NPCs

Professor Trevor Artburthnot Wyndham is a professor of anthropology and religion at the Miscatonic University. He has a B.A. in anthropology from Harvard and an M.A. in religion from Fordham University. Wyndham has had a life-long interest in pre-Columbian societies with a special focus on South America for most of his life, despite almost being killed by the Rumbaba tribesmen while exploring eastern Peru together with professor Herbert Ridgewell of the Oxford University in 1899. Following this calamitous expedition, Wyndham gained some notoriety by claiming extensive contacts between various native Amerian tribes, pharaonic Egypt and old Tibet. However, Wyndham did recant from these theories in 1906, and he proceeded to dedicate himself to more conventional fields of study. He was given tenure as a professor of anthropology in 1915, taking the chair of the late professor David St. Hubbins. Wyndham has been fundraising for the Wyndham-Jones expedition to Peru and Bolivia since 1919, and expedition was finally launched in September of 1922. Rumors have been rife about the undertakings of the expedition, but most of them seem to have emanated from envious colleagues in academia, since the expedition seems to have been quite successful.

Dr. Henry Wilbur Jones was originally a linguist, but he started working with professor Wyndham in 1908. He is nowadays a historian focused on religion, and he has translated Eduardo Mendéz-Sotomayor’s legendary Historia del paganism en el Nuevo Mundo from 1703 into both English and German. Jones is also a fairly proficient amateur boxer and an accomplished big game hunter.

Sylvia Elice Sasso has just married James E. Biron. She is a fairly well-known socialite in Boston and Arkham, although her family is originally from Marblehead up north. Her family lost most of their fortune in a spectacular legal battle with the Olmstead family of Kingsport in 1872, but the Sassos did eventually reinvent themselves as publishers of the New England Style and Manners, the first local women’s periodical dealing with items besides housekeeping, which was published for the first time in 1912. There are some rumors concerning Ms. Sasso’s patronage of certain clubs, including some supposedly unsavory stage performances, but this has been dismissed as mere slander.

James Eric Biron is actually descended from Curonian aristocracy. His family was forced to flee Imperial Russia in the mid-eighteenth century, and a branch eventually settled in Boston. The family has done quite well, and James E. Biron is a successful Boston attorney and a dedicated art collector. His collection of native folk art has been displayed in several museums and galleries over the last couple of years

Dr. Harold Charles de Winter is a former professor at Miscatonic University. He is a notorious crank, but even his foes admit that he is an outstanding scholar, especially regarding New England’s early and pre-Columbian history. He was removed from Miscatonic after a commission of inquiry found him engaged in unethical practices, and it deserves to be mentioned that professor Wyndham was the deputy chair of the commission.

William Harris George, a deceased fisherman. He has in all likelihood nothing to do with expeditions to South America, but made some great jokes about the Kraken. He was quite a character, well-known and well-liked in many New England ports.