Managing the Campaign

Managing the Campaign

Introduction
White Leviathan is an epic campaign, beginning in fogbound Kingsport and concluding three years and 20,000 miles later at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. There are numerous characters and subplots, most revolving around a backstory that began with the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the narrative is likely to hit several peaks before reaching a final crescendo. Think of previous Chaosium campaigns such as Masks of Nyarlathotep, Horror On the Orient Express, or Beyond the Mountains of Madness. These notes are intended to help the Keeper prepare for the campaign, manage the cast of characters, pace the narrative, and maintain balance during gameplay.

Preparing to Run White Leviathan

Central to the campaign is the arcane world of nineteenth-century whaling. To get the most out of White Leviathan, the Keeper is urged to become familiar with the general history, economic importance, and key mechanics of Yankee whaling. Although this book provides enough background to run the campaign effectively, there’s no substitute for reading Moby-Dick! Melville’s masterpiece contains all the period information needed to add authentic color to the scenario. Of course, some Keepers may be unwilling or unable to tackle Melville’s white whale merely for the purpose of running a game. In that case, a movie version may suffice. The most famous is John Huston’s 1956 Moby Dick, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. However, the 1998 miniseries boasts Patrick Stewart, and his performance is not to be missed.

Also highly recommended is Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea. A popular history of the doomed Nantucket whaleship Essex, Philbrick’s tale is filled with adventure, drama, and despair, and his description of being cast adrift in a whaleboat is utterly horrifying. The book was adapted into a movie by Ron Howard, but the film is simply dreadful—really just awful—and should be avoided at all cost. (Whale oil doesn’t explode like TNT, Ron.)

Players may be encouraged to read these books on their own, or the Keeper may host a screening of Moby Dick sometime before the game begins: the players gathered around the television with character sheets in hand, munching popcorn and pondering just what Lovecraftian evils a Keeper can inflict using an obsessed tyrant and an albino Leviathan…

Managing the Characters

Unlike most Call of Cthulhu scenarios, the narrative of White Leviathan is tailored to a very specific cast of player characters. The four mandatory characters are essential to the plot, and even the optional characters expand the story in unique directions. The Keeper is strongly discouraged from allowing players to generate their own primary characters at the beginning of the game.

The Invisible Hand of Fate
While no Keeper should tunnel player characters through a series of scripted events, the Keeper has the responsibility to keep the game intriguing, compelling, and exciting. Many of the campaign’s character-driven subplots are intended to heat up over time, such as Rachel’s pregnancy, Morgan’s transformation, and Lowell’s recovering memories. If a player character is randomly killed in a Kingsport bar fight, it proves nothing except the Keeper’s inhuman sense of impartiality. A Keeper should bend some rules to keep her cast alive until a character’s death serves a higher dramatic calling. Think of White Leviathan as a “prestige television” series with a fixed number of seasons. You need time for the main characters to develop; but all bets are off in the final few episodes. This isn’t to say that player characters cannot suffer; nor should they escape the consequences of ill-advised actions. Injury and dismemberment can be quite instructional! And after all, eyepatches, hooks, and peg-legs are nautical de rigueur.

Managing Player Character Death
Having said that, sometimes a character simply dies early, and negating that death would rob the player of autonomy. If the unfortunate player wishes to remain in the campaign, there are several viable options. There are numerous NPCs onboard the Quiddity, and one may be promoted to player character status. If this happens, the Keeper should provide the player with that character’s description and core statistics, along with extra Skill points to help customize the character and bring his stats up to par: +20 percentile points per completed chapter is a reasonable guideline. The player should be allowed to expand the character’s history and refine his personality. Later in the game, when the players have a firm understanding of the scenario, an orphaned player may roll-up a brand-new character: a castaway found stranded on a beach, a harpooneer traded during a gam, a Kát deserter who betrays her own people. If a character is killed late in the campaign, the Keeper may elevate the bereft player to Guest Star status by allowing him to control a major NPC such as Ezra Coffin, Alan Loveless, or even Cardinal Vocasiel. This requires close collaboration with the Keeper, and both parties must remain flexible. The player must agree to act within certain narrative constraints, and the Keeper must allow the character to be interpreted in a way that’s enjoyable for the player.

Nonplayer Characters
The Keeper must extend the invisible Hand of Fate over critical NPCs as well. If Captain Joab or William Pynchon are spontaneously killed whaling in the Atlantic, the campaign is dealt a lethal blow. In other words, certain NPCs need to remain alive until the player characters themselves take drastic actions against them. Joab and Pynchon are obviously the most important, but even Whipple is best developed over several sessions of gameplay, which allows the players to discover his history of murder and cannibalism. If you need to shed some blood—and what Keeper doesn’t?—there are numerous secondary NPCs and crewmen to sacrifice. But the main cast should be roasted over a slow burn.

