Legions_of_Carcosa_linked.pdf

LEGIONS OF
CARCOSA
The Yellow King Roleplaying Game Bestiary

LEGIONS OF CARCOSA
The Yellow King Roleplaying Game Bestiary
Publishers: Simon Rogers and CathrionaTobin
Written and designed by: John Harness, Kira Magrann, Sarah Saltiel, and MonicaValentinelli, with Daniel Kwan
Developer: Robin D. Laws
Cover art: Janio Garcia
Interior art: Created by Robin D. Laws using the Stable DiffusionAI art software
Layout: Aileen Miles
Proofreading: Keith Mageau, CathrionaTobin
Eagle-eyes: Steve Hammatt
Copyright © 2023 Pelgrane Press Ltd.
The Yellow King RPG and GUMSHOE Quickshock are trademarks of Pelgrane Press Ltd.
Pelgrane Press is co-owned by Simon Rogers and CathrionaTobin.

3
CONTENTS
PARIS 5
Bonepile 6
Creeping Beast 8
Dark Dweller 10
The Dollmaker 12
The Doombringers 14
The Dressmaker 16
Gawkers 18
Green Fairy 20
Inkblot 22
Inspir 24
Liberty Vintners 26
Living Portrait 28
Marble Dancer 30
Marie Rowdon 32
Micar 34
Nokk 36
Our Lady of Bones 38
Pan 40
Picture Perfect 42
Pigment 44
Silver Sirens 46
Unknown of the Seine 48
Madame Cleo Verlaque 50
Wanderer 52
Widowmaker 54
Winter Worm 56
Yellow Carnation 58
THE WARS 61
Angels of Mons 62
Blood Field 64
Blood Sanctum 66
Caged Horror 68
Cyt 70
Paul Daste 72
Drought Lord 74
Commandant Dupuis 76
Ear Worms 78
Forget-Me-Not 80
Furious Banes 82
Gut Gobbler 84
Leatherleg 86
Little One 88
Pestipox 90
Red Eyes 92
The Rot 94
The Silent Doctor 96
Soft Machines 98
Spirit Host 100
Talisman 102
Translated Soldiers 104
Washer Woman 106
Wood-Wives 108
AFTERMATH 111
Black-Eyed Kids 112
Crouch 114
Devourers 116
Doppelganger 118
Ectofly 120
Fliptops 122
Fluffy 123
Glo-Glutton 125
Golden Sigil Parties 127
Granitites 129
Insonic 131
Kids Club Sleeper Agent 133
Namesake 135
Nemesis Spirit 137
The Ooze 140
Parageometric Savant 142
Rouge Beret 144
Sersinger 146
Unholy Tears 148
Vibrat 150
THIS IS NORMAL NOW 152
Blue 153
Botanihive 155
Catfish 157
Chirpers 159
Copycat Killers 161
Deadshift 163
Disintegrators 165
Dry-Leaves 167
Euphorium 169
Flatfeet 171
Flicker 173
The Fontaines 175
Footlickers 177
Glitch 179
Lost Waters 181
Midnight Mare 183
Oothecoid 185
The Order of Baphomet 187
Sadboi 189
The Swayed 191
Talking Head 193
Tesseract 195
Wiresnake 198

4
The YELLOW KING BESTIARY: Minions of the Pallid King
MINIONS OF THE PALLID KING
When the King in Yellow breaks
our reality, monsters creep in
through the gaps.
This book presents 86 new
adversaries to confound, menace,
and mystify the players of your Yellow
King Roleplaying Game series.
From sinister human individuals
to parasitic swarms, from resurrected
gods to denizens of internet chat
rooms, they’re here to inspire
scenarios, lure the unwary, and strike
fear into the hearts of investigators
across time and dimensions.
Each is keyed to one of the four
YKRPG sequences: Belle Époque
Paris, the alternate reality battlefields
of The Wars, the haunted, post-
totalitarianAmerica of Aftermath, or
the eerily ordinary present of This Is
Normal Now.
Every Foe also contains alternate
ideas to adapt them to each of the
other three sequences. The Rouge
Beret might have been created
for The Wars, but can adjust itself
to your terror-inspiring needs in
Paris, Aftermath, or TINN.After
introducing Our Lady of Bones in
Paris, her refractions can return to
bedevil the players in the other three
settings.
All Injury and Shock cards
you need to run each Foe appear
immediately after its description.
Here we diverge from other YKRPG
books, where cards all appear
together at the back because you
might need them in a variety of
circumstances. This new approach
maximizes ease of reference,
although it does mean that a few
cards appear more than once in this
book.
These Foes evoke the game’s
distinctive themes and motifs. You’ll
find a number of parasitic entities,
conspiring humans, decadent alien
nobles, and legendary figures are
given substance. This permits you to
pick the exact version of an entity
type you need to power the scenario
you have in mind. Naturally, you’ll
vary sorts of Foes from one scenario
to the next. Even the most patient
players will grow bored of ravening
beasts if that’s all you ever throw at
them.
As always in horror roleplaying,
use state-of-the-art safety tools to
ensure that your players meet up
with the thrilling frights they want
to confront, and avoid subject matter
they don’t want at their gaming
table.Although this advice applies
across the board, content advisories
accompany a few entries you’ll want
to take particular care around.
Now that we’ve delayed you with
this introduction long enough for this
book’s monstrous inhabitants to find
hiding places from which to pounce,
we’re out of further ado. Enjoy this
collection of enthralling nasties, and
we’ll meet you for a debriefing by the
shores of Hali!

6
Legions of Carcosa: Paris
Bonepile
Animated by practitioners of
Carcosan magic, neglected human
remains carelessly shunted to the
Catacombs become bonepiles,
prowling through the city’s
underground in roaming masses.
The investigators discover them
as they spread from their original
resting places to both the old and new
sewer systems. These amalgamations
manifest as small avalanches of
bones that tumble along the ground,
gaining size as they sweep stray bones
and other debris into their shambling
mass.
Haussmann’s controversial mid-
century renovation of Paris included
a new, modern sewer system and
the removal of bodies from old
graveyards to the Catacombs. In
keeping with standard practices, old
bones were separated into categories,
becoming stacks of fibulas and tibias,
heaped collections of ribs, vertebrae,
and skulls.Workers arranged selected
bones into beautiful, macabre statues.
And so they sat until the spread of
the Yellow Sign.
Only a portion of the Catacombs is
open to public viewing, which does
not stop people from entering the
off-limits areas. There, thieves and
radicals under Carcosan influence
paint the Yellow Sign onto the
catacomb walls and vandalize the
bone piles.A few self-proclaimed
magicians have staged elaborate,
but ineffective, magic rituals in
the tunnels. Rumors surrounding
these gatherings make the police
wary of investigating any claims of
actual supernatural activity in the
Catacombs.
Like many haunting phenomena,
bonepiles possess neither
consciousness nor the ability to
communicate, but rather act on
mindless compulsion.Vivified by
the power of the Yellow Sign, they
roam the underground in an effort to
reassemble all of the disparate bones
of the skeletons they contain.A subtle
psychic sense allows the bonepile
to locate the missing bones, slowly
rolling through the underground,
regardless of what might block
its path. It reads living beings as a
threat and attacks them, absorbing
their remains into the mass.When
as much as a scrap of bone still lies
elsewhere in the city, the bonepile
tumbles on. These fragments
typically lie under structures built
over the old cemeteries.A bonepile
can hurl its weight with enough force
to knock down walls, topple carriages,
and, if it plows through the wrong
underground support beam, collapse
entire buildings.
A kill result in combat causes
the pile of bones to temporarily
lose animation, which it regains at
midnight.
To permanently destroy one,
investigators must find the site where
magicians summoned it and perform
a rite that undoes the spell. Usually,
this requires them to identify the
magicians, and either learn the
ceremony they used in order to
create a reverse version, or coerce
them into doing it. Often this entails
unmaking a Yellow Sign responsible
for its manifestation.

7
Bonepile
The Wars:A crawling mass of
mud and bones, a wartime bonepile
rises from an unmarked battlefield
grave and crawls along country
roads, seeking revenge.To dispel it
permanently, the squad must lure it
back to its burial site and fight to kill.
To keep it dead, the squad must take
an additional action revealed by their
investigation, such as:
• installing a memorial
• bringing war criminals responsible
for the incident to justice
• returning the personal effects
of soldiers to their loved ones
Aftermath: Bonepiles are
reanimated remains from mass
graves of the Castaigne regime.
Quelling a bonepile may require
the exhumation, identification, and
proper burial of the victims, the
capture and prosecution of the mass
murderers, or both.
This Is Normal Now: Bonepiles made
of rampager excrement and undigested
human bones emerge from creature
lairs, and roam the land between
major metropolitan areas. Investigators
may kill a particular bonepile, but the
creatures continue to emerge until they
enter the lair and liberate a half-eaten
human whose sorrow, and lingering
Carcosan vibrations, gives impetus to
the roaming monsters.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty: Superior (Escape 3,
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustments: -1 if you
have a map of the catacombs, -2 if you
have taken steps to bring peace to the
dead
Toll: 1
Tags: Construct
Injuries, Minor and Major: It’s
a Miracle You’reAlive/Massive
Injuries
IT’S A MIRACLE
YOU’RE ALIVE
Injury
-1 to Physical tests.
After a Physical failure, roll a die.
Even: trade for Shock card “Rattled.”
MASSIVE INJURIES
Injury
Counts as 2 Injury cards. Until
end of interval you can’t make
tests. Thereafter, -2 to Physical
tests and -1 to Focus tests.
If scenario is not over at end of
session, trade for “On the Mend.”

