Kingsport 1844: Mariner’s Bethel

2) Kingsport Mariner’s Bethel
203 Foster Street, Inner Harbor. Est. 1834

A) The Chapel
A tall, narrow chapel set into Foster Street, the Mariner’s Bethel is non-denominational mix of Quaker ethics and Protestant hellfire, served up with nautical-themed allegories and some fishy sermonizing. A sign above the arched doorway depicts a wooden ship with three naked cross-trees, an obvious allusion to the Crucifixion. Neat black lettering emblazoned across the arch reads: “Kingsport Mariner’s Bethel: Come Aboard, Shipmates! All Souls Are Welcome Here!”

The interior of the chapel is designed to evoke a ship’s deck, with narrow pews set before a raised pulpit in the shape of looming prow, a massive Bible opened across the bowsprit. The pulpit is accessed using a side ladder, its mahogany rungs worn smooth by the boots of the Preacher. A small pump-organ is nestled into the corner near the pulpit. The wooden walls are covered with black-bordered marble plaques memorializing Kingsport’s maritime disasters. One of the newer plaques mentions the Quiddity, and reads:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
TOPHER GROSS, TIMMY HUTCHINGS,
YEOMAN SCOTT AND JOHN FETTER
FORMING ONE OF THE BOAT’S CREWS OF
THE WHALE SHIP QUIDDITY
WHO WERE TOWED OUT OF SIGHT BY A WHALE,
ON THE OFF-SHORE GROUND IN THE PACIFIC,
OCTOBER 31, 1837.
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED TO THEIR MEMORY BY THEIR FAMILIES.
GOD SAVE THEIR SOULS.

Another plaque of possible interest is even more recent:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
CAPTAIN HENRY POTTER BRODY,
MARK GUSTAVSON, JOAO GOMES,
FILBERT FULLER & GEORGE CLUNY
THE CREW OF THE SABRINA
CAPSIZED NEAR INNSMOUTH
APRIL 30, 1842.
THIS MARBLE IS HERE PLACED BY MARY BRODY
& SHIPMATE DANNY HOUGHTON.

There are thirty-two such cenotaphs; if a player character deliberately reads them all, he’ll find both these inscriptions. Otherwise a Spot Hidden roll is required to randomly discover each one; and the Sabrina plaque only catches a character’s attention if the player has knowledge of that incident (Handout: Quiddity Plaque and Handout: Sabrina Plaque). Other notable shipwrecks memorialized on plaques include the Anna, Janus, Polaris, and Neil Pyrt, along with the Sabrina’s sister boats, the Bucko and Rita. (For Keepers familiar with Chaosium’s Kingsport sourcebook, the Hellene is conspicuously absent.)

B) Personalities
The Kingsport Mariner’s Bethel is officiated by a blind man known only as the Preacher. A retired sea-captain loosely affiliated with the American Seamen’s Friend Society, the Preacher is a hell-and-brimstone sermonizer, a hoary old salt who seems to have accepted his burden directly from God. The Preacher assumes his pulpit every Sunday morning, and offers special evening services before any important ship sets sail. This schedule affords the Preacher plenty of free time, which he spends spreading the word of his briny God to Mercy Hospital, St. Erasmus, and sometimes the docked ships themselves. He is often accompanied by Mute Charlie, a young man incapable of speech who assists the Preacher with daily tasks. Occasionally organ music is provided by Mrs. Ruth Wakeman, a captain’s widow who divides her time between the Mariner’s Bethel and the Unitarian church on Lafayette Street.

The Preacher
Age 68, Nationality: American, Birthplace: Kingsport 1776.

Combat

Skills
Art/Craft (Distilling) 70%, Art/Craft (Sermonizing) 85%, Charm 20%, Credit Rating 25%, Cthulhu Mythos 20%, Fast Talk 70%, First Aid 40%, History 55%, Intimidate 50%, Kingsport Cult 20%, Law 60%, Leadership 65%, Listen 75%, Natural World 40%, Occult 45%, Persuade 90%, Psychology 75%, Religion 85%, Renown 60%, Seamanship 60%, Sea Lore 65%, Spot Hidden 1%, Whalecraft 55%.

