Alfred Bulltop Stormalong

Basic Information

Alfred Bulltop Stormalong (also sometimes Able-Bodied Stormalong or just Old Stormy) is a folk hero character from American folklore of the New England region, especially Massachusetts. He's sort of a nautical Paul Bunyan, a giant sailor on a ship so tall the masts are in danger of hitting the moon.

The character first appears in sea shanties dating back to the 1830s, and the first collected book of his tales was published around 100 years later. Weird side note: some of those early songs conflate him with President Zachary Taylor.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia

2. Salem Ghosts website

Game and Story Use

• Useful your 19th Century League of Extraordinary Whatevers campaign, or potentially any game with American Folklore as an element, such as an Urban Fantasy.
• Perhaps the conflation in those old songs reveals a secret truth: Zachary Taylor is a Superhero (or Big Bad Evil Guy Supervillain if that's how your politics swing) with the power to grow into a giant.
  • Perhaps a narrative about how a simple fore-mast sailor rose to be president of the US?
• Telling tall tales about AB Stormalong can be a fun bit of character color for the grizzled old veteran sailor either aboard ship or sitting at a table in a tavern somewhere.
• Other possible conflations, especially with a few years gone, could be Popeye the Sailor or Barnacle Bill the Sailor¹.

Footnotes

1. Or at least "Barnacle Bill" is the polite, bowdlerized version of his name.