Pacific Ocean I: El Mar de los Sueños

13) El Mar de los Sueños
Valparaíso, March 11-16, 1845

A) Galápagos Ho!
Leaving Atacames, the Quiddity cruises west towards the Galápagos Islands, where the Urania sighted Mocha Dick. Normally the voyage takes about a week, but foul weather and contrary winds work against the Quiddity, as if some invisible hand were pushing her back to the Esmeraldas for retribution.

B) Shipboard Mood
The dark clouds are not constrained to the horizon! The entire ship sails under a moody gloom, a tense atmosphere of anxiety and doubt. Those who participated in Whipple’s excursion reflect on their own involvement in the scenario, forced to reckon with their decision to confess or remain silent. Morgan is dealing with the Change, Rachel is nearing her due date, and Lowell is sailing into the heart of the Lacuna. Even the officers are unhappy. Mr. Whipple is disturbed by his loss of memory. Mr. Coffin must find a balance between his duties as second mate and his own conscience. His relationship to Whipple’s crew is certain to become even more conflicted. Mr. Pynchon is struggling to keep things on track, and Captain Joab is torn between his obsession with Mocha Dick and the impending arrival of his bastard son.

Roleplaying the Tension
The Keeper should use this time to showcase the internal struggles of the player characters. Whispered conversations, desperate journal entries, even prayers—all provide characters the opportunity to process recent events, from the Manuxet mutiny to the incident at Atacames. There’s also the Binding Oath and the Call of Dagon to navigate. The next stage of the campaign is critical—the first real Mythos elements await the characters at Albemarle Island. It’s important the Keeper give the players the space they need to develop their characters before “things get really weird.”

C) Nocturnal Precursors
The nights following Atacames bring many unpleasant dreams. While the Keeper is not obliged to visit every character with specific visions and nightmares, the incidents described for Dr. Lowell and Mr. Coffin should be roleplayed.

Beckett and Redburn
If either character was part of Whipple’s excursion, events replay themselves in a vivid phantasmagoria of booze, hash, sex, and blood. These nightmares are accompanied by intense feelings of horror and shame. Beckett may have flashbacks to his past. Such dreams should trigger Sanity rolls in both characters. If a character fails his roll, the sense that something is awaiting him in the deep Pacific becomes stronger. Almost a compulsion…

Dixon and Quakaloo
Neither character is suffering from anything too dire, unless self-inflicted. Depending on their actions so far, the Keeper may grant them some peace! If Dixon was part of Whipple’s excursion, it’s up to the player to determine his overall reaction to the situation, and the Keeper should follow his lead.

Morgan
Having just undergone a new phase of the Change while doubling Cape Horn, Morgan’s physical pain has abated, but his dreams are increasingly troubled by voices, voices under the keel, voices in the deep.

Dr. Lowell
Once again, Lowell dreams about the mysterious woman in the bathtub; but this time, they finally consummate their erotic entanglement. Lowell’s body is consumed by a relief as spiritual as it is physical. As a nocturnal orgasm floods his mind with endorphins, Lowell suddenly remembers her name: Sarah.

This revelation triggers a Sanity roll for 1/1D4. Why is the name so familiar? The Sanity loss is accompanied by an explosion of powerful images—or memories?—that overwhelm Lowell’s consciousness and carry him to oblivion.

Lowell awakens before dawn, fragments of his experiences on Albemarle bubbling to the surface of the Lacuna. There was a cave, yes… And a cave that wasn’t a cave? Arranging small rocks into constellations of meaning… And something about a kind of matter invisible to the electromagnetic spectrum? Something undetectable, but exerting gravity, holding together the webbing of the Cosmos…

A need for fresh air brings Lowell to deck. Gazing skyward in the predawn darkness, Lowell sees the Magellan Clouds, brighter than usual, almost pulsing with energy. Suddenly he realizes—they’re not nebulae at all, but—other galaxies, island universes, existing incomprehensibly far from the Milky Way…! Lowell senses someone behind him, a warm, electric presence. He smells Sarah’s hair. As he’s about to turn, she reaches out and grabs his wrists. Pain shoots up his arms, a terrible, keening pain. Lowell whirls around, but there’s nobody there. The scent of her hair is still in the air, mixed with…soap? And blood, and…something else, something foul. A rotting, vegetal odor, like water in a vase long after the flowers have died.

No matter his state of mind, Lowell finds himself enhanced by +2D4 points in Science (Astronomy) and +1D4 points in Science (Physics).

