Character-Anastasia Romanov

Character Details

Character Details
Real Name:	Anastasia Romanov
Birthplace:	Russia
Specialty:
Team Affiliation:	Midnight Men

Character Biography

Anastasia was born the fourth daughter of Tsar Nikolas of Russia in the year 1901. Unlike her sisters, she was a willful tomboy with a quick wit, and never had a problem saying what she thought. Her best friend in the world was her younger brother, Alexai who was heir to the throne. But Alexai was sick. He was a hemopheliac, and his family worried about a Tsar who could potentially bleed to death from a paper-cut. He needed constant medical attention, and Anastasia was, many times, the only one who could lift his spirits.

Then the day came when a dark and mysterious man arrived at the palace in St. Petersburg. He was a mystic from the planes of Siberia, and his name was Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin had traveled far and abroad and brought with him many strange artifacts and medicines. In his presence, Alexai seemed to get better. Rasputin was taken in by the royal family and became close friends with Alexai, his mother, and Anastasia and her sisters.

But then the Great War happened, and everything changed.

Anastasia was 18 years old when her relatives assassinated Rasputin under claims that he was leading the family in debaucherous sexual rituals. In Rasputin’s belongings, was a letter predicting his death, and gifts for the Tsar’s children. Both Anastasia and Alexai received gold medallions fashioned in the image of an eye.

After a horrendous loss of Russian life in the Tsar’s poorly managed defense against the Germans, the Bolsheviks rose up in Revolution. In a single night, the palace was seized, and Anastasia’s family was arrested. Tsar Nikolas abdjucated the throne and the monarchy ended, paving the way for Lenin and the Communists.

For several weeks, Anastasia and her family were moved from location to location as the fighting continued until one night she was awoken by her father. Their captors were moving them to a new place and they had to get dressed. The family was led into a basement where they waited for several minutes until a group of men entered. The leader informed them that they were to be executed. The men drew pistols and opened fire.

The entire Romanov family died that night.

Several years later, however, the mass grave where they had been buried was dug-up. All of the skeletons were there except for the two youngest…Alexai and Anastasia.

Rumors began to circulate about the children’s survival, and it became one of the great mysteries of the middle part of the twentieth century. Ten years later, various women claiming to be Anastasia began surfacing in the hopes of acquiring some of the wealth from relatives living in Europe. No one was ever proven, however, and no dowery was ever paid.

That’s because the real Anastasia had been living secretly with her relatives in England.

When the executioners opened fire, Anastasia grabbed her little brother to shield him. When she opened her eyes, the two of them were outside the compound. Somehow she had teleported the two of them away from the deadly scene.

Together, they snuck out of Yekaterinburg and made their way to the homes of their former servants. With help, they were snuck out of the country and into Germany where they were reunited with their Hessian relatives. But the tides of the war had changed and now Germany was losing ground. Anastasia’s aunt feared that if the German government fell, then Socialist assassins could make their way in from Russia and kill the Romanov children. So, she smuggled them out of the country with the help of a British Intelligence agent named Isabelle, (aunt of the later to be “Amazing Domino.”)

They were taken to England where they were welcomed back by their royal relatives. (Anastasia’s mother was the Grandaughter of Queen Victoria.) They went to live at a Manor in the countryside and took up the names “Anna” and “Alex” Roman.

But the two never told anyone, even their relatives, about the strange powers their medallions seemed to bestow. Anastasia was able to teleport to any place she had previously been to or was able to see with her naked eye. Alexai grew stronger and stronger with his medallion, and his hemophelia seemed to disappear altogether.

When the war was over, and the two had a few more years under them, they decided to travel abroad in the hopes of finding answers. Their relatives cautioned them to stay in the safety of England, but Anastasia especially longed to strike out into the world on her own terms at last.

They followed Rasputin’s footsteps back to Jerusalem, then on to Greece. It was there that they met Dax Northender in the earlier stages of his adventuring career. He was in search of the lost city of Atlantis, and together, the three became fast friends. His extensive knowledge of archaeology is what identified their medallions as Egyptian, and the 3 cast off in search of adventures on the Nile.

After much excitement, they parted ways, as Dax’s trail led on to Antarctica.

Back on their own, Anastasia and Alexai fell on dark times. The caravan they traveled with was attacked by raiders, and though the two managed to escape, everyone else in their group was killed. They wandered the desert for days, coming close to death…the abilities of their amulets inexplicably weakened. Anastasia couldn’t teleport more than a few yards, and Alexai’s strength was deteriorating.

