Quakaloo

And this tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg—“Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!”

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 110

Quakaloo (Quiddity Harpooneer)

Statistics
Age: 24, Nationality: Vokoan, Birthplace: Kokovoko 1820.

*You have an Appearance of 20 in the “civilized” world, but among cultures valuing scarification, your Appearance is 75.

Combat

Skills
Anthropology 10%, Archeology 10%, Art/Craft (Blacksmith) 20%, Art/Craft (Carpentry) 5%, Art/Craft (Cooperage) 10%, Art/Craft (Dancing) 50%, Art/Craft (Sketching) 60%, Art/Craft (Tattooing) 55%, Charm 15%, Climb 65%, Credit Rating 5%, Cthulhu Mythos 5%, Disguise 5%, Fast Talk 10%, First Aid 30%, History 20%, Hypnosis 1%, Intimidate 80%, Jump 65%, Law 5%, Leadership 25%, Library Use 1%, Listen 50%, Locksmith 5%, Mechanical Repair 25%, Medicine 20%, Natural World 60%, Navigate 50%, Occult 20%, Operate Heavy Machinery 10%, Persuade 15%, Pilot (Boat) 65%, Psychology 10%, Read Lips 1%, Religion 40%, Renown 5%, Ride 5%, Science (Astronomy) 25%, Science (Botany) 20%, Science (Meteorology) 20%, Science (Pharmacy) 20%, Seamanship 70%, Sea Lore 20%, Sleight of Hand 15%, Spot Hidden 80%, Stealth 25%, Survival 75%, Swim 75%, Throw 70%, Track 55%, Whalecraft 60%.

Note: Some of Quakaloo’s base scores are lower than standard, reflecting his island origins. Other scores such as Accounting and Appraise are zero. These deductions have been compensated with increased scores in other areas.

Languages: Vokoan native; Polynesian Pidgin 50%, English 30%.

Spells: Bond with Blood Brother, Cast Out Evil Spirits, Call Upon Ancestors, Spiral of Protection, Talk to Birds, Throw of the Seventh Suitor. (See “Pacific Shamanism” for details.)

Description

You are a fearsome sight to Christian eyes: a six-foot tall Islander, your muscular body is covered with scars, tattoos, and piercings, and your head is shaved except for a long top-knot, usually bound by rings of dyed sharkskin. Although you prefer to go naked, you have answered the white man’s need for clothing by sardonically adopting tattered formalwear—a rugged pair of striped trousers, a large frock coat, and a rumpled top hat are your shore-togs. You are rarely seen without your magic harpoon, a two-flued iron you inherited from your blood brother, Robert Thompson. On you first journey aboard a Yankee whaler you earned the nickname “Quack,” and upon setting foot in New Bedford and first seeing a duck, you laughed with delight. You have come to see ducks as charmed, totem animals—you will not eat the flesh or eggs of a duck, and you have added a scrimshaw duck to your spirit-bag.

History
You are a native of the Vokoan Islands, a small chain of four volcanic islands east of Fiji. Kokovoko, the largest island, supports a vast jungle; neighboring Rokovoko is rocky and surrounded by lagoons; Tikovoko is volcanically active, jagged and uninhabitable; and distant Nukavoko is narrow and swampy, its misty shores inhabited by an evil tribe accustomed to warring on their neighbors.

Initiation in Kokovoko
Born on verdant Kokovoko to a local chieftain and his only wife, you were given the name Quakapei, or “Restless Star,” named for the blazing meteor that fell from the heavens as you howled your jubilant birth-cry. You learned how to hunt from the time you were a child, dwelling in the inland jungles with the majority of your people. But even then, you were more attracted to the sea and its marvelous creatures. Your mother was from wave-charmed Rokovoko, an island of fishermen and whale hunters, and you never tired of her stories. You were a unique child, and while no one questioned your physical prowess, you had a dreamy and philosophical side that mystified your family.

At the age of twelve, a wandering shaman selected you for a year of special instruction. Retreating to a mountain caldera in the heart of the jungle, the shaman initiated you into the mysteries of the Vokoan cosmos, teaching you how to cast out evil spirits, command the birds, and protect yourself from enemies. This is where you received your remarkable tattoos, a mystical text spiraled into your flesh by the bone needles and stone mallets of the old man. Although he refused to reveal their secret meanings, he indicated that you were now “a leaf on the Tree of Fate.” The shaman taught you that the spirits, demons, and gods of the Islands were just masks worn by a single being he called the Puzzle Maker. It was the role of a shaman to solve these puzzles, and not to feel frustration by their complexities, but rather delight—after all, there were an infinite number of puzzles! You asked the old man if he was just another “mask,” and it was the first time you heard him laugh.

After 360 days in the jungle, you woke to find yourself alone, the shaman’s tattooing kit by your side. You were surrounded by a spiral made from thousands of rocks, with you at the center. You never saw the shaman again.

Life in Rokovoko
Although you were proud to have been selected for initiation, you had little desire to replace the shaman—your blood sang with the sea, and your heart beat with the tide. Upon returning to your parents, you asked your father if you could live with your mother’s family, fishing off the reefs of Rokovoko. Impressed by your new maturity and presence of mind, your father proudly declared you a man, and bade you farewell in a ceremony that brought joy to the entire village. As a parting gift, your father gave you a small, pockmarked stone. It was the very “restless star” that marked your birth, retrieved from Tikovoko the following morning and saved in anticipation of this very day. Smiling, your father pronounced your adult name: Quakaloo, or “Restless Shaman.”

Rokovoko was everything you were hoping for. You felt completely at home with your kindly uncle, who learned to value your strong arm and keen eye. You enjoyed fishing with baskets and nets; but your true passion was hunting for sharks and whales—you relished the fight! You were also fascinated by the “Yankees” that occasionally visited Rokovoko, a motley collection of whale-fishers who lived on great wooden boats. Some were as pale as clamshells, others as dark as obsidian, and they spoke a variety of inscrutable languages. When you were 16 years old, one of these visitors fell in with Piriloo, your uncle’s youngest daughter. A black man named “Robert Thompson,” when he saw your skill with a spear, he presented you with a marvelous gift—his iron harpoon! You were overjoyed when Robert Thompson decided to remain behind on Rokovoko.

You helped Robert Thompson speak Vokoan, and he reciprocated with lessons in English. He also taught you the Yankee’s customs, politics, and religion. You were especially intrigued by their Invisible White God. A woodcarver who became a great shaman, he was harpooned to the cross-trees of a ship named Cavalry, and was resurrected from the dead by his magical mother! You and Robert Thompson became inseparable. You became blood brothers during a tribal ritual, and he asked you to be the “godfather” of his unborn child, responsible for the child’s spiritual upbringing. It seemed you were destined to be a shaman after all.

War with Nukavoko
But Robert Thompson would not live to meet his son. Three months after the blood-brother ceremony, your tribe was attacked by a raiding party of Nukavokoan warriors, and Robert Thompson was murdered on the obsidian point of a heart-spear. But despite suffering tragic losses, your people emerged victorious. That night you feasted upon the flesh of your enemies, and attended a ceremony where the captured Nukavokoan shaman was burned alive, crying in vain to his indifferent octopus god. Commending the body of Robert Thompson to his Invisible White God, you severed his right hand for your memorial feast and lopped off his penis for Piriloo, then placed your brother’s corpse in a funeral canoe and floated it out to sea. You watched it vanish over the horizon, but whether to the Starry Archipelago at the End of the World, or to the Yankee’s cloudy Heaven, you couldn’t say. Swearing to raise Robert Thompson’s child as your own, you returned to your new family. Six months later, Piriloo died during the birthing ritual. Her infant son cried once, then joined his parents.

