Monster Hunters by Gaslight - Whitechapel, London, Hell?

[Polydamas]

I very much enjoy these threads, but I almost certainly know less than you about both London in 1888 and the pulp fiction which is inspiring you, and like most people this season I am tired and busy. Good luck!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I very much enjoy these threads, but I almost certainly know less than you about both London in 1888 and the pulp fiction which is inspiring you, and like most people this season I am tired and busy. Good luck!

The session succeeded, although Reggie Woodsworth's storyline advanced very little (and so I still have time to detail the other guests at the villainous dinner party). We established that the company will be mixed and there are places for eight guests. The player does not know who the other six guests are, apart from himself and Atreus, the apparent leader of the army that has captured the Royal Mint and is besieging the Tower of London.

Highlights of the session were, among other things: A wilderness adventure in what was formerly Royal Mint Square and a small neat park with budding shrubberies; a surprisingly normal supper of chicken soup, shepherd's pie and cold cuts in Col. Wilkinsons's rooms; some cool ground-fighting with Technical Grappling against a chimp-ruffian; two gunfights with mysterious grey men who ride fiery trains (one of whom sported a Gatling gun steampunk mecha arm (that sadly jammed)); and succesful diplomacy and coalition-building with parties ranging from East End thugs through colonial adventurers through British soldiers and all the way up to a sentient telephone system.

The finale was a dungeon crawl into Aldgate station of the underground, where the PCs and a section of riflemen decimated waves of attacking feral ghoul creatures and destroyed a warband of spider-people abominations. Aside from presiding over highly effective volley fire in the best traditions of the service, Col. Wilkinson also bagged a savage three-headed dog the size of a huge Clydesdale with "Lil' Thumper", his 4-bore elephant rifle.

Edit: As for not knowing enough, I welcome any suggestions and ideas. A mention of a villainous sea captain over lunch just now led to my decision to develop a smuggler, slave dealer and arms runner among the villains, who will be at the dinner. I'm thinking that he'll be from the American South and have spent the two decades after the Civil War as an adventurer and smuggler in various oceans of Africa and Asia, filibuster in Cuba and South America and a thoroughgoing villain with good manners.

I need a good Southern name for him, reflecting upper class plantation origins and fortune enough to outfit a fast merchant ship, but mortgages enough to justify using it for desperately dangerous but profitable smuggling even in the Antebellum era. He'd be in his fifties now, having been a very young officer in a slaver to the Carribbean in the 1850s and a naval Captain during the Civil War.

I don't know whether to make him descended from Louisiana Creoles or (possibly pretended) Cavalier origins if he's from South Carolina, Virginia or Maryland. Suggestions?

[Icelander]

So, okay, it's been a pretty tiring workday after a pretty tiring work week and the last meeting of the day fell through, so I took a call from one of my players while still at work. Before I had regained enough consciousness to think straight, I had agreed to a gaming session, starting just after dinner, which is in less than an hour.

And I have spent most of the copious free time I had during the holiday season on all sorts of research and inspiration-work*, but naturally neglected to decide all sorts of minor details that are likely to matter in actual play. Like short descriptions or even names for the villains and the people around them.

And now I need to run Reggie Woodsworth's dinner with the leader of the villainous army. Like, just now, almost. So, here goes, these are the people that are present. I would love suggestions for how to further flesh them out or ideas about names for them.

Edit: The dinner party has run its course and during it, our boy Reggie discovered other things about the guests. I'll add some notes to reflect that.

