Campaign Introduction
- At August 22, 2021
- By Great Quail
- In Call of Cthulhu
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Concerning my own forthcoming book—it is off my hands, but must cross the sea before publication here. Don’t you buy it—don’t you read it, when it does come out, because it is by no means the sort of book for you. It is not a piece of fine Spitalfields silk—but is of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables & hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book—on risk of a lumbago & sciatics.
—Herman Melville, Letter to Sarah Morewood about Moby-Dick, 1851
I shall probably wear my light overcoat, checking it at the Union Station in Washington, where I shall also check the book which is to beguile my hours of idleness — “Moby Dick, or the White Whale”, by Herman Melville.
—H.P. Lovecraft, Letter to Lillian Clark, 11 April 1925: four months before plotting “The Call of Cthulhu”
Introduction
White Leviathan is an epic Call of Cthulhu campaign designed for 4-8 experienced players. Like Chaosium’s Beyond the Mountains of Madness or Horror on the Orient Express, White Leviathan is a self-contained scenario set in a specific time and place. Players use pre-generated characters, each furnished with a detailed history and distinct personal goals. The campaign is designed for players who value sophisticated roleplaying, enjoy solving challenging puzzles, and crave total immersion in a unique environment. White Leviathan offers few clear lines between good and evil, and provides many opportunities for player characters to compete against each other and make morally ambiguous decisions.
Synopsis
White Leviathan is set in a universe where Herman Melville stands side-by-side with H.P. Lovecraft; where the savage, wondrous, haunted ocean of Moby-Dick encircles an earth steeped in the ancient horrors of the Mythos. Unfolding over the years 1844–1846, the campaign focuses on the Quiddity, a Kingsport whaling ship owned and operated by the nefarious Kingsport Cult. Although it functions openly as a whaler, the clandestine goal of the Quiddity is to locate a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean named Kithaat. Upon reaching this “Black Island,” the cult plans to resurrect Dagon, an entity they believe is mankind’s oldest deity, the Demiurge who created our material world. Unlike many Call of Cthulhu scenarios, however, White Leviathan does not assume that every player character is working to thwart the cult and preserve the status quo! White Leviathan is an apocalyptic scenario, and ends with an opportunity to literally “play god” and drastically reshape the planet. Some players may oppose the Kingsport Cult, some may join them, and others may pursue their own messianic goals.
Source Material
The two main inspirations for White Leviathan are Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Festival.” While most readers are probably familiar with these works, a few words of introduction may prove useful.
Moby-Dick
Filled with Shakespearian grandeur and a passion for encyclopedic detail, Melville’s sprawling novel is woven over a deceptively simple plot. The narrator of the book, a young sailor adopting the name Ishmael, signs on to the Pequod for a three-year trip to the Pacific Ocean to hunt sperm whales for oil and bone. The master of the Pequod is one Captain Ahab, who lost his leg to a ferocious white whale named Moby Dick. Obsessed with revenge, Ahab is a Satanic figure who binds the crew to his unholy purpose, driving them across the waves to murder his monstrous nemesis. In the end, his madness brings ruin to all, from Pip the cabin boy to Queequeg the gentleman cannibal.
As the novel progresses, Melville takes frequent diversions to reflect upon a dazzling array of subjects, from discredited taxonomies to the nature of good and evil. Although the breadth of Melville’s erudition is staggering, it’s enlivened by a cheerful sense of humor: Moby-Dick is a surprisingly funny book. It’s also quite beautiful, sensitive to wonder and delight, and filled with the fierce joy of being alive. But for all this, Moby-Dick contains much darkness. Many of its passages compete with Lovecraft in portraying insanity and horror: there are dire pacts, fearful omens, false prophets, supernatural enigmas, and harrowing episodes of madness.
The Festival
The other principal inspiration for White Leviathan is H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Festival.” In this tale, an unnamed narrator returns to his ancestral home in Kingsport, where every century his family celebrates the winter solstice. Oddly, the Kingsport of 1923 appears unchanged from colonial times: candles flicker behind diamond-pane windows, and the snow-covered streets are empty of traffic. After meeting his guide “on the seventh house on the left” and paging through the Necronomicon, the narrator joins a procession of celebrants making their way to the church on Central Hill, the star Aldebaran perched above the steeple. He finds himself repulsed by his fellow congregants, who have soft, pulpy bodies and waxen faces. Escorted to an underground grotto beneath the crypts, the narrator bears witness to strange rituals surrounding a pillar of cold green flame. Soon an amorphous piper summons a host of Byakhees; terrible winged creatures, they begin carrying the worshippers to further subterranean rites. When our hero hesitates, his guide reveals himself to be the narrator’s ancestor, who was supposedly buried in 1698. The guide’s mask falls away and the narrator is plunged into the welcome oblivion of madness. He regains consciousness in a hospital, and is relieved to find that Kingsport has returned to normal. He dutifully recalls a passage from the “objectionable” Necronomicon which suggests the truth: the green flame emerges from the depths of the earth, giving a sorcerer the power to live for eternity—by investing his consciousness into worms and vermin, which then take the shape of a man!
