"It was Queen Cassilda's fault, that harpy." He swirled the contents of his wine glass out of habit. It was unusually thick and smelled of copper. "Her idea of diplomacy started with whips and ended with rusty hooks."

A reveler in a byahkee mask bumped into him from behind, spilling his glass. "Pardon meee he he he..." it squealed as it spun away with its dance partner. Her head lolled with sickening elasticity.

He waved them off without looking. "I wasn't thirsty. Anyway, I was working on the docks when He came across the water. I had seen the yellow sign; I bowed before Him. Apparently, he liked that." The listener's face betrayed no reaction. "He bid me follow him while He drove the whole city to murder, cannibalism, and... worse, but you know all about that."

He lowered the platter's silver lid back over his listener's severed head. "I should have cursed his name and cast myself into the lake."

A lot has been written about Carcosa and its King, but the original source material is surprisingly sparse. Bierce was vague in the extreme and Chambers only makes allusions to it, as a common thread to string together a series of otherwise unrelated short stories. So, we're gonna start from scratch. This month's article recasts Carcosa in the mold of Sigil: a traveling, extradimensional city that wanders to and from every shore in Lovecraft's universe.

On the Shores of Hali

The story's always starts the same. First, a strange symbol begins appearing in the dark and forgotten places of a city. This city is always near water, or something that passes for water. This yellow sign inspires obsession in many, madness in a few. Then, people begin seeing an alien skyline on the horizon, out across the water. Sometimes, its impossibly high spires seem to pass behind the moon (or moons). Soon thereafter, a stranger in a pallid mask arrives. He calls himself "The Phantom of Truth" and claims to be an emissary of The King in Yellow.

How the story ends depends on how this emissary is received... If he is greeted warmly and treated as nobility, The King in Yellow throws open Carcosa's ebony gates and its citizens swarm over the unsuspecting city. This is both good and bad. The Moon-Beasts and Elder Things have many wonders and horrors to trade.

If, however, the Phantom of Truth is mistreated or disrespected in any way, The King in Yellow visits the city in person. Alone. And He drives the entire population mad.

The King & His Subjects

He's basically the little boy from that Twilight Zone episode: An ego-maniacal, all-powerful monster who likes to make his subjects eat their own tails. When in Carcosa, one must never speak an ill word about His Majesty, lest He eviscerate them on the spot and wear their entrails to His next gala. Those who actually cross Him are cast into Dim Carcosa (see below).

Each time His city arrives on a new world, He selects one of His subjects (at random, as near as anyone can tell) and appoints them His new Phantom of Truth. The process involves peeling off the honoree's face. (That "pallid mask" is actually the re-molded surface of their skull.) While His emissary is on the job, He wears their face and shares their senses. If the Phantom is killed or tries to subvert their duty in any way, He keeps their face as a souvenir. Visitors to His palace are sometimes taken to a vast, Escher-esque amphitheater to listen to their screams.

Most of The King's subjects swept up in the tide of trade that washes over cities where the Phantom is treated well. Many are bought (or taken) by the Moon-Beasts, who use them as slaves or sell them as food. Others are lured across the water by curiosity, perhaps under the naive belief that someone will tell them when the city is about to depart. A few seek out Carcosa's twisted walls as protection from things that can find their prey anywhere else in the universe.

Recommended PC Species:

• Humans from any time period.
• Cats
• Ghouls
• Mi-Go
• Men of Leng

Those who treat His Majesty with the proper mix of terror and adulation find it easy to prosper amidst the lunacy. Their fellow citizens call them Sycophants, though rarely to their faces. Sycophants run every aspect of the city that falls below The King in Yellow's notice: commerce, industry, infrastructure, pretty much anything of daily importance to normal people ("normal" being a highly relative term).

Sample Sycophants:

• Erich Zann, master of the harmony of the spheres.
• Keziah Mason, non-Euclidean witch & rat-thing fancier.
• A mind-swapped Yithian who commands miraculous technologies.
• A former Phantom who started a cult (the Sign Followers).

The two things you won't find in Carcosa are the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones. The King in Yellow permits no being, god, or concept to be spoken of as His equal. The borders of His domain are an event horizon that they cannot cross, not even The Key and The Gate. Within Carcosa, the Sycophants don't even acknowledge their existence.

Dim Carcosa

When it is between worlds, only the stars shine down on Carcosa. However, these are not the barren heavens of Earth; they are the crowded, kaleidoscopic starscapes of the galactic core. Their light casts stark, multi-colored shadows across Carcosa's labyrinthine streets. Though no sun shines down on the city, it basks in endless daylight.

Night wraps its cloak around a different Carcosa. Dim Carcosa. It is the city as reflected in an unlit mirror. Its ruined streets are bathed in a pale, blue light that filters down from an empty sky, as if under water. Maybe it is. Maybe Carcosa's sister city clings to its underside like a stillborn twin, head-down in the glassy depths of the lake.

There are several ways to reach Dim Carcosa, but only one allows a reasonable chance of safe return. The would-be traveler must place a mirror in a dark room and draw a yellow sign on the floor. While sitting in the center of the sign, they must stare into the mirror and meditate. After some time, could be hours or days, they suddenly realize that they have become their own reflection and can now move about on their own. If, at any time, the sign or the mirror are broken, they instantly snap back into their true body. However, if anyone enters or casts light into the room back in True Carcosa, they will find the traveler's body comatose... and without a reflection. Their soul is now trapped in Dim Carcosa forever. Their body will not die unless it leaves the city, in which case the soul simply vanishes. No one knows where it goes, if anywhere.

Dreamers find it exceedingly easy to reach Dim Carcosa, but waking up is another matter. By most counts, they are the most numerous residents of the shadow city. They squat in its shattered buildings, struggling in vain to remake them as they wish, but Dim Carcosa is not the Dreamlands. Eventually, they either succumb to the horrors that hunt them or become a horror themselves.

Finally, anyone who submerges themselves completely in the waters outside the city will emerge in Dim Carcosa. This, too, is a one-way trip, for the surface of the waters on the other side are a sheet of alabaster ice. Some say it is possible to break through with the right tools or incantations, but no sure method is known. Still, this is by far the fastest and most reliable way to reach Dim Carcosa, if you're in a suicidal rush.

Suggested Creatures:

• Insane Dreamers
• Dimensional Shamblers
• Ghasts
• Flying Polyps

Pick Me Ups

Rumor has it that an intact copy of the Eltdown Shards is being kept somewhere in the alien city Carcosa is visiting. The King in Yellow has just opened the gates and now you must race Erich Zann and Keziah Mason to the prize. Finding it first with be hard. Keeping it long enough to call forth the Warder of Knowledge may be impossible.

The Sign Followers have secured a time travel device with which they can send the Yithian Sycophant's mind back to Pnakotus. Unfortunately, he's your meal ticket. While your boss goes into hiding, your job will be to locate and destroy the device. Alternately, you could play bodyguard and wait for the cultists to bring the device to you.

One of your friends failed as the Phantom of Truth and was cast into Dim Carcosa. An eldritch mystic says he can bring him back, but first you'll need to steal his face from The King in Yellow's palace. Then, you'll need to travel through the waters to Dim Carcosa, find your friend, and bring him across the ice. If you're still alive, you'll have to escape the city before He learns what you've done.

Recommended Destinations:

• R'lyeh, before it sank or after it rises.
• Pnakotus, during the war with the polyps.
• Sarnath and/or Ib.
• The ruins of Yhtill.
• Yuggoth
• Celephais

Next Up: The Tower of Babel and the Brotherhood of the Bloody Tongue!