Agreus: The commander of the villainous army. A six-foot tall and athletic man with a military bearing who wears a gunbelt with a revolver and saber, as well as a quasi-militaristic outfit remniscient of a Hussar uniform, without actually being a uniform. Agreus was encountered wearing a full-face metal mask (the eyes suggestive of a tiger's eyes) with a hinged lower part, which he removes for dining. This reveals a strong, masculine jawline, a waxed mustache and a cheek with a knife scar on it. Reggie Woodsworth figures him for a military type who has spent time in India, fancies himself an officer and a gentleman, but has origins that are lower than he'd like to admit. Edit: Like many military men of the 19th century, Agreus is an enthusiastic card player and gambler, with a sporting instinct more Georgian than Victorian.
Dr. Robert Taylor Leraux: A medical man with a university education who is peculiarily repulsive in looks and manner, without one quite being able to put a finger on why. Slight of build and dressed in decent middle-class clothing, albeit somewhat worse for wears and showing evidence of imperfectly cleaned stains in the past. Does not wear any mask, has a thin gray mustache and thinning hair, watery grey eyes and unremarkable facial features. Seems preoccupied and frequently dispaches or receives hastily scribbled written messages during the course of dinner by means of a polite servant of Indian origin who earlier appeared as Agreus' valet. Edit: Reggie makes quite a conquest of the good Doctor, who is delighted to describe his theories and experiments to a fellow man of science and rationality. Before Agreus is able to put a stop to his indiscretions, Dr. Leraux shares with Reggie the fact that he is a researcher working in the field of Dr. Gregor Mendel and 'I do not mind telling you, sir, that I have at present no peers in the field. Other scientists may understand, as Darwin did, that we are all descended from apes. Only I, however, am able to reach into the makeup of a human being, the very stuff that makes us human, what we may term the genesis material of humanity, and draw forth the inner ape!' Reggie further discovers that Dr. Leraux has been working in Jamrach's emporium down by the docks and that he has been able to draw forth inner animals from many humans, not only apes, but on occasion other animals matching their 'peculiar characteristics and animalistic natures'. He has also had success with 'fusing dead flesh with the living, adding muscles to a living man, enough to double or triple a man's strength'.
Captain James Beauregard Savage: The US seacaptain described above. A tall, heavyset man with elaborate red sideburns, the Captain dresses in an impeccable captain's uniform, on which he still wears the insignia of the Confederate Navy. Wears a naval officer's sword and carries a Colt revolver with a pearl-handled grip on his belt. As Agreus does, he doffs his belt before sitting down to dine and hangs it on a chair pulled out next to the exit from the room for that purpose. Edit: Reggie discovers him to be a vigorous drinker and a storyteller of some note, but somewhat fond of his own self as the subject of conversation. His presence at the table, despite apparent duties elsewhere, is evident in his vigorous attempts to make love to Miss Cecily Wake, a somewhat grotesque spectable in light of her status as a prisoner and her imperfectly disguised fear of the Captain.
L. Van Holt: A dapper-looking gentleman in his thirties, of a vaguely exotic appearance, with a slight almond cast to his eyes giving a clue that his ancestry is not entirely European. Neither tall nor muscular, but extremely graceful in motion and superbly toned for his height, much like a champion cricketer. His English is perfect, idomatic and educated, and he has the instinctive manners and elegant sartorial sense to which Atreus can only aspire in vain. Does not appear to wear any weapons. Edit: Reggie is surprised to note that the Eton fast bowler who scored a Century at Lords in 1875 is not Dutch, as he had believed from the name, but is a fantastically rich Eurasian from Singapore whose full name is Li Van Holt, and only the Holt name has a Dutch connection (by now two centuries old).
Mrs. Catherine 'Kathy' Bullard: A plain-spoken, red-faced and stoutly built woman, to all appearances of the hearty barmaid type in her older incarnation, but dressed in respectable middle-class clothing. Allegedly the wife of a Lieutenant Enoch Bullard, Lieutenant and Quartermaster of 1st Bn / Grenadier Guards, who appears to be one of the commanding officers of the defence. A 'guest' of the villains, who captured her on the first day. Edit: The daughter of an innkeeper in Kingston, Kathy Bullard married her soldier when he was but a private. Thirty years later, he is an officer and gentleman, but her status as a lady has not divested her of good sense or her ability, acquired over many years of tending bar, of reading the mood in a room of drinkers. She quickly apprises Reggie for a conniving rake with some ulterior motive (flirting outrageously with him in the process) and makes a snap judgment to throw her lot in with him instead of her captors. Manages to share quite a bit of information about the conditions of imprisonment for the ladies during ordinary conversation and when she hugs 'my dear libertine little lad, you must excuse my familiar ways, I'm only regretting 'twasn't you who swept me off my feet before I ever met my Enoch', as the ladies leave the men to the cigars, she manages to slip a hastily scribbled note into Reggie's pocket that describes how to reach their rooms from the dining hall and that there are only two guards outside the hallway where they are kept.
Ms. Beatrice Potter: A handsome lady in her late twenties, dressed in a respectable, but practical middle-class manner. A social reformer, socialist and rent collector in the Katherine Buildings at Cartwright Street behind the Royal Mint, captured by the villains. Edit: Initially cold toward the fashionable and fast Reggie (or Mr. Machen, as he is introduced), she is not proof against his stimulating conversation, excellent manners and disarming smile. As the meal ends, she has him calling her Beatrice, 'as it would be silly to stand on formality when everyone is getting along so well'. This may not be unconnected to Reggie's instant apprisal of her politics and strategic deployment of a few key bits of socialist rhetoric, presented in a way acceptable to society, of course, but still more than she'd expect from a dissolute writer of immoral phantasies aping the style and manners of decadent aristocracy.
Miss Cecily Wake: An etherally beautiful young girl, not yet in her twenties, in the style of the finest English Rose. Dressed in upper class clothing that has been imperfectly cleaned of what appear to be small blood stains in several places and sewed up in one place. Allegedly the betrothed of a Lt. Arthur Langford Townsend, Royal Navy, who evidently opposes the designs of the villains. Edit: While Miss Cecily Wake is clearly terrified and trying hard not to show it, she does almost forget about her predictament for a while, as Reggie flirts with her with such exquisite care and courtesy that not even the jealous Captain Savage can take offence without looking like a fool. Colours prettily as she calls Reggie 'Arthur'**, as 'it is the Name of My Own Beloved', but she hastens to add that she does not feel disloyal to her betrothed in so calling him, 'as I am sure you would be great friends'.

