dr ezekiel wallace
TRANSCRIPT
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8/13/2019 Dr Ezekiel Wallace
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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 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 STORYPrior 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 regarded a supposedly degenerate tribe that once lived on a nearby
island. This tribe allegedly had traffic 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
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 soon realized the similarities between the tales 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 hereattributed to the people of Innsmouth! Further
research pointed to an unholy pact between the Marsh family and something elsesomething
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 Innsmouth, 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 the later
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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 of 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, bulge-
eyed 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 mana 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 Dagonin 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.