Sypha Belnades

Sypha Belnades, also known as Syfa Velnumdes, Cipher Fernandez, or Cipher Vernades, is one of the protagonists of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. She also appears in Castlevania Judgment as a playable character.

The instruction booklet of the English version of Dracula's Curse referred to Sypha as a "Mystic Warlord", and the game itself refers to her with male pronouns, leading to confusion of Sypha's gender among players.

Early life
Sypha Belnades was a witch who harnessed the energy of spirits to command the power of the elements. Sypha grew up among witches in Wallachia. When she was very young, children of the night, including the vampire Carmilla, darkened the hearts of men and helped spark the great witch trials which resulted in the death of many of Sypha's sister witches. Both of her parents were killed in the process.

Sypha escaped and was found wandering near a monastery in Wallachia and was granted protection by the church. Sypha would remain at that monastery for some time and would train as a monk. She eventually mastered the elements of fire, ice, and lightning by making a deal with spirits.

Sypha had a burning desire to destroy anything tainted by darkness who she felt was responsible for mankind's actions against her kind and would become a hunter for the church.

Dracula's Curse
In Wallachia, during the year 1476, the populace became disturbed when monsters, who had until that point only been talked about in legend, started to appear in populated areas. According to rumors, they were commanded by a mysterious Count in black known as Dracula. Viewing the situation with great concern, the Eastern Orthodox Church sent out their troops to subdue to the threat. Because he was suspected to be a vampire, a secret team was deployed to find and defeat Dracula.

Sypha was part of the hunting party formed by the Church to take on Dracula. Since the people of Wallachia were known to be afraid of witches, and because the young woman Lisa had been executed for suspicion of witchcraft months prior, Sypha had disguised herself as a man in order to move around without concern. She was eventually captured by a Cyclops and was turned into a statue.

After receiving no word from Wallachia for some time, the Pope turned to the Belmont family as a last resort. Trevor Belmont stepped forward to end the oppression of Wallachia.

Trevor managed to put an end to the cyclops, and Sypha was freed of her petrification. She then decided to go along with him. Together with Grant Danasty, a freedom fighter, and Alucard, Dracula's son, the four heroes fought their way to Dracula's Throne Room. Through their combined efforts, they managed to subdue him. After the fight, they watched the Castle crumble at a nearby mountain cliff. All the monsters disappeared alongside with Dracula, and Wallachia was at rest.

Legacy
Sypha likely left her hard life as a hunter of the church and settled down as Trevor's wife. However, Grant could not bear watching Sypha getting married to another, and they would sorely miss him at their wedding. He would avoid them for the next three years. They would eventually have children that would carry on the Belmont legacy. Sypha proved to generally have the final say in matters dealing with the home and Trevor would continue his role as vampire hunter.

Sypha and her compatriots Alucard and Grant who had fought alongside Trevor against Dracula became known as the "Legendary Three Warriors" and their tales were passed down from generation to generation of Belmonts. Sypha had passed along great magic abilities to some of her descendants, most noticeably Juste Belmont, who would be born two hundred and fifty years later. Her descendants would face Dracula many times over the next five hundred years.

Other members of the Belnades Clan would also continue serving the church in much the same capacity that Sypha had for generations, including Yoko Belnades in the 21st century. Their exact relationship to Sypha is unclear. Other relative of Sypha is Charlotte Aulin of the 20th century.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Although Sypha does not appear in person, a zombie impersonating her, along with two other zombies impersonating Trevor Belmont and Grant Danasty, is fought as a boss in Symphony of the Night, and is encountered in the Reverse Colosseum. She is an evil duplicate made to confuse Alucard.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
The trio of zombies from Symphony of the Night return in Portrait of Ruin. They are encountered in the Nest of Evil, a special area where several bosses from previous games can be fought.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Sypha is one of the allies that can be recruited in Dracula's Curse. Since she is a magic-user, Sypha fights with a staff, which is very quick but at the same does not inflict a lot of damage. Her only sub-weapon is the Stopwatch.

Spells
Sypha can control three spells in Dracula's Curse:
 * Flames - A quick but powerful burst of fire with medium range will emit in front of Sypha.
 * Frozen Crystals - Six frozen crystals will spread out in front and above Sypha. They have the ability to freeze enemies and projectiles. Frozen enemies can be used as stepping platforms. If the crystals touch a body of water, it will also freeze in its entirety for a brief period of time.
 * Goodness Gracious Great Bolts of Lightning - Three electrified spheres will spread out in front of Sypha. They have slight homing capabilities and are very powerful.

Strengths

 * Powerful spells.

Weaknesses

 * Very weak offensively.
 * Very weak defensively.
 * Weak attack range.
 * Slow movement.
 * Poor jumping ability.

Castlevania Judgment
$Judgment$ Galamoth plots to send the Time Reaper from 10,000 years in the future into the past to destroy his rival Dracula, and change history. A man named Aeon discovers this and pulls together champions from different eras of history into a dimensional rift, in order to find a chosen one capable of destroying Galamoth's servant, the Time Reaper. Sypha is one of these warriors.

Granted the protection of the Church, Sypha vowed to hunt down the forces of evil and help mankind, despite their continued oppression of her sisters. She seeks vengeance against Carmilla, who influenced the minds of men and began the witch trials.

Sypha appears wearing priestly robes, white thigh boots, and wields a double ended staff. Her theme in Castlevania Judgment is Mad Forest.

Pachislot Akumajō Dracula III
$Pachislot$ Sypha appears in Pachislot Akumajō Dracula III as a supporting character. She replaces Angela from the previous two Pachislot games in the role of Trevor's ally with feminine charms.

She is featured in several events, such as in the "Dracula Battle" segment where she teams up with Trevor and Alucard against Dracula, and in the cinematics that play during bonus mode.

Her appearance is based on her original design from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. She still has blonde hair and wears long, blue robes but she's not entirely shrouded in them anymore. In addition, she wears white boots and a pink skirt.

Castlevania (animated series)
$Netflix series$ Project 51 Productions obtained the rights from Konami to create movies based on Castlevania. Their planned project was a direct-to-DVD feature covering the story of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse with Sypha as one of the protagonists.

The project has since transferred to the Netflix streaming service as a series. The first four episodes were released on July 7th, 2017, and a further eight episodes are planned for the first quarter of 2018.

Trivia

 * The Fernandez warrior from Castlevania (N64) was originally conceived as Sypha Belnades herself. The designers ultimately scrapped the idea before the game's release, simply making her another Fernandez.
 * In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Yoko Belnades is a playable character whose fighting style - very similar to Sypha's - includes the use of various spells and a weak staff.
 * Her name is a pun on 'cipher' - an unknown or an enigma. This fits in well with her hidden true nature.
 * In the PAL and NTSC versions of Dracula's Curse, Sypha is referred to as a man due to technical limitations of the NES - that is, there could only be one programmed window asking the player if they wish to take a companion with them. The programmers decided on "Take him with you?", thus meaning that all three scenarios would use this text box.
 * She appears briefly during the introduction of Castlevania: Bloodlines