Dr. Ezekiel Wallace Dr. Wallace is pastor of the Asbury M.E. Church in Arkham. Both Brian and his parents are members of the church. Learning of Brian's plans, Wallace took pains to warn Brian about Innsmouth's churches, and it was he that arranged for Brian to board with the Gregg family of Ipswich. Wallace probably knows more about Innsmouth than anyone outside that accursed town, and he guesses even more. Wallace is a graduate of the Miskatonic Medical School, and spent time in the South Seas as a missionary. Wallace does not readily reveal r eveal what he suspects about Innsmouth. Only if the investigators reveal knowledge of the Mythos does he even hint at what he believes has taken place in that town. Suspicious, he does not at first trust the investigators. It may take extra effort on their part to gain his trust and get him to reveal what he knows. WALLACE'S STORY
Prior to the World War, Wallace spent several years as a missionary, caring to the natives' spiritual needs in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. With an amateur's interest in cultural anthropology, Wallace made a study of the local inhabitants' beliefs, myth patterns, and legends. One legend of recent origin ori gin regarded a supposedly degenerate tribe that once li ved on a nearby island. This tribe allegedly had traffic tra ffic with a race of "fish-devils" that came up out of the sea. Doleful tales were told of this tribe, of their loathsome habit of human sacrifice, and of how they themselves t hemselves slowly turned into fish, eventually taking to the sea. The neighbouring tribes, disgusted by these habits, eventually banded together to wipe out the degenerate fish-worshipers. As near as Wallace could calculate, this had occurred within the last century. Wallace was fascinated by this story, speculating that the vanished tribe suffered from some degenerative disease and were wiped out by superstitious neighbours. He even went so far as to visit the two deserted islands of the vanished Kanakas. Here, on the smaller island, he found strange carvings on oddly fashioned stone monoliths, but little else. Returning to the States Wallace W allace soon realized the similarities between the tal es of the vanished Kanakas and certain rumours whispered about Innsmouth, a small seacoast town a few miles from Arkham. A visit to the Miskatonic Exhibit Museum convinced him. The same jewellery described to him by the natives of Polynesia was on display here —attributed to the people of Innsmouth! F urther research pointed to an unholy pact between the Marsh family and something else —something perhaps not human. He has made a few visits to the town over the years, eventually learning enough to substantiate his fears. WALLACE'S EVIDENCE
Wallace has accumulated considerable information about I nnsmouth, kept under lock and key in a storeroom next to the parish library in the basement of the church. Among his holdings are several fragile, faded issues of the Innsmouth Courier, dated 1840 -46, containing numerous articles and editorials by the Courier's editor, John Lawrence. The editorials deal with mysterious disappearances taking place in and around the town, and some of o f the later
editorials name Obed Marsh and members of The Esoteric Order of Dagon as the perpetrators.
Reading these articles adds 2D6% to an investigator's Innsmouth Lore skill. Dr. Wallace also possesses the diary o f Eugene Hart, a former Innsmouth man who left home to fight in the Civil War. The diary explicitly describes Marsh and his followers' roles in several midnight journeys to Devil Reef, and of the alleged human sacrifices that were made there. The diary adds
2D4% to Innsmouth Lore and 3% to Cthulhu Mythos, at a cost of 1D4 Sanity points. Stacked against the wall are two oil portraits dating from the late 19th century. Executed in a primitive, somewhat naive style by an unknown artist, they were collected by Wallace on one of his trips to Innsmouth. One depicts a family posed in formal style, most of them sharing an odd, bulgeeyed aspect. A woman seated in a chair wears a floor-length white gown, her face is hidden behind a thick veil. Wallace believes this to be a portrait of the Marsh family including Onesipherous and other descendants of Obed Marsh. The second portrait is the most frightening. Standing before the doors of what must be a church is a hideous travesty of a man —a vaguely fish-like, frog-like anthropoid dressed in voluminous robes of sea-green and blue. On his misshapen head he wears a gold crown, or tiara, of alien design and workmanship. Most terribly, he holds in his scaly arms a small human child. Both the child's and the frog-man's head are illuminated by glowing halos, in the manner of the Renaissance artists. Viewing the second portrait adds 1D4% to Innsmouth Lore, and
costs 0/1 Sanity points. In a drawer, kept wrapped in a piece of burgundy velvet, is a rectangular, whitish-gold tablet measuring two inches by four inches, and nearly a quarter-inch thick. On one side is a primitive styled carving depicting a monstrous half-man thing with webbed hands and feet, bulging eyes, and gills; the figure is very obviously male. A few indecipherable runes are carved below the fish-man (R'lyeh glyphs). On the reverse side someone has crudely scratched the word
“Dagon” in
English.
Wallace's diaries and notes from his sojourn in the South Seas are also kept here. It takes about six
hours to read the pertinent entries. Doing so adds 5% to an investigator's Cthulhu Mythos skill, reducing Sanity by 1D6 points.