*I also ran two sessions for other campaigns, in addition to session eight of Monster Hunters by Gaslight. Those demanded their own preparation time. In any case, with visiting family and friends over the holidays, various traditions and a holiday-themed dinner party about every other day, movies that one needs to see every Christmas, books I've been meaning to read, nearly two weeks of 'vacation' is quickly filled up, leaving surprisingly little time to prepare RPG campaigns.
**Reggie is, of course, attending at the villains' lair in the guise of Mr. Arthur Machen, unsuccessful writer and unwilling participant in a club of occultists presuming to call themselves the Hellfire Club. In realility, Mr. Machen is safe at St. Botolph's Aldgate church.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Atreus: The commander of the villainous army. A six-foot tall and athletic man with a military bearing who wears a gunbelt with a revolver and saber, as well as a quasi-militaristic outfit remniscient of a Hussar uniform, without actually being a uniform. Atreus was encountered wearing a full-face metal mask (the eyes suggestive of a tiger's eyes) with a hinged lower part, which he removes for dining. This reveals a strong, masculine jawline, a waxed mustache and a cheek with a knife scar on it. Reggie Woodsworth figures him for a military type who has spent time in India, fancies himself an officer and a gentleman, but has origins that are lower than he'd like to admit.
Dr. Harrison: A medical man with a university education who is peculiarily repulsive in looks and manner, without one quite being able to put a finger on why. Slight of build and dressed in decent middle-class clothing, albeit somewhat worse for wears and showing evidence of imperfectly cleaned stains in the past. Does not wear any mask, has a thin gray mustache and thinning hair, watery grey eyes and unremarkable facial features. Seems preoccupied and frequently dispaches or receives hastily scribbled written messages during the course of dinner by means of a polite servant of Indian origin who earlier appeared as Atreus' valet.
Captain Savage (one of the so-called 'First Families' of Virginia; very sourthern aristocrat) ? Mosely would also work.: The US seacaptain described above. A tall, heavyset man with elaborate red sideburns, the Captain dresses in an impeccable captain's uniform, on which he still wears the insignia of the Confederate Navy.
L. Van Holt: A dapper-looking gentleman in his thirties, of a vaguely exotic appearance, with a slight almond cast to his eyes giving a clue that his ancestry is not entirely European. Neither tall nor muscular, but extremely graceful in motion and superbly toned for his height, much like a champion cricketer. His English is perfect, idomatic and educated, and he has the instinctive manners and elegant sartorial sense to which Atreus can only aspire in vain.
Mrs. Catherine 'Kathy' Bullard: A plain-spoken, red-faced and stoutly built woman, to all appearances of the hearty barmaid type in her older incarnation, but dressed in respectable middle-class clothing. Allegedly the wife of a Lieutenant Enoch Bullard, Lieutenant and Quartermaster of 1st Bn / Grenadier Guards, who appears to be one of the commanding officers of the defence. A 'guest' of the villains, who captured her on the first day.
Ms.Octavia Hill might answer. She did much of her work in Marylebone, but could easily be found in Whitechapel as well.: A respectable middle or upper class woman who does charity work in the East End, captured by a flying column of men dispatched by the villains. Please suggest an interesting character who might have been in the lower part of the East End, near the sea, in early November 1888. I think anyone working at Toynbee Hall might have been too far away, but I'm willing to consider it.
Miss Cecily Wake: An etherally beautiful young girl, not yet in her twenties, in the style of the finest English Rose. Dressed in upper class clothing that has been imperfectly cleaned of what appear to be small blood stains in several places and sewed up in one place. Allegedly the betrothed of a Lt. Arthur Langford Townsend, Royal Navy, who evidently opposes the designs of the villains.

