Kingsport 1844: Adrian Talbot’s House

24) Adrian Talbot’s House
390 Summit Street, Central Hill. Est. 1843

A) The Talbot Curse
At one time, the Talbots were among Kingsport’s most wealthy and powerful families. Then, after the Talbot Inoculation Hospital was burned by an angry mob in 1774, their good fortune underwent a mysterious reversal and the so-called “Talbot Curse” was born. In 1778, a stray British cannonball from the shelling of Kingsport Harbor struck the carriage carrying Cornelia Talbot and her family to safety, beheading Cornelia and killing her four children. The driver and horses were unscathed. The Fire of 1790 ravaged the Talbot shipyard, while the Tempest of 1800 swept an entire generation of Talbot men to their watery doom. In 1809 the Talbots were implicated in illegal slave trading, and a slave rebellion near New Orleans caused the death of the last Talbot to command a ship. A few years later, the War of 1812 visited the Talbot family like a personal plague, systematically destroying the remains of their trading empire. The Talbots never recovered from the disastrous war, and were forced to sell their remaining assets to the Tuttles. By the mid 1820s, most of the Talbot family had departed Kingsport. Those that remained kept to themselves in the Hollow, growing “stranger” and more isolated with each passing year.

B) The Late Adrian Talbot
Born in Kingsport in 1807, Adrian Talbot was the last of the “moneyed” Talbots. After attending Miskatonic University for two years, he enrolled in the newly-founded Medical Department of Jefferson College in Philadelphia. Upon graduating, the young physician traveled to Europe for a nineteenth-century version of the “grand tour.” His parents were lost at sea when they attempted to join their son in Venice, and Adrian returned to Kingsport to settle their finances. Three months later he shocked polite society by enlisting in the Navy as a common surgeon.

Considerably overeducated for the role, Talbot used his position to study maritime disorders, and became an expert on amputation and prosthetic limbs. He served onboard several men-of-war, including the Leviathan, Dixon’s old frigate. (Dixon may recall Dr. Talbot as a fussy, nervous man with a strong New England accent.) Upon developing gout, Talbot returned to Kingsport and began donating his time to Mercy Hospital. Clearly it was time to settle down, maybe find himself a pretty young wife and raise some children. Maybe even break the family curse?

The Strange Case of the Spanish Harpooneer
Early this month Dr. Talbot became fascinated by a curious medical case, a Spanish harpooneer named Diego Salva. Admitted to Mercy Hospital after arriving in Kingsport, Salva had developed bone deformities in his right arm after being “stung” by a tentacle. Exploratory surgery discovered a strange, organic barb lodged in his limb. Removing this foreign object failed to halt the bone growth, and soon Salva’s arm required amputation. After writing one of his intellectual idols—player character Montgomery St. John Lowell of Miskatonic University—Talbot attempted to perform the operation. (Handout: Letter from Talbot to Lowell.) What happened then is a mystery, as the good doctor performed the procedure in the middle of the night! In any event, he seems to have lost his senses entirely. Leaving his patient bleeding on the table, Talbot returned to his new home and hanged himself from the dining room gasolier. In a ghastly detail suppressed from the newspapers, he also shot himself in the mouth with his Navy pistol. The bullet missed his skull and blew off Talbot’s upper jaw. Intended to curtail his agony, it only made his last moments all the more terrible. He was found a half-hour later by a neighbor who heard the gunshot.

Talbot’s closest relative, his aunt Dorothy Talbot, was summoned from Arkham. Upon viewing her nephew’s broken body, she ordered him to be buried “without delay.” It was clear she regarded Adrian’s suicide as more shameful than tragic. Aunt Dorothy used her money to ensure his body was banished as quickly as possible, swallowed from sight in the Talbot Mausoleum the very next day. The service—such as it was—was sparsely attended; just Dorothy, Reverend Ruggles, A.T. “Dogwatch” Grohe, and a few of Talbot’s colleagues from Mercy Hospital. Diego Salva did not survive the botched amputation, and was quietly buried at Pauper’s Shame on Hog Island (Encounter 40).

C) Adrianopolis—Exterior
Upon returning to Kingsport, Talbot had his crumbling ancestral home on Summit Street demolished and a new one constructed in the Italianate style fashionable in England. The most modern residence on Central Hill’s venerable slopes, the house is painted a jaunty seafoam green, and sports white shutters and golden trim. A widow’s walk on the roof offers a lovely view of the harbor. Nestled directly into the hillside, the house is accessible via a staircase connecting the front patio to Summit Street. The door is painted deep green, sporting a triton-shaped door knocker and a facetious brass plaque reading “ADRIANOPOLIS.” The house is equipped for gas lighting, but the system has yet to be connected, and workers are still installing streetlights along Summit Street.