You were shocked—weren’t you the child’s godfather? How could this have happened? Was this your fault? Was the Invisible White God angry? Had you offended him? Did you fail your blood brother?

After a week of fasting and meditation, you knew what you had to do. You would find this Invisible White God, and you would demand an explanation for his terrible behavior. Four months later, a Yankee whaling ship dropped anchor off your coast, and you presented yourself to its chief, or “captain.” After skewering a shark with just one toss of Robert Thompson’s harpoon, you were enrolled as a harpooneer onboard the Michael Glavin.

Enlightenment at Sea
You enjoyed your first voyage on the Michael Glavin, and when the ship docked in New Bedford, the captain encouraged you to return, calling you a “damn fine harpooneer.” The Yankee village was amazing—you will never forget hearing your first church bell—but village Yankees were less friendly than boat Yankees, and you couldn’t figure out what most people were actually doing. You attempted to speak to the Invisible White God at several of his houses, but he remained invisible. When your presence didn’t frighten his worshippers, they gave you unsatisfactory answers. When the Michael Glavin sailed again, so did you.

About a year ago, you began having what the shaman called “waking dreams.” It started when you gazed into the clouds and saw a white ship. Although even children enjoyed such sport, this was different; you weren’t seeing with your eyes, but with your heart. You began “seeing” such images more frequently, like the world was revealing her secret tattoos. One morning a flock of birds rose in the sky like the towering cliffs of a dark island; another time you saw the silhouette of a Yankee village shadowed in the rainfall. You began seeing a mermaid, too—frolicking in the seafoam, lounging in the clouds, shimmering from the stars. Then, upon sinking Robert Thompson’s harpoon into the flesh of a sperm whale, you finally understood. The whale’s black skin exploded to life, its markings a blazing tattoo inscribed across its body, just like you, and you understood. Everything was a mask; the whale, the waves, the sky, the stars, the shaman, even you. Maybe even the Puzzle Maker and the Invisible White God. You trembled on the brink of a revelation, but it slipped away, leaving you breathless and alone. The waking dreams came no more.

As the Michael Glavin approached New Bedford three years after its departure, you eagerly compared the profile of the village with the silhouette you saw in the rain, but as you expected, it was completely different. Suddenly inspired, you used Robert Thompson’s harpoon to etch your dream-village into a plank—its crescent-shaped harbor, its imposing promontory, and its tall hill, crowned with the house of the Invisible White God. One of the sailors laughed, “That’s Kingsport, Quack!” Your heart leapt with joy—Kingsport was Robert Thompson’s home town. Of course! How could you have been so stupid?

Quakaloo and the Quiddity
The Yankees of New Bedford did not have kind things to say about Kingsport. It was a “strange” and “haunted” town, its history full of witches—apparently, evil shamans not unlike the Nukavokoans. Undaunted, you continued asking about Kingsport’s whaling ships. Were any named after mermaids? You found your answer in the Spouter Inn, where a sailor told you about the Quiddity, a Kingsport whaler with a mermaid for a figurehead. Not only that, the Quiddity was currently in port, fitting-out for a November 1 departure!

And so, following your waking dreams, you booked passage on the Getty Lee, a packet ship bound for this haunted village you saw in the rain. There you will board a ship guided by a painted mermaid, and she will carry you along the next twist of your Spiral Path.

Roleplaying Quakaloo

You are a strong warrior and a holy terror of a whale hunter; but that is simply your place in the universe and nothing more. The Puzzle Maker put whales in the ocean for you to harpoon, and in defeating the creatures, you master your own soul—as the shaman often said, the inside world and the outside world are but reflections, forever gazing into the other. Despite your fearsome appearance, you are a kind-hearted fellow, with an open mind and a curious desire to learn all you can about the world and its strange inhabitants. You’re also a good man, with a sound moral compass and an innate sense of right and wrong. And despite what the Christians say, the Invisible White God won’t take offense at an any worship you occasionally direct to your old gods, who first taught you how to honor and respect the world. As for the Yankee taboo against cannibalism? That’s the funniest joke of all! The first time you saw a Communion service, you laughed so hard they kicked you out.