Then the sandstorm came.

The two of them managed to hide beneath an outcropping of rock that provided some shelter, but when they awoke, they were sanded in. A half hour of digging later and they emerged into the desert once more, but this time…something was different.

There were mountains where before there were none. The moon was high in the sky when it should have been only at the horizon…and all around them were the sand-blasted remains of a long dead Egyptian army, half buried. The siblings headed for the mountains, hoping to find at least water if not civilization.

Something found them first.

The men riding the chariots were dressed in ancient Egyptian garb and threatened them in an unfamiliar language…and yet…they did understand it. For a moment it seemed as though they’d be speared to death until Anastasia teleported up behind one of the men and put her pistol to his head. Alexai took the opportunity to grab a spear and toss it’s owner across the sand. The scuffle ended quickly once the men saw their medallions. Immediately they bowed and threw their arms to the ground.

Anastasia and her brother were escorted through the desert to an ancient Egyptian city of such splendor it boggled the imagination. Pyramids, Sphinxes, monuments, palaces, all larger and more beautiful than anything they had seen in their travels, and nowhere was there even a hint of the last 4000 years of human development. It was truly a lost city.

The two were treated like royalty again for the first time since their childhood…bathed and draped in Egyptian finery, and fed on elegant cuisine. Then they were taken into the mountains above the desert to a hidden temple…a temple to RA, the sun god. There they met with an ancient priest who told them of a group of warriors…protectors of the Pharaoh’s kingdom, and the city-state of Kunhoru. These 8 warriors carried medallions in the shape of the Eye of Ra, and each represented an aspect of the Sun God. The one who wore Alexai’s was given superhuman strength and agility, and was referred to as the “Hand of Ra.” The one who carried Anastasia’s had the ability to move without walking. She was referred to as the “Shadow of Ra.”

The Aspects of Ra left Kunhoru many thousands of years ago to try and re-establish contact with the rest of Egypt. They never returned. Now Anastasia and Alexai had been brought back to the temple after all this time, fulfilling the quest, and bringing with them the hope of Kunhoru.

Anastasia had a mind to explain to the High Priest that the rest of the world had moved on and Egypt was now under British rule, but Alexai stopped her. He was taken by the beauty of the city and the people, and told her that it would be disasterous to expose them to the modern world. Besides, he wanted to learn more about the magic of the amulet that kept his hemophelia at bay, and his life normal.

So the two stayed for several months, integrating with culture. They learned that the place they were in was a part of Egypt that was no longer in the same reality space as the rest of the world…but yet somehow still connected to it. The area of desert they were stranded in when the storm came was a place the locals referred to, for lack of a better term, as “Common Ground.” It was a forbidden place for the citizens of Kunhoru…the site of their final battle with the Atlanteans. It was a path of sand that allowed for travel to and from the Egypt they came from…the Egypt they had been ordered to flee thousands of years ago so as to keep the treasure of the Pharaoh safe.

The High priests would not reveal the nature of the Pharaoh’s treasure, but only that it must remain guarded at all costs. The keepers of the Treasure were the Aspects of Set…8 warrior priests who had become very powerful in the land. When they heard of the return of the Hand and Shadow of Ra, they immediately moved to expel them back out into the desert. The Romanov siblings, tired of spending their lives chased away by evil men, moved to fight them. The conflict sparked a civil war in Kunhoru, but in the end, the Romanovs were the victors.

Anastasia eventually returned to the Common Ground and figured out a way to get back to the Egypt on our side of reality. Alexai elected to stay behind, feeling a sense of duty to the people and the city he was growing to love. The two promised to visit one another twice a year from that point on. Anastasia would return to Kunhoru for a few weeks, and Alexai would return to England or meet Anastasia in some other exotic place in the Mediterranean.

Anastasia, the consummate free spirit, has since traveled the world and lived a life of thrills, parties and adventures. She has inherited the manor in the English countryside where the two had spent their formative years, and when Roosevelt and Dax decided to assemble the Midnight Men, Anastasia offered-up her home as their base of operations.

At forty, she is still as beautiful as ever, with the kind of sophistication that you only find in royalty. Despite that, she is very down to earth, approachable, and easy to fall in love with. Though she doesn’t flaunt her true name, as there may still be Soviet assassins with orders to kill her, she does entrust her identity to those she considers true friends.

Anastasia has never married.

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