D) Talbot’s Neighbors
Sensational events are rare on Summit Hill, and Talbot’s suicide has stirred up his neighbors. Unless the player characters approach at night, they are likely to be closely observed; whether by curious workers installing the new streetlights, a gang of children daring each other to approach the newly-infamous house, or nosy neighbors peering from curtained windows. The nosiest of all is Hecuba Wormsted, a septuagenarian who operates a cent store from her residence opposite Adrianopolis. If her store is entered, it proves typical of local cent stores, the shelves filled with kitchen staples and stale gingerbread animals. “Old Lady Hecuba” minds the counter, her white hair gathered beneath a blue turban and her shoes painfully Colonial. Garrulous and gossipy, she has no problem speaking to strangers, and seems perversely proud of her connection to the ghastly event.

Hecuba’s Story
Hecuba heard the fateful shot at “3:00 am exactly!” and wandered into the street, where she met “the Higsons from across the way, the connie captain with the loud dog, who keeps all those hens, says he’s from a place called Frognal, but who’s ever heard such a thing?” It was Captain Higson who summoned the constabulary. Old Lady Hecuba has only trivialities to offer, but offers them quite happily, focusing on the general queerness of her neighbors and the dangers of gaslighting—“What if it explodes! It’ll be worse than the Shelling, and I know—I was there, you know, just a tiny frightened thing I was!” Then, almost as an afterthought as the characters are turning away, she recalls something genuinely useful. “Oh, one last thing! I’m a light sleeper, I’m sorry to say, ever since Mr. Wormsted passed. But before the shot, I heard Mr. Talbot arguing! So I peeked out my window, see? Well, there he was, pacing his walk. He did that some nights. Insomnia, you see? And he was arguing with someone—but someone who wasn’t there, like he was talking to a ghost! Oh, Mr. Talbot seemed very agitated, and even reached out to shake his…invisible companion. Mad as King Timmy, he was! He then said something very queer. He said, ‘You see, they found the black island, Robert. The fools found the black island!’ Then he went inside; and then—well, you know: the Talbot Curse, and….just like that—bang!”

Ulysses Dixon
Upon hearing Hecuba’s story—whether in person or a later retelling—Ulysses Dixon must make a Sanity roll for a 1/1D3 loss. Additionally, the Keeper should grant Dixon an Intelligence roll to remember that “Robert” was the first name of the Leviathan’s captain, Robert Selvagee. While Hecuba’s story may rattle his nerves and engage his curiosity, he should proceed with caution: asking about the Black Island triggers a state of “Moderate Alarm,” as described in “Cult Pushback.” (Indeed, there’s a small section devoted to the Black Island.)

E) Adrianopolis—Interior
Adrian’s aunt paid to have the house cleaned, but the handsome new building has yet to be placed on the market. If Lowell pays a visit to Dorothy at Hotel Poseidon and shows her Talbot’s letter, she’ll loan him the keys (see Encounter 21). Otherwise, player characters must break in, quietly with a Locksmith roll or rudely by shattering a window. The interior of Talbot’s home is sparse and uncluttered, and a new-house smell of wood, paint, and varnish hangs in the air. Intended to shelter a family that never materialized, there’s a sadness to its empty rooms, made all the more poignant by reminders of Talbot’s hopeful expectations—a brand-new spinning wheel, a marital-sized bed, an untouched vanity with paper still covering the mirror. Even the inert gas fixtures mock the visitor with unfulfilled promises. The ceiling pendants and wall brackets are brightly polished, their burners unblemished and frosted-glass shades sparkling clean. The brass taps have never been touched. Hanging above the meter is a calendar marking the days until the system is connected. The last day crossed off is October 25.

The Dining Room
The dining room is furnished with a rectangular table and six chairs, all dating from the seventeenth century and retained from the original house. The ceiling features a chandelier-style “gasolier,” fancifully shaped like an octopus and designed to match the new streetlights outside. Pulled from its moorings by the weight of Talbot’s body, the fixture remains unrepaired, and a long crack runs through the ceiling plaster. The rope Talbot used to hang himself has been discreetly incinerated, but a Spot Hidden detects a few dark bloodstains on the polished floor. A second Spot Hidden finds a .50-caliber lead ball lodged into the molding along the ceiling. If the characters declare their intention to search the dining room further, a third Spot Hidden discovers a fragment of Talbot’s jawbone encrusted to the back of a settee. A bearded nugget of flesh sprouting a cluster of broken teeth, the grisly memento emits the sickly sweet odor of decay. Finding this requires a Sanity roll (0/1 loss).