8
Creeping Beast
Among the thrilling new artworks
hanging in the 6th
arrondissement’s
Luxembourg Gallery is a post-
impressionist painting with a
sinister aspect. The painting depicts
a jungle in a dark palette of greens
and yellows, with several beautiful
flowers and beasts among the
leaves.A cursory glance reveals
nothing abnormal. Hidden in the
painting’s shadowy tall grasses is a
skulking leopard, coat weathered,
muscles taut. It takes a little while
of gazing at the painting to see the
leopard, immersing oneself into
this fantastically stylized jungle
world, examining each brushstroke
on each post-impressionist version
of a blade of grass.As soon as the
leopard notices it’s being looked at,
it returns the viewer’s gaze. Nobody
else notices this but the person who it
locks eyes with.
Over the next few days, the gazer
begins to see the leopard where it
shouldn’t be. It appears in other
paintings, on reflective surfaces,
and in shadows that dance upon
walls. Each time the target sees the
leopard, it appears closer, poised
as though stalking and, eventually,
ready to pounce. The terrified victim
constantly checks their peripheral
vision for hints of movement. Finally
comes the dreaded moment, as the
creature jumps into the victim’s
reality and tears them to shreds.
The creeping beast prefers to kill
when alone with its victims. It breaks
this habit if desperate or provoked by
the victim in some manner. The beast
can be instigated to this violence if its
existence is threatened (the painting
is on fire, for example) or when
someone else is using supernatural
abilities to disconnect its hold on
the victim. In these unusual cases,
witnesses see an attack by an invisible
creature.
A glance at the body with Natural
History indicates mauling by a
big cat. The bite marks match the
configuration of a leopard’s jaw,
but at a size larger than any known
specimen of that species.
The Wars: The creeping beast
manifests in the darkness of forests
near the battlefield. Soldiers see it in
calm moments between fighting.As
leopards are not native to Europe,
they may at first speculate that it
has escaped from a bombed-out or
abandoned zoo. Only when it draws

9
Creeping Beast
MONSTROUS MAULING
Injury; Shock
-1 to tests.
Trade for “Still Hurting” by
paying a price or overcoming
a relevant obstacle.
If still in hand at end of scenario,
gain the card “Permanent Injury.”
REALITY HORROR
Shock
-1 to Focus tests.
At the end of a scene in which
you take the lead in gaining a
core clue from a GMC, roll a die.
Even: discard. Odd: give this
Shock card to another player.
closer do its chosen victims realize
how big it is.
The creeping beast hunts soldiers
and civilians alike. Characters
may find themselves hunted by
a creeping beast, and in need of
shaking the impending doom.A
civilian may come to them for help,
or in their frightened state, admit
that they’ve seen the beast and feel
it’s coming for them. Several soldiers
may have died recently from beast
attacks, prompting a more thorough
investigation of the dark woods.
Aftermath: In the ruin of
revolution, the creeping beast
manifests as its true alien self: a large,
spindly creature left behind when
the gates were closed.Targets see a
bipedal entity, with six long spindly
arms that end in razor-sharp talons,
and an impossibly huge maw for the
size of its head. It stalks its prey in
a hunched position. Strange yellow
and black spots cover its shiny body,
similar to a leopard. Through its six
eyes, it perceives its victim’s fear,
fueling its desire to attack. Its favorite
hiding places include elevator shafts,
piles of garbage, old fire escapes, and
stacks of boxes in basement corners.
Furious at its castaway status in a
world where Carcosan influence
continues to dwindle, it targets
former insurgents and the enemies
of regime parageometrists it once
collaborated with.
This Is Normal Now: In a world
where museum attendees make
up a fraction of the population, the
creeping beast increases its reach by
positioning itself in online memes.
The meme originated as a generic
photo of a jungle someone took
while vacationing. In the foreground
appears a Photoshopped person in
a bikini and sunglasses, pointing off
camera to the left. Users alter the
caption to make their own jokes or
express their political views. The
background of the image seems
innocuous at first, until the viewer
looks closer and spots the leopard
among its leaves. The meme has
gained enough popularity to increase
the number of unsuspecting victims
allowing the image to linger on their
feed. The victim continues to see
the creeping beast get closer and
closer in the various screens they
use every day until it leaps out of
the screen at them. It targets people
chaotically, and victims are found
torn to shreds, either holding their
phones or in front of their computers.
The ordinary characters in this world
could encounter this image in their
own social media feeds. It may also be
encountered by reading a creepypasta
story about them elsewhere on
the internet that is connected
suspiciously to the deaths of people
they know IRL.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty: Vastly Superior
(Escape 3, Other 6, Kill 7)
Difficulty Adjustments: -1 if the
target likes art
Toll: 2
Tags: Invasive
Injuries, Minor and Major:
Reality Horror (a Shock card)/
Monstrous Mauling

10
Dark Dweller
As signs of the Yellow King stirred
in this world, something more
ancient than old bones settled into
the Paris Catacombs. Perhaps that
space under the earth is where the
passageway between Carcosa and this
world has always been. Throughout
Paris, there are openings that lead
down into the Catacombs. Lately,
an indescribable energy has been
calling life down into the dark void.
The well-trafficked parts of the
Catacombs pose very little threat,
but there are sections that have not
been seen for decades, stretching for
miles underneath Paris. If a person
or animal gets lost in the Catacombs,
the absolute darkness seeps into
them over the course of several days,
leaving them forever transformed.
Dark dwellers don’t return to the
life that they lived before; they have
lost too much of themselves to even
know what that is. They move in the
shadows, never staying outside of the
Catacombs for too long. They are the
flickers of life seen out of the corners
of eyes, in the places where the city
shows its cracks. Carcosa’s dark
energy drove them mad, imbuing
them with uncanny strength. The
former humans among them have
gone feral.
Dwellers subsist on the dark, not
needing food or other sustenance.
They fiercely and unrelentingly
attack people or animals that come
too close to their lurking spots,
resenting reminders of what they
once were. From a distance, they
still resemble ordinary humans and
animals.A closer look shows their
transformation into hairless creatures
of skin and bone.
Having been transformed by the
dark, dwellers are pained by the
light and generally do not go into
the sunniest parts of the city. If your
game has dwellers attacking victims
on the streets of Paris, investigators
likely find something much worse
lurking in the belly of the city,
driving dark dwellers upwards like
rats before a flood.
Of course, if investigators are
foolhardy enough to pursue a missing
person down into the depths, they
almost certainly stumble across a dark
dweller, oozing with primal rage and
darkness. If they’re really unlucky,
they meet a swarm. They face a race
against time and primordial darkness
to find their missing person before
they’re both changed forever.
The Wars: In abandoned trenches,
the dark dwellers lurk. Previously
soldiers from either side, the trenches
altered their nature. They are the
ones who were left for dead… and
perhaps they were really dead.
They stick mostly to the trenches,
burrowing into the ground when
they encounter walls, making their
homes at the front lines of battles
that everyone has already forgotten.
In places where many dark dwellers
are clustered, it seems as if the
ground is moving because of how
it is constantly being stirred up by
these beings moving underneath
it. Investigating a mysterious mass
death might put your characters
in more danger than anticipated if
previously immobile bodies are found
moving through the underground
and brimming with fury.
Aftermath: Dark dweller numbers
spiked during the Castaigne reign
as the grim nature of reality made
literal monsters out of the most
empathetic survivors. Many of the
parageometry experiments focused
on the effects of Carcosan energy
on humans. Dark dwellers were
of particular interest because of
how the transformation made the
humans significantly stronger and
improved their resilience. Nearly
all of the experiments resulted in
the subjects losing their humanity
completely. However, the variations
in the experiments led to different
manifestations.A few dark dwellers

