#verena

Performer Véréna from the Folies Bergère in Paris

Performer Véréna from the Folies Bergère in Paris

Sir Adrian:

Prince Jasper of Larcas:

Princess Mariamne of Larcas:

Princess Verena of Nayos:

A bicorn from Miorjah's world. Bicorns are necromancers with gem-like horns and hooves, so when Mior told me I could make one I scrempt. Y'all know I love necromancers.

Had to sketch it 😅🤣🤣

Context is he can see her tattoos, so he's trying to figure out what they are, but obviously he can't because they're between her boobs 🤣🤣 (not me drawing him pushing his eye cover UP so he can see better)

Verena my beautiful princess with a disorder ❤️

I chose her name because I think it sounds beautiful, but after researching I found it was very poetically funny that one of the potential meanings is "true", considering that Verena's #1 job in the story is to plot and lie. There is also a Saint Verena who was a nurse, which similarly is ironic because Verena is also a healer, but very far from a saint

Her kingdom is called Nayos, and it's one of the few True Sorcerer kingdoms in the world. Magic is essentially divided in three disciplines – weaving, shaping and building – which are separated by if they deal with animate or inanimate elements and how invasive they are to the object of casting. Any sorcerer can learn every displine, though some might have more natural affinity to a specific one, but historically many governments and religions in the world sought to restric weaving magic because that is the invasive magic that deals with the living and can give the sorcerer immense control over the bodies of other people. A true sorcerer kingdom is one in which there has never been that historical restriction on the practice.

Verena has studied all three disciplines, but she has decided to focus on weaving, specifically healing magic. She is, among other things, able to hold onto to threads of wounds she treated with magic and to use her magic to reverse that treatment if necessary; which is not good news to Jasper, whose heart she restarted three times

The price of healing magic, also, is that the body ages the amount of time that would have taken for the wound to heal naturally. This can be circumvented by using the energy of another person to make them take on the damage instead. Healing Jasper took three lives and two months of his own aging. It is also very taxing on Verena's own body, and she slept for four straight days to recover from the strain.

Magic also physically alters the users. Sorcerers like Verena have eyes that are red on the iris and pupil. It actually starts as a little dot on the center of the pupil that bleeds out and covers the iris the more you use magic. Her eyes turned completely when she was 13.

Nayos, her kingdom, and Larcas, where the story is mostly set, used to be part of a larger empire once. Nayos was actually historically the capital city of the empire, but the emergence of a new religion, a series of failed economic endeavors, and the success of the southern nobility on domesticating dragons made it so the government of the empire was eventually relocated to Larcas instead. When the empire fell, the northern nobles that had felt neglected by the government started a schism and initiated the official separation of the two countries. To this day, Nayos is constantly wary of Larcas' interest on maybe trying to reclaim the old empire land. They are not wrong to be so.

She is the youngest of three children. Her older sisters, Marisol and Aurélia are respectively 8 and 6 years older than her. The two are closer amongst themselves than either of them is to Verena, but she still admires her older sisters and wants them to feel proud of her.

She is also two years younger than the rest of the main cast, at 25 years old when the main story starts.

Verena is at an age where it is unconventional that she hasn't been at least engaged yet. She has managed to skate by this far on the account of being the baby of the family and the fact both her sisters are already married with children. But still, as a princess, it's expected of her to make a lineage marriage – as in, one that can produce biological children, which is pretty much the thing Verena wants the least in the world. Especially since she is the one who would have to bear those children, which also means she would have to marry into another family and lose some of her own autonomy.

Part of what she's doing before she meets Jasper is trying to establish herself as a diplomat and, more covertly, as a spy master. She's trying to prove to her parents she can be politically useful without having to be married off, and mostly succeeding. She was traveling the world with a small entourage of body guards that have pledged loyalty to her since she was 16, and are all increasingly exasperated with her plans. They would follow her into hell but would like it more if she didn't go there

Saving Jasper for her is a big gambit. His death was meant to be blamed on Nayos so the king of Larcas could incite a war, so she had to stop it, but Verena chooses to try and use it to her advantage to gain control over Jasper as well. Her goal is to put him on the throne and use the influence she now has over him to put a stop to Larcas' imperial dreams. The biggest obstacle in all this is that the easiest way to accomplish that would be by marrying him, the only thing she doesn't want to do

Anyway here is a small collection of her text posts from the Pinterest board: