Gregor Zorab

Overview

Gregor Zorab is Hovhannes’ son and the man running Zorab & Sons. At the sale on Wednesday 12 October 1814 he stood guard over Lot 14. In the end he was found catatonic in Josiah Venn’s study and returned to his family at the Zorab and Sons Godown.

Appearance & Manner

The son of Hovhannes, appearing grey, unslept, and unwell. He guards Lot 14 obsessively and has strange pinprick scabs on the shaved sides of his head.

Thirty-four. Grey-faced and hollow-eyed, he stationed himself beside Lot 14 and could not be persuaded to move away from it.

History

He approached Adrien de Montferrand with a haunted solemnity and asked whether a man could honorably give his life for a kinsman. He thanked Adrien quietly for the answer and walked away; as he turned, the party saw that the back of his head had been shaved on both sides and dotted with rows of small, precise scabs. Mariam Zorab told the party that he had been obsessed with their deceased cousin’s Himalayan possessions since they arrived, spending hours locked in a room with the strange device while a vibration hummed through the door.

He flees the auction with the speaking cylinder and is later found catatonic in Dr. Venn’s study with a Mi-Go needle-crown clamped to his skull, left severely brain-damaged after the device is forcibly removed.

Related

• People: Hovhannes Zorab — his father
• People: Mariam Zorab — his sister
• People: Movses Zorab — his late cousin, whose brain is in the cylinder
• People: Josiah Venn — in whose study he was found
• Places: Zorab and Sons Godown — returned to his family here
• Places: Venns Bungalow — where the needle crown was torn from his skull
• Things: Brain Cylinder Lot 14 — the cylinder he carried out of the sale

Campaign Log

• Session 13 - Sundry Fittings — guarded Lot 14 at the sale; asked Adrien whether a man could honorably give his life for a kinsman. Snatched the speaking cylinder and fled through a side door. Found slumped in a chair in Dr Venn’s study, eyes rolled back, a cage of needles clamped to the shaved skin at the base of his skull and wired to the cylinder. When Emma Wentworth knocked the cylinder off the desk, the crown was torn from his skull in a spray of blood and spinal fluid; he convulsed and went still. Emma gave first aid; he stayed catatonic and bleeding from the neck. Returned to his family at the godown, where Katherine blamed Dr Venn for his state.