Motivation: Rescue Thorns
Caste: No Moon
Anima Banner: A stylized cat of shadows.
Spirit Shape: House cat (Tell - Sharp, feline nails on her hands and feet.)
Anja came from the lower aristocracy of Thorns-thatwas. Her family lost its fortune in the disastrous attempt to conquer the Scavenger Lands, and its members lost their lives fighting against the Mask of Winters. Anja survived because she hid among the city’s poor and did whatever was necessary to eat and not get killed. She begged and stole from beggars. She gave herself to men and ghosts. She had one lover, the son of an expatriate Realm patrician who sought to form a resistance movement. They managed one significant deed: Anja smuggled herself out of Thorns along with a dozen younger children of slain nobles, artisans and other leading citizens.
The night after Anja left the Thorns shadowland, she Exalted.
Anja understood very little of the tumble of memories from another life, but she understood two things very well: There were others like her, and they had power to raise nations and cast them down.
Anja flaunted her shapeshifting powers. A Wyld Hunt soon came but so did a retrieval pack from the Silver Pact. Her trials went extremely well, Anja thought, and revealed more about her Exaltation. To her delight, she bore the Exaltation of Ingosh Silverclaws, one of the greatest of all Lunar heroes. She dubbed herself Anja Silverclaws, a bit of arrogance that offended every Lunar it did not amuse.
From the start, Anja knew she wanted to free Thorns from the Mask of Winters. She knew she was too young and weak to challenge even the Deathlord’s servants—but she had a head full of information about life and death in the shadowed city. Surely, her elders could do something with it. Anja’s dossier came to the attention of Ma-Ha-Suchi, a very old and powerful Steward. It confirmed what he already suspected about the Mask of Winters’s identity. While other projects required his immediate attention (such as plotting the destruction of all civilization), he assigned one of his Lunar acolytes to train Anja as a spy to gather more information about Thorns.
Thus did Anja become associated with (if not exactly a member of) the Wardens of Gaia. She is too practical and diplomatic to tell her teacher that she likes civilization very much and Ma-Ha-Suchi is a howling maniac. They agree, however, that Deathlords and shadowlands are bad for Creation—and who but the Stewards can oppose them? Anja Silverclaws joins other Lunars on their adventures as a way to make contacts and collect favors, but Thorns receives most of her attention. She is very good at infiltration and eavesdropping. In Thorns itself, she relies as much as possible on animal forms and mundane stealth and concealment:
She knows that any use of Essence might reveal her supernatural nature, and even a rat might hold a possessing ghost. These expeditions bring the Silver Pact precious information about the Mask of Winters’s regime. Anja also leaves encouraging messages and the occasional obol with members of Thorns’s resistance, though she does not reveal herself. To her shock, she finds that her former lover is now one of the Mask of Winters’s deathknights. Anja vows to kill him someday.
In her human form, Anja Silverclaws is a beautiful young woman with long, straight, platinum blond hair. If she takes human form in Thorns, she disguises herself with dirt and rags. Anja prefers to wear tight but revealing garments, with ornamental bracers and greaves. She likes to surround with nice things. Her spirit form is a fluffy white house cat.
When other Lunars point out that she does not have silver claws, Anja says she will… and they will be sharp indeed.
Anja knows she is not yet much of a fighter, though, so she relies on stealth, surprise and cheating. She advises fellow Lunars that sleeping enemies are much easier to defeat.
She also uses poison and won’t hear any nonsense about “dishonorable weapons.” Stewards must defend Creation by any means necessary, she says, lest the entire world suffer the fate of her homeland.