11
Dark Dweller
THROUGH THE
RINGER
Injury
+1 toTolls.
Other PCs take -1 Composure
penalties while in sight of you.
Trade for “Black and Blue”
as recipient of Difficulty
5 FirstAid success.
BREAKING POINT
Injury
+2 toTolls.
For the next six hours of world
time, other PCs take -2 Composure
penalties while in sight of you.
After six hours world time, trade for
the Injury card “Black and Blue” and
the Shock card “They Broke You.”
maintain the logic skills of their
human selves, but where there
used to be sentimentality, there’s
now just rage. Since the revolution,
the provisional government has
attempted to track down these
dangerous creatures.With records of
the experiments missing, it is unclear
how many were made and how many
are still out there, lurking in the dark.
This Is Normal Now: There are parts
of the internet where the darkest
recesses of humanity are realized.
This is where dark dwellers now
spawn and live. Simply checking out
these internet spaces doesn’t turn a
human being into a dark dweller, but
extended or repeated entry warps
people. The division between the
online and physical world causes a
fissure — the dark dweller retains their
human form while away from the
internet, but once they connect to it,
they enter into the internet and use
the networks to manifest elsewhere
physically. They generally stay within
one network and attack the humans
connected by it. Investigators might
find themselves connecting a series
of attacks on people who have never
met but interacted on the same online
forum. The human self of the dweller
retains no knowledge of what their
dark dweller form has done, but feels
compelled to increasingly return to the
internet.As time goes on, their dark
dweller self takes over until it is able
to entirely separate from its physical
form, leaving the original human a
consciousness-less shell.
Numbers: 1, or number of PCs
present minus 1
Difficulty: Evenly Matched
Difficulty Adjustments: -1 if you
find out who they were before they
were warped by the darkness; -2 if in
broad daylight; +2 if in the depths of
their lair; +3 if you remind them of
something about their past life
Toll: 2
Tags:Alt/Mutant
Through the Ringer/Breaking Point

12
The Dollmaker
Evelyn Royer works as a dollmaker
in a shop located down a cobblestone
alley in the Pigalle. Her quaint,
old-fashioned dolls feature clothing
and craftsmanship echoing popular
“Parisienne” or French fashion dolls.
Their heads are made of porcelain,
with soulful eyes, and real human hair.
Their soft bodies are clothed in luxury
velvets, silks, and cashmere to mimic
royal fashion. These traditional works
are better loved by collectors, and
older people nostalgic for their youth,
than by children who actually play
with dolls. Royer doesn’t much care
who purchases them; she has more
important dolls to make.
A secret set of stairs leads from her
shop’s backroom into a basement,
which the undiscerning eye would
identify as a place of pagan worship.
When the art students discover it,
they find three altars covered in
candles and mirrors, and surrounded
by the bones of dead animals. Several
animal horns are attached to the
walls in rows. On closer inspection
they realize that the iconography
evokes not pagan gods, but the court
of Carcosa, with twin suns and waves
beneath them painted abstractly on
each surface. Upon various pedestals
stand dolls quite different from the
ones upstairs.With eerie realism
and meticulous detail, they depict
particular people, down to the tiniest
freckle. Each contains a piece of hair,
jewelry, fingernail, tooth, or blood
from the real person. Evelyn crafts
intentional lookalikes of the people
she wishes to curse directly.
When Evelyn completes one of
these uncanny dolls, the person it
models suffers a Carcosan curse.
Their spirit is sucked inside the
porcelain, and they become trapped
inside the doll, leaving their body
empty but still living in the real
world. The more spirits Evelyn
captures, the more energy she
can channel into opening a rift to
Carcosa. She’s only three dolls away
from her goal. Destroying the dolls
will release the people imprisoned.
Art students encountering dolls
Evelyn has crafted in their likeness
make a Difficulty 4 Composure test
to avoid Shocks—Minor and Major:
Dolled Up/Thrall to the Doll.
The Wars:A woman in her sixties
named Evelyn Royer, who lives alone
in her shack, carves dolls out of scrap
wood she finds on the battlefields.
They resemble real soldiers she’s seen
in persistent visions.As if possessed,
with no idea what’s she’s doing, she
feverishly works to create a doll in
the wake of these visions. The subject
then becomes trapped in the doll, but
she’s able to manipulate their body
to influence the outcome of the next
battle in which they participate. She
maintains a humbler version of her
Parisian counterpart’s altar in her
makeshift workshop. The shrine has
always been there, and she’s unsure
how long she has been in this shack
carving these dolls.
Aftermath:A top-secret
government project has created the
first androids to support the rebellion
and fight against the Carcosans.
These android prototypes are
incredibly technologically advanced
and look human unless examined
very closely. One of the engineers on
the project is a double agent working
for the Castaigne regime. Her mind
has been twisted by the King in
Yellow to serve his will instead of
the rebellion. This engineer, Evelyn
Royer, creates androids who look
like real people, with the end goal

13
The Dollmaker
of replacing them. She does this
secretly, keeping them in a hidden
sub-basement beneath the high tech
facility. Several are already in place
in various tiers ofAmerican society,
but there are many who have yet to
be released into the wild. Once in
place, these androids then go about
the Regime’s business, performing
whatever dire acts are required of
them.While some of them seem to
have minds of their own, these are
caught and destroyed by Evelyn.
This Is Normal Now:A large scale
doll manufacturer, Darbie, is well
known for creating dolls that represent
idealized careers a girl could have
when she grows up. These classic dolls
have been around for fifty years and
are symbolic of a kind of old-fashioned
American dream.A Darbie designer,
Evelyn Royer, recently felt compelled
to create a run of dolls that look
uncannily like people she knows in real
life. Evelyn keeps the prototypes in her
office at the company headquarters,
trapping numerous souls inside their
plastic bodies until she can open a rift to
Carcosa.
Numbers: 1
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustments: -1
personally scared of dolls, +1 dolls are
within sight
Toll: 1
Tags: Human
Mostly Resistant/Find theAntidote
MOSTLY RESISTANT
Injury
You can’t spend Health points on tests.
At the end of each interval,
roll a die. Even: discard.
FIND THE ANTIDOTE
Injury
If scenario ends with this card
still in hand, you die.
Discard by finding the antidote.
DOLLED UP
Shock
Lose 1 Composure each time you
handle, look at, or discuss the doll.
Once per interval, you may make
a Difficulty 4 Composure test.
Success: if you destroy the doll,
you lose 3 Health and discard.
THRALL TO THE DOLL
Shock
You may not interfere with the
plans of the dollmaker, as you
understand them, or abet any
effort to damage the doll.
If the doll is nonetheless
destroyed, trade for the Injury
card “Energy Drain.”
ENERGY DRAIN
Injury
Pay 5 points from any combination
of Physical abilities. If you can’t
pay, trade for “Massive Injuries.”
After six hours (world time), trade
for “On the Mend” as recipient of
Difficulty 4 FirstAid success.

14
The Doombringers
Like police of most times and
places, Parisian gendarmes serve
those in power. The Doombringers,
a secret group within the gendarmes,
have fixed their loyalties on a
mightier authority — the King in
Yellow, a living god. They pursue
his goal, as they understand it: the
end of reality. The Doombringers
aid beings or events driven by
alien Carcosa, turning a blind eye
to these creatures’ lawbreaking
whenever it occurs.To this end, the
Doombringers lose key evidence,
mislead witnesses and victims, and
impede interfering investigators like
the art students. They take particular
pains to conceal evidence of alien
beings’ vulnerabilities. In most cases,
they succeed, but a few missteps have
revealed their existence, although not
their cover within the gendarmes,
to the wary investigator.While the
group typically focuses on aiding
these supernatural lawbreakers,
they may also decline to intervene in
ordinary misdeeds.
The Doombringers attend regular
meetings in the basement of an
innocuous pub owned by a civilian
supporter. Such supporters are
few, maintaining loyalty on pain of
death. The basement looks a place
for criminals to plan their heists,
complete with a card table and
strategy board with various names
and photos connected by strings.
Accoutrements include several
occult symbols, candles, and against
a side wall, a stone altar stained
with old blood. Occultism finds
these elements familiar.Aside from
the appearance of the Yellow Sign,
they represent the Doombringers’
human conception of black magic.
The conspiracy occasionally brings
victims down here for secret
interrogations or human sacrifice.
Rarely do actual Carcosans interact
with them directly. Rather, they
seek out individuals they take for
Carcosans and make themselves
available as servitors. In your
scenario, they may be acting for a
true Carcosan, presuming what the
King wants them to do, or following
the orders of an opportunistic con
artist they have mistaken for an agent
of the Pallid One.
The Doombringers are currently
led by Officer ThomasTravers, who
more or less directs their actions
and makes the hard decisions
when required.Travers maintains
theirTome of Knowledge, which
tracks all the Carcosan activity
they’ve been able to record since
the play first surfaced. It details
the alien interlopers’ desires,
habits, preferred living places and
victims, and some rituals that are
meant to call Carcosans to them.
Members consider themselves loyal
to the King, withTravers a mere
intermediary. Should he be killed,
someone else steps up to fill the void.
Power struggles and personal quarrels
sometimes arise among the group.
Offering false secrets to members of
the Doombringers who are either
especially power-hungry or desirous
of glory is a sure way to get them to
turn on each other.
The Wars: The Doombringers
exist as a secret chain of command
within the Loyalist military. The
conspiracy encompasses ranks high
and low, allowing them to intervene
in operations from the command
level all the way down to grunts in
the field. They use military resources
to abet Carcosans, again employing
guesswork and presumption to figure
out what sort of help they desire.
To do this, they perform their own
investigations into Carcosan activity.
The squad might discover them
and gain the information they’ve
gathered, or find themselves targeted
by Doombringers as a source of
key intelligence. In The Wars, they
gather in makeshift spaces: any
place dark and isolated will do.At
the meeting’s outset, the ranking
member ritually claims the space by
hanging up a sacrificial dagger with
an alien-looking obsidian blade.