*I also ran two sessions for other campaigns, in addition to session eight of Monster Hunters by Gaslight. Those demanded their own preparation time. In any case, with visiting family and friends over the holidays, various traditions and a holiday-themed dinner party about every other day, movies that one needs to see every Christmas, books I've been meaning to read, nearly two weeks of 'vacation' is quickly filled up, leaving surprisingly little time to prepare RPG campaigns.

I've added some suggestions.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

I've added some suggestions.

Thank you very much for these suggestions. They were a great help.

I decided on Ms. Beatrice Potter (better known to us as Beatrice Webb, but unmarried at the time) instead of Octavia Hill*, as I noted when I looked up her place of employment that it is within line of sight of the Royal Mint and she would therefore most plausibly be captured by the villains.

*I also have a notion that she is in the area, but not a prisoner. Instead, she is busily browbeating survivors into shape to defend their little corner of the world, preparing to make a model society, if not of England, then of this little part of it that remains.

[Icelander]

I have dispatched a minion to inspect the grounds of the Tower and to take photgraphs of various lines of sight that matter for roleplaying a defence or an attack on the Tower of London. Lucky break, a friend going to London tonight and having a half day free to wander about like a tourist.

I haven't gone to look at the Tower myself, really. Odd, that, in dozens of visits to London I've never once gone and toured the Tower. Must be my innate dislike of appearing touristy.

If anyone is familiar with the area around the Tower, I would welcome suggestions about running a fight that starts outside the Royal Mint and then moves toward the Thames, with the PCs aiming to shepherd a group of 60+ women away from the villains and into the Tower through the Traitors Gate, where they'll be reasonably safe.

The opposition will be some 200+ villainous street fighters with guns on King Street near the Royal Mint, some 100+ other villains in the Royal Mint itself and an unknown (but large) number of villains surrounding the Tower on both sides, with a heavy concentration of them around the main gate in the west, close to the Thames.

I'm wondering what kind of fields of fire the walls give for engaging enemies among the houses to the east and west, where artillery would be deployed within the Tower complex, where attackers outside it would want to deploy their own artillery, any sniping positions near the Tower or the Royal Mint that could cover the route the PCs want to take, etc.

[Icelander]

In light of the fact that the rest of England and the world do not appear to connect with the parts of the East End, City of London and the Docks that the PCs find themselves in, I'm inclined to allow some mechanism for players who spent a lot of points on Wealth that is stored somewhere else to get some use form it.

So I've allowed Reginald St. John Woodsworth to purchase a Base (Secret Occult Workshop and Decadent Parlour) Perk with earned points, given that it was assumed from the start that Reggie had multiple addresses.

This means that he has a Status 1* bachelor pad stuffed with arcane and occult paraphernalia somewhere in an approrpriate location. Where could a gentleman that was slumming in secret, but wanted to be within fairly easy travelling distance from civilised places, have his hidden flat?

It's going to be somewhere within the campaign area, but I warned the player that he was going to have to take his chances on where, as I'd place it were it was plausible to find a decent Status 1 flat for rent, even if that meant reaching it required crossing some dangerous parts of the altered East End.

Of course, it would also help enormously if it was in a place suitable for his particular branch of magic, which may best be described as Path of Cunning. Any magic suitable for a Trickster archetype is magic that Reginald would have studied assidiously before the Event and which he now finds that he can use reliably, unlike his abortive attempts with it in the boring and frustrating World Before.

