Anja

# Anja, the Mischievous Fae

In the oral traditions of Podochoviya's nomadic peoples, Anja is an infamous woodland sprite known for her mischievous and cunning nature. Her name itself means "Evil Without Doubt", a fitting title for this trickster fae's misdeeds.

Anja is described as a strikingly beautiful woman with long black hair and eyes like emerald fire. However, beneath her alluring exterior lies a wicked and chaotic spirit. She delights in vexing humans through petty acts of sabotage and chaos.

Some of Anja's favorite pranks include pouring boiling tea over farmers' crops to scorch the leaves, breathing plumes of noxious smoke to unsettle livestock, and lacing puddles with hallucinogenic spores. She is known to lead travelers astray with will-o'-the-wisps dancing through the marshes.

More seriously, Anja has been blamed for disasters such natural Fires that blaze without cause, or valuable treasures washing up missing along coastlines after being secretly dumped into the sea.

No motivation seems to drive Anja besides stoking unrest for her own amusement. She evades capture through tricks of light and illusions. The only offerings that may appease her are treats of honey cakes and cream left in the wilds, in hopes of diverting her mischief elsewhere.

## Tales

The Betrayal of Anja

Deep within the Whispering Woods lived the faerie Anja. For centuries she dwelled alone, finding solace in spreading her mischief amongst the nearby villagers. But one spring, a handsome stranger entered her realm.

Vladislav was unlike any man Anja had seen. Tall and strong, his golden hair and warm eyes captured her. Spellbound, she showed him wonders no mortal gazed upon, sharing secrets kept for ages. Vladislav listened with intrigue, laughing at her jests yet gently advising when her pranks went too far.

Weeks passed enjoyably in each other's company. Anja revealed secrets hidden for centuries whilst Vladislav brought gifts from afar. Yet autumn came, and Vladislav confessed he must soon return to his village. Heartbroken, Anja begged him to stay but knew she could not keep him from his duties. Through teary eyes she bade him farewell at dawn, watching his fading form disappear into the mists.

Days later, word reached Anja of pillaging within her woods. Racing through the trees, her rage mounted at the destruction before her. Sacred groves were felled, treasures ransacked from their hidden glades. The truth dawned cruelly - Vladislav had deceived her, learning her realm's secrets to loot it for his village's greed.

That night, Anja descended upon the town shrouded in a wrathful mist. None survived her vengeance as she tore through the streets, confronting Vladislav begging pitifully at the village’s edge. With his final screams, Anja’s heart turned fully to darkness. From that day none dared enter her realm without incurring her curse, her broken trust leaving only hatred for all mankind.

The Mourning Plains

Across the open steppes sprawled the Mourning Plains, a vast prairie claimed by Anja as her private place of solace. Here she wandered freely amongst tallgrasses caressed by bitter winds, mourning sorrows beneath an immense sky.

Yet one autumn, strangers intruded - the nomadic Tamgas seeking new grazing lands. Anja watched silently as their yurts rose within sight of her mourning, campfires and voices disturbing the long quiet. Though meaning no malice, their arrival stirred memories better left buried.

During nights, ghostly wails arose to haunt the Tamgas’ dreams. Belongings went missing under shadowy hands. But these people were resilient, and efforts to unsettle them only strengthened their will to remain. Anja resorted to plagues upon their flocks, finding lambs torn and ewes birthing horrors. Poisoned waters left the strong struggling and weak perished, salted earth ensured nothing would regrow.

The Tamgas endured through it all, guided by wise Shaman Enbas who sensed Anja's lingering sorrow. Recognizing her need to restore balance, Enbas made an offering—a perfectly preserved blue calf at the plains' edge as appeasement for their presence. To their surprise, Anja accepted, leaving the Tamgas henceforth in peace while reclaiming her mournful solitude. Sometimes even the bitterest spirits can be swayed through empathy over enmity.

Reign of the Herd Animals

The final insult that drove Anja over the edge was when charcoal makers began clearcutting the surrounding Ashen Woods. Trees standing for centuries, harboring countless memories, fell without regard. Madness took hold, a burning need for vengeance eclipsing reason. If men wished to ravage the land, she would turn its inhabitants against them.

Rallying all herd beasts of prairie and forest, Anja enlisted their aid using eldritch songs of coercion and fear. Deer, cattle, horses - all fell under her influence, twisted into savage predators craving human blood over grass and grain. Any venturing into the wilds now risked being set upon and torn apart by what were once peaceful grazing herbivores.

Villages barricaded against the panicked refugees fleeing within reinforced walls, none safe beyond. Crops lay trampled and poisoned as Anja's new herds ravaged the countryside, annihilating all in a frenzied rampage. The charcoal makers were among the first victims, pleading to unhearing spirits as they were torn limb from limb.

Only when nothing remained outside the villages did Anja's corrupted beasts finally halt. By then much land lay desolate and dead, humans driven to the brink. They would never again disregard the spirits’ realm, having learnt through horror the consequences of incurring Anja's revenge. From that day forward, none dared cross into the corrupted wilderness, leaving Anja's darkened kingdom in sole dominion.

## Character

Anja's character evolution across the tales represents a powerful psychological decomposition and corruption of even a fae spirit's nature when deeply wounded. Her descent into malice and madness arises from very human vulnerabilities of love, trust, and trauma which then manifest in increasingly destructive supernatural influence over the land. Despite fleeting moments of remaining complexity, Anja emerges as a prime example of an initially mischievous yet neutral figure transformed by heartbreak into an irresistibly vengeful psychosis, a true dark force of the wilderness forever altered by humanity's capacity for both beauty and poison.