15
The Doombringers
You may decide that they have
likewise infiltrated the ranks of the
enemy, either working against their
Loyalist counterparts or in covert
alignment with them.
Aftermath:When preparing his
1920 coup, Mr.Wilde recruited
the Doombringer cult, active in
America from the early 1900s, into
his conspiracy.Taking this as a sign of
imminentArmageddon, they joined
enthusiastically. Over the decades,
they evolved fromWilde’s ideological
vanguard to an honorary order within
the regime apparatus, not unlike
an Ivy League secret society.With
the regime now shattered, fugitive
functionaries seek to revive the
Doombringers of old, as a true secret
conspiracy operating within the police
and military. Led by double agents
so far unexposed by theTruth and
Reconciliation Process, they seek to
derail the revolution by infiltrating
its security complex.With their old
Carcosan confederates on the other
side of the gate, they must find their
own alternate road to the end of
reality as we know it.
This Is Normal Now: The police are
already deeply corrupt on multiple
levels, both human and Carcosan in
nature, even without the interference
of the Doombringer Cult. They
merely have to push a little bit
one way or another to turn a small
tragedy into a large catastrophe.
The Doombringers delight in the
growing mistrust between the public
and the police, and weaponize it
to aid in any Carcosan agendas.A
philosophical lack of faith in the law
keepers opens up the possibility for
a more chaotic law to take hold in
the public consciousness. The more
the people believe in chaos, the
easier it is for the Doombringers to
invite the end of the world. They sow
discord within institutions of law and
order, searching for weak points and
exploiting them to their advantage.
The Doombringers’ most recent
campaign is to sow violence between
police and political protesters by
BLACK AND BLUE
Injury
+1 toTolls.
Discard when you take a Major Injury.
BADLY BEATEN
Injury
+2 toTolls.
After two intervals, trade for
“Black and Blue” as recipient of
SHOT
Injury
-2 to Physical tests. Counts as
2 Injury cards.Trade for “On
the Mend” as recipient of
If still in hand at end of scenario, you
succumb to your injuries and die.
GRAZED
Injury
Discard on a Physical success.
CAMBUK ZAP
Shock or Injury
(player chooses)
-4 to Composure tests when
in view of the Yellow Sign.
Discard after two intervals.
CAMBUK SLASH
Shock; Injury
-4 to Composure tests when
in view of the Yellow Sign.
After two intervals, you
may discard as recipient of a
creating fake rap sheets of specific
protest leaders, making them appear
far more violent than in reality.
During protests, they’ll be the first
to unleash violence on the protesters,
inciting both cops and civilians.
Political protests are spiritually ripe
events to target, as this type of police
response leaves civilians feeling
helpless, fearful, and with only
violent recourse.
Numbers: 13
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustments: -1 you
trust the gendarmes; +1 if you’re
suspicious of authority
Toll: 1
Tags: Human
Black and Blue/Badly Beaten
(Paris, TINN); Grazed/Shot (The
Wars); Cambuk Zap/Cambuk Slash
(Aftermath)

16
The Dressmaker
Claudia Martin, a tailor living
in the Latin Quarter of Paris,
is well known for her excellent
craftsmanship and gorgeous
gowns. The dresses are interesting
interpretations of recent fashions,
composed of tulles, laces, and colors
that are quite popular.Women of
Parisian society adore her work,
yearning to join her exclusive client
list.
Claudia resides alone above her
humble shop, whose window always
showcases two of her handmade
dresses.An unassuming-looking
Parisian woman, she never wears her
expensive pieces, preferring simple,
well-made items in soft pastel hues.
She keeps her hair neatly tucked
up, peering through her glasses as
she works on the small details of
her sewing. Not a soul suspects the
despicable ways in which she’s being
manipulated by the King in Yellow.
The dresses infect their wearers,
making them susceptible to Claudia’s
suggestions. In her dreams, she
imagines them acting like her little
puppets on strings. In reality, the next
day, they follow these commands.
Over time, Claudia has learned to
control this to her advantage, gaining
personal wealth — and revenge on
those who’ve harmed her in the past.
Recent nights have found her desires
becoming increasingly sinister as
power corrupts her mind. Claudia
particularly relishes in the suffering
of her puppets. The dresses whisper
the victim’s lies to Claudia, and she
turns these facades they wear to the
outside world against them.
In order to save her victims, she
simply needs to be stopped.
Player characters wearing an
infected dress make Difficulty 4
Health tests to avoid Injuries—
Minor and Major: Soul Swipe/
Yellow Doom. GMCs become
affected as your story needs dictate.
Claudia’s control over her thralls
grants her supernatural power she
can manifest physically in a fight.
Demonstrating them risks exposure,
so she only does this in self-defense.
Instead, she sends her thralls against
meddling art students, perhaps as an
Antagonist Reaction.
The Wars: In a town near the front,
the dark dream has infected a local
tailor named Claudia Martin. She
finds dead civilians, often women,
children, and the elderly, stealing
the clothing from their corpses to
resell. Claudia repairs the clothing,
washing it thoroughly of bloodstains,
adding decorative embroidery, beads,
and the Yellow Sign. Over time
she has given clothes to most of her
fellow townsfolk, creating an entire
settlement she can puppet at will.
When the squad enters her town
and senses something amiss, Claudia
uses the opportunity to force items of
clothing on them. Should they refuse,
she commands her thralls to pick up
butcher knives and pitchforks.
Aftermath:A tailor working at a
small laundromat, Claudia Martin,
keeps the clothes of those customers
who pass away without picking
up their dry cleaning. She brings
the clothes home to her sewing
machine, stitches Yellow Signs
inside them, and then fixes them up
to resell at weekend markets or in
consignment shops. Claudia came
to know operatives on both sides
of the struggle when an insurgent
cell, later infiltrated and turned by
regime counterintelligence, used the
laundromat as a drop point. During
this time, she slipped tainted clothes
to rebels and secret police alike,
asserting control over the wearers as
the whim struck her.
This Is Normal Now: Dressmaker
Claudia Martin owns a sweatshop

17
The Dressmaker
that mass produces fast fashion for
several big companies specializing in
cheap apparel that falls apart after a
few washes. She hand-alters items
in shipments bound for stores in
her home city, adding fabrics taken
from the dead. Claudia can tell when
a nearby person is wearing one of
the tainted pieces.Wandering the
streets at night, she locates victims,
adding them to her list of puppets.
She may be using them to sabotage
competitors and strengthen her
business empire, or to pursue a
deadly vendetta.
Numbers: 1
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustments: +1 if the
target doesn’t wear dresses; -1 if the
target is prone to nightmares
Toll: 1
Tags: Human
Slashing Needle/All Sewn Up
SOUL SWIPE
Injury; Shock
As recipient of dream command from
the Yellow King, you must obey it,
or gain the card “Yellow Doom.”
YELLOW DOOM
Injury; Shock; Continuity
If still in hand after 24 hours (world
time), your character dies.
Discard by striking a significant
blow against the forces of Carcosa.
SLASHING NEEDLE
Injury
Discard as the recipient of a First
Aid spend equal to the margin
of your failed Fighting test.
ALL SEWN UP
Injury
Parts of you have been sewn
to other parts of you.
-3 to Physical tests; -1 to
Focus and Presence tests.
Discard one interval after
you become the recipient of a
Difficulty 5 First Aid success.

