Havildar Pratap Singh

Personal Description: Lean and hard-muscled, with dark skin weathered by years of field service. A lush black beard frames his jaw, and his moustache is luxuriant, carefully groomed, the pride of a man who takes his appearance seriously. His uniform is immaculate. His bearing is military to the bone: straight back, steady hands, eyes that rest easily on whoever is speaking. When he smiles, which is often, it is wide and toothy, brilliant white teeth shining through the darkness of the beard. The smile is the thing people remember. He moves with the unhurried economy of a man who is never in a rush and never late.

Traits: Patient. He can wait for weeks. He anticipates needs and solves problems before they become problems, because that is how you become invisible. He speaks softly and listens carefully. He defers to authority with practised ease but never grovels. He is calm under pressure and calm under calm. The stillness is not performance. He is genuinely at peace.

None at character creation.

None at character creation.

None prior to meeting the investigators.

None. Cthulhu Mythos 0%.

Assigned to the party as guide and liaison on the compliments of the District Magistrate, Charles Ashworth, and taken up on the landing steps at Chandpal Ghat on 8 October 1814: Freddy Cavendish, Emma Wentworth, Georgiana Wentworth, Adrien de Montferrand, Katherine Ward, with Thomas Wyndham and Elizabeth Ashby travelling in company.

He put the Cavendish yard back to work and sent the bill to the Company, then went upriver and lost his footing at the pale water below Baranagar.

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: Uninjured; a bout of temporary insanity at the pale water below Baranagar, Thursday afternoon (Sanity loss not recorded) Carrying: Havildar’s uniform of the 67th Bengal Native Infantry, immaculate; tulwar; Brown Bess musket; the Magistrate’s letter of introduction (Pratap Singh Introduction Letter); two hand-written cards from Ratan; 340 sicca rupees and six gold mohurs from Dr Venn’s cash box 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
• The party gave him everything from Dr Venn’s cash box, 340 sicca rupees and six gold mohurs, for his loyalty and his silence
• A servant at the Zorab sale warned him in Hindustani that things walk on the rooftops at night, that his master’s hands went dead after the box arrived, and that there have been deaths
• He was entranced by the Mi-Go’s buzzing until Adrien stopped his ears with wax
• The compound security detail is expanding: alongside the sixteen to eighteen local youths recruited through Bennie Hanna, two seasoned sepoys are now assigned from Fort William — Ram Adhin Tiwari and Ghulam Rasul, secured from Captain Hector Dunmore at the price of a dinner invitation to meet the Wentworth sisters, still owed
• He escorted Adrien and Elizabeth into Sutanuti, hired Bennie and other youths to clear the lanes, and translated the reunion for Adrien — leaving out the killing. Left money for the family on Elizabeth’s behalf, unattributed; she came upriver with Adrien on Thursday to guide him to Chandernagore
• Ratan offered himself as an informant, with two hand-written cards, before Pratap asked him for anything. The follow-up went badly: an attempt to hire Ratan to tail Surlish’s second carriage toward the river ended with Lady Anne Pelham catching the bribe in progress, dressing him down in fluent Hindi, and threatening to report him to his commanding officer
• Watched Surlish load his wife into one carriage and send her home alone, then take a second carriage toward the river — the Surlish commission continues
• Bakar Ali and the compound believe he answers to the Magistrate. The reputation keeps the questions off him
• Lady Anne asked Katherine about her background, to her face, at the ball — the question went further at Thursday’s Committee, where she told Katherine privately that she does not believe there was ever a Captain Ward
• 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
• He put the Cavendish yard back to work on Thursday morning: a carpenter, an upholsterer and a painter on the coach, the horses seen to and replaced, and the bill sent to the East India Company. The household staff respect him for it
• A nervous young sepoy at Renwick’s works asked Pratap for a private word and a moment of his help before the party left. It has not happened yet
• 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
• 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): How Calcutta actually works. Everything said at the council of 9 October: Thursday’s visit, the overnight, the security detail, the Renwick request, and Freddy’s suggestion that Hugh evacuate his family before the 25th. The day’s breakfast assignments — Roy, the burial ground, Ashworth, Fort William — and Renwick’s recruitment to the party’s cause.

{Player-facing notes. Protected — skills never modify.}