Description
Winnifred Redwyne is the Head Librarian of the Marble Academy, a staunch Traditionalist with a perpetual scowl and a rigid demeanor. A human woman of middling age with straw-blonde hair pulled into a severe bun, she has a harsh, pinched face and deep-set, judgmental eyes that seem to look down on everyone, even those taller than her. She dresses in conservative, outdated academic robes, always pristine, as if to overcompensate for her lack of noble birth or formal magical education.
Personality
Winnifred is bitter, authoritarian, and fiercely territorial over the Academy’s library, believing that knowledge should be controlled and only given to those who “deserve” it. She resents the current leadership of the Academy, believing that Finn and Tilly Thistle have made the institution too soft, too accessible, and too concerned with idealistic nonsense. In her eyes, magic should serve the nobility and the established order, not be wasted on commoners and reformist fools.
She is deeply jealous of those with true magical talent, compensating with an overinflated sense of superiority based on her strict adherence to “tradition” and her unshakable belief that she, not the Thistles, should be in charge of the Academy. Though she lacks raw magical power, she is ruthlessly cunning, politically shrewd, and more than willing to conspire to get what she wants.
Background
Winnifred was born to a low-ranking noble family with no wealth, prestige, or magic to speak of, but she clawed her way into the Marble Academy’s administration through sheer persistence and an uncanny ability to eliminate her rivals through political maneuvering. She has long aligned herself with Eirik Ravenskald and the Traditionalist faction, believing that the Academy should be less about “theory” and “philosophy” and more about training mages for practical, noble-serving purposes.
With the city in turmoil, she sees an opportunity to seize control of the Academy by discrediting Finn and Tilly, aligning herself with those who would curtail their influence. Though she does not yet realize the full extent of Eirik’s ties to the Gilded Jackals or the Black Star cult, she is more than willing to aid his efforts to reshape Lusteris—so long as it puts her at the top of the Academy.