied and maintained. It keeps unwanted visitors away.
- Playing with Fire: Tiara has the ability to summon fire. A mild case of Fiery Redhead?
- Psychic Nosebleed: Tiara's nose starts bleeding when she has to use her fire ability to try and fight off a brainwashed superpowered Felix.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: An alien prisoner spent years imprisoned by the fascist Wychwood organization, and was freed by the second wave of invaders - only to slowly discover that their new administration is just as evil as Wychwood, starting with the brutal execution of their former queen.
- Visible Invisibility: While Julian has his glamor up those hidden within it are depicted ringed in a light blue glow.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 8 ends and Chapter 9 begins with the second alien invasion utterly defeating Wychwood.
- Wham Shot: On page 38, Tiara spots an odd gigantic skeleton-bat thing in a pod with glowing purple eyes. Oh, and it moves.
- You Have Failed Me: The queen leading the new invasion is nearly giddy to find her predecessor still alive and imprisoned by the humans - so she can publicly slaughter her while giving a speech about how failure from anyone will not be tolerated.
