Church of the Starry Wisdom

[OptikaNET]

In Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark" we are introduced to the "Cult of the Starry Wisdom" who own an old church in Providence Rhode Island.

I have a dim memory of this cult being featured in a scenario (featuring Sherlock Holmes) in Chaosium's "Cthulhu By Gaslight" supplement.

Does anybody know if anybody has ever featured a Church of the Starry Wisdom (either in Providence or otherwise) in any scenarios? And, if so, are there any floorplans of the church published anywhere?

Thanx.

Kind Regards
Dave

[WinstonP]

Does anybody know if anybody has ever featured a Church of the Starry Wisdom (either in Providence or otherwise) in any scenarios? And, if so, are there any floorplans of the church published anywhere?

Issue #1 of Worlds of Cthulhu has an article about the Cult: http://yog-sothoth.com/wiki/index.ph...ulhu,_Issue_01

The Keeper's Companion vol 1 also has an article about the Cult as well.

There is also a scenario in an old issue of Different Worlds... issue 34 "The Crystal of Chaos". (Checking my records, I noticed that this scenario has been revised for the forthcoming release Houses of R'lyeh... interesting)

[OptikaNET]

Thank you for the response; I don't have access to these, can you tell me what's in them please?

I'm trying to work out a floorplan of the Starry Wisdom church based on the St John Catholic Church that inspired Lovecraft, but I wondered whether anybody else had already covered the same territory?

Kind Regards
Dave

[nclarke]

Dave, I hate to tell you this but the floorplan of a Catholic church has pretty much been standardised for a few hundred years in that one Catholic (or even Anglican) church looks, inside, much like every other one apart from the decoration.

So you should be able to take the church of St John compare it to the text of the story to note any changes made by HPL and there you are.

[OptikaNET]

That's not altogether true. Firstly I'm in the UK and I assure you the layout of British Catholic Churches is different to the layout of American Catholic Churches. (The layout of the actual "furniture" is traditional but that would be removed, mostly, when the church was sold to the Starry Wisdom anyway). The St John church had three main doors indicating that there were three aisles (and therefore, presumably, four rows of box pews). Most British Churches would only have two rows of Pews and one Aisle down the centre (there may or may not be room at the outside edge of the pews to move from one set to another, but it's unlikely there's an aisle down the side as such.

There is little indication from the extant photos of the St John church that it had a lady chapel. If it had one then it doesn't seem to have been at the "crosspiece" of the cruciform layout because the outside of the building itself is not cross-shaped even if the interior layout probably is. The vestry etc seem to be series if clustered "outbuildings" at the East End of the church rather than being structurally integral to the main building itself as I would expect in a British Church. The position of the stairwells in a Catholic Church is entirely at the whim of the architect. The position of any WC's etc would similarly be at the whim of the architect - always assuming the church had interior plumbing. I don't know whether this would be the case or not for an early colonial church. Position of any internal heating furnace is also contentious - Lovecraft doesn't place it in the Cellar so it might even have been an outbuilding. In the St John Church these seem to be in small extrusions either side of the Tower and, presumably, opening into the vestibule. It's impossible to say from the outside whether the vestibule and the Nave are combined or seperate. It's similarly impossible to tell from the outside whether the Sanctuary is apiece with the Nave or seperated from it. Sanctuary seperation could be by temporary screens or by permanent, fixed ones.

Simply put; the outside of the Church is remarkable from a British perspective - we don't build churches that look like that. Ours are usually roughly-cruciform in outline and this is not, but the position of windows seems to suggest that there isn't the kind of internal partitioning that would be necessary to make the inside obviously-cruciform either. Stairs etc suggest there is a second tier to the inside but if there is then this would need to actually obstruct the windows which seems odd.

These are all details that I wondered if anybody has previously worked out, which is why I asked the question. Mr Clarke, if you really "hate to tell me" things that are incorrect then please do feel free to keep them to yourself.

Kind Regards
Dave

[nclarke]

Well Dave, you seem to have done a certain amount of investigation of the actual church in question. More so I suspect than most people and, if the usual standard of players is anything to go by, way more than anyone who is likely to be playing the scenario. The floor plans of many structures in scenarios published for CoC bear little resemblance to real-life structures of a similar nature. Plan the church for the scenario requirements and I'll be prepared to bet that no objections or complaints will accrue from such liberties with the interior structure which may have been changed anyway to accommodate variations in religious practices.

