Silas Grimble

And this knowledge began to pull Hollis apart, with a slow, quivering precision.
—Ray Bradbury, “The Tattooed Man”

Silas Grimble

Statistics
Age 34, Nationality: British/Portuguese, Birthplace: Macao, 1810. Call of Dagon Stage 3.

Combat

Skills
Appraise 20%, Art/Craft (Tattooing) 70%, Art/Craft (Poisoning) 55%, Climb 30%, Credit Rating 5%, Cthulhu Mythos 5%, Fast Talk 75%, First Aid 45%, Intimidate 85%, Jump 65%, Listen 55%, Locksmith 75%, Mechanical Repair 35%, Medicine 30%, Natural World 25%, Occult 15%, Persuade 10%, Pilot (Boat) 25%, Psychology 15%, Read Lips 25%, Renown 5%, Seamanship 50%, Sea Lore 15%, Science (Botany) 25%, Science (Chemistry) 15%, Science (Pharmacy) 20%, Sleight of Hand 75%, Spot Hidden 50%, Stealth 85%, Survival 50%, Swim 25%, Throw 30%.

Languages: English native, Portuguese native; Chinese Pidgin English 50%, Cantonese 20%, Mandarin 5%.

Description

A stocky bald man with shocking blue eyes, Silas Grimble was born with a deformed left hand, his fingers fused into a three-pronged “devil’s claw” he believes has a life of its own. Having been apprenticed to a master tattoo artist in China, Grimble is covered from head to foot in tattoos: curling dragons, naked Geishas, huffing demons; even a fanciful scene of Genghis Khan storming the Great Wall. His left arm sports his own creations; cruder works, but strikingly bizarre, including an imaginary alphabet Grimble devised to “describe what people are really saying.”

Ironically, it’s Grimble himself who’s difficult to understand. He speaks in a bizarre patter of his own invention, his thick British accent inflected by Cantonese rhythms and colored with Portuguese idioms. He enjoys making lewd puns and innuendoes, and often lapses into Pidgin Chinese when agitated. Grimble rarely wears a shirt, preferring loose duck trousers, leather suspenders, and a filthy beaver hat. He covers himself with a grimy quilt, and has very little modesty. For a copper, Grimble is happy to show off any of his tattoos, from the demonic “second face” on the back of his head to the naval panorama girdling his buttocks and loins: a colorful battle between British ships and Chinese pirates. (“See the junk on me trunk, wiv’ me twelve-pounder all cocked an’ loaded, sabbee amigo? Just one penny, chop chop!”) Lately Grimble’s been carrying a crude walking stick, an affectation he adopted to conceal the Malaysian blowpipe he stole from Turkey Hall. 

History
The bastard son of an English opium trader and a Portuguese laundress, Grimble was raised in a floating whorehouse in Macao. He was a curious boy with a keen mind, picking up languages quickly and ingratiating himself to the sailors and merchants through his sheer ability to hustle—Grimble could always find tobacco, opium, liquor, firecrackers, incense, pornography, aphrodisiacs, and whores; whatever the Europeans needed, especially during the long summer months when the Emperor shut down Canton.

When Grimble was eleven years old, he fell into the orbit of a Chinese tattoo artist named Lu Song, a practitioner of full-body techniques passed down from the ancient Tang Dynasty. Taking a fondness to the strange gwailou with the deformed hand, Song used the boy to practice designs intended for more noteworthy clientele, particularly smugglers, rebels, and pirates. As Grimble grew older, Song taught him how to work the needle and blend his own inks. He also showed Grimble how to make anesthetics and poisons.

Song died in 1834, and Grimble was left rudderless. He found work as a middleman between English opium traders and Chinese smugglers, but his appetite for theft and casual violence soon outweighed his value as a translator. During a night of drunken debauchery in 1838, he raped one of his mother’s friends and strangled her with his devil’s claw. Grimble dumped her body in the Pearl River and fled China on an East Indiaman. After spending four troubled years in London, he made his way to Kingsport and began running with the Kettle Black Boys, a small gang dedicated to the “revolutionary redistribution of wealth” through pickpocketing and burglary. In 1842 Grimble was assigned to rob a visiting merchant from Baltimore. When his intended victim unexpectedly propositioned Grimble, he sodomized the man and beat him half to death with a rolling pin. The fiasco attracted unwanted attention to Kettle Black Boys, and Grimble was expelled from the gang. After being denied membership to the Powderhouse Ghouls—“Too fucking unstable, mate!”—he found honest work as a painter at Water Street Signs. In 1843 Grimble was “discovered” by one of Oliver Moneypenny’s sandwich-men, and the impresario offered him a position at Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities as “The Amazing Tattooed Man from China.”

The Call of Dagon
Never exactly sane, Grimble blames his history of violence on his devil’s claw. Earlier this year his hand began tracing strange patterns on its own volition, sometimes reaching out to touch people without Grimble’s permission! After a deeply personal series of onanistic rituals, Grimble was guided to Ross Island, where he stared into the Churn until chased away at gunpoint by Thomas Elton. It didn’t matter—Silas Grimble had heard the Call.

The Role of Silas Grimble

Silas Grimble is the main antagonist of Chapter 1. A former employee of Professor Riddle’s, Grimble lives in Moneypenny’s abandoned dime museum, obsessed with completing an enchanted moonraker he believes will carry him to the Golden Altar of God. Unfortunately Grimble’s project involves kidnapping and murder, and his encounters with the player characters are sure to end in madness and mayhem. (See Chapter 1, Encounter 27 for details. Indeed, this Encounter should be read in conjunction with the material below.)

