Bishopsgate Mental Asylum

The Bishopsgate Mental Asylum is a horror-ridden facility with a blood-soaked past inextricably tied to the Teesdale family.

History[]

In 1674, the first settlers, led by one Daniel Shepherd, on the land that would become Bishopsgate came to rest near a mound that was greatly feared by the local Native Americans, due to some unknown malignancy that lay beneath it.^[1]

When, in 1695, the wealthy James Teesdale arrived with his sons, he arranged a marriage with the now-late Shepherd's fourteen-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth Shepherd, with whom he had two children to survive past seven.^[2] The family built a mansion upon the largest of the mounds, leading the natives to avoid any contact with the city.^[2]

In 1714, the mansion burned to the ground, and though his family escaped, James Teesdale's body was never found.^[2] The land would go unused until well over a century later, when Reverend Benjamin Bodycombe bought the land from James's descendant Elliot Teesdale for his religious sect in 1851, building a small community.^[3] The group would not last particularly long before their mass suicide in 1857, likely in an attempt to escape the beings that Bodycombe called "the Holy Ones".^[3][4]

Shortly thereafter, in 1861, Doctor Ignatius Hopper bought the land in an auction for a nominal price of one dollar.^[5] No one else was willing to bid on such clearly cursed land. It is Hopper who in 1862 built the mental asylum proper, then named Bishopsgate Sanitarium, with its East Wing (including Hopper's own office) resting directly above the mound that the natives so feared.^[5][1] For the duration of the Civil War, the military controlled the facilities, but Hopper regained control shortly thereafter, securing enough high-profile patients to build up his funds, enabling an expansion of the sanitarium.^[5]

After a short breakdown and leave of absence in 1870, Hopper left one Doctor Albert Cave in charge of management.^[6] Cave replaced most of the staff with his own and began directing the sanitarium toward treatment of the insane; the sanitarium's name was changed shortly thereafter to Bishopsgate Asylum for the Insane.^[6]

In the late 1890s, leadership of the asylum changed hands to Edward Brake, after Doctor Cave was trampled to death by a horse and Doctor Hopper died of a heart attack.^[6] Brake modernized most of the hospital during this time period, particularly the East Wing, which had suffered arson during a patient revolt over poor conditions.^[6] Brake's tenure ended with his suicide in 1917, with control over the institution passing to his assistant, Donald Roe, whose own tenure ended three years later with his murder.^[6]

Director Farnsworth W. Weaver stepped into the position the next year, taking on one Doctor Gorlay as Head of Medicine.^[6] Their decade-long reign, ending in 1933 when Doctor Thomas Werner blew the whistle on their crimes, was a horrifying one, with Farnsworth embezzling nearly $100,000 and covering up Gorlay's atrocities, which included the deaths of almost 300 patients and the permanent injury of more than 150 more.^[7] Gorlay committed suicide just two weeks into his prison sentence^[7], while Farnsworth died, without a will, of stomach cancer in 1939. The asylum was shut down and auctioned off to Werner, again, for one dollar.^[8]

Werner succeeded in making the asylum, then Bishopsgate Hospital, a better place, aiding in the recovery of veterans to the point that the man received from the mayor of the city of Bishopsgate the Key to the City.^[8] After the influx of veterans died down, the institution was reorganized as a hospice and care home.^[8]

The good doctor's successor, Jeremiah Moorcock, who came in after Werner retired in 1954, was far less benevolent.^[8] Moorcock returned Bishopsgate to its roots as an asylum for the insane shortly after Werner's heart attack the following year and re-opened the dreaded East Wing.^[8] Lobotomies, under Moorcock, were the norm, with over 500 prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies over the next fourteen years.^[8] His tenure ended in 1973, when persons unknown succeeded in strapping him down and lobotomizing him.^[8] Moorcock was quietly shuffled aside to an institution in Washington, and was succeeded by Doctor Jonathan Sendak, who ordered destroyed the annex where the lobotomies were performed.^[9]

In dire financial straits, the hospital sold their interests to three pharmaceutical companies, a state which continued until the end of the reign of Sendak's successor, Doctor Thomas Bateman.^[9] Renewing and reopening several wings, including the East Wing, Bateman oversaw ever more plummeting profits, to the point that the aforementioned companies lost interest by 1991, when Bateman murdered an assistant and fled, leaving to be discovered his embezzlement, which had been ongoing for nearly a decade.^[9]

