Venar

One of the magical races, the Venar's consciousness exists completely outside of time in order to be able to see all events simultaneously, although they have not always possessed this power. They see possible pasts and futures as well as the actual events, although their vision is obscured by a "veil" beyond which they cannot see. This "veil" is caused by the Vanguard's tampering with the Balance and created by Chaos, and is presumably removed when Gordon Halloway takes his place as the 13th Guardian.

Although rare, the Venar can be found in a variety of places. While at the time of TLJ Abnaxus makes his home in the Marcurian City Green, he tells April that he is from north of the Border Mountains, and his wife is from the Bay of Fire. Vestrum Tobias also mentions rumor of a Venar Ring of Trees (the name of a Venar settlement) in Riverwood.

It is never clearly spelled out, but the Venar obviously have a close kinship with trees. Abnaxus' home, though made of stone, is shaped like a tree, and his hands bear a resemblance to tree branches; as well as this the Venar Stone is in the image of a tree. The Scriptures of the Balance call them 'the watchers of the woods; the ones who are outside'; the Venar may feel akin to trees because of their similar longevity and unchanging nature once fully grown. It is almost reminiscent of the Ents from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, whose long lives give them a rather relaxed view of time.

The Venar are represented on the Ayrede Council by Abnaxus who, alone among his people, can focus his attention on a single linear thread of time, and can thus converse with humans and Dolmari. They rarely associate with other races, because their perception of time gives them knowledge which can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

The Venar have a prophecy that a saviour will come, "One who will bring order to Chaos, only to release Chaos on the innocent. One who will restore the Balance, only to finally break it." They call this being the Kan-ang-la, or "the small seed who grew to a tall tree".

The Venar have their own language, of which only the word Kan-ang-la is given. Abnaxus is able to speak Na'ven. While it is never specified, it can be assumed that a tense-less language would make much more sense for them. Another speculation we can make is that all of their proper names begin with the prefix Ab-, although it could just be a family prefix.

Trivia

In the Norwegian Nyrosk language, "venar" is a conjugation of "ven", meaning "friend". Funcom, creators of TLJ, are from Oslo.