What's a good place for his flat in the campaign area, somewhere between the Thames and the Old Nichol, east of Fenchurch Station and west of Mile End Road or Shadwell?

Ideally something that combined the two desirata, i.e. somewhere you could get a furnished flat suitable for Status 1 rented and where Path of Cunning magic could be appropriately practiced.

I'd accept a house in a fairly bad neighbourhood, as long as it could be justified that instead of that house being filled with desperate poor people renting it by the room, it's let to Reggie and maybe one or two other lodgers with similar desires to keep a hideaway that their respectable friends don't know about.

*He's Status 4, Base grants you a secret hideway appropriate as a main home for someone of your Status-3.

[Dalillama]

Off the top of my head, it appears that Lime Street falls within your designated area, and it held the home of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. That was in 1843, and the area may have gone downhill in the meantime, but it seems plausible to me that there would be largish homes that could be let whole or only slightly subdivided.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Off the top of my head, it appears that Lime Street falls within your designated area, and it held the home of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. That was in 1843, and the area may have gone downhill in the meantime, but it seems plausible to me that there would be largish homes that could be let whole or only slightly subdivided.

This is true.

Lime Street may or may not fall within the designated area, of course. The furthest the PCs are certain that the area extends to the west is the Fenchurch Street railway station.

Going too far east apparently ends up with survivors coming back from the east alongside the Whitechapel Road and given the situation near the London Hospital, few have been willing to try again after the first group of explorers came back from the wrong direction, much reduced in numbers and terrified beyond their wits.

What about somewhere close by? How about the area south of the Fenchurch Street station and north of the Tower?

What kind of houses were around Trinity Square in 1888? What kind of business or activity went on around there?

[Icelander]

I'm finally getting around to statting the Ally Group that the player of George 'the Teapot' Frankton took for his PC, beyond just inventing names when needed and assuming that he had runners for messages and people to carry out simple tasks.

He is the don or guv'nor for a gang based around Aldgate, Portsoken and the adjacent area of Whitechapel. Not really at home as Whitechapel turns into Spitalfields, Bethnal Green or Mile End and while they did a lot of business in the docklands, not really being able to claim any territory further south in the direction of the Thames than down to the Tower Hills, being only visitors whenever their business took them into the docklands of Wapping, St. Katharine Docks, London Docks and the parish of St. George in the East.

Mr. Frankton is a man of respect among the Family People; a household name everywhere burglars, broadsmen, loansharks, bookmakers, receivers of stolen property and others who make their living off their quickness of wits and willingness to creatively interpret the Common Law gather. Mr. Frankton's respected position comes from his renowned fairness in adjucation disputes, his good sense, his wide connections and his astonishing talent for judiciously visiting griveous bodily harm when appropriate.

His Swell Coves collect debts for those who cannot turn to the courts, nobble those who feel a debt of honour does not merit the same consideration as a bill from a tradesman, collect tribute from illegal activities in their neighbourhood and turn their hands to any lucrative rackets consistent with their assumed dignity and hykey as gentlemen of the High Street, not rookery magsmen or alley riff-raff. They lay jemmy capers and work downy dodges. They train and employ snakesmen, screwsmen and cracksmen for ream flash pulls; gull toffs and other fat pidgeons at the races or elsewhere the Fancy gather; and otherwise play the crooked cross in any way that brings beneh pogue.

Of course, many of them once had less glittering careers and not a few of them remember the days of their griddling, snowing, dipping and duffing fondly enough to indulge in a little managment of the next generation in these fine arts and others like them. They ain't no scurf kidsmen, they just know life and like to pass on their downy lays. If they get some daffy or cant from the chavies, in appreciation, like, that just goes to show what Huntley coves the lil' 'uns will grow up to be.

Youth gangs such as the Tenter Hard 'uns, Haydon Square Blaggers, Goulies, Divil Hounds, Minories Swell Buzzers, Petticoat Pride, Brick Lane Bloods, Goodmans Yarders, Yiddisher Hykey Blokes, Montague Pugs, Gowers Gunmen, Depot Dragsmen, St. George Highwaymen, Castle Knights or the Dosset Hussars and their mortal foes of the Fianna Dorset; are wise enough not to pick fights with Swell Coves and if their regular illegal activities go beyond street fights, they are supposed to either seek the protection of a local don or else pay tribute to the Swell Coves, in return for their advice and the use of their contacts.

