MASTER VENIOFEL:

Veniofel is the Master of Niophae's acolytes - though this doesn't mean she has any authority over the rest (much to the annoyanceof our heroes, who when they first hear her title assume she must be in charge) - instead her role is to subvert and influence the masses and inhabitants within the Shards that the Acolytes visit, sowing discord, gathering agents, and manipulating the clueless to pursue the goals of the Acolytes within Shard without even realizing who exactly it is they're helping. As a result, she is the Antillambrae that the people of the Fundament interact with most often, and thus is better known by the people our heroes encounter across the many stages of their quest, though most often (due to glamour) she's simply believed to be an eccentric, chaos-creating noblewoman, rather than a being of living evil that serves a shadowy organization whose interests could possibly spell doom for the world of Fundament itself. You never know where she'll pop up, when, and why, but it can always be known for sure that she'll bring nothing but trouble every time. Unlike Loliofae and Siophane, but like Nethelio, she does not have any superiors among the upper Niophytes that could do her role better than her, as she is easily the most trained when it comes to socializing with people in the worlds the Niophytes visit, and one of the best manipulators of the hearts and desires of others - she is only surpassed by the scholar herself in these regards, and as such she holds a vital role among not only the lower Niophytes, but all the Acolytes in general. Her lesser Antillambrae share her task of sowing chaos, and all of them are skilled with Glamour just like her, meaning they can disguise themselves as almost anybody - men or women, children or elders, humans or other races, and thus it furthers the difficulty of rooting out Veniofel and her schemes. Her official rank among the lower Niophytes is No. 3, due to how vital her role is even if she's not quite as close to Niophae as Siophane is. Her associated element is Light and her name means "Abyssal Conductor in Shadows."

One could only describe Veniofel's personality as infuriatingly smug and confident, even when ti really ought not to be - she seems to have a constant air of self-importance to her and even greatly resents how she's not No. 1 or No. 2 among the lower Niophytes, though she ultimately isn't so offended as to try and bother the upper Niophytes about such things. She has a constant air of being in control and especially believes herself to know all there is to know about the contents of the hearts of others, and the curses that dwell and fester within - to her credit, she does actually know a lot about people's inner darkness and hidden desires, seeing right through Rosalie's excuses as to why she stays with somebody like Mara if she's so devoted to this Church she's been born into the service of, and rightly pointing out the hypocrisies within - but she also a has a tendency to underestimate the good in people and see humans as just universally cruel bastards who only put on a veneer of rationality - though she's not a Hobbesian and recognizes that early society was more peaceful and egalitarian compared to modern society, if suffering from physical ills more than societal ones. She has a tendency to vastly overestimate her enemies - both in fighting ability and in willpower, and is almost immediately destroyed - the first Antillambrae to die in the story, however temporarily - when Rosalie manages to break free from the influence of her Cursed Tether and stop trying to help the Antillambrae capture Mara. Likewise, she often gets ahead of herself and believes that her abilities and skills will work on all her enemies, regardless of who they are, such as when she believes she'll be able to enslave Mara with her Curse Tether due to the number of Curses inside Mara's heart, only for Mara to only be empowered by the ability instead of enslaved. Despite all this, she is not like Nethelio who rages in response to her high expectations of herself being dismissed, and instead acknowledges defeats and tries to work her hardest to improve from them, even if this is of course difficult due to the failings of her personality. She has the personality of a gadfly among her fellow lower Niophytes, and often teases them about their own failures and faults, especially during council meetings, and is usually unflappable whenever they try to sling mockeries back at her, as again, she handles her failures quite gracefully for such an overconfident person. As a result, I wouldn't call her exactly arrogant, simply overconfident. She has a particularly good relationship with Ziolei despite how higher in the chain Ziolei is, often getting advice from her on how to bounce back from her failures, though there is a tendency for Ziolei to be quite exasperated in the aftermath of Veniofel's greater failures.