18
Gawkers
An artist’s model scandalizes
parade-goers with her blasphemous
costume.A roofer’s shattered body
lies on the street, his horrified co-
workers looking down from above.
The Granville–Paris Express crashes
through the Montparnasse train
station and down into the Place de
Rennes below.Wherever an event
arouses the mass prurient interest of
a crowd, gawkers may materialize.
Appearing as everyday folk, save
for their waxy skin, undifferentiated
features, and vague costuming, they
plunge into the throng. Cloaked by
the confusion of the event and the
perception-clouding powers of the
Yellow Sign, they pick off a distracted
onlooker or two, reducing them to
nothingness. Only intent observers,
alert to the presence of the deucedly
peculiar, notice anything amiss.
After a kill, the gawkers vanish into
a space between realities — until the
one who has summoned them brings
them back for more. Gawkers may
manifest at the behest of a Carcosan
noble or human wielder of black star
magic. The spell initially requires
the presence of a human throng rapt
with untoward fascination.After the
summoner brings them into being,
any crowd will do, regardless of its
reasons for forming. The magician
may gain power from the energies
the attacks release, or use the gawkers
to murder particular individuals
among the onlookers. The summoner
in your scenario may contrive an
instigating event to attract the right
sort of crowd.
Your mystery may revolve around
the gawker effect and the summoner
behind it.To solve it and conclude
the scenario, the art students must
identify and defeat the magician.
Alternately, a foe may use them as
foot soldiers while pursuing some
other scheme, in which case they
feature asAntagonist Reactions that
happen while the art students move
through crowded boulevards.
The Wars:Wherever a terrified
crowd shelters, a summoner can
bring gawkers into the world to
swell their numbers. They appear in
bunkers or trenches, or hunker down
amid troops under bombardment.
The summoner may gain energy
from them or use them as murder
weapons, as above. Or they might
fight for the enemy, materializing
gawkers to disrupt an advancing
Loyalist column.
Aftermath: Crowds gather
outside of official buildings to
protest the continued lack of social
help after the Uprising. Crushing
into the doorways of offices and
aid centers, these protesters make
trouble for anyone hoping to enter
or exit important buildings.While
ordinarily reasonable, these crowds
become agitated in the presence of a
Carcosan instigator — usually the one
leading the chants.
This Is Normal Now: Gawkers
become a possibleAntagonist
Reaction, as the team finds itself at
the scene of an SRI that occurred
in front of a crowd. Onlookers
spontaneously take on the powers
and behaviors of a gawker swarm,
instinctively identifying the
investigators as a threat to the
Carcosan meme complex, and surge
toward them. On a Render Helpless
combat result, the dazed bystanders
snap out of it, regarding their brief
moments as part of a mindless mob as
a temporary fugue state.
Numbers: 7-10 or more
Difficulty Adjustments: +1 if at
a large event like an art salon; +2 if a
PC is at the center of a public event
that directly draws their attention; -1
if investigators are sneaking
Toll: 1
Tags:Alt
Contused/Squeezed

19
Gawkers
CONTUSED
Injury
SQUEEZED
Injury
Discard on a Physical failure.
If still held at the end of session,
begin next session by receiving “Do
Not Go Forth into theAgora.”
DO NOT GO FORTH
INTO THE AGORA
Shock
Make a Difficulty 4 SenseTrouble
test every time you enter a place you
have never been before. On a failure,
-1 to all tests while in that location.
Discard when you take an
Injury card in a location you
are very familiar with.

20
Green Fairy
Absinthe: the drink of the artists
in Paris. It is known for its anise
flavor and reputed hallucinogenic
properties, supposedly provoked by
thujone, a component of wormwood.
Prior to The King in Yellow, these
visions resulted from a combination
of expectation, the drink’s staggering
alcohol content, and copious
overindulgence. Now legend has
gained reality, allowing imbibers to
accurately perceive green fairies,
predatory horrors that walk among
them.
These entities take on the guise
of unremarkable humans, haunting
the peripheries of places of energy
and excitement. They pass through
parties and bustling streets, having
brief moments of interaction with
humans: a brush when they pass
each other, a fleeting moment of eye
contact.
An investigator under the
influence of absinthe, with either
theTipsy or Intoxicated Shock card
in hand, sees a very different scene.
In their true form, their green skin
constantly ripples and oozes, like
a tumultuous sea. Their teeth and
claws stretch on for inches, looking
brittle but as strong as iron.
Green fairies make contact with
humans to feed off their energy.A
lucky victim might feel only a wave
of fatigue. In such a case, the energy
drain is an isolated event; the victim
recovers in a few days. During their
reproductive cycles, however, green
fairies require greater stolen energy
to create giant glittering webs, where
their young nest.When a green
fairy builds a web, it maintains a
connection to its victims. They suffer
a constant, possibly fatal drain.
Green fairies are faster and have
tougher skin than any human. This
advantage increases when they have
built a web.
They sometimes attend cabarets
or other extravagant events, glutting
themselves on an entire crowd. Mass
feedings leave them pulsing with
strength. Other Carcosan entities,
attracted to energy drains of this
scale, may appear to prey upon the
vulnerable victims.
The fairies can transfer consumed
energy to other sapient Carcosan
entities. These transactions may be
coerced or voluntary exchanges for
treasure, status, or influence.
The Wars: Consumed in sufficient
quantities — for example, by soldiers
anxious to dull the terrors of war —
any alcoholic beverage can knock
down the fragile barriers between the
human mind and the truth of green
fairies. In theWar, green fairies
work on both sides as mercenaries
for Carcosan nobles. They soften
up soldiers for further attack by
draining their energy. They set up
lairs along paths much trafficked by
soldiers, perhaps in an abandoned
home or inn. The fairies offer food,
warmth, and a place to rest, and
do so with a comforting pat on the
shoulder.When web-building, they
might capture the soldiers and keep
them alive so that they won’t die on
the battlefield while the green fairy
drains them of energy.

21
Green Fairy
Aftermath: Driven underground
and with supernatural energy
dwindling, die-hard parageometrical
experimenters rely on green fairies
as their black market dealers. In
exchange for large doses of now-rare
Carcosan energy, all the green fairies
ask is for a few humans to be sent
their way every now and then. They
may be moved to protect their most
reliable sorcerer clients from nosy
ex-insurgents.
This Is Normal Now: Only found
in the hippest of neighborhoods,
green fairies offer cleansing sessions,
designed to rid their clients’ bodies of
toxins. The green fairies beckon their
victims into their lairs, where their
webs are disguised like relaxation
spaces. They take small bits of their
clients’ energy at first, and then when
they are preparing to spawn, they
keep up a constant drain on their
victims until they are sucked dry of
energy.
Numbers: 1
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustment: -1 if you
remember them in their true form
but are not presently drunk; -2 if you
have the Shock cardTipsy, -3 if you
have the Shock card Intoxicated; +1 if
they have a web, +2 if the green fairy
glutted itself within the past week, +3
if they are drawing energy from you
Toll: 1
Tags: Carcosan
Fairy Fatigue/Fairy Drain
FAIRY FATIGUE
Injury
-1 to tests.
Discard at end of session.
FAIRY DRAIN
Injury
-2 to tests.
Discard when the green fairy dies.
succumb to your exhaustion and die.

22
Inkblot
Art presents the perfect breeding
ground for some Carcosan species.
It is passionate and weird and wild,
and it exists on the edge of what
we can imagine. In this whirlpool
of psychical energy, inkblots take
root. Native to Carcosa, inkblots
rode the psychological wave of the
Yellow King into this world and
immediately found victims for their
parasitic tendencies.
Thread-like and about half the
length of a thumbnail, inkblots are
serpentine creatures. They manifest
in paint, ink, or other liquid artistic
mediums, taking physical form from
the amount of artistic potential that
the substances contain. They spend
the first part of their lifespan there,
laying eggs and preparing for the
next stage of the process.When
the artist uses infested material,
the inkblot comes into contact with
human skin. It burrows underneath
the skin, through a hole so small that
it usually goes unnoticed, and works
its way to the base of the victim’s
skull. Since inkblots generally come
in a swarm, victims usually exhibit
a swollen patch in pockets where the
inkblots have settled.An investigator
pressing against the swelling might
feel some writhing, squirming
mass underneath the skin. From
that position, the inkblots infect
the victim with a fever, fatal if left
unchecked. Though the symptoms
manifest like those of a normal fever,
an autopsy would reveal internal
organs that look like they have been
burned up.
Inkblots push their victims to
create more art. The energy of
the creation provides the perfect
atmosphere for the inkblot’s larvae to
emerge from their eggs. The infected
target shifts to pieces uncharacteristic
of their previous style, manic and
imprecise.Artists who already favor
a loose line go even wilder. Painting
reveals that an artist’s style has
changed recently or that many of
their pieces bear threadlike marks
where something moved across the
canvas.
Given a chance, the larvae burrow
into the hand of the original artist
and transfer over to other humans
through physical contact.A singular
inkblot outside of a host is only a tiny
worm, and thus easy to kill — but
only if you know it’s there and catch
it before it bores into you.
The spawning inkblot is killed by
the death of its host, whether by
fever or otherwise. Investigation
reveals that killing it while sparing
the host requires a procedure to
carefully extract the inkblot from the
host’s body, which the art students
must perform through a Difficulty 5
First Aid test. In order to completely
stop the spread of inkblots, the
spawning inkblot must be removed,
and all of the artist’s work must be
burned.
The Wars: Bullets have begun to
circulate that are shells packed with
inkblot larvae. Those hit by inkblot
rounds become consumed with
artistic impulses. The effect pulls
them irresistibly towards the parts
of the war-torn world that appease
their aesthetic longings.Afflicted
soldiers are known to emerge above
the trench line, completely exposing
themselves to enemy fire, just to be
able to get a look at the moon. Cut
off from materials for art, they are
driven to use their own blood to
paint on the walls of their shelters,
releasing the new larvae and exposing
those around them to the parasites.
Aftermath:With the new artistic
freedom sparking an explosion of
cutting-edge work, inkblots that
remained dormant in their eggs
are emerging. Outbreaks of inkblot
fever are sweeping through artistic
communities. Some artists choose
to take advantage of the inkblots
and use them to create paintings by
hatching them from their eggs and
trying to direct their movements
around a canvas, causing streaks of

23
Inkblot
paint.Wildly popular but deeply
dangerous, the Inkblot movement
boosts the threat to epidemic
proportions.
This Is Normal Now:A few years
ago, a graphic design software app
named Inkblot debuted.Two features
attract users: an intuitive interface
and tools allowing easy creation of
designs in the Belle Époque style.
It also functions as a social media
platform, allowing artists to share
their work. Every so often, the users
of the software fall ill with fatal fevers
that seem to spread to the other
artists they interact with. But of
course, illness can’t spread through
computers… can it?
INK INFECTION
Injury
-x to tests, where x is the number
of intervals you’ve gone without
giving in to your artistic impulses.
At end of each interval, roll a
die. On a 1, trade for “Ink Flu.”
On a 5 or higher, discard.
INK FLU
Injury
-x to tests, where x is the number of
intervals you’ve gone without giving
in to your artistic impulses.
At end of any interval, you may
pay 1 Health and roll a die. On a
5 or 6, trade for “Ink Infection.”
If you ever get a result of 1 on
this roll and still have this card
at end of scenario, you die.
Numbers: Four times the number
of PCs present
Difficulty:Weak (Escape 2,
Other 3, Kill 3)
Difficulty Adjustment: None
Toll: 0
Tags: Invasive
Injuries, Minor and Major: Ink
Infection/Ink Flu

24
Inspir
Countless great artists drew
passion and inspiration from people
they considered muses. Those who
encounter the inspir think they’ve
found the person that they’ve been
searching for, the one who will bring
new life to their art. Hiding its true
Carcosan form, the inspir mingles
in human society, always beautiful,
always elusive.A passionate glance
here, a brush on the arm there — one
encounter is all it takes for the inspir
to find its new victim.All who meet
the inspir are struck by its presence.
The inspir generally has no more
than four victims at a time — any
more spreads its power too thin, and
its link to its victims destabilizes.
The first half of the process is
glorious. Even previously ungifted
victims find a new fervor for creation.
Passion for their form of choice
overcomes them.At nights the
inspir walks in their dreams and
whispers to them, weakening their
mind’s defenses. During the day, the
victim pursues the inspir above all
else, wanting nothing more than to
revel in its presence. Giddy artistic
revelations disguise the inspir’s first
subtle manipulations.
Passion soon turns to obsession;
victims dedicate themselves entirely
to creating art that does justice
to the image of the inspir, never
quite living up to their fevered
expectations. They turn away food,
drink, and sleep, and eschew the
company of their loved ones in
pursuit of the inspir’s image. Once
they have sufficiently weakened, the
inspir manipulates their will for its
bidding, generally violent. Those
who completely give in to the inspir’s
influence might find themselves
painting portraits of the inspir with
their best friend’s blood, or stringing
a violin with their spouse’s hair in
order to compose a piece about the
inspir.
Investigators reaching this point
make Difficulty 4 Composure
tests to avoid Shocks—Minor and
Major: Influence/Violent Impulse.
When inspirs arrive in the human
realm, they usually do so in waves.
On the surface, they work alone,
never walking in the same social
spheres or causing their victims to
interact. Nevertheless, your game
might ensnare investigators in a
complex web of horror orchestrated
through seemingly disconnected
events by inspirs spread throughout
Paris. Inspirs collude with the Yellow
King’s daughters. Depending on
what roles you have laid out for the
princesses, inspirs could be honored
Carcosans in the court of the Yellow
King, currying favor with a daughter
growing in power, or fragmented
projections of the daughter herself.
The latter option provides an
opportunity for investigators to
create a personal connection with the
princess, while the former builds up
suspense for them to meet her later
in the series.
Finding the physical form of the
inspir and killing it releases the
victim from its hold. However,
when a victim is in its thrall, it may
compel them to fight on its behalf.
Investigators could find themselves
hurting the very person they were
trying to protect.
The Wars:What is it that inspires
the youth to go to war, brimming
with courage, and ignoring the
specter of death that looms above
the battlefields? The inspir takes on
the form of a soldier that no one can
quite remember ever seeing before,
but who everyone is certain has been
part of the squad the entire time. It
walks among the soldiers, raising
their spirits, calling upon their valor
and willingness to die for their cause.
Once it whips victims into a frenzy,
they willingly charge out onto the
battlefield to undertake foolhardy
actions.

25
Inspir
Aftermath: Inspir trapped in
this realm have developed a bitter
streak. No longer the charismatic,
vivacious entities they once were,
they hunt for hits of psychic energy
to temporarily jolt themselves back
to their former selves. They approach
despondent or directionless humans,
offering dreams that will turn their
lives around. Inspir and human
alike feel a return to purpose and
vitality. Like junkies developing a
tolerance, the effect eventually fades
for both, at which point the inspir
discards the human, often fatally,
and goes off in search of another
target. Parks containing Government
Lethal Chambers always make a fine
hunting ground.
This Is Normal Now: Inspirs have
learned how to slot themselves
into the role of social media icon.
They trend on Instagram, and their
lifestyle videos on YouTube rack
up thousands of viewers. Instead of
dedicating themselves to making art
depicting the inspir, their victims
obsess over making themselves into
the inspir. Restricted to a handful of
true victims at a time, inspir do not
prey on all of their followers, rather
seeking out the most devoted and
vulnerable. The internet allows the
inspir to orchestrate multiple events
across the globe.With followers who
are willing to die for it, the inspir can
spread conspiracies of chaos and pain
far beyond their physical location.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty Adjustment: -1 if you
have successfully shaken off the
inspir’s influence, +1 if the inspir
has touched you, +3 if you are under
the inspir’s influence, +4 if you have
made art about it
Toll: 1
Tags: Carcosan
Roughed Up/Sucker Punch
ROUGHED UP
Injury
Lose 1 Composure.
Discard after any Physical success,
or by spending 1Athletics.
SUCKER PUNCHED
Injury
Lose 2 Health.
Roll a die; discard after that
number of successes.
INFLUENCE
Shock
The GM may require you to make a
Difficulty 5 Composure test. On a failure,
you take a subtly destructive, barely
detectable action, specified by the GM,
that would please the entity that gave you
this card.After completing the action,
roll a die, discarding this card on an even
result. The GM must wait two intervals
before triggering the effect again.
Discard when the entity is destroyed.
VIOLENT IMPULSE
Shock
After two or more intervals, the GM
specifies that you strike violently
against another PC.Test Fighting,
spending 2 points (if available). The
PC testsAthletics, with your result as
the Difficulty, taking the Injury card
“Abrasion,” “Laceration,” “Scratched,”
or “Roughed Up” (GM chooses).
After completing the action, roll a
die, discarding this card on an even
result. GM must wait two intervals
before triggering the effect again.
Discard when entity is destroyed.

26
Liberty Vintners
Vin de la Liberté (LibertyWine)
is a dark red wine served in
establishments such as the Cabaret
du Néant and Cabaret de l’Enfer.
Its flavor is often described as sinful,
as one glass removes the drinker’s
inhibitions for an entire evening.
Other wineries have attempted to
create a copycat vintage, but all failed
— so far. Only the LibertyVintners
possess the secret of their irresistible
wine and their lush vineyards, and
they are reluctant to reveal the truth.
Following the Great FrenchWine
Blight in the mid-19th
century,
wineries in the famous Bordeaux,
Burgundy, and Champagne regions
struggled to regain their economic
footing. Unlike competitors who
switched to absinthe production,
Bordeaux wineries searched for the
means to restore their vineyards
instead. Calling themselves Liberty
Vintners, wine producers traveled
all over France, anxious to find new
varieties of hardier grapes. Finally,
they found an unlikely solution.
LibertyVintners have grafted
ruby-colored Carcosan vines onto
their withered crops to create a
delicious grape imbued with reality-
twisting energy. The raw grapes affect
both humans and animals the first
time they’re consumed but, like the
wine, never thereafter.After that
initial taste, Liberty grapes don’t
appear to have any effect on the
quaffer.
LibertyVintners enjoy their
restored wealth after years of meager
profits.When traveling in Paris,
they hide behind fake identities,
aggressively attacking spies from
other wineries.To avoid any
unnecessary inquiries, theVintners
will generously bribe public servants.
Occasionally, a LibertyVintner buys
a curious onlooker a complimentary
glass ofVin de la Liberté to throw
them off their trail — but refuses
to drink themselves, citing health
concerns.To get a LibertyVintner
to open up, one must either pretend
to be a merchant interested in
distributing their wine or be well
versed in winemaking. If successful,
theVintner may attempt to recruit
the querent to their cause, using the
wine to compromise key individuals
and blackmail their way up the chain
of power.
The Wars: LibertyVintners are
as active now as they were back in
1895 — thanks to the efforts of several
grandsons and granddaughters. Now,
the families are even more secretive
because they now understand why
Vin de la Liberté is so dangerous.
Over time, the Carcosan-tainted
liquor changes the consumer’s
body on a cellular level. Thus far,
daily drinkers celebrateVin de la
Liberté as a magical elixir, for their
appearance hasn’t changed since 1895.
LibertyVintners aggressively keep
this side effect of the wine a secret
and have even caused shortages to
prevent others from finding out the
truth. Their efforts are not infallible,
and if one was to investigate the
wineries, family lineages, and
accounts, they’d find a trove of fake
documents obscuring their identities
and success. Despite their seeming
immortality, LibertyVintners are
still human and remainTough but
Outmatched (Escape 2, Other 4,
Kill 3.)
Aftermath: LibertyVintners
survived the war and immigrated
toAmerica under Castaigne’s
leadership to establish new wineries
in California. Few seeds survived the

27
Liberty Vintners
turbulent passage across theAtlantic.
Though many LibertyVintners
were able to establish six vineyards
in northern California, only one
field ofVin de la Liberté remains.
Its winemakers secretly experiment
with new Carcosan-sourced
materials to reestablish the variety
that has gifted them with long life.
Following the fall of Castaigne,
however, LibertyVintners sent their
sons and daughters to New York,
hoping they’ll infiltrate and subvert
the new political regime.While that
is true, LibertyVintners are hiding a
terrible secret: they’ve been forced to
ration their remaining French bottles
ofVin de la Liberté, and consuming
California varieties have unwittingly
triggered mutations in themselves
and their consumers.
This Is Normal Now:A realityTV
star-slash-wine guru has discovered
a case of 1895Vin de la Liberté
in an abandoned French winery.
The celebrity oenophile plans to
uncork and drink a bottle live in
New York City at the opening of an
exclusive French restaurant called
SHOT
Injury
-2 to Physical tests. Counts as
2 Injury cards.Trade for “On
the Mend” as recipient of
succumb to your injuries and die.
GRAZED
Injury
Jaune. Stunned by this rare find,
wine aficionados busily research
the history of the winery. Period
diaries adorned with the Yellow Sign
were recently purchased by persons
unknown; speculators believe the
diaries are the key to unlocking
a stunning new variety of grape.
When the PCs track down the
diaries before the television show
airs, they encounter the descendants
of the original LibertyVintners,
determined to recreate the success of
their forebears.
Numbers: 6 total
Difficulty: Tough but Outmatched
Difficulty Adjustments: +1 if you
are a city official; +2 if you drank a
glass ofVin de la Liberté; -1 if you
knew enough not to drink; -1 if you’re
knowledgeable about wine-making
Toll: 0
Tags: Human
Grazed/Shot

28
Living Portrait
The annual art salons of Paris are
the major cultural events in France
and the entire European art world.
With paintings and sculptures
crammed into every corner and
inch of wall space in large and small
exhibition halls, is it such a stretch
that recent disappearances among the
over 50,000 daily visitors sometimes
go unnoticed?
Living portraits are the result of
the misguided attempts of a down-
and-out painter, Clement Medin, to
recapture the success of his youth.
While experimenting with new
pigments and solvents to differentiate
his work from that of others, Medin
received a mysterious package
containing yellowish turpentine.
When added to his pigments, this
turpentine revolutionized the quality
of his work, making portraits seem
to come alive.Actually, they indeed
had come to life, awakened by the
Carcosan chemical.
The portraits, much discussed
at the salons, realistically depict
humans but always incorporate a
subtle motif evoking the skull-like
facial structure of Carcosan nobility.
It might appear as a masquerade
mask held by the subject or as a
decorative object in the background.
When asked about the strange
subject matter of his works, Medin
vaguely replies that some images
have come to him in dreams.
The turpentine-influenced
portraits are dimensional gateways
into pocket dimensions positioned
between this one and Carcosa. The
figures in the painting are alive and
think with a predator’s cunning.
The pocket dimension resembles the
real world but is made entirely of oil
paints.
Anyone who approaches a Medin
painting feels a psychic pull drawing
them closer to the canvas. This can
be resisted with a Difficulty 4 Sense
Trouble success to avoid Shocks—
Minor and Major: Second Glance/
DireVisage.
To destroy a living portrait, an art
student must enter the painting’s
pocket dimension and defeat its
central figure in combat. The death
of the living portrait closes the pocket
dimension and frees those trapped
inside. Burning or slashing the
painting’s canvas also destroys the
creature along with its victims.
The Wars: The ContinentalWar
initiated frantic efforts to save
Europe’s irreplaceable art collections
from destruction.Artists, collectors,
and curators moved the collections
out of major cities into hiding places
far from the front lines; generally,
the lower levels of fortified manor
houses and, occasionally, repurposed
castles. These hidden treasures
make prime targets for enterprising
soldiers hoping to hide away a little
art collection of their own.A looted
portrait may find its way into any
number of official wartime buildings,
including prisons, barracks, or
garrison town.

29
Living Portrait
Aftermath:Art lovers rejoice as the
hoarded art collections of the former
elite filter back into public view.
Now, famous paintings that experts
considered lost are reemerging
in legitimate and black-market
salesrooms, notably a Clement
Medin drawing room portrait of
Mme. Chevrolet, which debuted at
the 1895 Salon de l’Art Nouveau,
though experts agree that yellow
discoloration has severely curtailed
the work’s potential value.
This is Normal Now: The Internet
of Things has created a job market
for armor-clad delivery people
specialized in delivering anything
directly to your door in no time —
and with no risk of you personally
experiencing a Safety Related
Incident! Recently, art rental start-
upVan-Go! attracts customers with
a new subscription model, delivering
“real art by real artists” to the
mailroom of every ritzy apartment
building. The investigators stumble
onto the mystery when a friend of a
friend becomes the latest in a string
of disappearances ofVan-Go! clients.
Numbers: 1
WHIFF OF
TURPENTINE
Injury
-1 to Physical tests. Health drops to 0.
On a Physical success, refresh
Health and discard this card.
SNOOTFUL OF
TURPENTINE
Injury
-1 to Physical tests. You can’t discard
Injury cards
SECOND GLANCE
Shock
After seeing the painting again,
-1 to Presence tests. Discard
when the painting’s pocket
dimension is destroyed.
DIRE VISAGE
Shock
After seeing the painting again, -1 to
all tests. Discard when the painting’s
pocket dimension is destroyed.
Difficulty Adjustments: +1 if
informed about the turpentine; +1
if knowing to look for the Yellow
Sign.
Toll: 0
Tags: Construct
Whiff of Turpentine/Snootful of
Turpentine

30
Marble Dancer
When the last light of dawn fades
in the west, and the stars rise bright
in the sky, a lone marble sculpture
animates, stepping off its pedestal
to join humans in their nighttime
reveries. Gorgeous and androgynous
in both shape and desire, the marble
dancer is named for its love of
dancing among the living at parties
of any kind.A supernatural sense
guides it to the nearest dance, where
incredibly lifelike illusion powers
allow it to blend in with the crowd.
It adroitly mimics the action on
the dance floor, whatever the style.
It completes the imposture with
natural, if somewhat overdramatic,
speech and facial expressions. The
sculpture always pursues one goal:
to find someone who can love it. If
the sculpture can do this, it becomes
a flesh and blood human. The
transformation comes at a price;
over many nights, it drains its lover’s
life force, prematurely aging them.
When that human dies, the dancer
returns to its pedestal, a marble
statue once more.
The statue was carved around the
same time the first whisperings of the
King in Yellow began to spread.A
signature bearing the initials E.W. is
hidden among intricate flower designs
along the sculpture’s base. They
belong to EthanWainright, a foreign
artist living in Paris, who was inspired
by those whisperings. He died soon
after the sculpture’s completion.
Ethan was the dancer’s unfortunate
first lover. His grave can be found in
a small nearby cemetery, the epitaph
“dream in the day, dance in the
evening” inscribed upon it. His tale is
cautionary for young artists not to get
too lost in the fantasy of their work.
When it comes to life, the
dancer’s clothing transforms to
match whatever event it’s at,
although androgynously gendered. It
genuinely doesn’t wish malice upon
anyone and has some deep-seated
trauma related to how many humans
it’s fallen in love with and who have
died a few years later. Despite the
harm it keeps doing to its lovers, a
desire to become human and live
and be in love is the fire that drives
its actions. Its heart may break a
hundred more times, but it doesn’t
care as long as it gets to be alive again.
An art student in love with
the dancer makes a Difficulty 5
Composure test on each rendezvous,
to avoid Shocks—Minor and Major:
Dazed/Stolen Years. The dancer,
anxious to protect its pretense of
ordinary humanity, prefers escape
to any other fighting objective.
When forced to defend itself, it

