Tobias Beckett

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
—H.P. Lovecraft, “The Picture In the House”

Tobias Graham Beckett (Reporter, Quiddity Foremasthand)

Age: 26, Nationality: American, Birthplace: Arkham 1818.
Real Name: Tophet Gedney Blaine.

Statistics
Age: 26, Nationality: American, Birthplace: Kingsport 1818.

Combat

Skills
Accounting 45%, Anthropology 20%, Appraise 40%, Archeology 5%, Art/Craft (Blacksmith) 10%, Art/Craft (Carpentry) 10%, Art/Craft (Cooperage) 10%, Art/Craft (Harmonica) 40%, Art/Craft (Journalism) 65%, Art/Craft (Singing) 55%, Artillery 1%, Charm 75%, Climb 25%, Credit Rating 35%, Cthulhu Mythos 5%, Demolitions 1%, Disguise 60%, Fast Talk 65%, First Aid 30%, History 60%, Hypnosis 1%, Intimidate 20%, Jump 50%, Kingsport Cult 10%, Law 40%, Leadership 5%, Library Use 70%, Listen 65%, Locksmith 70%, Mechanical Repair 15%, Medicine 1%, Natural World 20%, Navigate 25%, Occult 35%, Operate Heavy Machinery 10%, Persuade 65%, Pilot (Boat) 10%, Psychology 65%, Read Lips 55%, Religion (Congregationalist) 65%, Renown (Tophet Blaine) 20%, Renown (Tobias Beckett) 0%, Ride 60%, Science (Astronomy) 10%, Science (Meteorology) 5%, Seamanship 40%, Sea Lore 20%, Sleight of Hand 50%, Spot Hidden 70%, Stealth 70%, Survival 20%, Swim 20%, Throw 65%, Track 25%, Whalecraft 5%.

Languages: French 55%, Latin 15%.

Description

A slim and nervous-looking young man, you have inherited the trademark Gedney hair—a tousled, unmanageable spray of dark red streaked with premature grey. You favor a goatee, and though you wear spectacles, you tend to leave them in your sea-chest, bringing them out only for reading. Your left shoulder bears a tattoo of an eagle holding a quill pen, set above the initials “T.G.B.” The product of a drunken shore leave during your first sea voyage, you have regretted it ever since.

History
Born in Arkham to Justin Blaine and Delores Gedney, you’ve been surrounded by journalists all your life. Your uncle Graham Blaine is the owner and editor of the Kingsport Chronicle, and your parents are closely associated with the Arkham Advertiser (your mother is the sister of Richard Gedney, the paper’s owner since 1832.) Raised as a devout but liberal-minded Congregationalist, you have been inculcated with a refined sense of morality and ethics, and you have inherited the staunch character needed to carry out your beliefs. Your great-grandfather was Argus Blaine, Kingsport’s Revolutionary War hero who recruited freed slaves for the Kingsport Militia. Your father and uncle are founding members of the Miskatonic Valley Anti-Slavery League. Delores Gedney Blaine has written for The Liberator, and is an active voice for women’s rights. Your family has never flinched from fighting injustice and corruption, even when it’s earned them the anger of very powerful people!

Tophet Blaine, Early Muckraker
New England is riddled with secrets, and from an early age you decided to devote your life to exposing the rot infecting the sleepy towns of Essex County. Not only did this please your family and your God, but it served your sense of adventure, which eventually propelled you to the open sea. Following rumors about an illegal “blackbirding” slave trade, you signed on the Arkham-owned merchant ship Doria, shipping out from New York in 1837. Within two years you gained enough evidence to expose the Doria’s officers and owners in the Arkham Advertiser, putting five prominent men in jail and triggering legal repercussions as far as Australia.

Following this success, you went on to expose corruption in the Bishop-Waterbury political machine of Dunwich; after which you uncovered a small but influential crime ring in Providence, making the front page of several New England newspapers. Your family could not have been prouder, but your list of enemies was growing along with your list of admirers. Still, having death threats posted to the front door of the Advertiser was a Gedney family tradition, and you didn’t disappoint in that regard, either!

The Arkham Horror
After the Providence story, you thought it best to lower the temperature for a spell. You have always been fascinated by theology, so you turned your attention to the unique religious movements emerging in western New York State, and wrote “profile pieces” on Joseph Smith Jr., William Miller, and Mother Ann Lee. Your research led you to something considerably more cultish and strange right on your doorstep, and you were soon back on the front lines. Early this year, you single-handedly uncovered a circle of demented cultists outside of Arkham, men responsible for six kidnappings and subsequent murders. Though the story returned your name to the headlines, it nearly cost your sanity—following the orders of some pagan devil named “Yog-Sothoth,” the cultists skinned the children alive, weaving their sinews into an unspeakable idol for their blasphemous worship.

