IC Thread
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?352687-Unto-the-Last-Victory-%28W-TA%29&p=17546912

OOC Thread
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?352093-Unto-the-Last-Victory-%28W-TA%29&p=17546898

Description

Anqa is a four-year old wolf, sleek and wiry with glossy black fur. She would be pretty except for the grotesque scars and missing eye that mar the left side of her face, remnants of a horrible gunshot wound. Her remaining eye is a vibrant golden color, full of curiosity and intelligence. In her human form, she is a slight woman of Arabic descent, in her mid to late thirties. Her missing eye and horrible scars are even more apparent in this form since she has no fur to hide them. She dresses in simple but functional clothes, hiking boots, cargo or carpenter pants and a tank top or jacket, depending on the weather.

Personality

Anqa

Flaws (7 total)

One Eye (2 pt; -2 dice when depth perception is needed, like ranged combat), Pierced Veil (3 pt; crinos doesn't cause delirium); Intolerance (1 pt; +2 diff all rolls vs vampires); Dark Secret (1 pt; can screw social rolls w/ garou; spent the first three years of her life living in a mummy stronghold; most non-striders don't approve)

Merits (5 total)

Lack of Scent (2 pt; +2 diff track her); Natural Channel (3 pt; -1 diff step sideways; spirits like her)

Freebies

(2) rage, (5) backgrounds, (7) gift, (1) willpower, (5) merits, (2) gnosis
All merits and flaws are from Players Guide.

Affiliations

Seeker camp of the Silent Striders.

Languages

Wolfspeak, Garou, English, Arabic

al 'anqa = arabic for phoenix

Rites

Rite of Summoning (2 pts; Wits + Rituals; diff 7), Descent into the Dark Umbra (3 pts; Wits + Rituals; diff 7; Silent Striders tribebook)

Fetish

Baneskin (Level 3; 7 gnosis; activate to cause all "malevolent spirits, especially Banes, to react to the wearer as if she were a kindred soul... ...If the wearer takes any action against her "fellow" Banes, the guise is broken immediately. These fetishes cannot fool Incarnae or mightier spirits.") Anqa uses the baneskin when she is traveling the Umbra and the Dark Umbra and encounters nasty ghosts and Banes.

Gear

Functional clothes; boots; jacket; sunglasses; backpack; two water bottles; pocket knife; lighter; sketchbook; pens; $50

History

Anqa was whelped in the Yemeni borders of the Rub'al Khali wilderness only four years ago, living as a wild dog along the fertile banks of a desert canal. Few wolves were left in the area when Anqa was born. In fact, the humans believed them to have been driven out long ago. And indeed, Anqa's diluted wolf blood shares enough jackal and domesticated dog pedigree to fit right in at a Bone Gnawer sept––or a dirty city street.

Times were tough in that barren land and her siblings were quickly scattered or killed. Anqa's mother died on the side of a dirt road, and she had never met her father. Alone and inadequate to the task of survival, the young pup starved for most of a month before learning that she could follow humans and feed off of their trash. Cautiously following a caravan along the desert roads, Anqa stole food from them whenever she could get in and out with being noticed. A few times she was caught and beaten, once almost killed. But she was a quick learner and became quite adept at sneaking through their camps at night. She scavenged around the outskirts of the ghost town for a few days until hunger drove her in closer to the humans.

She was trying to figure out how to get water from the cistern when she noticed a very large eagle of black and tan feathers watching her from the crumbling walls. The eagle radiated some kind of energy, something that at once fascinated her and terrified her. Being small still, Anqa was at first intimidated by the raptor. But something in its demeanor told her that she was safe, and she was a naive pup with not enough experience to tell her otherwise. After a moment of hesitation she bounded over and prostrated herself on the ground below the great bird. Strangely––or it would have been strange if she had realized it out of the ordinary––the eagle began speaking to her in the wolftongue, though there was something oddly foreign about its accent. The bird asked all kinds of questions, at first all about her lineage and place of origin. But since she was lost and alone and had no idea of her family's ancestry, the bird moved on to other topics: her current goals, if she had ever changed form or made things happen. She was believably bewildered by the eagle's queries, but answered as best as she could. The eagle seemed frustrated by her inability to converse with him, and ultimately, he bid her farewell and flew away.

Anqa more or less immediately forgot about the eagle and continued investigating the cistern for water. Pretty quickly she lost her footing on the crumbling stone and fell in to the pool, earning her first lesson in swimming. She made her way to some partially submerged rocks and dragged herself out of the water, realized that there was no way out of the cistern, and sat down on the wet rocks to wait.

The next morning she awakened to the sound of human voices. Looking up she saw two men peering down at her. They spoke in hushed tones, but the taller of the two was very obviously angered by something, and judging by his harsh eyes staring down at her, even Anqa could tell that she was the target of his wrath. He gave some command to the shorter man and then walked away. The shorter man raised a stick to his shoulder and a tremendous boom rent the morning air. Anqa felt a searing stab of pain in her tiny skull and knew no more.

Anqa dreamed of flight, of soaring through the desert skies in the talons of a great bird of prey. With her high elevation came a sharpening of her senses. Her eyesight was keener, her hearing sharpened, her sense of smell magnified. She saw the sand seas of the far-off Rub'al Khali, she could hear the grains of sand rolling down the lee side of the dunes in the hot breeze, and she could smell the storm coming from the South. She saw mountains, heard the hooves of highland sheep on rock, and could smell the pine sap and wild roses. She saw ocean waves striking sandy beaches, heard the calling of gulls, and smelled the salt air.

Then her dreams changed. She was an older wolf now, wizened by long years of hard living, with cloudy eyes and frail bones. She sat in the shade of a great stone pillar amidst another ruin of human civilization, an ancient building that she somehow knew was sacred to the sun. There, she waited, though for what she was not sure. Gradually she became aware that others waited with her, incorporeal forms, the spirits of humans. One of them