Artistic Liberties
For the purposes of White Leviathan, some alterations have been made to particular elements of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu milieu. According to Kingsport: The City In the Mists, the Green Flame is the manifestation of a minor god named Tulzscha, who grants immortality by replacing a man’s physical body with the filth and corruption of the conquering worm. The Kingsport Cult worships this flame, as have many such cults throughout history. In the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules, Tulzscha is associated with Azathoth.
I have taken the liberty of expanding both the Kingsport Cult and the nature of the Green Flame. No longer a sovereign entity, I have connected the Green Flame to directly to Dagon, ruling that “Tulzscha” is a regional name bestowed by Bogomil heretics. I have granted the Kingsport Cult of 1844 considerable powers, and if the Keeper plays them to victory, this group of salty sorcerers will irrevocably change the world.
More importantly, I have elaborated upon the origins of Dagon, whom Chaosium portrays as a Deep One “sultan.” White Leviathan restores Dagon to his Biblical significance and deepens his background, linking him to Cthulhu and the so-called “Xothic Cycle,” and giving him a starring role in the evolution of mankind. As with Tulzscha, my goal is not to invalidate the existing literature but to expand it: the Deep Ones may believe that Dagon is merely an ancient Deep One; but the reality is considerably more complex. And while Deep One culture remains essentially intact, I’ve provided them ancestors in the form of a race called the “K’th-thyalei,” whom I’ve integrated into the Mythos in a way I hope does little damage. I have also tinkered with the “arcane science” of the Elder Things and assigned them a role in the creation of the Dreamlands. All of these alterations are discussed in detail in the following “Background” sections.
And finally, while I’ve borrowed a few conceits from August Derleth and Lin Carter, their overall Mythos philosophy has no impact on White Leviathan—so pack away those elemental correspondences, Cthulhu family trees, and useless Elder Signs! This campaign’s take on the Mythos hews to the original “cosmic horror” of H.P. Lovecraft, with additional inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Ramsey Campbell, Robert M. Price, Fred Chappell, and Thomas Ligotti.
Rules
White Leviathan uses the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules, but takes some creative liberties with the system of bonus and penalty dice. Luck is an important characteristic for a sailor, and the Keeper is advised to employ Chaosium’s optional rules for “Spending Luck.” White Leviathan is a lengthy campaign, so Sanity is a serious concern. Guidelines for managing Sanity loss are found under “Managing the Campaign.”
Terminology
As it’s not appropriate to call the player characters “Investigators” in White Leviathan, I have opted for the standard term “player character.” Because most of the player characters are male, generic players are usually referred to as “he,” and the idealized Keeper as “she.” White Leviathan features a sprawling cast of nonplayer characters, many of whom are related to each other through the Tuttle/Black Macy dynasty that dominates Kingsport whaling. In order to better illuminate interpersonal relationships and family trees, married female NPCs are usually presented with their “maiden names” positioned before their married surnames: Rebecca Carter Elton, Nerissa Marsh Hoag, etc. Obviously the “real” characters would have proper middle names bestowed at birth. (American women rarely hyphenated their surname upon marriage. Aside from the usual patriarchal reasons, it was considered a pretention of British nobility.) The convention of placing a ship’s name in italics was not widespread in the nineteenth century, a fact that’s reflected in White Leviathan’s handouts and in-game materials. Formally, one shouldn’t place “the” in front of a ship’s name, but it was a common practice then and now, and usage varies throughout the text. And finally, the title of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick is hyphenated, but the whale itself is just “Moby Dick.” Most cinematic adaptations drop the hyphen.
Immersion and Complexity
White Leviathan is a very long campaign, and is designed for Keepers and players who enjoy total immersion. The text itself reflects a great deal of historical research, not just on the subject of whaling, but nineteenth-century politics, religion, art, and culture. Additionally, the Mythos-related background of the campaign is quite detailed, and involves numerous elements that may never become apparent to the player characters. (While not exactly the Silmarillion, the Keeper’s Background sections are pretty, ah…extensive.) While no gaming group should take on White Leviathan casually, not every Keeper and player is going to care about all the nuances: the 1844 presidential election, the effects of the Opium War on New England trade, which artistic movements are in vogue in Paris; or the subtleties of translating the Cthaat Aquadingen, for that matter! That’s completely fine, and the Keeper is encouraged to adopt or ignore anything that feels extraneous to the game. White Leviathan take this into account through general Keeper Notes, but also through “Depth Marker” sidebars. These pink notes signal material that represents a “deep dive” into the history or background of a subject, and are intended for Keepers who feel such knowledge may interest their players or enrich their roleplaying. For those Keepers who prefer a more focused path, such material may be safely ignored without affecting the general plot of the game. Think of it like Moby-Dick itself—some take delight in the sprawling, encyclopedic nature of the book, while others prefer to trim the fat and get to the “good stuff.” Your playthrough of White Leviathan may be similar: more discursive like a novel, or more direct like a movie!