Your philosophical worldview embraces magic, religion, and natural philosophy as one and the same. There are many ways to solve puzzles, and the Yankees are not as omniscient as they believe. The shaman taught you a few solutions of your own—what the Yankees call “spells”—but you rarely use them in public, knowing that “pagan magic” upsets the delicate Yankee mentality. This is another thing that makes little sense, as these solutions are just the product of knowing the world, like using the stars to navigate, constructing a Yankee steam engine, or predicting when the weather will change. Still, your people have their own superstitions, and sometimes you wonder if some of your sacred rituals are not as pointless and silly as their Yankee counterparts.

Forming Relationships
Slow to anger but quick to make friends, you bond to certain people with an almost frightening intensity, and you would gladly die for any man you’ve welcomed as a blood-brother. Although it takes a lot to make you lose your temper, when you’ve decided that a person is no longer worth your attention, you simply pretend he doesn’t exist. However, if such a person proves dangerous to you or your companions, you would kill him with no more thought than swatting a fly. You know that the Invisible White God supposedly frowns upon killing, but you secretly believe he’s become a bit confused by his followers, who butcher each other frequently and with great pleasure. However, if one’s actions are carried out purely and correctly, there’s little reason to consider them “sinful.”

Goals
A spiritual seeker, your goal is to keep wandering the Spiral Path, which will eventually lead to a better understanding of your place on the Tree of Fate. If you had a richer English vocabulary, you might use the word “enlightenment.” Nevertheless, six years after leaving your islands, you are no closer to meeting this Invisible White God than when you began—although you’ve certainly learned more about the strange ways of his people! You suspect that the Invisible White God is just the Yankee version of the Puzzle Maker. The idea of one supreme God makes sense to you, but this doesn’t mean that you always agree with Christians! Indeed, Yankees seems as prone to hypocrisy, deceitfulness, and contradiction as your own people; and worse, they find an awful lot of pleasurable activities “sinful.” They are also insufferably arrogant, especially the white Yankees. Nevertheless, you are convinced that if you persevere, you will one day meet this one supreme God face to face, and demand an answer to why the universe is so willfully perplexing. Or at least, maybe he’ll let you in on the joke!

Mythos Knowledge
You have little Mythos knowledge. You know the Nukavokoans worship an octopus god called Kith-Vloo’a, and reportedly use “green fire magic.” Although you’ve never seen such magic, you have an innate fear and loathing of the Nukavokoans and their slippery god. Even if exposed to the full horror of the Mythos, you may fare better than your companions, being accustomed to a universe segregated into conflicting deities. However, you see such entities as masks for some higher power, and you believe that power is essentially good. The notion that there is no higher spiritual goodness in the universe is something you will not face until your Sanity is zero. And even then, you would rather end your life with dignity than embrace an indifferent and meaningless cosmos. Or so you think…

Possessions
Your sea-chest is garishly painted in the tradition of Vokoan ceremonial masks, costumes, and home décor. Inside is the sailor’s usual hodgepodge, along with a set of tattooing equipment: sharp bone combs, ink, and a mallet. Your two most precious possessions are your spirit-bag and magic harpoon. The spirit-bag contains rocks and soil from the Vokoan Islands, the meteorite that marked your birth, a finger bone from Robert Thompson’s right hand, a good luck charm composed of a fragment of your placenta tucked into a whalebone talisman, a scrimshaw duck, and an obsidian figure of your family’s ancestral spirit, Vojo-No, who modestly demands burnt offerings every full moon and a five consecutive days of fasting at the end of the year. You take great care of Robert Thompson’s harpoon, and you only use it on special occasions—after all, it’s a miracle it hasn’t been carried away by a whale, and you don’t want to tempt fate or drain its magic! You begin the scenario with $40 in coins, the remaining pay from your voyage on the Michael Glavin.