Description
Tall, gaunt, and surprisingly strong for a man in his late sixties, the Preacher resembles an Old Testament prophet, his seamed face leathered by decades of salt air, his gray hair styled by the wind, and his rheumy eyes blinded by cataracts. He dresses in Quaker black, and the scrimshaw cross adorning his throat was carved from the rib of a sperm whale. He is proud of his wizened years, and frequently declares, “I was born the same day as this great nation!”

Mute Charlie
Age 26, Nationality: American, Birthplace: Innsmouth 1818.

Combat

Skills
Art/Craft (Distilling) 45%, Art/Craft (Penmanship) 60%, Credit Rating 15%, Cthulhu Mythos 3%, Intimidate 10%, Library Use 40%, Listen 60%, Religion 60%, Renown 15%, Sea Lore 10%, Spot Hidden 70%.

Description
A plain-looking man with a simple face, Mute Charlie dresses like a sailor but has never been to sea. No one knows whether he was mute from birth, struck dumb by trauma, or simply refuses to speak. Charlie cares for the Preacher with sincere devotion, assisting when the Preacher needs a pair of eyes or a steady hand. Blessed with a fine sense of penmanship, Charlie serves as the Preacher’s amanuensis when required, and charges 5¢ to write letters for illiterate sailors. The mismatched pair inhabit a small cabin on Bluff Road, where the Preacher keeps a still, two goats, and an old nag named Hagar.

C) Ministry
The Preacher’s sermons are surprisingly popular along the Wharves. While many in his congregation have few intentions of living up to his exhortations, most sailors respect the Preacher to the point of supernatural awe. The Preacher is no fool, and knows the dark history of Kingsport, which only intensifies his efforts to keep native-born mariners on the path of righteousness. Aside from the usual sermonizing, the Preacher occasionally advocates for controversial progressive causes like abolition, women’s suffrage, and Indian reform. (But never Temperance. While he frequently rails against the sins of inebriety, it’s widely-known he distills the best corn whiskey in town.) The Preacher bears no ill-will against Kingsport’s other established religions, from Portuguese Catholics to Quaker “dissenters,” and even has kinds words for Israelites, Mohammedans, and “heathen” medicine men—“Both the Prophet Micah and George Washington tell us, ‘they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.’ That’s good enough for me!” Nor does he tolerate bigotry among his congregation—“God granted me blindness so I can see only a man’s heart!” The only stranger to his charitable embrace is Reverend Ruggles, the minister of the Congregational Church (Encounter 23). While the Preacher doesn’t realize the extent of the Covenant’s resurgence among Kingsport’s Congregationalists, he damn well suspects that Puritan bastard is one of them, and steers clear of Central Hill.

The Preacher and Joab
Captain Jeremiah Joab has never set foot in the Mariner’s Bethel; and there’s something of a feud between the two old skippers. In 1840, when the Quiddity was docked, the Preacher confronted Joab—on board his own vessel, in front of his crew!—demanding that he attend a special service devoted to the Quiddity, and beseeching the captain to pray for the souls of the seamen lost during his last voyage. Joab refused, and threatened to have the Preacher clapped in irons and fed to sharks if he didn’t vacate the deck. Since then, the Preacher views Joab as a “proud Nebuchadnezzar” on the precipice of a terrible fall. While he suspects that Joab has Covenant connections, the real bone of contention is Joab’s prideful hubris and “wicked influence” amongst his crew.