The experience shattered your nerves and triggered a bout of neurasthenia, and within months after exposing the cult you became ill. After a three-week period marked by horrible nightmares and episodes of near-raving terror, your fever finally broke, leaving you mentally sound but physically exhausted. You spent your convalescence planning a new project—maybe it was time for a full-length book? You were also surprised to find yourself thinking fondly back to your time at sea. Perhaps you could combine these urges and write a book about New England’s overseas commerce; the opium trade, for instance, or even whaling? You informed your family about your plans, and soon received a Letter from Uncle Graham, inviting you to explore a matter regarding a Kingsport whaling vessel.

Beckett and the Quiddity
A return to sea! What could be more invigorating than to get back to the salt air and leave these haunted shores far behind? After a week of deliberation, you decided to accept Uncle Graham’s offer. Planning to arrive in Kingsport a month before the Quiddity set sail, you were intending to quietly research the ship and all associated personages. But as fate would have it, you were stricken by another bout of neurasthenia, confined to your bed for a full month. By the time you were healthy enough to travel, you had only a week before the Quiddity departed, not to be seen for another three years!

Perhaps it was a rash decision; perhaps it sprang less from a desire to follow a story as from simple Wanderlust—but you decided to sign the articles of the Quiddity, even if most of your research must now be carried out in the Pacific Ocean. And so after three months of mental and physical duress, feeling once again healthy, rested, and composed, you have packed your sea-chest and have set out in pursuit of the Truth—and maybe a few whales?

Roleplaying Beckett

You are an intelligent young man with an innate sense of morality and a firm belief that the universe is guided by a just and loving God. This does not mean you are a trembling parson or a weak-kneed milksop! In fact, quite the contrary. You have a passion for adventure, a confrontational if not downright combative attitude, and a desire to expose corruption wherever you see it festering. You have made some enemies, and more than a few have accused you of hungering for personal fame. And perhaps there’s some truth to this—you can be feckless, and you are prone to the grand gesture. Despite this, on the balance you are generally discreet, cautious, and fair, and would never dream of publishing a story unless you were certain it was an accurate account.

As a sailor you are eager and curious. On your previous voyage, your persistent questions earned you the nickname “Monkey”—as in, “You’re a curious little monkey, aren’t you?” You approach sailing with a cheerful enthusiasm undimmed by repetition or drudgery, and your ability to laugh and sing in the face of adversity makes you popular; as does your openness to serve as a sympathetic confidant to troubled seamen. Of course, on this voyage you are sailing under an alias, as “Tophet G. Blaine” is not a name to please the wealthy nabobs of New England! While the rough ways, casual blasphemies, and colorful profanities of the typical sailor occasionally sting your religious upbringing, you know they mean well, and you believe that God winks at seamen as he does children, drunkards, and fools. True wickedness, however—a genuine expression of the blasphemous and profane—is entirely a different matter. And during your experience with the Arkham cultists, you encountered something undeniably evil. You’ve seen children maimed and tortured; watched a woman flayed alive; and even looked into—

—No, don’t go there again. Never go there again. 

Forming Relationships
As a reporter, you attempt to establish relationships with as many people as possible. This makes you friendly and open to all comers. But genuine friendship is reserved for people most like yourself, fellow intellectuals and truth-seekers. Milton Redburn will certainly be a candidate, but so might Mr. Joseph Coffin and perhaps Dr. Montgomery Lowell.

Public Goals
You are “Tobias Beckett,” an intelligent and curious sailor happy to see the world. Making public your desire to eventually become an officer, you’ll attempt to ingratiate yourself to the mates, idlers, and boatsteerers.

Private Goals
There are too many rumors about Captain Joab and the Quiddity to be just another sea-tale. Something happened on Joab’s last voyage, something that drove the second mate insane and produced secretive “black barrels.” Whether or not it’s tied to the hoary old legend about Kingsport witches is an open question; but nevertheless it deserves investigation. And if there’s nothing to be discovered, you’ll jump ship at Maui and enjoy the scenery. In end you’ll return to Arkham, publish your book, and finally accept a steady job at one of your uncles’ newspapers. Perhaps it’s even time to start a family?