Mr. Coffin
The evening before the invunche attacks, Mr. Coffin experiences a strange vision. It occurs six bells into the night watch, at precisely 11:11 pm. The sea is tranquil, a light breeze propelling the ship gently across the glassy surface. The sky is overcast. Flashes of heat lighting illuminate the horizon. The deck is quiet and peaceful.

Suddenly Mr. Coffin sees a strange glow off the larboard stern. Moving closer to the bulwark to observe the phosphorescence, Mr. Coffin must make a Sanity roll for a 1/1D3 loss. The glow is coming from a ship—a white ship, travelling under the water! It’s illuminated by colorful lanterns hanging from the yardarms. The crew seem to be…drowned sailors, their long hair floating like tendrils. A Listen roll perceives the echo of festive music, reminiscent of Vallipo cafés, distorted by the waves. The captain stands at the bowsprit. She’s a woman, her face painted like a skull, her naked torso revealing a pair of leathery breasts. As the figure looks up through the water and meets Coffin’s eyes, he realizes the captain is not a woman at all, but a man wearing a waistcoat flayed from a woman’s chest! The sound of the captain’s laughter transforms into a peal of thunder.

At this point the spell breaks, and a light rain begins to fall. As the ripples spread across the water, the illusion shimmers and dissolves. There’s no ship—it’s just natural phosphoresce, arranged in a way that suggests the outline of a ship. The “drowned sailors” are a school of medusa, and the “captain” is a luminescent dolphin-fish swimming below the surface! The captain’s skull was the reflection of Coffin’s own face, a bizarre trick of the light. And the music—? That’s just the helmsman humming a Spanish ditty. If Coffin asks any sailors what they see, they shrug and reply, “Just the usual spangles, sir. But it’s powerful bright tonight, isn’t it?”

After his watch concludes, Coffin retires to his stateroom and dreams. He dreams about a white ship sailing upon the clouds, populated by strange, turbaned sailors. They are carrying him to somewhere, somewhere uniquely his. Coffin must make a Dreaming roll. If he fails the roll, his Dreaming skill increases +1D4 points, but he loses 1 point of Sanity. If he succeeds, he earns the increase in Dreaming without the corresponding SAN loss.

Rachel Ward
As Rachel is the primary target for el sueño del invunche, the Keeper should let her relax until she’s ready for her “dream.” As described above, this encounter occurs after Coffin has his vision of El Caleuche.

D) El Sueño del Invunche
This encounter is an extended nightmare sequence that should be roleplayed like it’s really happening. A single player character is targeted. If Rachel Ward is in the game, she’s the primary target. Forced into pregnancy by the narrative, it’s likely Rachel spent Atacames isolated on the Alcalde’s plantation, her player taking on a secondary character to “enjoy” Whipple’s excursion. This dream gives Rachel’s player a chance to shine. Also, because Rachel is the most “arcane” player character onboard the Quiddity, she’s an excellent focus for Los Caleuches. However, if Rachel Ward is not in the game, a different player character should be targeted. The Keeper should be sensitive to the mood of the encounter, selecting a character that makes narrative sense and is sure to provoke some drama. The Keeper should ignore the “Rachel-specific” elements of the scenario and devise similar situations for the targeted player. See “Other Player Characters” below for details.

Background: Los Caleuches
This encounter requires some set-up on behalf the Keeper. Soon after the Quiddity departs Valparaíso, the brujos of Los Caleuches realize they’ve been duped by the Covenant. The Codex Dagonensis is certainly a valuable document, their new copy contains several critical omissions and deliberate errors! In response, they decide to attack Pynchon magically, literally draining the information from his mind. They do this by dispatching a terrible nightmare: an apparition of the invunche, the guardian of the cave. Although the attack is entirely supernatural, while it’s occurring, the target believes it to be real. Therefore, like Coffin’s vision of El Caleuche, the character should not know the invunche is a “dream” until after the encounter has concluded.

The Indalo Charm
In order to gain a hold over Pynchon, the brujos presented him with a “charm of protection,” a silver talisman he was instructed to wear around his neck at all times. The front shows a manlike figure holding a rainbow in his outstretched arms. The back is inscribed with Spanish incantations invoking the blessings of Millalobo to bring good fortune upon the owner.

Because Pynchon assessed the charm to have no magical value, he dismissed it as superstitious nonsense. At some point between Valparaíso and this encounter, Pynchon casually passes this silver McGuffin to a player character. There’s no malice in the action, and the Keeper should play it as a moment of genuine connection. As the preferred target is Rachel Ward, perhaps he presents it to her as “a Spanish charm, something to help you during this difficult time.” Or, if Rachel and Pynchon have actually “talked shop,” maybe he asks the witch to study it herself. If the Keeper desires the invunche to visit a different character, she must devise a reason to place the trinket in that character’s possession. As Pynchon speaks no Spanish, he may give it to Redburn, Lowell, or Morgan to translate. Or Pynchon may simply lose the trinket, to be found by the desired plater character—“Hmmm, what’s this? I should probably keep it.” Being silver, it’s worth a few dollars.