D) Visiting the Chapel
The Mariner’s Bethel is open to visitors any time of day or night. The Preacher keeps the door unlocked, and a barrel near the pulpit is stocked with ASFS Bibles, hymnals, and candles for midnight supplicants. During the ten years he’s maintained the chapel, it’s only been vandalized once. The next day the culprits—two Innsmouth lads, fresh into their teenage years—were delivered to the bethel, bound in hemp with a pair of Bibles tarred to their immobilized hands. Local legend says the Preacher spent the day sermonizing to the boys, then released them; local legend also contends that one of those boys was Mute Charlie.

Player characters are free to visit the Kingsport Mariner’s Bethel at their leisure, but the Preacher is only present the Thursday afternoon before the Quiddity sets sail. The scuttlebutt around town suggests that the blind old man has prepared a very special sermon for the crew of the Quiddity; and the chapel is sure to be packed!

E) Programmed Events
There are two Programmed Events involving the Mariner’s Bethel.

October 31: The Halloween Sermon
Any player character attending the Preacher’s Thursday evening service is in for some genuine fire and brimstone. The service begins at 4:30 pm, shortly before the storm. The crowded pews include numerous crewmen from the Quiddity, including Mr. P.H. Whipple, Quentin Shaw, Stanley Ruch, Thomas Plunkett, Natty Weeks, Peter Veidt, Owen Love, Henry Swain, Israel Reed, Duke Nelson, and James Cabot. Conspicuously, but unsurprisingly, Captain Joab and William Pynchon are nowhere to be seen. Jonah and Anne Folger are also in attendance, as well as Finn Brody.

The Preacher enters the chapel on the winds of the coming storm, his black cloak flapping like the proverbial crow wings and his countenance grave as the thunderheads amassing above the harbor. Striding confidently between the pews, he pulls down the mahogany ladder and ascends his elevated pulpit. After a long pause, a dramatic crash of thunder rolls across Kingsport, bringing a smile to his bloodless lips. Opening the Good Book, the Preacher traces a passage with his trembling fingers, as if the unseen ink were long-accustomed grooves. Slamming his fist against the altar, he begins his sermon.

And a hell of a sermon it is! The Preacher pulls out all the stops, looming across his Bible-bedecked bowsprit, fixing his audience with his dead white gaze, and launching into a tirade about arrogance, pride, and the wicked ways of men who turn their backs on God. The biblical tale of Jonah and the Whale is invoked, which causes some stir, as all know Captain Joab has recently lost his leg to the great Leviathan. There’s much talk of “proud princes and kings” such as Nebuchadnezzar and the angel Lucifer, and how “pride goeth before the fall.” The calendar date is invoked with solemnity, his finger aimed unerringly at the Quiddity plaque: “Seven years to the day that sad marker became necessary, the only tombstone those men shall ever know!” After acknowledging the pagan origins of All Hallows’ Eve and All Soul’s Day—stressing the word pagan while darting a pointed, blind glance towards Central Hill—the Preacher suggests that despite these misguided origins, Christians have a duty to honor the souls of the departed, especially those lost at sea. And there’s been a prodigious number of souls lost under certain proud captains! He concludes by reminding his fellow “shipmates” that God is the only true master and commander. The service ends at 5:30, just in time for the worshippers to discover that the skies above the harbor are pregnant with disaster.

October 31: The Halloween Tempest
The Preacher cannot see the storm, but he feels its ineluctable approach. Rather than return to his shack on Bluff Road, he elects to remain in the Bethel, keeping the coal stove burning for refugees and supplicants. As the storm develops, the chapel becomes crowded with terrified sailors and dockworkers, huddled together and trading stories, singing hymns, and making midnight confessions. Player characters are welcome to share in this fellowship. If the Keeper would like to introduce a supernatural twist, both “Visions of Old Kingsport” and “Kingsport Gives Up Her Dead” can be relocated from Encounter 1. Indeed, the latter scenario would be quite terrifying at the Bethel—perhaps some of those names on the wall are returning for absolution?

White Leviathan, Chapter 1—Kingsport 1844
[Back to Encounter 2, Kingsport Hotel | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Encounter 4, St. Erasmus’ Home]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 19 October 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]