Talbot’s Study
Talbot’s study is a trim and tidy room, filled with writing equipment and a well-stocked bookcase featuring a complete collection of Dr. Lowell’s controversial works and two of Milton Redburn’s novels, Nuka Hiva and Melville. The only book pulled from its alphabetical position is Lowell’s On a New Theory of Pelagic Revolution and Terrestrial Development, which sits on Talbot’s escritoire next to a glass jar. A strip of paper has been inserted into the text as a bookmark.

Talbot’s Note
The bookmark proves to be a note addressed to Dr. Lowell. A confession of Talbot’s botched operation, it was scrawled in haste before his suicide, and implores the professor to contact the Powderhouse Ghouls to arrange for a graverobbing. (Handout: Note from Talbot to Lowell.)

The Specimen

The glass jar is filled with alcohol and bears a label reading, “Retrieved from Diego Salva’s right forearm, 20^th Oct. 1844.” A pair of forceps rests atop the metal lid. Suspended in the alcohol is something that appears to be a burr composed of seven sharp spines. Upon seeing the bizarre object suspended in fluid, Dr. Lowell must make a Sanity roll for a 0/1 loss. Only Lowell experiences this effect, and the Keeper should emphasize it has nothing to do with the contents of the jar. Rather, something about the presentation—something unwholesome stirs in Lowell’s mind, a fleeting moment of sickening déjà vu. Then it passes. (While Lowell’s player and character must remain ignorant, the specimen jar stirs memories of Sarah’s tank on the Galápagos!)

The jar must be opened and the specimen retrieved for any useful study. A Science (Biology) roll confirms it’s organic, composed of a chitinous material similar to the exoskeleton of a horseshoe crab. The size of an olive and colored a nauseating cockroach-brown, the thing resembles a tiny sea urchin, or two spiderlike creatures fused back-to-back. If the object is pried apart, the “halves” separate, exposing a hollow socket between them, like a peach missing its pit. A Regular success on a Science (Biology) or Natural World roll suggests a range of comparisons—the thing could be a new species of sea urchin, a Chondrichthyes egg case, or even the spiky seed pod of some unknown variety of flora. A Hard success suggests these comparisons, but only to discount them—it’s definitely not a sea urchin, “mermaid’s purse,” or some South Pacific buckeye! An Extreme success declares the thing unique to known science. If the specimen is removed and subjected to analysis, 1D4 hours and a Regular success on a Science (Chemistry) roll discovers trace amounts of an unknown compound, with an Extreme success relating it to stonefish toxin. Nevertheless, while the spines are sharp enough to draw blood, the specimen is otherwise harmless.

F) Next Steps
The player characters are welcome to take the specimen and anything else from Talbot’s study, but Dorothy Talbot is expecting her key back. If Lowell decides to follow Talbot’s scribbled instructions, the next step is to contact the Powderhouse Ghouls and arrange for the body of Salva to be disinterred. Depending on when Lowell arrives at Talbot’s house, this may be accomplished in different ways. If Lowell has already been to the Cauldron and met the Powderhouse Ghouls, he may wish to skip the middleman and ask them directly at the Diving Bell (Encounter 5). If Lowell is unfamiliar with the Ghouls, or wants to follow Talbot’s instructions to the letter, he should make his way to the Old Powderhouse and use the “red right hand” (Encounter 36). Either way begins the Programmed Event “Graverobbing in the Name of Science! Part 1.”

What About Talbot’s Body?
Graverobbing a penniless foreigner is one thing, but exhuming the corpse of a Talbot is another. The player characters may wish to visit the Talbot Mausoleum in Central Hill Cemetery and examine Dr. Talbot’s remains. There are no circumstances under which Dorothy Talbot will knowingly allow such an intrusion! If the players insist on breaking into the mausoleum, the Keeper is free to improvise the terraced Central Hill Cemetery and the imposing marble crypt. A Stealth roll and a Locksmith roll should be required for success. Inside the mausoleum, they’ll find the corpse of a man who shot himself in the face while dangling from a noose. Aside from triggering a Sanity roll (1/1D3 loss), there’s nothing else to discover, save ample evidence of the Talbot Curse, and not even Oliver Moneypenny would display Cornelia Talbot’s mangled remains!

White Leviathan > Chapter 1—Kingsport 1844
[Back to Encounter 23, Congregational Church | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to “Prospect Hill”]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 27 August 2023
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
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