Notes & Inspirations for Quakaloo

Obviously, Quakaloo is inspired by Queequeg from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Although Queequeg is one of the most studied and critiqued characters in American literature, the best inspiration for roleplaying Quakaloo is to read Moby-Dick. Additional inspiration may be found in Melville’s Polynesian adventure novels Typee and Omoo. Tim Severin’s In Search of Moby Dick sheds some light on the South Pacific islands, their natives, and the historical basis for Melville’s “pagans and cannibals.” There have been numerous cinematic depictions of Queequeg, beginning with Sam Baker’s “African” Queequeg from the 1926 silent film, The Sea Beast. The most famous portrayal is Friedrich von Ledebur’s “noble savage” from John Huston’s 1956 Moby Dick, while the most “authentic” interpretation is probably Piripi Waretini from the 1998 miniseries Moby Dick, who plays Queequeg as a spirited Maori. And, well…Moana has some really good songs!

Player Creativity

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.
—Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick,” Chapter 12

Of all the player characters, Quakaloo offers the most creative opportunities for invention. The Vokoan Islands are fictional, so all manner of rituals, customs, and superstitions may be devised for Quakaloo. A resourceful player may expand Vokoan history, profile Quakaloo’s extended family, or detail his specific tattoos. The player is encouraged to research historical Polynesian cultures for ideas, and to avoid falling into the trap of portraying Quakaloo as either “wild cannibal” or “noble savage.” Like every player character in White Leviathan, Quakaloo is a complex and conflicted human being.

Special Thanks
Special thanks to Michael Glavin, who played Quakaloo during my own run-through of White Leviathan. Michael’s Quakaloo was larger than life, a cheerful paladin willing to lend his hand to anyone in need. This allowed him to survive until the very end, when he casually decided that only he himself was worthy of becoming Supplicant, defeating the Kingsport Cult and several other players to actually “win” the game! To honor this achievement, I renamed Quakaloo’s first ship in Michael’s honor. To be honest, I was rooting for Lowell.

Opening Moves

Materials
Quakaloo begins the game with two handouts: “Period & Setting 1844-1846” and “Main Glossary.” The player should be given descriptions of Quakaloo’s spells. At the Keeper’s discretion, the player may be provided with additional material about sailing ships, whaling, and nautical customs.

Starting Position
Boarding the packet ship Getty Lee in New Bedford, Quakaloo sails into Kingsport Harbor just before noon on Sunday, October 27, 1844.

Adventure Hooks
The following scenarios provide engaging ways for Quakaloo to begin the adventure in Kingsport. Some represent obligations, while others are optional. The player may wish to discuss them with the Keeper before gameplay begins.

Find Lodgings
You like strong drink, and you enjoy the company of fellow sailors. A harpooneer in New Bedford told you to visit the Knotted Iron, a tavern in Kingsport frequented by whalers, and one that offers cheap accommodations. You’ve also heard about a sailor’s flophouse near the docks called King Timmy’s Hotel. 

Sign the Articles of the Quiddity
You know it’s rare for a whaling ship to sign a harpooneer this close to departure—surely the Quiddity already has a full complement of boatsteerers? But your waking dreams guided you here, and you trust the Spiral Path. Nevertheless, as Ivan the blacksmith used to say, “Trust but verify”—one of the more intelligent sayings you’ve heard from the lips of a Christian. You should present yourself to the Quiddity as soon as possible, demonstrating your skill with Robert Thompson’s harpoon and signing your mark in the ship’s articles.

Obtain the Blessing of the Invisible White God
You hear there’s a blind preacher in Kingsport who preaches just to sailors. Maybe this man can offer some words of wisdom? And if this preacher’s just as confused as others, that’s all right. You enjoy hearing crows squawk.

White Leviathan > Player Character Profiles
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 16 September 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
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