Convicted and sent to prison, Bateman was beaten to death shortly thereafter.^[9] His position as director was taken up by Doctor Bridget McClusky in 1992 — the first woman to take up the post in the asylum's history.^[9]

Facilities[]

The Grounds[]

The institution, a massive property, rests on a 24-acre plot of farmland, with the facilities proper fenced in by walls topped with razor wire and patrolled by hired security.^[10] In the institution's exterior are a gymnasium and an athletics field.^[11] Scattered around the grounds are a variety of locations that serve more specialized functions than the three primary wings. They are as follows:

• Chesterton Hall: An administrative building, Chesterton is the main computer center of the asylum.^[12] It also is the location of most of the staff offices, including those of the director and assistant director.^[12] The majority of the institution's records, including financial records, are stored in Chesterton.^[12]

• The Gardens: Bishopsgate's grounds are home to a several-acres large Victorian-style garden that, once cared for by the patients, now lies neglected.^[13] Within its southeast corner is a barn that acts as the maintenance crew's office.^[13]

• Whitehall House: Whitehall, since its acquisition under Hopper, has remained a residence for staff.^[14] In the present day, its residents are mostly interns, technicians, security, and maintenance staff.^[14] It also houses the staff dining hall.^[14]

• Hampden House: This building is the asylum's art therapy center, and tends to be a far calmer, more relaxing, and less malevolent place than the majority of Bishopsgate.^[15]

• Potomac House: Next to Hampden, Potomac houses the discussion therapy groups.^[16] Patients in support and recovery groups often meet with their therapists and fellow patients here.^[16]

• Brochardt House: Brochardt is a schoolhouse for younger, long-term patients that has been in full-time use as such since Bateman's tenure as director, complete with classrooms, labs, and a student/teacher lounge.^[16]

• Maxwell Gymnasium and Athletic Field: Almost entirely unused, the gymnasium is empty but for the thrice-weekly volleyball games organized for the patients.^[11] The athletic field sprawls to its south.^[11]

• The Graveyard: Part of Bishopsgate since the late 17th century, the graveyard is an overgrown mess whose steps go untrod.^[11] No one wishes to visit it. Ghosts are capable of manifesting and using Numina easily here.^[17]

The East Wing[]

The East Wing, which most think of when they imagine the asylum, is where the greatest evil has been and continues to be done.^[18] Its doors are guarded by the six Saints of Bishopsgate, carved by Jonathan Teesdale into the doors to protect those within.^[19] Their image wards the wing from malevolent supernatural creatures' entry.^[18] Rumor claims that they are, however, more interested in keeping the evil trapped within from escaping.^[19]

Within the East Wing are the following:

• Patient Rooms: These rooms, which appear much like any other institutional quarters, vary in quality based on the affluence of the patients within.^[19]

• Doctor Hopper's Office: The doctor's old office, in which he died from his heart attack.^[19] The office occasionally manifests old memories of its occupant.^[19]

• Basement: The basement of the East Wing, similar in appearance to a dungeon, is the asylum's high-security ward, where the most dangerous residents (e.g. serial killers) are kept.^[20] Though only security staff can come and go freely here, inactive keys are located in the director's office in Chesterton Hall.^[20]

• Sub-Basement: Only accessible via the stairway locked in the basement's security ward, the sub-basement is a den of depravity, home to the tortures perpetrated by Doctor Gorlay.^[20] It is claimed by a host of furious ghosts, and the location is uniquely suited to allowing their manifestation.^[21]

• The Labyrinth: Beneath even the sub-basement, the labyrinth is a series of tunnels running in and out of the mounds away from which Daniel Shepherd was warned centuries ago.^[21] Of seemingly random, organic structure, it is an alien, disturbing place, shadows moving seemingly at random and its very smell inspiring an instinctive revulsion.^[21] It is home to some ancient evil, from which even James Teesdale and his ghostly allies recoil.^[21] Should a ghost lose all Corpus or Essence here, it will simply cease to exist.^[22]

The West Wing[]

The least renovated wing, the top two floors are sealed off to all but the director.^[22] This wing deals with long-term, high-maintenance patients and those on suicide watch.^[22]

