La Speranza Draft
Description
A two-masted merchant brig, roughly 180 tons burthen. Registered in Trieste, built in Dalmatia. Oak-hulled, copper-sheathed. Ninety feet stem to stern, twenty-four feet beam. Two small swivel guns on the taffrail for Barbary corsair deterrence. A working cargo vessel: paint peeling, rigging salt-stiffened, decks scrubbed to pale grain by years of holystoning.
Layout
Quarterdeck (stern): Wheel, binnacle, captain’s skylight. The captain’s domain.
Main Deck (midships): Cargo hatches, longboat, ship’s boat, galley (open brick-iron firebox), chicken coop, water casks.
Forecastle (bow): Bowsprit, jib boom, anchor windlass. Crew quarters below in low, cramped hammock space.
Below Deck:
- Captain’s cabin (12x10 ft): Stern windows, berth, desk, chart table, books, locked cabinet.
- After cabin / saloon (15x14 ft): Fixed table, bench seats converting to sleeping platforms, six curtained alcoves for passengers, fold-down cots. The investigators, Thomas Wyndham, and Jasper Endicott share this space with no privacy.
- Cargo hold: Austrian woolens, Venetian glassware, Dalmatian wine, pig iron, and the collector’s crate.
Crew
Fourteen men.
| Role | Name | Origin | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Captain | Niccolò Zanier | Triestine, mid-50s | Twenty-five years on this route. Unflappable until the knocking starts. Speaks Italian, German, trade-Greek, Arabic. |
| Primo (First Mate) | Marko Vukovic | Dalmatian (Split), early 30s | Efficient, humourless. Cruel streak the captain keeps leashed. |
| Nostromo (Bosun) | Petar Boskovic | Ragusan, 40s | Massive hands, missing two fingers. Crew’s real authority. Superstitious (carries wooden St. Elmo). First to say “something’s down there.” |
| Cook | Stavros | Greek (Cephalonia), 60s-80s | Nearly toothless. Boils everything. Knows old sailors’ prayers, including the prayer for the drowned. Murmurs it constantly after the first night. |
| Able Seamen (10) | Luka, Ante, Drago (Dalmatian); Nikos, Giorgos, Spiros (Greek); Tomaso (Triestine); Frano, Ivo (Ragusan); Matteo (Venetian) | Mixed | Luka (16, youngest), Giorgos (knows Orthodox liturgy), Spiros (strongest swimmer), Ivo (ship’s carpenter), Matteo (carries a pistol). |
The Passenger: Jasper Endicott
British antiquarian dealer, late 40s. His crate contains pre-classical shrine artifacts from the island of Saria: stone carvings, bronze figurines, inscribed tablets depicting creatures “not fish, not octopi, not anything in Mediterranean natural history.” Script unknown. Illegally exported from Ottoman territory.
His behaviour escalates suspiciously throughout the voyage: checking “instruments” (Day 2), arguing about ventilation (Day 4), handling a tablet and murmuring in the hold (Day 7), found talking to someone in the hold alone (Day 10).
He is a smuggler, not a cultist. The misdirection works because three chapters of cult-hunting have trained the investigators to see conspiracy where there is only crime.
Notable Features
The Becalming: South of Crete, in early September 1814. The wind dies. The sea becomes a flat mirror. Stars reflected perfectly above and below. The ship is suspended between two skies.
The ship has drifted over an ancient wreck site. The dead are the source. Mediterranean folklore: the sea does not give up its dead. They knock because drowning men hammer on hulls, begging to be let in.
This is folklore horror, not Mythos horror. No Choir involvement. No conspiracy. One session, self-contained.
Thematic Function: The funeral rite solution (acknowledging the dead, speaking to their need for rest) foreshadows the counter-ritual in Calcutta. The answer is not violence. It is understanding what the dead want and speaking to it.
Connections
- Calcutta_1814 — Destination
Appearances
Relationships
- Destination Calcutta 1814 — Trieste-to-Calcutta passage via the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean