RIPPLES FROM CARCOSA expands upon the mythology of “He Who Should Not Be Named” and gathers much of the varied material on Hastur into one place. The first chapter reviews The Great Old One Hastur and his various avatar forms. Or this one (also available on RPG.net). For those who don't know, Supplement V: Carcosa by Geoffrey McKinney was released a few years back. It was touted as a supplement to the 1974-edition D&D, and was written with that fact in mind. It was available at Geoffrey McKinney's blog, but by the time I heard about it and went looking for it, that.
CARCOSA RPG PDF
Carcosa – Warning: For Adults Only! Contains explicit DriveThruRPG: Your One -Stop Shop for the Best in RPG PDF Files! The Largest RPG. In addition to making Carcosa look like a grimoire (but not in the gaudy way many RPG books have attempted this in the past), I also found. Ok, fuck it. Let’s do this thing. This is a review of Geoffrey McKinney’s Carcosa, a setting and heavily-modified OSR game published by LotFP.
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I can see how it might be frustrating if you are looking at it as a campaign setting, but I think it important to take note of the blurb in the introduction: Ed Dove February 20, at 9: Lawful In need of help ; Neutral Rationally motivated ; Chaotic insane.
McKinney has been known to give two different apologetics for this: Carcosa is still pretty cool, though, so I’m gonna ramble on a bit. Ed Dove February 17, at Carcosa is on the moon, you can get there from the Tower of the Stargazer, the Lovecraftian beasts are manifestations of the same psionic godling, the aliens are proto-elves and the sci-fi tech is a bit more biomagical. Your comments regarding the psionics are no exaggeration. Resources Find the right game for you!
But talking to entities?
I think later this spring the books will be available through US distributors. The second apologetic is that none of this is to be seen as lurid, voyeurish fantasizing on the author’s part, but is rather meant to simply be “atmosphere” for a sinister and terrible world. There’s some coherence to the setting, though again, do not expect great sophistication. I don’t see that working as a “booklet” regardless; you’ll save money by just buying the printed book.
GROGNARDIA: REVIEW: Carcosa (LotFP Edition)
I’ve never played carcoa the setting, but it seems that lots of other people do indeed take a “GWAR” rp on the thing. The biggest one is probably the fact that in many situations the book tells you to “roll x dice”, and instead of having a fixed die to roll e.
That’s the only reason why I’ve put forth so much effort trying to dispel some of the untruths perpetrated against and perpetuated about Carcosa. It is surely food for the imagination though. Barker, who had some fairly gruesome magical rituals in his Tekumel setting.
Suburbanbanshee February 17, at 1: The setting is carclsa inspired by the Cthulhu mythos, and particular by the Carcosa stories; the world is the alien world where the City of Carcosa is found. A lot of stuff probably happens in a small fantasy world town.
Most unusually, instead of having stable hit points, or indeed even hit dice, the book expects player characters to roll for their type of hit die every single time they go into battle, and to roll their hit points for that particular battle. Basically find the cool hexes and work furiously to guide the PCs to them.
Carcosa (RPG setting)
Even gave dwarves a certain percentage chance of developing ESP, because it fit the world and dwarves don’t get enough love. In other words, it has all the potential ingredients for a great gonzo setting, except charm. All spells are in the form of rituals of some kind or another; these are divided into various types: I use LotFP stuff a lot because its some of the best material around.
If doing that, why play Rpb at all? The back inside cover takes a single hex hex and blows it up into its own map of yard hexes, which are detailed in depth as an example of how a GM could elaborate on any single hex.
Humans were once a pest on a planet rich in elements useful to aliens. Were it to have more of a sense of self-awareness of its own stupidity, were it imagining itself a little less Barker or Chambers or even Moorcock and carcoza realized it was a little more Gwar, it would probably be a lot more tolerable. And, even if they don’t do that, the only change will be that we’ll see the pages paired differently.
LevyK 1 June at Make sure to post your thoughts after the game! While several orders of magnitude better than Isle of the Unknown, the sandbox setting of Carcosa is still very far from a masterpiece; its quality varies from repetitive, to mediocre, with a few smatterings of very-interesting sprinkled literally about. I was going to try to run this has a light-prep hexcrawl with low overhead.
Again, lore stuff but also it’s much more fun to have historical figures or past PCs show up as reinforcements instead of just playing weird technicolour barbarians when your PC bites the dust. In theory, yes, that is what Rpy do, and that is why I appreciate them. We’re going to re-do the PDF so it displays as single pages. Below is my prep. Each of these rituals are then applied to specific individual entities, and on some occasions require very specific material components with the specificity varying from needing a gem worth x gold pieces to needing some ingredient found only in one particular hex of the map.
Had it taken itself less seriously, Carcosa could have been a decent enough “Heavy Metal”-esque gonzo setting, but it fails in that sense from lack of humour.
MODERATORS
Statistically, none of these races are any different from the other; nor is any information provided as to any cultural differences with the sole exception that Bone Men are particularly shunned by other races carcosx Jale Men are said to be more adept at sorcery than the others though again, neither of these statements are in any way matched with any mechanical basis. Been a while since I thought about this and the players noped out of Carcosa pretty quick so we didn’t get to see any of it in action: Even the temptation of great power is fraught with the likelihood of eventual disaster.
Geoffrey McKinney February 21, at All the way up to nuclear weapons.
Related Posts (10)
Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story 'An Inhabitant of Carcosa' (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there. Its name may be derived from the medieval city of Carcassonne in southern France, whose Latin name was 'Carcaso.'
American writer Robert W. Chambers borrowed the name 'Carcosa' for his stories, inspiring generations of authors to similarly use Carcosa in their own works.
- 3Other appearances
- 4Publishers using the name Carcosa
- 4.1Carcosa House
- 4.2Carcosa
![Carcosa Rpg Map Carcosa Rpg Map](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125830051/699212440.png)
The King in Yellow[edit]
The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of horror short stories published in 1895, titled The King in Yellow. Chambers had read Bierce's work and borrowed a few additional names from his work, including Hali and Hastur.
In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play titled The King in Yellow, which is mentioned several times within them, the city of Carcosa is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location is the shores of Lake Hali, in the star cluster Hyades, either on another planet, or in another universe.
For instance:
- Along the shore the cloud waves break,
- The twin suns sink behind the lake,
- The shadows lengthen
- In Carcosa.
- Strange is the night where black stars rise,
- And strange moons circle through the skies,
- But stranger still is
- Lost Carcosa.
- Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
- Where flap the tatters of the King,
- Must die unheard in
- Dim Carcosa.
- Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
- Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
- Shall dry and die in
- Lost Carcosa.
- —'Cassilda's Song' in The King in Yellow Act 1, Scene 2
Associated names[edit]
Lake Hali is a misty lake found near the city of Hastur. In the fictional play The King in Yellow (obliquely described by author Robert W. Chambers in the collection of short stories of the same title), the mysterious cities of Alar[1] and Carcosa stand beside the lake. As with Carcosa, it is referenced in the Cthulhu Mythos stories of Lovecraft and the authors who followed him.
The name Hali originated in Ambrose Bierce's 'An Inhabitant of Carcosa' (1886) in which Hali is the author of a quote which prefaces the story. The narrator of the story implies that the person named Hali is now dead (at least in the timeline of the story).
Several other nearly undescribed places are alluded to in Chambers' writing, among them Hastur, Yhtill, and Aldebaran. 'Aldebaran' may refer to the star Aldebaran, likely as it is also associated with the mention of the Hyades star cluster, with which it shares space in the night sky. The Yellow Sign, described as a symbol, not of any human script, is supposed to originate from the same place as Carcosa.
One other name associated is 'Demhe' and its 'cloudy depths' − this has never been explained either by Chambers or any famous pastiche-writer and so we do not know what or who exactly 'Demhe' is.
Marion Zimmer Bradley (and Diana L. Paxton since Bradley's death) also used these names in her Darkover series.
Other appearances[edit]
Written references[edit]
Later writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and his many admirers became great fans of Chambers' work and incorporated the name of Carcosa into their own stories, set in the Cthulhu Mythos. The King in Yellow and Carcosa have inspired many modern authors, including Karl Edward Wagner ('The River of Night's Dreaming'), Joseph S. Pulver ('Carl Lee & Cassilda'), Lin Carter, James Blish, Michael Cisco ('He Will Be There'), Ann K. Schwader, Robert M. Price, Galad Elflandsson, Simon Strantzas ('Beyond the Banks of the River Seine'), Charles Stross (in the Laundry Files series), and S. M. Stirling (in the Emberverse series).
Joseph S. Pulver has written nearly 30 tales and poems that are based on and/or include Carcosa, The King in Yellow, or other elements from Robert W. Chambers. Pulver also edited an anthology A Season in Carcosa of new tales based upon The King in Yellow, released by Miskatonic River Press in 2012.[2]
John Scott Tynes contributed to the mythology of Chambers' Carcosa in a series of novellas, 'Broadalbin,'[3] 'Ambrose,'[4] and 'Sosostris,'[5] and essays in issue 1 of The Unspeakable Oath[6] and in Delta Green.
In Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Carcosa is connected with an ancient civilization in the Gobi Desert, destroyed when the Illuminati arrived on Earth via flying saucers from the planet Vulcan.
In maps of the world of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a city named Carcosa is labeled on the easternmost edge of the map along the coast of a large lake, near other magical cities such as Asshai. In The World of Ice and Fire, it is mentioned that a sorcerer lord lives there who claims to be the sixty-ninth Yellow Emperor, from a dynasty fallen for a thousand years.[7]
In the short story 'Dinner in Carcosa,' Western Canadian author Allan Williams re-imagines Carcosa as an abandoned Alberta prairie town with still-active insurance policies held by an ominous firm called 'Hastur & Associates.' The story revolves around a chance encounter between a young insurance adjuster and the Ambrosovich family.[8]
In the satirical novel Kamus of Kadizhar: The Black Hole of Carcosa by John Shirley (St. Martin's Press, 1988), Carcosa is the name of a planet whose weird black hole physics figures in the story.[9]
In David Drake'sLord of the Isles series, Carcosa is the name of the ancient capital of the old kingdom, which collapsed a thousand years before the events of the series.[10]
In S.M. Stirling'sEmberverse series, Carcosa is the name of a South Pacific city inhabited by evil people led by the Yellow Raja and the Pallid Mask.
In Lawrence Watt-Evans's The Lords of Dûs series, a character known as the Forgotten King, who dresses in yellow rags, reveals that he was exiled from Carcosa.[11]
In writer Alan Moore's Neonomicon, drawn by artist Jacen Burrowes, the character Johnny Carcosa is the key to a mystical Lovecraftian universe.
Television[edit]
In the HBO original series True Detective, 'Carcosa' is presented as a man-made temple. Located in the back woods of Louisiana, the temple serves as a place of ritualistic sexual abuse of children and child murder organized by a group of wealthy Louisiana politicians and church leaders. The main characters, Rust Cohle and Marty Hart, storm the temple in the final episode of the season, where they confront a serial killer, who is the most active member of the cult. It is understood that the cult worships the 'Yellow King', to whom an effigy is dedicated in the main chamber of 'Carcosa'.The series hints at a larger conspiracy which continues beyond the show, which is in line with Lovecraftian horror, as is a vision experienced by one character that underscores Lovecraftian themes like cosmic indifference.
Other References[edit]
In the 1988 album 'Passage to Arcturo' by Rotting Christ, the song 'Inside The Eye of Algond' nominates the Mystical Carcosa as part of the singer's journey.
In 2016 DigiTech released a Fuzz pedal called the Carcosa. The pedal featured two modes, named 'Hali' and 'Demhe.' [12]
Maria, a film by King Abalos, takes place in a mysterious mountain called Carcosa.
In the Mass Effect 3 universe there is a planet named Carcosa.
In 2001 the Belgian black metal band Ancient Rites released the album Dim Carcosa. The title track's lyrics consist of excerpts from 'Cassilda's Song'.
In the early 2000s, a Mysterious Package Company experience called The King in Yellow was introduced, heavily inspired by story and title. Later, a sequel experience entitled Carcosa: Rise of the Cult was created, obviously connected to this shared universe, and connected to the original The King in Yellow.
The 2019 EP 'On the Shores of Hali'[13] by Cassilda and Carcosa[14] makes numerous references to Chamber's version of Carcosa.
Publishers using the name Carcosa[edit]
Two different publishers have used the name Carcosa.
Carcosa House[edit]
Carcosa House was a science fiction specialty publishing firm formed in 1947 by Frederick B. Shroyer, a boyhood friend of T. E. Dikty, and two Los Angelesscience fiction fans, Russell Hodgkins and Paul Skeeters. Shroyer had secured a copy of the original newspaper appearance of the novel Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss which he wished to publish. Shroyer talked Hodgkins and Skeeters into going in on shares to form the publisher which issued the Serviss book in 1947. Dikty offered advice, and William L. Crawford of F.P.C.I. helped with production and distribution. Carcosa House announced one other book, Enter Ghost: A Study in Weird Fiction, by Sam Russell, but due to slow sales of the Serviss book, it was never published.
Works published by Carcosa House[edit]
- Edison's Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss (1947)
Carcosa[edit]
colophon for Carcosa
Carcosa was a specialty publishing firm formed by David Drake, Karl Edward Wagner, and Jim Groce, who were concerned that Arkham House would cease publication after the death of its founder, August Derleth. Carcosa was founded in North Carolina in 1973 and put out four collections of pulphorror stories, all edited by Wagner. Their first book was a huge omnibus volume of the best non-series weird fiction by Manly Wade Wellman. It was enhanced by a group of chilling illustrations by noted fantasy artists Lee Brown Coye. Their other three volumes were also giant omnibus collections (of work by Hugh B. Cave, E. Hoffman Price, and again by Manly Wade Wellman). A fifth collection was planned, Death Stalks the Night, by Hugh B. Cave; Lee Brown Coye was working on illustrating it when he suffered a crippling stroke in 1977 and eventually died, causing Carcosa to abandon the project. The book was eventually published by Fedogan & Bremer. Carcosa also had plans to issue volumes by Leigh Brackett, H. Warner Munn and Jack Williamson; however, none of the projected volumes appeared. The Carcosa colophon depicts the silhouette of a towered city in front of three moons.
Awards[edit]
- 1976, World Fantasy Award, Special Award - Non-Professional to Karl Edward Wagner, David Drake & Jim Groce for Carcosa.[15]
Works published by Carcosa[edit]
- Worse Things Waiting, by Manly Wade Wellman (1973)
- Far Lands, Other Days, by E. Hoffmann Price (1975)
- Murgunstrumm and Others, by Hugh B. Cave (1977)
- Lonely Vigils, by Manly Wade Wellman (1981)
Places called Carcosa[edit]
In 1896-7 the Carcosa mansion was built as the official residence of the Resident-General of the Federated Malay States for the first holder of that office, Sir Frank Swettenham. It is currently in use as a luxury hotel, the Carcosa Seri Negara. Swettenham took the name from The King in Yellow.[16]
In the Quebec-based geopolitical/live action role play game Bicolline, Carcosa is a kingdom in the west. It was established upon principles of freedom and is populated by pirates, gypsies, escaped slaves, and religious exiles.
Notes[edit]
- ^'Yhtill' is the name of the city where The King in Yellow is set. In post-Chambers writings, the word means 'stranger' in the language of Alar (a city in the play) and is the name used by the character wearing the 'Pallid Mask.' (Harms, 'Yhtill,' The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, p. 341; cf. 'The Repairer of Reputations,' Chambers.)
- ^Joseph S. Pulver Sr., A Season in CarcosaArchived 2014-08-16 at the Wayback Machine, Miskatonic River Press, 2012 (accessed 27 June 2014). ISBN978-1937408008
- ^Tynes, John (1995). Broadalbin. Armitage House.
- ^Tynes, John (1996). Ambrose. Armitage House.
- ^Tynes, John (2000). Sosostris. Armitage House.
- ^Tynes, John (December 1990). 'The Road to Hali'. The Unspeakable Oath. Pagan Publishing. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
- ^George R.R. Martin, Elio M. García Jr., Linda Antonsson, The World of Ice and Fire, Bantam, 2014.
- ^'Audio Excerpt from 'Dinner in Carcosa''. 2015-05-02.
- ^[1][dead link]
- ^'Map of the Isles – David Drake'.
- ^Watt-Evans, Lawrence (November 2001). The Lure of the Basilisk. ISBN9781587155871.
- ^'DigiTech Carcosa Fuzz'. DigiTech Guitar Effects. Retrieved 2016-07-20.
- ^'On the Shores of Hali'.
- ^'Cassilda and Carcosa'.
- ^'1976 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees'. World Fantasy Convention. Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
- ^Barlow, Henry S. (1995). Swettenham. Kuala Lumpur: Southdene. p. 479.
References[edit]
- Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923–1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. pp. 136–139.
- Harms, Daniel (1998). The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN1-56882-119-0.
Further reading[edit]
- Rehearsals for Oblivion: Act 1—Tales of The King in Yellow, edited by Peter A. Worthy, Elder Signs Press 2007
- Strange Aeons 3 (an issue dedicated to The King in Yellow), edited by Rick Tillman and K.L. Young, Autumn 2010
- The Hastur Cycle, edited by Robert M. Price, Chaosium 1993
- The Yellow Sign and Other Stories, edited by S.T. Joshi, Chaosium 2004
External links[edit]
- An Inhabitant of Carcosa public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The King in Yellow public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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