Encountering Grimble
There are two places the player characters are fated to meet Silas Grimble. The first happens early in the scenario, when Quakaloo decides to visit a tavern for food and libations. This is likely to transpire at the Knotted Iron, and is detailed in Chapter 1, Encounter 1 under the Programmed Event, “Silas Grimble Fixates on Quakaloo.” The second meeting occurs when the player characters first visit Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities and discover that Oliver Moneypenny has apparently abandoned his museum. This is detailed in Chapter 1, Encounter 27. After meeting Silas Grimble outside of the museum, the player characters will likely deduce that something unsavory has happened to Moneypenny. The only way to discover the truth is to break into the Cabinet of Curiosities.

What if Quakaloo is Not a Player Character?
Silas Grimble is fixated on tattoos, but any “script” written upon human skin may trigger his delusion: birthmarks, moles, freckles, scars, brandings, etc. If Quakaloo is not in the game, the Keeper should ensure that one of the player characters possesses some form of distinctive marking that attracts Grimble. Maybe Milton Redburn has a distinctive scar, or Leland Morgan has six fingers on each hand. Such characteristics should be assigned before the game begins, and presented as part of the character’s general appearance. It’s even better if the player comes up with the idea unprompted, and the Keeper just nods along. “Hey, can Dixon have a Navy tattoo?” “Why, sure Kelly, what a great idea! Let’s make it unusual, something fun…!” The Keeper must be careful that “reassigning” Quakaloo’s fate doesn’t interfere with another player character’s Adventure Hooks. For instance, Grimble shouldn’t kidnap Coffin the night before he’s scheduled to meet Rebecca Elton, or poison Dr. Lowell on his way to meet Bishop Butcher. For this reason, Ulysses Dixon, Milton Redburn, and Tobias Beckett are the most convenient substitutes for Quakaloo, as they have the least time-sensitive Adventure Hooks.

Grimble’s Goals
Silas Grimble has two goals regarding the player characters: To abduct Quakaloo and skin him alive, and to prevent intruders from discovering his workshop in the dime museum. Both of these goals place him in direct opposition to the player characters, to say the least! While the players may sense that Grimble is “trouble,” the madman has the upper hand—as long as he acts cautiously. He’s not one for direct confrontation, and is more likely to stalk opponents, lay traps, and strike from the shadows.

The Keeper should develop Grimble’s antagonism as organically as possible, keeping in mind Grimble’s goals and responding intelligently to the actions of the player characters. Ideally, Grimble won’t become dangerous until he’s (1) met Quakaloo, and (2) encountered the player characters outside the dime museum. However, Grimble’s overall strategy is determined by the actions of the player characters, particularly the timing of their decision to break into the Cabinet of Curiosities. There are essentially three possibilities, and the Keeper must decide which scenario works best:

Grimble Attacks Quakaloo After the Break-In
If the player characters break into Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities immediately after meeting Silas Grimble outside, he’s exposed as a murderous lunatic and his moonraker is destroyed. This makes Grimble extremely dangerous. He becomes convinced that Quakaloo’s tattoos are the only remaining hope of finding the Golden Altar. Grimble decides to hunt down Quakaloo and kill him, and possibly take revenge on his meddling associates.

Grimble Attacks Quakaloo Before the Break In
If the player characters delay breaking into the dime museum, Grimble has time to strike! He attempts to find Quakaloo in an isolated location so he can poison the harpooneer, whether by slipping Grimble’s Hammer into his drink or by shooting him with the stolen blowpipe. Quakaloo is allowed an opposed Spot Hidden roll against Grimble’s Stealth skill, modified as the Keeper deems appropriate for the situation. If Quakaloo is successful, he spots Grimble before the dose can be delivered. If he fails, he is poisoned. If Quakaloo succumbs to paralysis he’ll be dragged to the dime museum and imprisoned in the American Inferno gallery. He wakes up to find Sydney Prim feeding him gruel and rubbing “patch oil” into his flesh. In this case, the break-in may actually be restaged as a rescue!

Grimble Attacks Quakaloo During the Break-In
If the Keeper believes the timing is appropriate, Grimble may be inside the museum when the player characters break in, ready to ambush them in the Turkish Seraglio as described in Encounter 27.

Possessions
Grimble carries 2D10 dollars in coins, Oliver Moneypenny’s keyring, a sharpened razor with a scrimshaw handle, and a bizarrely-shaped scalpel pilfered from the “Dr. Sark’s Surgical Instruments” exhibit at the Cabinet of Curiosities. He carries a Malaysian blowpipe he stole from Turkey Hall. Grimble has unlimited doses of a paralytic poison he calls Grimble’s Hammer. (See “Drugs, Intoxicants, and Poisons” for its effects.)

Notes & Inspirations for Silas Grimble

If White Leviathan were a movie, Silas Grimble might be played by Stephen Graham, the actor who played Atticus in Taboo. Andy Serkis would also make a good choice, bringing that touch of pathos to his performance that made Gollum so fascinating! While Grimble is a cold-blooded murderer, he’s also insane, and should come across as a driven, wretched creature. Weirdly enough, Grimble was partly inspired by “The Gnome,” an early Pink Floyd song.

White Leviathan > NPC Profiles
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 21 November 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]