Notes on Sensitivity
White Leviathan is intended for adult players. The campaign is dark and gritty, and includes frank depictions of sex, incest, abuse, addiction, torture, cannibalism, and murder. Every gaming group is a unique entity, and has its own levels of comfort regarding controversial or “mature” material. I firmly believe that roleplaying offers a singular opportunity to grapple with these ideas, and Call of Cthulhu is one of the few games that welcomes a deeper investigation into the more sordid aspects of humanity! Still, the Keeper must be sensitive to the wants and needs of the group. White Leviathan is a game, which means it’s a collaboration, and it only works if every player is enjoying the experience. Managing that experience is one of a Keeper’s most important responsibilities, so soliciting player feedback is critical. A few notes about sensitivity may help shape that process.
The Nineteenth Century
As enjoyable as it is to slaughter player characters with monsters borrowed from the Mythos, the most reliable source of horror is, of course, other humans, and White Leviathan drinks deeply from the inexhaustible well of man’s inhumanity to man. (Sartre put it best: “Hell is other people.”) The nineteenth century is no exception from the chronicles of human misery, and White Leviathan does not shy away from its brutal realities. Too often, modern historical fiction ignores, elides, or glosses over uncomfortable elements. Both sides of the ideological spectrum contribute to such distortions. One side tends to bowdlerize, whitewash, and glorify historical elements of sexism, colonialism, and racial supremacy; often denying the pervasive power of institutionalized systems of oppression. The other side frequently indulges in presentism, an historical term meaning “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.” Historical actors are conveniently divided into heroes and villains, oppressors and victims, usually depending on how they align with modern sensibilities. This reduces humans to political symbols, and negates their personal agency. Both sides tends to romanticize their heroes, demonize their opponents, and sanitize human sexuality.
White Leviathan makes a conscious effort to avoid these pitfalls, and attempts to present a realistic world as lived by human beings in the mid-nineteenth century. (Realistic insofar as there’s magic and monsters!) For this reason, White Leviathan deals frankly with uncomfortable topics like slavery, racism, sexism, misogyny, prostitution, addiction, capitalism, colonialism, environmental destruction, and cruelty to animals. To overlook such real-world horrors seems not only antithetical to human nature, it does a disservice to the millions of people who have suffered from pernicious ideologies and destructive cultural practices. These unpleasant forces are integral to White Leviathan, and indelibly shape the “horror” of the campaign setting. The text features historical sidebars that highlight sensitive material, describing how nineteenth-century America managed such issues as racism, prostitution, neurodiversity, gender, and sexual identity. These notes are designed to help a Keeper better contextualize and navigate potentially thorny issues.
The Characters
Many of the nonplayer characters in White Leviathan are indigenous to the Pacific Islands. While the “restless savage” is a stock character in Western horror narratives—think of Poe’s Tsalalians, Lovecraft’s Inuto, or the natives from King Kong, Cannibal Holocaust, and Bone Tomahawk—this representation coexists alongside more “enlightened” stereotypes of the “noble savage.” Popularly attributed to Rousseau, the noble savage is recognizable in Melville, Hugo, and Gaugin, but also in modern narratives like Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and Avatar. While the latter stereotype is more well-intentioned than the former, both reduce native characters to cultural symbols devoid of agency and complexity. Whether raving mad or representing a “simple but vibrant culture,” natives are patronizingly defined by their otherness, and are primed for the introduction of a white savior. White Leviathan attempts to portray its natives as a complex and diverse group of people, ranging from deranged cultists to curious philosophers. While it’s true that Western colonialism is systematically destroying their traditional way of life, various communities and individuals respond in different ways, including anger, despair, resistance, indifference, opportunism, and collaboration. Nor is their relationship to colonialism the sole defining factor of indigenous characters. Natives in White Leviathan are just as capable of good and evil as anyone else.
Having said that, this is still a horror game! Encountering a new culture can be an discomfiting experience, and natives like the Kát are regarded as alien by Western characters. As Lovecraft said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” While being executed by a firing squad is terrifying, being devoured alive during some incomprehensible ritual is more horrifying. This fear of the alien is essential to Lovecraft’s fiction, and a good Keeper should not overlook its power. The sessions on Kith Kohr should be particularly fraught with this tension, as the Western characters realize their comfortable hierarchy has been inverted and the power dynamic reversed: on Kith Kohr, the Westerners are seen as the “other,” their basic humanity unrecognized and their weaknesses exploited.
Which brings us to the player characters themselves. White Leviathan is set onboard a whaling ship: a fairly regimented world dominated by males, the product of an economic system marked by rigid class boundaries and deeply institutionalized racism. There were indeed some black officers in the whale fishery, but they were rare; women were not permitted onboard except as officer’s wives; and the common sailor was poor and uneducated. The cast of player characters reflects these realities, given that a renowned author, an undercover reporter, a female stowaway, and a traveling scientist already comprises a fairly improbable crew! White Leviathan includes notes on modifying certain player characters to bring more diversity into the game without completely embracing anachronism. Keepers and players are free to make whatever changes they desire, but should remember the game is balanced for the player characters provided, and making significant alterations may impact the narrative.
White Leviathan > Introduction
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 23 August 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]