E) The Visitation
As described above, this encounter is written with Rachel Ward in mind, but could happen to any player character. It occurs a few hours after Coffin has his vision of El Caleuche. Startled by the sudden peal of thunder, Rachel falls back asleep to the sound of rain on the henhouse roof.

She’s awoken by a Listen roll. A failed roll brings the uneasy sensation that something has roused her from sleep. A success hears a soft plop above, like something large and soft has landed on the roof. The rain is still falling, but a strange mist has crept under the door. There’s an eerie stillness to the ship—no voices, no bells, no footsteps on the deck, no snoring from steerage. Just the rain and the creaking of timbers. If Rachel cries out, she receives no answer. There’s a strange, dry feeling in her mouth, and her tongue feels thick. If she acquired a wetnurse in Ecuador, the nodriza is nowhere to be seen.

Rachel is free to light her lamp, the lucifers damp from the humidity. Still, the flame offers little illumination, as if the darkness were swallowing the light. She may “prepare” herself however she desires—draw her black-handled blade, cock the hammer of a pistol, cast a spell. However, the moment she tries to leave her bed, she hears sometimes outside, the soft padding of footsteps across her roof, like a man is crawling in the rain. The footsteps travel down the side of the henhouse, right to the shuttered window—which then creaks open!

El Invunche
A face is framed by the henhouse window, a horrible face, bluish and faintly glowing, its nose bent and its lips twisted in a drooling sneer. Its eyes are filled with pain—loathing and pain. It opens its mouth to reveal rows of filed teeth. A forked tongue slides from its mouth and probes the air, wriggling more than flickering. (See “Monsters—El invunche.”)

At this point Rachel must make an Extreme Power roll to resist the invunche’s Aura of Fear. (Normally a Hard Power roll is needed, but the Indalo buffs this to Extreme.) A success leaves her stunned just long enough for the Keeper to describe the creature’s entrance, then Rachel can act according to Scenario 1 below. If Rachel fails the roll, she’s completely paralyzed throughout the entire encounter, and Scenario 2 comes into play. If Rachel pushes the roll and fails, she’s paralyzed and permanently loses 1 point of Power!

The creature slithers through her window and drops to the floor. It’s the size of a boy, but something is wrong, terribly wrong—its face is turned towards Rachel, but so is its back! In a split second Rachel realizes its head has been twisted around 180°, and she’s looking at its back; grossly hairy and bent by an arching spine, each vertebrae pressing against the pale blue skin. The monster squats on a tripod of limbs, its right leg useless. No, worse than useless, the leg is bent backwards over its spine, the foot somehow fused into the skin below the shoulder. Wait, are there….stitches there? Taking obvious delight in Rachel’s terror, the invunche hops in a circle, its bobbing penis erect with excitement. A broken song chirps from its lips, the Spanish lyrics garbled by its twisted throat and tongue.

At this point the 1/1D8 Sanity roll kicks in. If Rachel fails the roll, she attempts to scream, her parched lips tearing open with a painful jolt. But the sound coming from her cottonmouth is a strangled croaking, incapable of carrying past the walls of the henhouse. The invunche mocks her, imitating her croak and skipping merrily on its disjointed limbs.

Scenario 1: Rachel Is Paralyzed
What happens next costs another Sanity roll, this for a 1/1D6 loss. The creature jumps to the ceiling directly above Rachel, clinging to the planks like a malevolent spider. Its face is only six inches away from hers, and she can smell its breath, an awful carrion odor mixed with cumin and marijuana. Choking on her own dryness, Rachel gags as a ball of congealed saliva forms deep in her parched throat. It travels up her esophagus into her mouth, then burst from her chapped lips in a thick bubble. It defies gravity, drooling upwards to feed the invunche, the creature’s forked tongue lapping it hungrily, like a cat licking cream. Rachel’s throat is a tube of searing pain, her swollen tongue a dead weight, her gums shrinking to expose the roots of her teeth. Paradoxically, she feels like she’s drowning…?

Her head erupting in a migraine, Rachel watches helplessly as the creature lowers itself onto her body, its elongated fingers fondling her pregnant belly. It makes a sudden sympathetic squeal and it places its cauliflower ear against her stomach, cooing like a bird. Then it laughs, a terrible cruel laughter, its eyes meeting hers as it whispers something in mangled Spanish, “Tu bebé…será como…yo!”