Veniofel has an appreciation for aesthetics that's somewhat uncommon among the Acolytes, though it is shared with her mentor and friend Ziolei, and influences a large part of how she handles the usage of her light magic - why use it to create a simple, boxy cube to fight in when you could create an ornate, completely white castle interior to battle her enemies within? She also shows an uncharacteristic interest in the culture of the worlds the Antillambrae visit - though this was likely obtained simply as necessity due to her task and how it requires her to rapidly absorb information regarding the worlds she visits in order to better play the role of the Master, though it's worth noting it's still somewhat abnormal due to how Nethelio must engage in similar activities, but retains her disgust for foreign cultures and species all the same. She is known to spend her free time reading the most engaging and interesting books of the worlds she visits, and takes the time to visit the most significant cultural landmarks as well. This deep interest has the useful boon of making her and her followers' disguises more convincing in the worlds they visit, however there's usually a crack in some form since Veniofel rarely ever tries to improve a disguise when she believes it's complete, due to her previously mentioned issues with overconfidence. She is the member of the lower Niophytes most likely to engage in extended conversation with her enemies simply for the sake of it, due to her valuing different perspectives simply due to an interest in seeing how people function, however, being an Antillambrae of Niophae's Acolytes, she is completely loyal to Niophae and recognizes that serving her is the only reason she exists, and so the people she talks with cannot ever change her views on the world and the people in it - it's more like she enjoys seeing other people's thoughts and philosophies the same way she enjoys reading books, seeing it as just another interesting piece of data to add to her memories. She however sees idealistic people as fools, and believes there's no such thing as a completely pure person, and especially detests the idea that humans are good by default - seeing how technology and cultural advancement made humans more cruel on average as proof that once they realize what they can do with power, humans will use it on other humans without a second thought. She dislikes her ideology being challenged, and suffers minor breakdowns especially whenever people manage to free themselves form her Curse Tether. She treats her lesser Antillambrae rather well, and even encourages they try to develop personalities of their own, saying that once they form a heart, their true power will emerge and Niophae's strength will grow, a unique attitude among the Niophytes as most others don't outright encourage development, just prefer it - indeed, Loliofae was one of her Lesser Antillambrae before she grew a heart and Niophae promoted her.

Veniofel is mostly a magic user, but she's skilled with her weapon too, even if it is ultimately just an extension of her magic power. Unlike some other magic users among the Antillambrae however, she mostly specializes in two forms of magic - illusion and light magic - which she uses with extreme grace and power, being able to disguise herself and her followers with Glamours to appear as almost anyone - though for the sake of her plans, she most often takes the form of a specific civilian disguise - that of an eccentric, worldly noblewoman - though is willing to take other disguises now and then in order to complete missions which would require her touches outside her main plot for this world.  In the realm of wielding Light to serve her purposes, in addition to creating her whip form hard light, she also regularly releases energy blasts, lasers, and beams of light to attack her enemies, and whenever she wants to isolate a specific enemy to do battle with them, she'll summon a construct of pure white hard light around her and them, usually taking the form of an ornate castle interior, in order to separate them from their allies as they do battle against one another. She can also use it to create clones of herself, but unlike Siophane they are mostly used to confuse and taunt her enemies rather than to directly attack them. Her Curse Manipulation is an ability that allows her to draw forth and influence the Curses that dwell inside other things - most prominently people - which she can use to call upon the curses inside another person in a technique she calls Curse Tether, making the Curse parts of their personality rise to the surface and convincing them that aiding her will serve these curses, effectively enslaving them to her will - it's very difficult to resist, and can be locked into place if it goes on for too long, but can also be broken free from if her target is especially strong willed, and will fade if she can no longer focus on the person due to her being incapacitated, dead, or having fled a battle. She fights with a whip made from Light magic that can extend itself in extreme ways and cut like a blade - a graceful weapon for a graceful villain.

Veniofel is the tallest of the lower Niophytes and has a less soft face in comparison to the rest so far, with prominent jawbones in particular. Her eyes are cyan with simple slit pupils and are a little smaller in comparison to her fellows, mostly to accentuate her different body and face shape compared to the rest. Her hair is a little over shoulder length and very bright blue in coloration, though it has dark tips, and has a style reminiscent of several individual locks creating a spiky, yet flowing look to it. Her uniform is primarily white in coloration unlike her fellows, and will be described from top down much like them. It mainly consists of a unique sort of robed design, though mixed a little with a coat in appearance, made of a white, somewhat leathery material, with a prominent hood over the shoulders which exposes red interior lining, and has somewhat puffed shoulders with six red slits along each of the shoulders. An upside down golden cross design lowers from the neckline of the coat, ornate and stylish in appearance, with a black vertical eye at the center with a red, diamond-shaped pupil. Extending from this cross and spreading across the majority of the robe are various slick golden markings of a slowing, yet pointy style, which culminate in her symbol, which is of course on the back of her robe, taking the form of an Acolyte symbol with extra lines extending across it and a prominent, completely hollow diamond at the center. The arms of the robe end in cuts that create a design of diamonds along the edges, exposing long black gloves with prominent golden Acolyte symbols on the top of the hands, while the sleeves of the robe are covered in a black diamond pattern that slowly fades into white as it reaches the chest. The robe covers Veniofel's legs, though it has an opening down the middle of the front and back that creates a stylish diamond pattern between golden, X-shaped laces holding it together, and has ascending and fading diamond patterns just like the sleeves of the robe. The sides of the robe open up completely, exposing the legs. They are covered in slick black pants with various curling golden markings along their sides, with a descending white diamond pattern similar to the ascending black ones on the sleeves and bottom of the robe, while she wears black boots with prominent, X-shaped white belt, held in place with gold diamond buckles, and prominent curling golden plates over the bottom of the shoes themselves. Her whip is very simple in appearance, being made up of several glowing pink-white diamond that extend and retract as necessary, with a hilt that's made of several layered diamonds to create a cylinder, held together by two guards, one on both sides, extending from an X shape.