Anat

face cast: farnoush hamidian

Anat - or Nitokris to her people - is a ghoul from the Dreamlands who once walked the earth in the guise of a goddess, and much later found her way back through an inter-dimensional thin spot on Roan Mountain near Ash Gap, VA. She is strongly tied to Beatrice - most likely an intentional move as part of Anat's plan to seek vengence against Nyarlathotep.

## Background

Anat was born in the Dreamlands sometime long before Nyarlathotep's conquest. She was the first ghoul to walk the earth in human form, sometime around the 13th century BCE. Due to her superhuman abilities, she was worshiped as a goddess in ancient Canaan, associated with the hunt and warfare. She had her first dispute with the Pharaoh here, when he was presiding as Mot, god of death, and was responsible for the death of her brother-god Baal. Anat sought vengeance against him, but he was brought back by a being she has only identified as El.

Through history Anat has reappeared either simply as a story or perhaps as herself interacting with humanity again as various goddesses and mythical stories.

Anat was in the Dreamlands when they were conquered by Nyarlathotep, and she was witness to the death of her brother for a second time a the hands of the Pharaoh's priest. Starving and angry in the aftermath of the conquest, Anat found her way back to Earth, emerging in the forests of the Appalachian Mountains in the late 90's. There she came across a young Billy Mullens and Beatrice Holloway. Anat sensed something different about these children, though in her hunger she killed Billy before absorbing Beatrice, tying their lines together in the Multiverse.

Due to her breaking the ghoul law of not eating the living, Anat is now considered both a holy figure and a pariah among ghoul society.

Following Project Masticate, Anat was able to establish a foothold in the mind of the alpha-universe Beatrice, due to Bea's conscious decision to "remember" what had happened in Anat's timeline.

## Personality & Appearance

Anat is very proud and ambitious, and is driven by a long standing conflict with the Pharaoh. She has also shown herself to be calculating and willing to make compromises in the present in order to achieve a later goal.

Her preferred human form is most likely that of the first person she consumed on Earth; a tall, slender and regal woman most likely from somewhere in modern day Syria or Iraq. In at least one timeline, she wears the form of Beatrice Holloway.

### Relationships

* Beatrice - Anat tends to behave in a somewhat condescending manner towards Bea, despite the fact that Beatrice currently is still in control of whether Anat can manifest or not. As she does with most humans, Anat views Bea as a stupid child who is playing with things she doesn't understand. Still, she seems to either rely deeply on, or simply very much want the survival of Beatrice's physical form, and this has lead to her cooperating with Bea in increasingly more frequent situations.
* Stephen Alzis - Anat has a great dislike for and is very leery of Alzis, reacting with worry and fear when Beatrice speaks to him.
* Kara and Kas - Anat considers them to be beneath Beatrice, the one time she has interacted with them as a distinct being she referred to them as Beatrice's 'vassals' and grew offended if they attempted to interact with her directly.

### Abilities

* Shapeshifting - Like all ghouls, Anat can take on the form of people she has consumed.
* Memory absorption - See above
* Strength
* Speed (possibly through some form of space-time warping)
* Manipulation of hypergeometry (inactive) - Since her breach of the rule regarding consuming living humans, Anat has lost her connection to the magic that allows her to do this. However during Project Wells she was able to guide Beatrice through a spell to hold back a pack of Hounds.

## Appearances

Since she is a Dreamlands creature who lived on Earth in a different timeline, the majority of Anat's interactions with the Agents have been via Beatrice, however as of Project Wells they have encountered her in her own human form once.

Beatrice has the ability to converse with her, which she has begun to do more often since realizing that Anat is a useful resource for esoteric knowledge relating to the strangeness of their situation - assuming the thing is something Anat has any interest in and also feels like sharing, which very often she does not.

### Dorchester Asylum

It was here that Beatrice first realized her connection with Anat. Making the conscious decision to remember Anat's timeline, Bea let her partially manifest out of simple curiosity of whether she could or not. Beatrice stopped the manifestation almost immediately.

### Project Temple

When the Agents found themselves trapped inside a room in Jan Witwer's house, Frost allowed Anat to partially manifest in order to use her strength to force open the sealed metal door. Albeit with great difficulty, Frost was able to suppress her afterwards.

Both one of the ritual survivors as well as Jerimiah Kross recognized Frost as being a ghoul despite Anat still being suppressed at the time.

### Hotel Broadalbin

In the events that took place in Room 603, Beatrice allowed Anat to fully manifest in order to prevent (an alternate) Kamar from being shot. Anat did so, then proceeded to slaughter the soldiers in the room and eat them. She turned her attention to Kas and Kara, but before she could do anything Beatrice managed to suppress her once more, with even more difficulty than before.

Afterwards, Beatrice asked Anat why she didn't just kill Kamar as well, and Anat replied that she knew if she did, Beatrice wouldn't let her out again.

### Project Wells

By this point, Beatrice has begun to communicate fairly regularly with Anat, consulting with her and even asking for her assistance though since the events at the hotel, she has not allowed Anat to manifest fully again. Regardless, Anat for the first time demonstrates the ability to forcefully take control of Beatrice's body, albeit for only a brief moment to cause her to drop something.

In the Cavern of Flame the Agents see Anat for the first time as an entity separate from Beatrice, wearing her original human form from where she first walked the earth

## Images

Anat in Beatrice's body, partially shifted into ghoul form.