Within the West Wing are the following:

• Experimental Therapy Room: The ETR is a room where the doctors practice more controversial treatments — those akin to what is practiced in the East Wing sub-basement.^[22] The use of new, untested technologies in this room is part of what secures the asylum's funding from pharmaceutical and medical companies.^[22]

• Electro-Convulsion Therapy: A controversial practice, ECT is quite successful in treating severe mental disorders when used safely and carefully — something the asylum has not always done, particularly during Bateman's reign.^[22] At that time, it tended to be used as a punishment.^[22]

• Sensory Deprivation Tank: Often used in conjunction with strong drugs, including hallucinogens, this tank is filled with body-temperature water so as to seal a subject into a lightless, soundless, scentless environment where it is difficult to tell where the skin ends and water begins.^[22]

• White Noise Therapy: A remnant of the Gorlay's as Head of Medicine, the so-called "brain toaster" subjects an individual to intense sub- and hyper-sonic sounds, with the effects on the psyche being recorded.^[22] Rumors claim that quite a few of the more insane inmates were not so until being "toasted".^[22]

• Hydrotherapy: A holdover from the days when madness was considered a byproduct of demonic possession^[22], hydrotherapy is a process by which a patient is fitted with a mask over their mouth and nose and lowered into water for extended periods.^[23] Whether the patient reacts with calm or panic is a toss-up. Director McClusky is a firm believer in its efficacy, despite complaints from the staff.^[23]

• The Lobotomy Room: One of the last places in the country where lobotomy was practiced, this room is squirreled away in the sealed-off fourth floor.^[23] Rumors claim that those who enter the room are compelled to seat themselves in the chair and take a pick to their own heads.^[24]

• The Charred Ward: The sealed-off fourth floor of the West Wing is home to the room of a patient who started a deadly fire in the lower levels.^[24] Even now, his room runs hotter and smells of smoke.^[24]

Medical Center[]

The newest of the three main wings^[24], the Bishopsgate Medical Center houses the facilities for VA recovery and hospice care that the institution began providing under Director Werner.^[25] The locations within the medical center are as follows:

• Veterans' Lounge: A bleak place, the veterans here refuse to abide by any hospital codes, drinking and smoking as they please.^[25] It has seen a recent influx in patients given the conflicts in the Middle East.^[25]

• Chapel: An unassuming place, bar its housing of Bodycombe's Anchor, the chapel was set up for visiting relatives.^[25]

• Morgue: In the medical center's basement is a morgue.^[25] It sees surprisingly little use.^[26] Unlike most morgues, Bishopsgate's facility both inspects the cause of death and prepares the body for burial.^[26]

Supernatural Influences[]

Though the asylum is practically drowning in ghosts due to the institution's bloody history, one group in particular is especially influential: the "Board of Directors", composed of the ghosts of James Teesdale, Benjamin Bodycombe, Ignatius Hopper, Edward Brake, Donald Roe, Farnsworth Weaver, Jeremiah Moorcock, and Thomas Bateman.^[27] The first three especially are active in their work, with the end goal of providing Teesdale with immense necromantic power and continuing the fall from grace of each director.^[28] One of the only places where they lack influence is the labyrinth beneath East Wing, given their fear of its ability to end their existence.^[21]

In terms of outsiders, three main players jockey for power over the area: A group of Ordo Dracul vampires, who have taken an interest in the mounds and that which lies beneath them^[29]; a group of Mastigos-initiated Mysterium mages who believe that the power beneath Bishopsgate is theirs to master^[29]; and a pack of Bone Shadows descended from the Native Americans who first lived in the area, who are currently observing the institution.^[29]

The final player is the most mysterious: The Darkness Beneath, or That Which Lies Beneath Bishopsgate.^[21] No one knows what it truly is — not the Board of Directors, not the Ordo Dracul, and certainly not McClusky. What is known is that it is the source of the evil that has spread throughout the East Wing to the rest of the facility — that it is what ultimately corrupted Bishopsgate, initiating the current state of the Board of Directors.^{[1][30][18][21]} Rumors abound of a fallen angel^[31], but these are met with skepticism at best.

Gallery[]

A view of Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate Gardens

The Saints on the doors of Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate Chapel

Bishopsgate Graveyard

References[]