True Detective - "The King In Yellow" in games

Like millions of other viewers, I'm completely hooked by HBO's new show "True Detective". The storyline, acting and atmosphere is superb, full of foreboding and weirdness. Throughout the series there are references made to the "King in Yellow" and "Carcosa". This blew me away, to see this in a major production, and it's been really interesting to read interpretations of this by an audience who are largely unfamiliar with the source material.

I'm enjoying the various theories theories and threads even more because back in 2012 I spent most of the year running "Call of Cthulhu" RPG sessions dealing specifically with the King in Yellow, in relation to the Hastur mythos.

I started by running a published campaign called "Tatters of the King", which tells the tale of cultists in the UK.Some of them follow Hastur, others follow Shub-Niggurath, and the story explores how these devotions have taken a toll on their lives, relationships and sanity. The first section starts with a performance in London in the 1920's of "The King In Yellow" on stage. The players in the game attend the play, and the show itself leads to a riot in the audience. The King is an avatar of the god "Hastur", and it has a sanity-busting impact, especially on characters with an artistic leaning. From this point on the players are drawn into the story of the cultists.

I remember narrating the play to the group, describing Carcosa and characters such as Cassilda and the "The Stranger"...the man with a white bone mask which is revealed not to be a mask. It was very odd in content and I know it left the group utterly baffled. Further on in the game the characters end up in Carcosa itself, with elements of the play becoming very real. I remember most of this,and I can't help but try and look for symbols and story hooks from it in "True Detective" (still trying!!).

"Tatters" is a very complex, challenging and layered game, broken into three sections. By the end of the second section my playing group had become inconsistent and the momentum of the story was pretty much lost. I decided to replace the final section with an adaptation of another published scenario, "Tell Me Have You Seen The Yellow Sign?". This is a short adventure set in New Orleans in the buildup to Mardis Gras, with Hastur cultists, voodoo, swamps, Cthulhu cultists and of course, the King in Yellow himself. This ran for two sessions with a small group of three players, and is still one of my favorite "Call of Cthulhu" experiences. I found that the location lent itself really well to the uneasy feeling and sense of chaos that Hastur stories bring, and I see it working well in "True Detective".

We still have yet to see how the "King" story plays out on TV, and how it really relates...the might not even be a supernatural aspect to it at all in the show. I do know that this show is making me want to bring a "Call of Cthulhu" campaign back to Louisiana and the "King in Yellow", and I'd love to see the success of the show inspire more people to try the "Call of Cthulhu" RPG.