Swelll Coves tread lightly when visiting the Old Nichol rookery, out of respect for the fact that the Nichols gang may be a loose collection of glocky bullyboys and mucksnipe mug-hunters, rampers and rapers, but there's hundreds of the buggers and some of them ain't right in the head, neither.

Swell Coves live and let live with the Flower Boys of Flower and Dean Street, though several of the leading Swell Coves reckon themselves gentlemen enough so that don't respect bullies who live off the honest dollymopping of decent Judys. The co-located Deaner Dippers* are more popular with Swell Coves, decent little chavies, most of them. Not their fault most of 'em are too young by half to be other than the gonophs they are. In any case, they're quick to bring any ream swag to the Swell Coves, knowing that they'll get better price for it, even kicking back tribute to Mr. Frankton, than they'd be getting walking into a jerryshop with it unchristened.

As for the Bessarabian Tigers, so called, they are more rowdy than downy. Just some glocky Greeners understandably resentfu' o' the bloomin' gammy way some folks will treat 'em, fleein' oppression and the Tsar of all Russia to live in the Queen's own country. So when they get spit on, they go out and have a jolly, who wouldn't?

No need for Mr. Frankton to lay down St. Peters' Needle for that. Not 'im. 'e'll wait. Those that are truly nickey will get nibbed by the crushers, those who jest need to get some youthful ramps off their chests will grow out of it an' those who ain't got it in them to fly straight, but got a downy side to 'em, will learn that it's good to be tight with Mr. Frankton. It's only any trassenos among them that we gots to worry about and Mr. Frankton, 'e knows wha' t' do abou' 'em.

Jimmy Smith, the Brick Lane 'business man' and illegal prizefight promoter, and his family (brother Richard, sister Elizabeth, brother-in-law John Cooney and son John Smith) are valued associates of the Swell Coves, as Jimmy Smith is a downy chap and a class act, a real don. Got a good relationship with the peelers and if it came to it, wouldn't have any trouble finding himself a down-on-his-luck pug to nobble someone who needed it. Jimmy Smith doesn't run any kind of gang, but the kind of business he does is a business where it pays to be able to answer threats in kind.

Jack McCarthy and William Crossingham are local businessmen of a similar stamp, based around Dorset Street. They used to be dependent on Jimmy Smith's patronage and can be said to have been part of his crew until some five years ago, but they've a thirst for better things and have managed to buy or otherwise obtain most of the doss-houses in Dorset Street and make a fine living of rents as slumlords. They still arrange fights, keep books and take a cut of illegal earnings within their area; and both of them employ several hard men as nobblers and punishers. Jack's brother Daniel runs a fairly successful bookmaking operation and their man Timothy Donovan is a dabeno rough, used to make his living as a demander and now cuts up people for Crossingham. The Swell Coves do business with both McCarthy and Crossingham, but trust neither them nor their crew.

Finally, there are the John Bulls. A fairly recent phenomenon as an organised gang, they are a rapidly growing movement hostile to European immigration (sometimes even to Irish immigration), foreign cultural elements, foreign languages and foreign religions. They do not have a continous territory so much as favoured hang-outs and taverns, but they are strong around the docks. More a street gang than an organised crime syndicate, members will dress up to show solidarity and look for defenceless immigrants to beat up.

Mr. Frankton and his Swell Coves do not get along with the John Bulls. In fact, the past year has been a series of escalating street fights between local gangs of foreign-born Britons, assisted by the Swell Coves, against roving bands of John Bull bigots breaking windows, beating up apprentices and newsboys and intimidating costermongers or shopkeepers.

Can anyone suggest any other gangs?

Does anyone have suggestions for 100-150 point characters among the Swell Coves?

What kind of (illegal) jobs would be plausible specialisations among the Swell Coves, to bring in income for themselves and Mr. Frankton?**

*Inevitably nick-named 'Greener' Dippers by John Bulls or other bigots.
**Obviously, not all of them are full-time nobblers, punishers and visiters of griveous bodily harm.