Kingsport 1844: Seventh House On the Left

18) Seventh House On the Left
413 Green Lane, Downtown. Est. 1648

Keeper’s Note: The Kingsport Public Library is a location in “Kingsport 1844,” and was written for the White Leviathan campaign. However, it may be adapted for any nineteenth-century Call of Cthulhu scenario. It contains spoilers for anyone intending to play White Leviathan as a character.

I was eager to knock at the door of my people, the seventh house on the left in Green Lane, with an ancient peaked roof and jutting second story, all built before 1650. There were lights inside the house when I came upon it, and I saw from the diamond window-panes that it must have been kept very close to its antique state. The upper part overhung the narrow grass-grown street and nearly met the overhanging part of the house opposite, so that I was almost in a tunnel, with the low stone doorstep wholly free from snow. There was no sidewalk, but many houses had high doors reached by double flights of steps with iron railings. It was an odd scene, and because I was strange to New England I had never known its like before. Though it pleased me, I would have relished it better if there had been footprints in the snow, and people in the streets, and a few windows without drawn curtains.
—H.P. Lovecraft, “The Festival”

A) The Old Brig
Adjacent Calypso Apothecary is a small private residence, dating from 1648 and believed to be one of the oldest buildings in Kingsport. It’s called the “Old Brig” because the boards are said to have come from a brigantine shipwrecked off Ross Island. Two stories tall with a crumbling peaked roof, the house radiates a bleak sense of despair, and is shunned by most local residents. The door is locked, and no one is ever seen to enter or leave. Kingsport rumor contends the house belongs to the Hoag family, who purchased it from the Diamond family after sheltering three generations of “wizards and witches” with the gift of prophecy—Exekiel Diamond, Aholiab Diamond, and Mary “Moll” Pitcher. However, every time someone makes an effort to look up records pertaining to the house, they simply forget what they were doing, their intentions dissipating like Kingsport mist. The only person who doesn’t shun the house is Hadrian Quire; but the rumors of secret tunnels and underground gardens are just idle gossip about Dunwich connies—right?

Kingsport Note: The Seventh House on the Left is featured in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Festival,” and is detailed in Chaosium’s “Kingsport: The City In the Mists.” For White Leviathan, the “Seventh House” combines Lovecraft’s description with an historic Marblehead residence: the “Old Brig,” described by Lovecraft as a “terrible” house that sheltered “Old Diamond the witch-man” and his “hideous granddaughter, the witch Moll Pitcher.” In reality, the Old Brig is further from the town center, and is considerably more charming than Lovecraft’s description! While Essex County records reveal some confusion about the Diamond lineage—and occasionally spell it “Dimond”—Moll Pitcher (1738-1813) was indeed a famous local “pythoness.” By all accounts, she was a pleasant and thoughtful woman, and sailors placed great stock in her predictions about important voyages.

B) Visiting the House
Players familiar with “The Festival” may wish to poke around the Old Brig. The Keeper is free to stage a few Stealth rolls, maybe even allow them to make their way inside the gloomy interior. Then…well, they find themselves back outside, halfway to their next destination. Did they make it inside? What happened? If the stalwart characters make a second attempt, the same thing happens: but now the intrusive housebreakers find themselves 1 Sanity point lower. If the Keeper is feeling generous, later in the game she may grant them dreams and flashbacks of what they discovered in the Old Brig: a waxen mask, a decaying book, a human femur carved from scrimshaw, its pale surface inscribed with strange runes…

White Leviathan > Chapter 1—Kingsport 1844
[Back to Encounter 17, Calypso Apothecary | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Encounter 19, Brimblecombe House]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 30 October 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]

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