Emma Wentworth

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 — a mania, drawing her toward performance, never away from it. 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 mania origin — the Drury Lane phobia is Georgiana’s), 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 — confirmed by the Keeper 2026-07-16; the tick still on the paper sheet is stale.

Manias

• Mania: Theatre. Emma is drawn toward theatrical settings and performance rather than away from them. Pulls her toward the stage, the playhouse, and the spectacle.
• Mania: Music. A compulsive draw toward music and musical performance. Given that the Aeternum Choir works through music, and that the Engine and the ritual sites are all musical in nature, this mania points her directly at the campaign’s central danger.

Phobias

• 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.

Indefinite Insanity — RECOVERED

Emma was indefinitely insane from 2026-07-16 (table time) through the middle voyage. The Keeper ruled (2026-08-23) that whatever of the condition had survived the crossing was fully wiped away by the visit to the pyramids with Thomas — Giza, 18 September 1814 — the shaded chair, the silver anklet, and two evenings earlier the Eid music arriving as nothing but joy for the first time since the Long Corridor (see the Session 5 wrap-up). Sanity stands at 35 of a starting 60. The theatre and music manias and the phobia of children remain on the sheet as lasting conditions and can still surface on future Sanity losses.

• 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

She produced the brain cylinder at breakfast and found it dead, then kept Mullick busy over his ledgers while her sister went below.

Location: The Dak Bungalow on the Chitpur Road at Baranagar, the night of Thursday 13 October 1814, after fleeing Ghosh’s house (Chapter 4, Session 15) Condition: Physically uninjured; Sanity 35/60. Manias: theatre and music. Phobia: children. The burial ground’s empty infant’s coffin and a half-exhumed body were a close approach to the phobia — no check recorded in the notes Carrying: Bagh nakh (tiger claws) — worn as a hair ornament at the ball, setting a new Calcutta fashion — and a katar, bought on Iron Lane; the silver anklet with bells and charms (Thomas, at Giza); blue faience scarab; Kashmiri shawl; shawls from a Baranagar weaver’s stall, among them one woven with a tiger in the jungle and one of deep indigo; travelling kit Open threads:

• The cylinder from the Zorab sale holds a dead man. At Thursday’s breakfast every fitting was seated and the brain gave no response at all; Meg put it plainly: there was a person in it, and the person is dead. It stays at the Cavendish Compound with Freddy and Katherine while the others go upriver. One Mi-Go escaped on Wednesday night, and the creatures got the instrument case
• Dr Venn was left drugged in his own study with his notes scattered round him, and the Zorabs have been told he is to blame for Gregor’s state
• Gregor Zorab is catatonic and back with his family. She gave him first aid at the bungalow
• She used the tiger claws in a fight for the first time, against the Mi-Go on the carriage, and they drew ichor where a pistol ball and a dagger had failed
• She named the creatures for the party: Mi-Go, from Yuggoth
• The tour of Mullick’s godowns on The Strand is played. She kept Mullick busy over the ledgers: remittances on the Wentworth share were stopped two years ago “for reinvestment”, and a large sum of rupees has built up. Useful, not damning. Mullick hurried the party out when they were found on Surlish’s floor. See Absentee Account Pattern
• Pargeter’s promised letter to their father arrived Tuesday morning, unopened as far as the notes record. See Pargeter Letter to Sir Nathaniel
• Harriet Courtney named a vanished man, Harry Ord, from a family entangled with the syndicate nine years ago, and suggested checking the Chandpal Ghat registers for the others
• Learned (via Meg’s shared letter) that Lady Anne is asking after Katherine’s past employment — Katherine’s cover is no longer only Katherine’s problem
• She read Jessop’s hollowness at table with her sister when the bishop came up — still unresolved
• Alastair Glennie is smitten and uncosted. Thomas claimed her first and last dances at the ball and saw off Glennie with a muttered word; he came on the godown tour and upriver
• The Gazette search found Roy and his removed articles
• The burial ground on Circular Road holds a grim trade — bodies stolen nightly and sold to ship’s surgeons, per the old watchman Gopal Chowkidar
• Holt left without his apology
• A pale sheet lay on the water in the last mile below Baranagar, and head-sized globes rose from it, shimmering like oil, each with the suggestion of a mouth, while a low note came up through the boat’s planks. Adrien calmed the boatmen and took the boat round by the western bank. One boatman began humming the same note and kept looking back at the water
• Ghosh showed his hand at his own dinner table. He said his cult is in every rung of the government, the Company, the army and the judiciary, and that the ritual on the night of Kali opens a gate for Yog-Sothoth. His servants held the party in their chairs while four of them merged into Kaunitz and gave him back distorted and broken, Ghosh’s servant now. Ghosh showed his own arm, a tentacle with fronds from the elbow down, called the party not worth the trouble of killing, and left. The party fled to the Dak Bungalow
• Elizabeth was found staring at the middle of Ghosh’s table, white and shaking, and had to be guided out. Earlier she had shown the sisters her karambit knives and told them of her years on a quest for vengeance
• Two heavy thumps landed on the compound roof late on Thursday night, as Katherine’s palanquin came back through the gates. The cylinder is in Emma’s room in the West House Knows (exclusive): —

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

In Paris, Emma and Charlotte overheard two men whose identities they did not then know. The men were later established as Antoine Lefèvre and Luc Fouchard. Emma also persuaded Thomas Wyndham, who hoped to marry her, to abandon his intended leave in England and accompany them from Paris.

Emma and Thomas overheard Goupil discussing the secret ritual with masked guests on a balcony. Elsewhere at the soirée, Georgiana recognised the Greek myths Goupil was passing off as his own exploits. The investigators followed two masked guests in an attempt to steal their ritual tokens.

Thomas sweet-talked Victoire Lenoir while Marina tried and failed to lift her token. Emma then quarrelled with Thomas over his talking to another woman, creating a distraction so that he could try to take it himself.

• 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