Keeping Track of NPCs
The Quiddity is home to twenty-six nonplayer characters from captain to cabin boy. That’s a lot of NPCs for one Keeper to manage! To help keep things organized, each NPC may be assigned an index card printed with his name and core statistics. If the Keeper is feeling up to the task, she may include a small portrait as well. Pictures of actors or movie characters are especially useful, and provide a handy snapshot of the character’s general personality. (Think of Robert Shaw from Jaws, Ernest Borgnine from McHale’s Navy, Humphrey Bogart from African Queen, Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now, or Yaphet Kotto from Alien.) These cards may be color-coded for additional convenience: gold for officers, blue for idlers, green for the starboard watch, and red for the larboard watch. As the game progresses, the cards may be updated with notes such as “Lost his left pinkie finger to a harpoon,” “Went temporarily insane at Valparaíso,” or “Reading Lowell’s book.” For more complicated scenarios, a pack of plastic pirates may be pressed into service as makeshift miniatures. Assigned to cardboard boats and accompanied by a rubber whale, they’re surprisingly helpful for choreographing a hunt!

Optional System: Secondary Characters
One way to ease the NPC roleplaying burden on the Keeper is to allow each player to run a “secondary character,” one of the Quiddity’s idlers or foremasthands. While nominally under control of the Keeper, these secondary characters may be employed when primary characters are off-stage: sessions of forecastle merriment, unusual work details, ship-wide combat, and so forth. For instance, Lowell, Morgan, and Rachel are not assigned to whaleboats. Why should their players miss all the fun of the hunt? Rather than sitting idly on the sidelines, they can take part in the excitement through secondary characters such as Quentin Shaw, Mattie Shoe, or Pig Bodine. Invested players should be allowed to tweak their secondary character’s statistics, imbue them with unique personalities, and advance their skills during Development Phases.

The Keeper may note that secondary characters are mercifully free from the “invisible hand of fate.” Being unconnected to the larger plot, they’re essentially replaceable—or perhaps the best phrase is “CREW EXPENDABLE.” In any event, they’re ripe for a glorious (or hideous) death! Killing a player’s secondary character is a useful way to demonstrate the lethality of the scenario without destabilizing the campaign or resorting to meaningless “red shirt” massacres. Another advantage of secondary characters is they make ready back-up characters should a player’s primary character meet a grisly end. Of course, certain nonplayer characters must remain the sole province of the Keeper: Jeremiah Joab and William Pynchon, naturally; but also P.H. Whipple, Amon Stockhausen, and the majority of cultists and adversaries.

Managing the Kingsport Cult

One of the biggest challenges for the Keeper in White Leviathan is managing the relationship between the player characters and the Kingsport Cult. After all, the two highest ranking officers on the Quiddity are cultists, and the player characters are stuck with them for three years. Much of the campaign’s gameplay is initiated by the cultists, such as exploring the Galápagos Islands, searching for the Azamhael on Kith Kohr, and enacting the final Ritual of Resurrection. If the player characters murder their officers at Atacames, the scenario ends rather quickly. The Keeper must balance gameplay so the players retain freewill, but remain a vital part of a crew guided by a deranged cult. So how can this be done?

Simply put, the scenario is designed to balance itself. Joab and Pynchon are not monsters, as should be clear from their NPC profiles. For the most part, they behave more like officers than cultists. However, it’s hard to keep secrets on a ship, so Pynchon expects that some crewmen may ask uncomfortable questions. While certain secrets must be maintained, the chief mate is an expert at misdirecting people through the disclosure of partial truths, and has concocted various “cover stories” to conceal his hidden agendas. Such situations are described where appropriate in the campaign narrative. Pynchon is also capable of using magic to cloud minds: “These aren’t the whales you’re looking for.”

Character Interdependence
Because White Leviathan is, after all, a game, the player characters are bound to stand out, proving themselves more resourceful, capable, and curious than the rest of the crew. While this can pose a threat to the Covenant, it may also be used to their advantage. Pynchon may treat the player characters as useful tools, giving them increasingly more dangerous tasks and probing their potential value as allies. Indeed, even Joab and Pynchon will be surprised by certain events in store for the Quiddity, and they’ll be forced to turn to the player characters for assistance. Meanwhile, the player characters must trust Joab and Pynchon to act as capable leaders, protecting the Quiddity and safeguarding the lives of the men onboard. (Up to a point, of course—a very large, albino point.)

