Gideon Sleet

A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous, glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil—of people passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices—of armies trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray’s rhythmic death… of the rallying to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew that, once loosed, not any nation could hold the devil-god for long and that swiftly its blight would spread!
―A. Merritt, “Conquest of the Moon Pool” (1919)

Captain Gideon Sleet, Agent for Sleet, Baker & Blood

Statistics
Age 61, Nationality: American, Birthplace: Kingsport 1783. Kingsport Cult: Sixth Degree Initiate.

Combat

Skills
Accounting 75%, Anthropology 50%, Appraise 65%, Archeology 40%, Charm 5%, Climb 50%, Credit Rating 75%, Cthulhu Mythos 60%, Fast Talk 50%, First Aid 40%, History 40%, Intimidate 65%, Jump 30%, Kingsport Cult 60%, Law 60%, Leadership 65%, Library Use 70%, Listen 50%, Mechanical Repair 45%, Medicine 20%, Natural World 20%, Navigate 80%, Occult 60%, Operate Heavy Machinery 20%, Persuade 75%, Pilot (Boat) 70%, Psychology 60%, Renown 70%, Seamanship 80%, Sea Lore 50%, Spot Hidden 95%, Stealth 10%, Survival 65%, Swim 5%, Throw 20%, Whalecraft 85%.

Spells: Bend Quarry to Thy Power (Mental Suggestion), Call Forth Thy Minion of Filth (Summon/Bind Spawn of Ubbo-Sathla), Call Into Service Thy Starry Steed (Summon/Bind Byakhee), Chant de Possession (Dominate), Coeur de Chêne, Convocandi Viridi Flamma (Summon Green Flame), Doigt de Malheur (Implant Fear), Enchant the Locust Whistle (Enchant Whistle), Eucharistia Viridi, Obscurcir la Mémoire (Cloud Memory), Speak with Sea Children (Contact Deep Ones), The Omen Seal (Elder Sign), The Voorish Sign, Wave of Oblivion

Description

Captain Sleet is, in a manner of speaking, a terrible old man. Aged by the sea well beyond his sixty-one years, he appears cracked and grizzled, his right eye bulging from its socket, his left eye keenly alert. Some Kingsport locals claim his “pop-eye” can see in the dark, while others believe it has the powers of prophecy and “ghost sight.” He’s perpetually smoking a foul Indian weed from a meërschaum pipe carved in the likeness of an octopus. Although everyone agrees its brownish vapor is loathsome, nobody seems capable of quite describing the odor; only that it evokes some distant yet unpleasant memory. While the captain is certainly unsightly, worse than his appearance is an innate sense of foulness stamped upon his very character. Interacting with Sleet triggers a visceral response of revulsion, much the same way people react to centipedes and spiders—and yet, Sleet is years away from undergoing vermification.

History
The captain was not always this grotesque! In fact, Gideon was once a notoriously handsome man, a seafaring rake with a sweetheart in every port. The illicit son of Benjamin Sleet and Eliza Tuttle, Gideon captured the heart of his cousin Elizabeth Macy, the granddaughter of his own mother through her marriage to “Mad” Franklin Tuttle. While this dubiously-incestuous union brought Sleet deeper into the Macy-Tuttle clan, Elizabeth had inherited a touch of her grandfather’s madness, and their marriage was frequently troubled. Not only did Lizzy sink into periods of “melancholy” where she neglected her children, she sometimes claimed to have been visited by Gideon when he was miles away at sea.

Not that Gideon’s philandering helped their marriage, either. In 1825, Gideon began a decade-long affair with Judith Espírito Santo, the future Lady Jezebel. Forced to break off the relationship in 1835, a heartbroken Gideon sailed to Ponape on the Corinthian, seeking to distract himself with Covenant business. Soon after he left, Lizzy claimed she was being “seduced and tortured” by creatures that lived beneath the cellar of her luxurious West Side mansion. Her eldest son was sent to investigate. Lazarus found that his mother had dismissed the servants and had restricted her living space to a corner of the master bedroom. Unwashed and incoherent, Lizzy hadn’t emptied her chamber pot in weeks. A letter was dispatched to the Corinthian suggesting that Gideon return home. It never reached its destination. In the meantime, their daughter Asphodel moved back home to care for her deteriorating mother.

Captain Sleet returned from Ponape in 1838, but he was not the same man who’d left three years earlier. His appearance had changed beyond recognition. His luxurious black hair had become coarse and gray, his skin was cracked and seamed, and of course, there was his eye. But even worse than these physical ravages, the captain had lost his charisma, charm, and famous good humor. His personality had been cleft in twain by some mysterious trauma, and Gideon now spoke in two wildly different idioms: the gruff manner of a weathered sailor, salted with sarcasm and imprecations; and muted, Shakespearean asides directed to some imaginary observer. Strangely poetic and profound, these asides offer glimpses of the old Gideon; as if he were a castaway on some interior island, stuffing words in empty bottles and casting them adrift on his madness, distorted messages to prove he’s still alive.

Gideon took over the reins of Sleet, Baker & Blood shortly after his return from the Pacific. He refuses to discuss what happened on Ponape, even to the Elders of the Covenant. Nor does the crew of the Corinthian have anything to contribute. The captain left one fine morning, and six weeks later he returned aged and broken, muttering something about “Yolara” and “Khalk’ru.”

Elizabeth refused to live with Gideon after his return, and the captain took up residence in his old Harborside office. In 1841 Elizabeth Sleet hanged herself from the dolmens of La Petit Catioroc. She was wearing only her nightdress. The pale blue satin showed no signs of the difficult climb up Kingsport Head, and her naked feet were unblemished. Although Captain Sleet was six hundred miles away in Richmond, some claimed to have smelled the odor of his pipe in Lizzy’s bedchamber.

The Role of Gideon Sleet

Gideon Sleet is the head of Sleet, Baker & Blood, the firm that owns and operates the Quiddity. He is the highest-ranking member of the Kingsport Cult the player characters are likely to encounter in Chapter 1. Although Jacob Macy is in charge of the Covenant’s “public relations,” Macy takes no action before clearing it with Sleet. While an actual confrontation with Captain Sleet is not part of the scenario, he should come across as a sinister presence, lurking behind the scenes and intimately connected to every strange event in Kingsport. The Keeper should play up Gideon’s bizarre personality and tragic fate, ensuring that the player characters receive glimpses into the rakish sea captain who romanced Lady Jezebel.

Encountering Sleet
The player characters are most likely to meet Captain Sleet on the deck of the Quiddity when they sign the articles (Encounter 11), or if they visit the office of Sleet, Baker & Blood (Encounter 26). However, Sleet is mentioned numerous times throughout Chapter 1: his relationship with Lady Jezebel (Encounter 5), his visits to St. Erasmus (Encounter 8), the smell of his pipe in the Congregational Church (Encounter 23), his calling card at Professor Riddle’s (Encounter 27), and his role in the Kingsport Freemasons (Encounter 30).

Notes & Inspirations for Gideon Sleet

If White Leviathan were a movie, Gideon Sleet might be played by Marty Feldman trading the comedic for the sinister. Of course, there’s a little bit of Popeye in Gideon; but not the cheerful cartoon character—Gideon is more like the “real life” Popeye created by special-effects artist Rick Baker, who famously sculpted the sailor as a leering ogre. Whatever happened to Gideon on Ponape is best kept a mystery, but interested Keepers may look to Abraham Merritt’s The Moon Pool for inspiration.

White Leviathan > NPC Profiles
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 8 March 2024
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]