A survivor of cult violence, Anna Stanczyk is put on a path by her friend and fellow survivor Amanda Cummings to find answers about the entity they saw emerge from the portal ten years ago.
Personality[]
Anna has not appeared in-person in the canon as of yet.
Description[]
When viewing pictures of her as a small child, John says, "Her pictures seem sad."[1] As of 1934, she is in her mid 50s.
History[]
As a young girl, she lived in a mansion with her parents and brother Erik.[1] Her room was in the attic.
In 1921,[2] Amanda Cummings and Anna were both drawn into a ritual to summon Shub-Niggurath. The ritual, while successful, did not see full fruition and both survived. They were the only two who witnessed the entity in yellow that used the gateway to escape into Earth. Anna bound the entity to the book.
The two girls escaped the house on Pelican Lane and were found wandering the streets near the house. While Amanda had been reported missing since July 17th, Anna had not. Anna had no identification and refused to give her name, and so went unnamed in the newspaper article about the incident. Anna's only description in the article was that she was an immigrant of some sort. Both Amanda and Anna refused to talk to the press or the local authorities.[2]
After the aborted ritual, both young women desperately sought answers.[3] Amanda's journey led her to Harper's Hill, where she left a map for Anna;[4] then to an island in Lake Crawford, where she left two letters addressed to Anna that explained the island's connection to the cult worshiping Shub-Niggurath as well as information about The King in Yellow. Amanda told Anna that the King had found her, and "he will find you just as he found me."[3]
History - Call of Cthulhu[]
| Beyond this point lies information from the Invictus CoC Campaigns, which may not be canon to the timeline of Malevolent. |
Anna immigrated to the United States from Poland in the late spring of 1889 with her parents to a mansion outside of the town of Harper's Hill. Her mother had recently lost the use of her legs, and the whole family was still adjusting to her wheelchair. That December, baby Erik was born, and Anna was gifted a diary by her father. Her maiden aunt Beatrice Coldwell visited for the new year and left again in January, telling Anna that she was welcome to join her in Arkham if she ever wanted a “taste of higher society”.
In the new year of 1890, Anna's father, Konrad Stanczyk, began lashing out and refusing to help his wife with her wheelchair as she became increasingly ill. Anna took to sleeping in an abandoned house she found in the woods nearby a dilapidated church. One night, she investigated a strange sound coming from the church, leading her to its under croft. There, she found an unearthed grave, marked with a headstone reading "Neitsch Walder". A voice whispered into her ear: “The Three Soldiers”.
It was soon after that she discovered her father nailing boards over the door of her mother’s room and made the decision to flee with Erik, hitchhiking her way to Arkham. There, she made the decision to leave Erik on the steps of the Arkham Orphanage, while she went to live with her Aunt Beatrice. She lied to her aunt regarding the circumstances of her arrival, telling her that her parents knew of her location and remained in contact via letters. While living with Beatrice, Anna befriended her butler, Antoine De Foile, developing a father-daughter-like relationship with him.
Over the summer of 1890, Anna researched the final resting places of the Three Soldiers, and began to see a strange, goatlike figure in her dreams - The Black Goat. After these, she woke with scratches on her arms and legs, and later, missing a nail. Sometime during this time period, Anna determined that the Black Goat was behind "this", though she never specifies exactly what she meant. Eventually, she started to see the figure while awake, causing alarm from Beatrice about Anna's odd behavior. Beatrice discovered Anna's diary, and, believing she had gone mad, had her committed to Arkham Sanitarium.
In August of 1893, Anna wrote in her diary that she was incorrect about the Black Goat, and instead, wrote of Shub-Niggurath: “I was wrong. I was so wrong. The Black Goat isn’t the beast. He’s only the Herald… I have seen The Woods of a Thousand Young.” She dreamed of a ritual that had yet to happen involving Shub-Niggurath, and in her dreams, she met a man dressed all in black who told her that there was a possibility of changing the outcome of that ritual. She recorded the details of their plan to stop the ritual in her diary, but when sanitarium staff discovered it, attempted to take her diary from her. In a panic, she “turned to the only family she had left in a desperate hope to impart the knowledge that she had gained” and sent it to her little brother, Erik.
Anna remained in the sanitarium for a total of 31 years. In the summer of 1921, she was broken out by Henry MacFarland, Frank Underhill, and Jarrett Coombs, informing them of her diary in the care of Erik. She was brought back to Frank’s house and reunited with Antoine, who watched over her as she slept. Antoine then tried to use Anna as a host for Shub-Niggurath in the ritual intended to summon her. This failed, as Henry's possession of the Coin marked him to be the host instead.[5] Once Shub-Niggurath was erased, another being, "the one that wore yellow"[3] attempted to come through the portal, but was stopped when Anna bound part of this entity to a book, and the rest was sent back through the portal. It is unclear if she was aware that she had only bound part of it at the time. Later, Anna and Amanda Cummings were found wandering Pelican Lane by local police, although all that was noted down about Anna was that she was an “immigrant of some sort" in the newspaper.[2]
Known Abilities[]
Dream Visions[]
Anna documents many strange dreams in her diary. In two of these dreams, she is able to see possible futures. In others, she visits supernatural places such as the Dreamlands, waking with physical effects such as scratches or a missing nail from her time there.[5]
Magical Aptitude[]
Anna demonstrates some sort of magical ability, as seen when she binds the King in Yellow to a book.[5] In Call of Cthulhu Game Two, she is able to cast a "hold person" spell on the Nyarlathotep of that reality.