Mythos Knowledge
You have some Mythos knowledge gleaned from your experiences as a reporter in the Miskatonic Valley—but you believe little of it, attributing such tales to folk legend or pagan deviltry. You’ve heard the recent rumors associated with Innsmouth, but you consider them idle gossip made by Gloucestermen at the expense of their queerly insulated neighbors. You are familiar with the Kingsport “Witch Cult,” but believe them to be extinct, most likely a grave-robbing circle of Satanists that were justly dispersed by old Ebenezer Hall. You know that Miskatonic University has a reputation for occult studies, but you’d never dream it has actual believers among the faculty.

The one thing, however, you cannot explain is your experience with the Arkham kidnapping circle. You remain traumatized by what you witnessed; what sane person wouldn’t be scarred by such horrors? But there was something else there, wasn’t there? Something you cannot explain in writing. Of course, the cult’s fervid belief in “Yog-Sothoth” was just Satanism disguised under an Egyptian name. But if God exists, so does the devil. But God must always prevail—right?

Your deepest fear is that you are wrong; and you will do almost anything to convince yourself that your view of the universe is the correct one.

Possessions
You own a nondescript sea-chest containing well-made clothing and good weather gear, three harmonicas, a Bible, a spare pair of spectacles, several blank journals, and a goodly supply of ink and pencils. You do not smoke—quite remarkable in a sailor!—but you’ve packed ten pounds of fine Virginian tobacco for barter. Your chest contains a copy of Charles Dickens’ American Notes, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Two Admirals, George Sand’s Spiridion, and Honoré de Balzac’s Séraphîta. The latter is actually a hollowed-out phony, and contains your uncle’s letter, ten $2.50 “Liberty Head” gold coins, two vials of laudanum, and a gold pocket-watch inscribed: “To Tophet, from Mother and Father.” You begin the scenario with $50 in coins and banknotes, in addition to the $25 hidden in your sea-chest.

Notes & Inspirations for Tobias Beckett

Tobias Beckett is a traditional Lovecraftian character, an earnest reporter just asking to have his sanity blasted! Inspiration may be gathered from almost any Lovecraft story where a young man bites off more than he can chew. If White Leviathan were a movie, Beckett might be played by the early-1990’s Eric Stoltz, or Richard E. Grant as Dr. Seward from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Opening Moves

Materials
Beckett begins the game with three handouts: “Period & Setting 1844-1846,” “Main Glossary,” and “Letter from Blaine to Beckett.” At the Keeper’s discretion, the player may be provided with additional material about sailing ships, whaling, nautical customs, and Kingsport history.

Starting Position
At 9:00 am Sunday morning, October 27, Beckett board the daily coach to Kingsport. The coach is scheduled to arrive at South Hill Station at 10:00 am.

Adventure Hooks
The following scenarios provide engaging ways for Beckett 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
Under cover as “Tobias Beckett,” you cannot stay with Uncle Graham, so you’ll have to find lodgings in Kingsport. Although you could afford the Hotel Poseidon, it’s too expensive for a common sailor. If you want to be close to the rough and rowdy whalers, the Knotted Iron offers cheap rooms. If you’d prefer something more quiet, there’s the unpretentious Kingsport Hotel, a boarding house favored by officers and idlers. And if you don’t mind bedbugs, there’s always King Timmy’s Hotel, a sailor’s flophouse on Doyle Street.

Report to Uncle Graham
On October 28, you have a 4:00 pm appointment to meet Graham Blaine at the offices of the Kingsport Chronicle, located at 704 Howard Street. You are hoping he can offer you some advice, as you only have a few days to investigate on shore.

Sign the Articles of the Quiddity
You know the Quiddity is docked at the Tuttle wharves, and sometime after arriving you’ll need to sign the articles and stow your sea-chest. The sooner the better! Your uncle assures you the ship has not been fully crewed, but that could change.

Research the Quiddity
You only have a few days to research and investigate the Quiddity, and you must be discreet. The ship is owned by Sleet, Baker & Blood, and they have an office on Hawthorne Street. The Quiddity itself is being fitted-out at the Tuttle Docks. All Kingsport’s shipping records should be available at the Customs House, and Kingsport has a large public library on Howard Street. There’s also a library at the Hall Academy. Of course, you should interview Elijah Watts at St. Erasmus, and Liam Teague at Oliver Moneypenny’s dime museum. Depending on Teague’s story, you may want to investigate the Congregational Church.

Prepare for Possible Neurasthenia
You have discovered that laudanum is a good treatment for your neurasthenia. While you understand that it can be taken to excess, you’re hardly some wild-eyed Romantic poet! You have packed along enough to last for a while, but three years at sea is a long time…you may want to acquire more at the local apothecary.

White Leviathan > Player Character Profiles
[White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Joseph Coffin]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 4 October 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]