Uriel Verne

*"The future can set like the Sun, but its light is still waiting beyond the horizon."*

**Uriel Verne** (ユリーエル・バーン, *Yurīeru Bān*) is a key supporting character in *Stained*. A former member of the Conclave of Avalon at the rank of **Philosophus**, Verne was the first (and currently only) to ever leave the organization, and instead became a Witch of Wing Bind, serving as the Director of the Sacreds before being grievously injured and cursed by the Märchen Götterdämmerung. Succeeded by Roskille Wurmbrand-Stuppach, she ran the *Rusted Knight* pub in Front London and was instrumental in the recruitment of Ilcarthon Roscarrock into the organization, serving as his mentor and landlord.

She would return to semi-active duty as the caretaker of Ferris Lost, Bea Nabarro, Woldemariam Dalakliev, and Schuyler Vacca, raising the Dragonclad children in Ninebrook Pastures for several years before her untimely death and that of three of her charges.

She was the last of her generation of Headliners to die. Her curse, inexplicably, was "to have your life renewed at the very moment you have lost every reason to live".

## Appearance

As one of the cursed Headliners, Uriel Verne had a preternaturally youthful and eternal body; it was even commented that her actual appearance seemed illusory and ephemeral, more like a glamour than the one she had actually used to appear her actual age. Vivian idly commented that she still had perfect teeth, even after dislocating her jaw.

## Personality

   Uriel appears in Ferris and Ilcarthon's flashbacks as a kind, gentle, and understanding woman, though not without her strict streak. Though not above intimidating and teasing those she took care of, she had a weakness for their sadness and tears, dropping any act immediately once they started to tremble or cry. She had a short tolerance for deception of any kind, and was capable of holding a grudge for it, often retaliating in the pettiest and most poetic way possible many months after the actual incident in order to teach them a lesson.

Despite her motherly demeanor around Ilcarthon and her charges, she rejected any such use of the term in life, vomiting up blood and clutching at her permanently-injured womb whenever the term was used. Despite this, she did not seem to meaningfully regret her inability to have children, especially after receiving the Dragonclad children into her new home.

Vivian describes her as someone who "wielded her true self like a blade," concealing her true intentions and feelings until they would have the maximum effect. She remembers her as a willful and determined girl, capable of hatred and spite that frightened even one such as her. The Ipissimus even likens her to a hag in a candy house from some fairy tale; a "*true witch among witches*," if not a monster herself.

If Vivian is to be believed, it is likely these traits that allowed her to resist the effects of the Conclave's initiation and conditioning, though the degree to do effectively must have been beyond tremendous. She believes that she never saw Uriel's true soul until the very moment of her death, and even then was less than sure the woman was actually dead -- stamping repeatedly on her body's stomach and jaw until she was satisfied, though even now she has doubts.

## History

### **Birth and Early Life**

Uriel Verne was borne in the early 1930s, in the Western Soul Society. As part of standard operating procedure at that time, the Conclave of Avalon identified her as having potential from their genealogical records, and quickly replaced her with a Changeling. The infant Uriel was spirited away from her family, never to consciously see them in her lifetime, and raised in the Old Western Soul Society at the Conclave's headquarters. Her Mistress of Neophytes was Veles of the Plain, one of the Ipsissimi of the Conclave.

### **Escaping the Conclave**

    In the 1940s, now a new adult, Uriel had reached the rank of **Practicus** and was ordered to seduce and marry a young man the Conclave had deemed necessary for their plans. Their union produced a single daughter who, too, was ultimately replaced by a changeling and taken right from Uriel's arms without her knowledge.

## Powers & Abilities

**Witchcraft Master** - As a former member of the Conclave of Avalon, having attained the second-highest rank in that organization, as well as a qualifying Director of the Sacreds, one of Wing Bind's Witchcraft-focused divisions, Uriel was likely an experienced user of the Western Soul Society's dedicated casting system, as well as extremely-knowledgeable about Avalon. She was especially skilled with *glamer*, capable of disguising herself as a much older woman in order to hide her curse even after being grievously injured. The illusion's power was such that even her successor and fellow Directors were unable to detect it until she lifted it. She insisted that such "*bells and whistles*" were her only true skill, not combative abilities, but that she was better at them than anyone else; in her prime, they were of such strength that a mind refused to acknowledge their falsehood even after breaking them -- they thus appeared as "real illusions".

* **Curse Expertise** - Years of study of her own and others' curses allowed Uriel to tweak and improve her own casting to include such knowledge; her illusions could therefore last long after her own death. It took the Conclave's best casters several decades to undo the illusions she had left in place of their records she stole, and efforts to remove them from her own confiscated notes are still ongoing.

**Physical Immortality (Curse)** - As one of the Headliners who participated in the battle to suppress the Märchen, Uriel was afflicted with a curse that, along with her comrades, made her incapable of aging or dying of natural causes.

**Dragon Pharmacology Scholar** - During her time in Ninebrook Pastures, Verne performed extensive study and work on her charges, her own body, and the native Dragons around them, including their connection(s) to the Beast Realm. She especially invested the effects and nature of dracotoxin and was responsible for creating and dispensing the medicine to keep it under control in the Dragonclad childrens' bodies, as well as administering the tests to determine the current level within them. Her heavily-coded and *glamer*-covered notes have proven the bane of the Patchworks in the years after her death, even after the Conclave confiscated them, and they have not yet been broken or deciphered by either party.