Emma Wentworth

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Emma in the veil Thomas gave her in Alexandria. Original art — the campaign’s public-facing likeness for Emma.

Characteristics

Derived

Combat

Status

• [ ] Temporary Insanity
• [ ] Indefinite Insanity
• [ ] Major Wound
• [ ] Unconscious
• [ ] Dying

Personal Description: A slight, pretty young woman of seventeen with an air of curiosity that outpaces her caution. Her bearing is that of a country gentlewoman — well-mannered and direct — but her eyes carry something older, the particular watchfulness of someone who has seen things that the polite world cannot account for.

Source likeness (official Regency Cthulhu Investigator Pack pregen, Chaosium 2022, on which the character is based; see Portrait above): fair-skinned and pretty, brown hair worn up in curls, a high-waisted white Regency gown with a coloured sash, a fan and “fashionable dress in a bright colour” among her things. The official line reads: “A young and pretty white girl. Emma spends most of her attention on her appearance, although her enthusiasm often spoils the demure look she is going for.”

Traits: Brave to the point of recklessness. Theatre-obsessed despite (or because of) her phobia. Curious. Warm and direct in social encounters. Capable of remarkable composure under pressure and of extraordinary violence when cornered.

Ideology & Beliefs: Emma acts from instinct and compassion rather than ideology. She protects the people in front of her, confronts the things that frighten her, and has not yet learned to look away. Her courage is not philosophical — it is the practical courage of someone who has simply refused, each time, to stop.

Significant People: Georgiana Wentworth (sister, constant companion since Tarryford), Thomas Wyndham (British officer in love with her, maintained armed vigil after the Nightgaunt attack), Bridie Clarke (housemaid at Hawthorne Grange), Mr. Horatio Fairborn (distant cousin, provided London household at Gough Square).

Meaningful Locations: Tarryford, Wiltshire (home), Northlake Hall (the Long Corridor — first encounter with the supernatural), Drury Lane (theatre phobia origin), Palais Kinsky (Vienna residence), Thaliastraße 12 (current location, wounded).

Treasured Possessions: Aelfric Brooch (symbol of Order initiation).

• Major Wound — Knife under the arm (Session 9, August 8-9, 1814; HEALED by Session 4): Adler drove his knife up under Emma’s right arm during the struggle for the command fork at the Palais Lobkowitz. The wound is deep and serious — possibly nicking a lung. Stitched and bandaged by Dr Heinrich Voss on the morning of August 9. It reopened during the chaotic morning after the assault and was restitched, then stayed unhealed through the crossing to Egypt. By Cairo (Session 4, five-plus weeks on), it has healed naturally with time and rest rather than through further surgical treatment. Emma is no longer carrying a Major Wound.

• Phobia: Theatre (Chapter 0.5 — Drury Lane, December 1813). Acquired after the time loop, the mirror, and Jane’s death at the theatre. Triggers in theatrical settings.
• Phobia: Children (Chapter 2 — Silkweavers’ Guild, Lyon, July 1814). Acquired after the second ciimba encounter in the tunnels beneath Lyon. The first ambush on the road to the Puyrault estate planted the seed; the Silkweavers’ Guild assault crystallised it into a permanent phobia. Triggers whenever children appear in threatening contexts.

• Horrors (Chapter 0.1 — The Long Corridor, Autumn 1813). Squat, headless, fur-covered creatures with fanged mouths on their torsos, encountered during the expedition through the portal at Northlake Hall. James Bennet was consumed. Emma survived the retreat.
• Nightgaunt (Session 6 — Palais Kinsky, August 7-8, 1814). A faceless, oily-skinned, bat-winged creature drawn by the Engine’s harmonic resonance. It shattered Charlotte’s window, slashed her, then grappled Emma and began dragging her toward the window. Emma bit through the creature’s neck, tearing away flesh. Adrien killed it with a sword thrust. The creature dissolved into black goo. Thomas maintained an armed vigil outside Emma’s room for the remainder of the night.
• Harmonische Wachter (Sessions 8-9 — Palais Lobkowitz, August 8, 1814). Bronze-scaled, almost-human creatures deployed by Adler via his command tuning fork. The first dropped through the stained-glass window and killed Mikhail. A second tore a guest in half in the withdrawing room. Emma took a Major Wound from Adler’s knife during the scramble for the fork.

• Georgiana Wentworth — Sister, fellow investigator since Chapter 0.1
• Adrien de Montferrand — Viscount, party host, Order member
• Freddy Cavendish — The Honourable Frederick Cavendish, social connector
• Katherine Ward — Order operative, spy, joined Session 7
• Varrio Harrowmont — Order member, medical expert

• Sister Bond: Georgiana is her sister; they have travelled together since Tarryford
• Thomas Wyndham: Devoted, protective British officer in love with her; caught Anna mid-jump on the port-cochere; refused to leave Emma’s bedside after the knife wound
• Graf Sternberg: Austrian officer who pursued her formally; his drunken insult at the Masquerade led to a duel challenge — dawn, 10 August, pistols, Linienwallgasse. Resolved in Thomas’s favour; the thread is closed as of Vienna’s end.
• The Party: Full member since Chapter 0.1, no character changes throughout the campaign
• Aelfric Brooch: Symbol of Order initiation

Current as of Chapter 4, Session 4 (table-assistant notes; the session’s formal wrap-up has not yet been written, so some detail below is provisional).

Emma is with the party at the Auberge du Muski in Cairo, reached via Alexandria and the Nile (Rosetta → Bulaq), as of mid-September 1814. The Vienna chapter is closed: the Harmonic Engine is destroyed, the Brotherhood cell scattered, Caroline Hartley safe, and Thomas’s duel with Graf von Sternberg resolved in Thomas’s favour at dawn on 10 August. The Major Wound from Adler’s knife — reopened and restitched the morning after the assault, unhealed through the crossing to Egypt — has healed naturally over the five-plus weeks since, with time and rest rather than further treatment.

Music mania remains a live, tiered condition. It first surfaced in the Palais Kinsky dining room the morning after the Vienna assault (waltzing to phantom music, calmed only by Thomas’s singing), recurred under Stavros’s galley humming aboard La Speranza, and took her fully during the ship’s becalming south of Crete: Emma sang the funeral rite alongside Georgiana and Katherine but was lost in the music itself, singing without intent while the dead climbed the hull. Georgiana alone carried the rite to completion and laid the dead to rest. The becalming is resolved; La Speranza delivered the party to Alexandria on 9 September.

Her relationship with Thomas — sealed with a kiss on the Linienwallgasse duelling ground after his duel with Sternberg — has continued through the voyage: he gave her a Kashmiri wool shawl at Trieste, bought her a veil and a silver anklet in the Alexandria souk, and received her gift of a silver St. George medallion at Rosetta, which he now wears under his shirt as a standing habit when things turn bad. The anklet is still being held back, intended for Giza. Emma wears her own blue faience scarab, bought to match a peacock-silk gown made for her in Alexandria. Both phobias (theatre, children) remain unresolved but untriggered since Vienna.

The party’s attention has shifted fully to Calcutta: the Laya Sampradaya cult cell and the Kali Puja ritual due 25 October. A visit to the Giza pyramids is anticipated as the next stop before the journey continues overland toward Suez and on to India.

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