This interdependence between the player characters and the Covenant is critical for the success of White Leviathan. The events that befall the Quiddity are bound to make everyone question previously-held beliefs, player character and NPC alike. Sharing perilous experiences leads to mutual understanding and even empathy. As the player characters are drawn deeper into the more troubling aspects of the voyage, the line between hero and cultist begins to blur. If managed adroitly, this ambiguity will pay off dramatically. Imagine what happens if player characters such as Rachel, Dixon, or Lowell are offered a place in the coming Aeon! And if this works at cross-purposes to the goals of Beckett, Coffin, and Redburn, so much the better. There’s also plenty of room for wild cards. What if Quakaloo develops a revolutionary streak, or Morgan embraces his heritage as a Deep One? The Keeper should remain sensitive to opportunities for unexpected and exciting character development. (For details about initiating player characters into the Kingsport Cult, see “Character Secrets and Development” and “Kingsport Cult Degrees.”)

Managing Sanity

In shorter Call of Cthulhu scenarios, Sanity is lost more readily than hit points, and most characters dutifully go bonkers over the course of the game. White Leviathan is a full-length campaign, so the Keeper must adopt a more moderate approach to Sanity loss. The narrative itself takes this into account, keeping Sanity rolls to a minimum during the first few chapters and providing numerous situations for characters to regain Sanity. While this might be mistaken for charity, it’s merely conservative gameplay—the characters will still go bonkers, just at the appropriate time!

Sanity Guidelines
For the purpose of a long campaign it’s useful to think of the Sanity scale as being more geometric than linear. Every character starts with a Sanity equal to his Power. It may be useful to think of these Sanity reserves as being grouped into four divisions, according to the standard Call of Cthulhu system of “Regular/Hard/Extreme/Critical” values.

Regular Sanity
The upper half of a player’s Sanity represents prevailing mood and disposition, and fluctuates broadly. Losing 5 points of Regular Sanity reflects a really bad experience, and going “temporarily insane” means bursting into tears, screaming hysterically, or throwing an unexpected punch. Small amounts of Sanity may be restored through routine measures: rest and relaxation, going to confession, a festive evening with supportive friends.

Hard Sanity
Once a character falls between half and one-fifth her original Sanity, her Sanity reserves represent her core mental health. Here, a loss of 5 points is serious, and manifests as shock, rage, hysteria, grief, neurosis, or depression. Regaining Sanity is correspondingly more difficult, requiring extended periods of rest, moments of personal triumph, or a regimen of professional treatment.

Extreme Sanity
When a character falls below one-fifth his original Sanity, he’s become mentally ill. In this zone, a 5 point Sanity loss can be catastrophic, and recovering Sanity takes years of psychiatric care. (Or possibly a dissociative fugue à la Montgomery Lowell!) Generally speaking, characters reduced to Extreme Sanity reserves should be absolved from trivial Sanity rolls: seeing another dead body or an unwholesome statuette isn’t going to make things worse! The Keeper may rule that such characters are only subject to Sanity rolls for things that are both (1) new and (2) more terrible than anything already experienced. For instance, being forced into cannibalism, or seeing something completely irrational—a Hound of Tindalos rather than a Deep One. Experiencing the Fenstraal and engaging in spells and rituals related to the Mythos always require Sanity rolls.

Critical Sanity
A Sanity score of 5 or less represents the last flicker of rationality between sanity and madness. Such characters should be absolved from conventional Sanity rolls. After all, they’re already half-insane; learning that Deep Ones mate with humans just evokes a giggle. The Keeper may rule that characters working from Critical Sanity are only subject to Sanity rolls for things that are undeniably more terrible than anything they’ve already experienced. For instance, committing murder for the first time, having one’s limbs torn off, or clapping eyes upon a Great Old One. Experiencing the Fenstraal and engaging in spells and rituals related to the Mythos always require Sanity rolls.

Managing and Restoring Sanity Loss
The Keeper must carefully manage Sanity loss to prevent her cast from becoming deranged too early in the game. The following table offers suggestions when to “allow” Sanity reserves to deteriorate, and under what condition Sanity may be restored. Obviously, professional psychiatric care is not feasible in White Leviathan, so it’s not listed on the table!

Zero Sanity
A player character reaching zero Sanity early in the campaign may be removed from the game as per standard Call of Cthulhu rules. However, once Kithaat is reached, going insane no longer spells a character’s doom. Abaddon is a city of madmen, and having zero Sanity does not disqualify one for citizenship. However, player characters with zero Sanity must exhibit some form of madness that deforms their original personalities. For some characters this is obvious: Morgan embraces the Deep Ones, or Lowell fuses with Sarah. For others, it guides their attitude and approach to the Resurrection of Dagon. A good rule of thumb is this: Once reaching Abaddon, a player character with zero Sanity must become, influence, or betray the Supplicant, and work whole-heartedly to impose his or her personal beliefs upon the coming Aeon. Suggestions for managing the Sanity of individual player characters are offered in “Player Character Secrets and Development.”

Managing Gameplay

Every playthrough of White Leviathan will be unique, but the overall campaign arc follows three stages. In the first stage, the player characters become aware of the Kingsport Cult and realize that their whaling voyage has an ulterior purpose. Clues are discovered and analyzed, relationships are tested and evaluated, and mysteries are uncovered and unraveled. In the second stage, the player characters make major decisions about their relationships with other characters. Power dynamics are established and alliances are made and broken. In the third stage, the player characters assist, thwart, or displace the Kingsport Cult in their mission to resurrect Dagon. To make things easier on the Keeper, this section provides a chapter-by-chapter overview of how these stages might be managed.

Chapter 1: Kingsport

The majority of White Leviathan takes place overseas, which makes the first few sessions in Kingsport vitally important. Before the characters set sail on November 1, the following plot elements should be uncovered: 

The Kingsport Cult
Through library research, conversation and gossip, or a trip to the dime museum, the characters should learn the basic history of the Kingsport Cult: Kingsport’s first witches arrived from the Channel Islands with the city’s founders. These included “Old Mother Cawches,” who wore a plague mask, flew on a broom, and gobbled the eyeballs of naughty children. In 1692, thirteen Kingsport witches were hanged, including members of the influential Hoag and Tuttle families. The cult reformed around the church on Central Hill under the “diabolical” Father Rufus Cheever, but was broken up in 1722 by Mayor Eben Hall. Imprisoned on the Gravesend, many cultists committed suicide; the rest were killed when the prison hulk burned in 1774. Determined players might even hear rumors about green flames or monstrous “familiars.” 

The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Through gossip with locals, the player characters should hear that something strange is happening in Innsmouth. Not only has their fishing improved, but good churchfolk have been run out of town, and Captain Obed Marsh and his family have established something called the “Esoteric Order of Dagon.” The Marsh gold refinery may also be mentioned, and Innsmouth’s possible involvement in the 1842 “squall” that destroyed three Kingsport fishing boats.

The Quiddity
Whether through port gossip or interactions with Graham Blaine at the Kingsport Chronicle, it becomes evident the Quiddity is a cursed ship. Something horrible happened on her last voyage, something worse than her fateful encounter with Mocha Dick. Something that drove second mate Elijah Watts mad. Are the Quiddity’s agents and officers up to something nefarious?

Elijah Watts
Elijah Watts should be visited and his sea-chest plundered. This gives the player characters two important items: the Stolen Page and the Mysterious Talisman.

Intimations of Atlantis
Through conversation with Elijah Watts, examining his sea-chest, and reading the letter from his ex-wife, Atlantis should become a topic of discussion—or at least, the idea of sunken continents. That froggish people are somehow involved may be inferred through the carvings on Watts’ sea-chest, as well as Hans Kleiter’s letter to Gideon Sleet.

Awareness of Dagon/Cthoaanesel
The name Dagon appears in rumors about Innsmouth, and through visions with the Levantine Dream Machine. If the player characters obtain Hans Kleiter’s letter, they may read about dire predictions of some future catastrophe, involving froggish beings and a “fallen angel” named Kithoanessel. However, there is nothing yet to connect these names.

The Call of Dagon
The player characters’ interactions with Silas Grimble and Sydney Prim suggest that a mysterious force is deranging people and driving them to sea. This is the Call of Dagon; but the players don’t have a name for it yet. Nor should they know that many of their characters are hearing it themselves! The extended encounter in Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities foreshadows the final chapters of White Leviathan, giving the players a taste of Abaddon.

The Things They Carried
Ideally, the player characters should depart Kingsport in possession of Kleiter’s letter to Sleet, Watts’ Stolen Page and Mysterious Talisman, and notes on the previous voyages of Captain Joab, William Pynchon, and the Quiddity. Coffin’s player may have a mysterious set of Dream dice. Rachel should have her spell components and a completed Mandragora. The rest of the items, from the Prussian lockpicking tools to the Polaris Lantern, are useful but not essential.

Happy hunting! Or as the whalemen cry, “A dead whale or a stove boat!”

Sources and Notes

The image in the header is William Blake’s The Fall of Satan, from 1805-1806.

White Leviathan > Keeper’s Information
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 19 August 2023
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]