Lovecraft Country ZIP and Area Codes
Notes for handouts and prop documents
Four fictional towns of "Lovecraft Country" -- Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport -- are set within Essex County in northeastern Massachusetts, an area also including both Salem and Danvers (the former "Salem Village") among its real locations.
For scenarios set in the 1920s and -30s, the street address and town and state are sufficient for letterheads and other props. Any address supposedly written in or after the 1960s would gain some credibility from adding a plausible ZIP code.
Salem, Danvers, and other real towns in Essex County have ZIP codes beginning with the prefix 019. Within that area, however, ZIP codes aren't assigned in geographical sequence. A major urban center, Lynn, has the central Post Office, which is what got it the first block of codes; after which the original set of codes was assigned in alphabetic sequence.
So Danvers has ZIP 01923, Peabody 01960, Salem 01970-01971, rather than their numbers being all clumped together; Wenham 01984 and West Newbury 01985 close out the 019- sequence.
Here's an excerpt from the ZIP code list in numeric order (source):There's a gap in the numbers between Amesbury 01913 and Beverly 01915 -- in the real world 01914 was not assigned -- and Arkham perfectly fits that gap in alphabetic sequence.
- 01910 LYNN
01913 AMESBURY
01915 BEVERLY
01921 BOXFORD
01922 BYFIELD
01923 DANVERS
01929 ESSEX
01930 GLOUCESTER
01931 GLOUCESTER
01936 HAMILTON
01937 HATHORNE
01938 IPSWICH
01940 LYNNFIELD
01944 MANCHESTER
01945 MARBLEHEAD
01949 MIDDLETON
There's a gap making 01924-01928 available, too, befitting a town whose name begins with D or E... like "Dunwich"... which would probably get assigned mid-range 01926 because its alphabetization would be halfway between Danvers and Essex; this leaves room for Da-Du preceding, and Dw-Es following, should further towns get post offices and need ZIP codes.
What amazing luck that gaps are open for those two HPL towns. There's no gap for Innsmouth (between Hathorne & Ipswich), so the closest number available would be 01939, out of sequence.
However, Kingsport would fit in at 01939 perfectly, and is much more likely to have a functioning post office than poor Innsmouth, simply because Innsmouth's people have fewer land-dwelling kin.
On the "Lovecraft Country" map, Innsmouth is down the road from Ipswich, so quite possibly they get their mail via that (real) town's post office.
That's three out of four HPL towns with plausible ZIP Codes, and a plausible reason for the fourth to share Ipswich's ZIP.
So from the 1960s onward, their addresses should conclude:The same logic would apply to any other towns created within Lovecraft Country, such as, say, "Martin's Beach MA 01946".
- Arkham MA 01914
Dunwich MA 01926
Kingsport MA 01939
Innsmouth MA 01938
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Another piece of "mere corroborative detail intended to lend an air of artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative" would be telephone numbers on letterheads, business cards, and everywhere else we're already used to seeing them.
For Lovecraft Country, the area code would likely be 978, used by Salem, Danvers, Lynn, Essex, Peabody, and Gloucester. (An alternative: area code 351, which overlies the same area.)
Telephone exchange prefixes would originally have had mnemonic words, typically the first two letters becoming the first two numbers of the dialed local number (ARkham 1-xxxx = 271-xxxx). If not the town name, some other local landmark might provide the mnemonic (MIskatonic 1-xxxx, 641-xxxx). Numeric prefixes may conceal a highly suspicious mnemonic: (978) 320-xxxx looks innocent enough, but what if the original prefix was "DAgon 0"?
Here some care is needed to avoid using an actual exchange prefix and thus possibly an actual phone number, so that a non-player won't get disturbing calls during a game. For instance, the 978 area has actual exchange prefixes 270 and 272 through 279; but 271 (ARkham 1) is unassigned, thus it is available for gaming.
Likewise, 641 (MIskatonic 1) is unassigned and available, as are 643 and 644; but other 64x prefixes in area 978 should not be used.
All 38x (DUnwich x), 46x (INnsmouth x), and 54x (KIngsport x) prefixes are assigned and should not be used. As Dunwich and Kingsport are near Arkham, they may use ARkham or MIskatonic (*); and Innsmouth always has DAgon.
A Google search, such as for "978-271" or "981-275", will usually reveal actual use. Specialty phone service websites can also help, e.g. http://phoneinfosite.com/978-271 (vary the last three digits).
These telephone prefixes remain unassigned as of February 2008:However, nothing stops the phone company from assigning these prefixes at any time, so any list is perishable information.
- ARkham 1: (978) 271-xxxx
DAgon 0: (978) 320-xxxx
MIskatonic 1,3,4: (978) 641-xxxx, 643-xxxx, 644-xxxx
If you wish a permanently unassigned number, try (978) 555-xxxx, the old standby of movies and television, though "555" is known widely enough to hinder the suspension of disbelief for some.
Unless you want to get a real (forwarded?) number for the game. Or just make sure your players know not to call the numbers on your props, and make sure the props don't get scattered into the real world after the game is over. Or don't use phone numbers.
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(*) Afterthought, added March 16, 2008: While attributing unassigned exchanges to fictional towns has no objective basis to override personal preferences, adopting a scheme for shared use and thus an appearance of consistency would add to the convincing effect. I suggest that Arkham, as the largest town, should have all the AR1 exchanges, plus MI3; Dunwich, up the Miskatonic, should have MI1; and Kingsport, near the mouth of the Miskatonic, should have MI4. The MI numbers then follow the flow of the river, and are spaced out roughly as the distance of the towns, Kingsport being closer to Arkham than is Dunwich.
Early on, when the idea of more than 100 phones on campus was unthinkable, Miskatonic University got all its numbers in one block, the AR1-2300s: main university number AR1-2300, admin AR1-2301, dean of students AR1-2305, the various departments and professors' offices, etc., approximately in sequence of a table of organization. Long after the 2300s (and all the AR1 exchange) filled up, the campus kept adding population and phones, so that later, less central phones (dorm rooms, pay phones, junior instructors and other lower staff) needed numbers from the MI3 exchange. Eventually there developed a hint of "pecking order" in whose telephone number had which exchange, and some minor politicking to get an AR1-23xx number when the previous holder retired or died or a department closed.
The logical solution was for MU to get a bigger block of numbers and reassign them to everyone. MU finally took this logical step in 1961, the same year Harvard changed its diplomas from Latin to English, and against just as much resistance, because no-one wanted to give up his prestigious AR1-23xx phone number. But MU's president overrode the infighting, and since then the MU phone numbers are MI3-5000s (978-643-5xxx), all the original MU numbers keeping their last two digits (dean of students 5005, etc). As you might guess, status still adheres to 50xx numbers. Not that academics are ever petty, mind you.
Yes, Illuminatus! fans, "23" and "5" were deliberate.
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Originally Posted by Iohannes
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