Presumably you've viewed the photographic information which shows that the building seems to be built into the hill as the sidewalk rise to second floor (US) level by the rear of the building. There appears to be an entry at this level at the right rear of the building, presumably connected by stairs to the lower level. With five windows at this level and two at the lower situated at the front of the building's right hand side that will probably give you sufficient data to determine an interior layout. Renovations occurred in 1855, 1866, 1906, and 1967 so apart from the latest such the interior may be very different from the original.

Short of having someone go round the building for you, and it may not be open due to the condition of the building, you may find that interpolation and reference to other buildings/churches designed by Greene may be you only choice.

[OptikaNET]

I cannot scout the building because it was demolished in the 1970's. I have found a number of images of differing quality/resolution but no indication of the interior layout.

I am not actually using it in a scenario - I'm building a computer model to use in a planned film adaptation of "The Haunter of the Dark", so I need extreme levels of detail, but I wondered if some enterprising scenario writer might have already covered some of this ground which could give me a head-start...

Kind Regards
Dave

[OptikaNET]

I'm researching gargoyles/grotesques at the moment, and only by the addition of tentacles could the following possibly be more Lovecraftian!!!!



Kind Regards
Dave

[wombat1]

I cannot scout the building because it was demolished in the 1970's. I have found a number of images of differing quality/resolution but no indication of the interior layout.

I am not actually using it in a scenario - I'm building a computer model to use in a planned film adaptation of "The Haunter of the Dark", so I need extreme levels of detail, but I wondered if some enterprising scenario writer might have already covered some of this ground which could give me a head-start...

Kind Regards
Dave

Are you certain it was demolished? This tells me the name was changed to the Cathedral of St. John, in 1929:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/sites/rhode.asp

And this website tells me that it was closed in Feb'y of 2012:

http://www.cathedralofstjohn.org/

You might be able to contact the Dean of the Cathedral mentioned in the website to see whether they would be interested in having access to a computer model of the building being built, and willing to help by providing lots and lots of photographs for the same.

As for photographs of the interior layout--the R.I. Historical Society or the Providence Historical Society might be sources, but also, surely, someone had a marriage or wedding photos taken at some point in the history of the thing, and given the way life is lived on the internet, posting everything, I bet there are some posted.

[OptikaNET]

Yes it was demolished. The last remaining part of it, the tower, was pulled down in the 80s thus:



There is a park called "St John's Park" now where it used to stand.

Kind Regards
Dave

[OptikaNET]

This is how it originally looked:



But I'd like to thank you for making me do that google image search to find this, as I just found an image of the East end of the building that I'd never seen before!!!

Kind Regards
Dave

Edited To Add: For those who are interested, this is the image I hadn't seen before:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/3810849130/

It's too big to do as an IMG link so I've given the URL.

[Justin F]

There was an old scenario published in 'White Dwarf' magazine based at this church. I have it somewhere. I also heard that the same scenario was being reworked for future publication - unfortunately I don't recall where I heard this.

[OptikaNET]

There was an old scenario published in 'White Dwarf' magazine based at this church. I have it somewhere. I also heard that the same scenario was being reworked for future publication - unfortunately I don't recall where I heard this.

I would be really grateful if you could give me more information on this!

Does anybody know of any sites that give details on the contents of White Dwarf? I stopped buying it when they dropped non-GW content and I don't remember seeing any Starry Wisdom material in there, but it's quite possible that I missed it since, at the time, I had yet to read Lovecraft properly!

Kind Regards
Dave

[Justin F]

I would be really grateful if you could give me more information on this!

Apologies - it was Different Worlds magazine: Issue 34, May/June 1984. The scenario is by David Gilham. It is essentially turning the location and core events of Haunter of the Dark into a simple adventure. It's not a great adventure, not much more than a small 'dungeon', but it includes a floorplan of the Free Will Church and might be developed into something more interesting.

I bought this as part of my research into a substantial scenario I started (but later abandoned as I felt it had an important flaw I couldn't resolve). I ended up doing quite a bit of reseach into the Starry Wisdom Church and found interesting ways to link them to both the Mi-Go in Vermont (fellow worshippers of the Haunter) and the Chapel of Contemplation.

The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia is a good starting place.

Hope that helps.

[OptikaNET]

Right...! That makes more sense... I've never read Different Worlds.

If anybody could send me more info on this, or point me to anywhere I might find it on the web then I'd be grateful.

Kind Regards
Dave