Crawling up Rachel’s body, its naked buttocks pressed against her belly, the invunche stares directly into Rachel’s eyes. Its eyes widen, and widen, and widen, and a light fills Rachel’s head, and she’s looking somewhere else. She can see a black mirror of volcanic glass, and men surrounding it, their faces painted with skulls. The men are probing deep into her mind, and the word Challanco appears, and she feels filthy, and she knows the men are upset, she’s the wrong one—and a dying scream tears from her throat as her blood vessels burst—

Scenario 2: Rachel Can Act
If Rachel resists the Aura of Fear with an Extreme Power roll, she’s allowed to act before the creature leaps to the ceiling. In this case, the invunche attacks as normal, bringing its teeth and claws into play as it tries to use its seize and parch maneuvers. The Keeper should conduct this encounter like genuine combat, allowing Rachel to attack and also receive wounds. The Keeper may dock Rachel a –1D10 penalty on her physical actions because of her pregnancy, or she may rule that adrenaline floods her system and adds a +1D10 bonus die: it’s up to the Keeper. If Rachel is overcome, incapacitated, or “killed,” the outcome is the same as described above—the invunche crawls on top of her, cradles her baby, and reads her mind. If Rachel defeats the creature, it dies with a horrible shrieking sound, which triggers the end of the nightmare and Pynchon’s arrival as described below. Defeating the creature earns Rachel +1D6 Sanity points.

Outside the Henhouse
If the battle spills from the henhouse, Rachel finds the decks covered with mist, the watch immobilized where they stand, staring into space and speaking nonsensical syllables of Spanish: “El invunche… El Challanco… Los Caleuches… El rey de los brujos lo ve todo…” The rain drips from their indifferent features, and they respond to no stimuli. The only source of light comes from the helm—a severed hand has been mounted on the ship’s compass, five thin candles burning from each finger! An Occult roll recognizes this as a Hand of Glory. If Rachel snuffs it, there’s no effect: the nightmare continues.

F) Pynchon Arrives
Whether Rachel is overcome by the invunche or defeats the creature in a fair fight, the nightmare ends with Pynchon shaking her awake in the henhouse. Rachel finds herself in bed, her mouth dry and her throat raw from screaming, but otherwise intact. Any physical injuries she suffered prove to be imaginary, but all Sanity and Power losses remain valid. There’s no trace of the creature—no mist, no eerie silence, no Hand of Glory. A few curious sailors stand behind Pynchon, worried looks on their faces.

When Is a Nightmare More Than a Nightmare?
The subsequent conversation between Pynchon and Rachel should be roleplayed, and depends on the nature of their relationship and how much trust they’ve established. If Rachel describes her nightmare, Pynchon recognizes the creature as the “invunche” from the Azabhael idol. He asks Rachel for the silver talisman and throws it into the sea—“Maybe not so lucky after all.” If Rachel remains silent about her attacker, she’s permitted a Power roll to realize the talisman was, at least partially, to blame. Unless the Quéraude and the witch have truly bonded, and Pynchon is considering bringing Rachel into the Covenant, Pynchon dismisses Rachel’s nightmare as a terrible dream, and urges her not to dwell on it further. (Even if they have discussed more arcane subjects, it’s too early for Pynchon to reveal his business with Los Caleuches and show Rachel the Azabhael!)

Tu bebé será como yo
If Rachel asks about the creature’s words—“Your baby shall be like me”—Pynchon cannot provide an answer. He only knows the invunche is a creature from Chilean myth, and has no idea how one is made. Nevertheless, the creature’s words are certainly upsetting—is Rachel’s child deformed? It’s up to the Keeper whether or not to play upon this fear, but the answer is thankfully, “No!”

Other Player Characters
If Rachel is not in the game, or the Keeper prefers a different target for the invunche, the details of the visitation should be tailored to fit the desired outcome. Because the encounter is a nightmare, the invunche may appear at any time and place, and a devious Keeper can imagine all manner of horrific scenarios! Perhaps the creature preys upon a sailor who falls asleep at the masthead, some 100 feet above the deck? Or makes its way into steerage, the Hand of Glory placed below the booby hatch? Or a somnambulant character sudden awakes in a whaleboat at sea, the Quiddity a mile away? The invunche may even crawl from the gore of a dying whale! No matter the scenario, the Keeper must keep three things in mind: (1) the nightmare plays out as a real encounter, (2) no one else may be roused, and (3) Pynchon breaks the spell.

White Leviathan, Chapter 3—Pacific Ocean I
[Back to Encounter 12, Whipple’s Excursion | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Encounter 14, The Gam with the Julia]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 30 July 2023
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]