31
Marble Dancer
demonstrates supernal strength.
The Wars: Corpse dancers are
casualties of the war; in its daytime
form, a body recently buried. Its
motivations are no grimmer than its
statuesque manifestation.At night
it animates, shrouded in an illusion
of life and health. It looks exactly
like the person it once was, but has
lost detailed memories of its past to
supernatural amnesia. Those who
knew it in life will recognize it, but it
can’t reciprocate. The corpse dancer
heads to the nearest soldier-occupied
bar, campfire party, or tent shindig
looking for someone to dance and
fall in love with. Just like Paris, if
the dancer can get someone to fall in
love with it, the corpse regains full
life, memories excepted. It will only
remain alive while its victim is alive,
and it drains that life from its victim
in mere days. The corpse dancer
could be a friend of the characters
who recently died and returns
to them, or someone they killed
accidentally in the war. Personal
hauntings work well with the corpse
dancer because guilt and confusion
can become metaphors in its story.
Aftermath:A once proudly
standing statue during the Castaigne
regime, this marble dancer has since
been felled by revolutionaries and
lies broken on the ground beneath
its pedestal. It bears the likeness
of Emperor Hildred, who reigned
during that time. The memory of
Hildred is slowly fading from the
collective consciousness, and it
longs to remain relevant.At night it
searches for partiers to dance with,
enrapturing them with its charisma.
Many old followers of the Castaigne
regime, no matter the fault in their
logic, have fallen victim to this
marble dancer. These extremists are
the most likely to follow it, although
anybody who prefers to follow instead
of lead could be a target. This marble
dancer is like an echo of Hildred,
searching for followers and spouting
similar rhetoric but with no real
power or logical goals to achieve.
This Is Normal Now:A beautiful
mannequin in a local clothing shop
comes to life at night to dance
in night clubs with college kids.
The mannequin wants to become
human and so mimics the behaviors,
gestures, and emotions of the
people at the clubs. It frequents
spots closest to college campuses:
the usual trashy dives drawing in
customers with “ladies night” and
“jello shots” advertisements. The
mannequin may gravitate to a nearby
fraternity, sorority, or house party
with dancing. It tries to find someone
to hook up with, and if it succeeds,
it will consume that person and gain
a few days of real human life. The
mannequin devours the victims
whole, not leaving any time for them
to age. It needs to repeat the process
for the gain, and unlike its other
counterparts, feels no real human
emotions. The hookups are fleeting,
and all that remains of the person
it consumes are their clothes, often
SHATTERING BLOW
Injury
You can’t make Physical tests.
As the recipient of Difficulty 4 First
Aid success, trade for “On the Mend.”
SMASHING BLOW
Injury
You can’t make Physical
tests. -1 to Focus tests.
As the recipient of Difficulty
5 First Aid success, trade
for “Shattering Blow.”
DAZED
Injury
-1 to all tests. Discard at end of session.
found in a bathroom stall, a car in a
parking lot, or a college dorm room.
Numbers: 1
you get the dancer to open up to you
about its true nature
Toll: 1
Tags: Construct
Shattering Blow / Smashing Blow
STOLEN YEARS
Injury
Roll a die. Odd: permanently lose
1 point from your Health rating.
ON THE MEND
Injury
-1 to all tests.Trade for “Still
Hurting” on a Physical success.

32
Marie Rowdon
Marie Rowdon is well known in
Paris for creating haunting portraits
in surreal, swirling yellow-tinted oil
paints. She refuses to share them with
the public, instead inviting people to
her home studio. Here Marie holds
exclusive parties for elite buyers who
cherish the strange and unusual.
During these gatherings, she chooses
a select few attendees to stay behind.
She convinces them to drink absinthe,
smoke opium, and pontificate on the
deeper meaning of life.
While lying about on large
Moroccan cushions, in a haze of
candlelight and soft violin music,
Marie, draped in bohemian shawls,
her long curly hair messy and wild,
regales her drug-addled guests
with snippets of The King in Yellow.
Her mind obsessively recounts the
imagery, rhetoric, poetry of the
chaotic alien text, as though she
becomes momentarily possessed of a
train of thought she cannot control.
The verses become implanted in the
minds of her listeners. This recitation
slowly erodes their minds until there
is nothing left but the words from the
play.
With these passages in their minds
and the chemicals in their bodies,
Marie and her guests undergo
a group hallucination. It opens a
gateway for something from The
King in Yellow to manifest in the
real world, ripping apart the veils
of the hallucination and stepping
into our reality. Manifesting as an
amorphous cloud of dread, the entity
first follows those who took part in
the parlor hallucinogens, later drifts
to infect minds vulnerable to fear.
The dread causes them to lash out
at those closest to them, believing
these people to be their enemies,
or mistaking their faces for those of
monsters. Marie is oddly unaware of
the dreadful pattern she perpetuates,
as it never affects her. She just chalks
it up to those rich pomps being weak.
The dread dissipates at sunrise,
appearing again the next time Marie
throws a soiree. In order to stop the
violence it spreads, the art students
must trace its appearances to her
salon and urge or force her to desist.
The dread cloud might be able
to enter our world only through
incarnations of Marie Rowdon.
Alternately, it can attach it to any
reader of The King in Yellow with
charisma, a social circle, and a supply
of mind-altering substances.
A player character taking part in
Marie’s soirée makes a Difficulty 4
Composure test to avoid Shocks—
Minor and Major:Warped
Perceptions/Waking Nightmare.
The Wars: Marie Rowdon is a
famous photographer, well known for
her gruesome battlefield portraits of
soldiers. She’ll often depict soldiers
in the unflattering states of running
for their lives or even dying on
the battlefield of horrific wounds.
Despite her terrible representation
of them, she’ll often befriend them
by showing empathy for their
horrific experiences. She, too, has
experienced what they have because
she’s out there on the battlefield
with them. This shared connection
permits her to invite them back
to her flat for some hallucinogens,
music, and surprise recitations of
The King in Yellow. The outcome is
the same as in Paris, except that
persistent cloud of dread instead
lingers over the battalion, driving the
soldiers to infighting and paralyzing
fear that prevents them from fighting
the war. They give into malaise
or cowardice as the rest of their
battalion rages on.

33
Marie Rowdon
Aftermath: Marie Rowdon worked
for the resistance documenting
the regime’s retinue of Carcosan
creatures. She photographed entities
ranging from the mutant products
of the Bronx Park Zoological to
people altered by mind-bending
chaos. Over time she developed a
kind of sixth sense, allowing her to
spot paranormal beings in human
guise. Unfortunately, exposure to
these creatures infected her mind as
if they were verses of poetry from
the uncanny book. This condition
compels her to share the images with
as many people as possible, spreading
the mental contagion. They then
commit the acts of sabotage and
violence familiar from victims of
her past incarnations. The group’s
ex-insurgent contacts have lost track
of her. She currently squats at various
warehouses, doing hallucinogens
with people and trying to share
images from her binders of shattering
photographs.
This Is Normal Now: Performance
artist Marie Rowdon attends local
Burning Man-inspired parties
populated by hipsters, neo-hippies,
anarchists, and creative folks. She
stages private experiences in her
tent, confronting hand-picked
participants with verses from
The King In Yellow. These strange
presentations fuse dance, ritual, and
body contortion. It’s as though she
is telling the story of the plays and
verses she has selected but through
BLACK TEARS
Injury
All PCs take -1 to tests.
Effects of multiple “Black
Tears” cards do not stack.
Discard by contributing to the
defeat of aWarspawn or Carcosan.
SOUL DECAY
Injury
Lose 1 Composure.At the
end of each interval, roll a die.
Odd: lose 1 Composure.
Discard on a success that aids you
against a supernatural entity.
WARPED
PERCEPTIONS
Shock
-1 to Focus tests.
Discard by menacing an innocent
bystander or destroying valuable
property that doesn’t belong to you.
WAKING NIGHTMARE
Shock
-2 to Focus tests.
After gaining information from an
interpersonal ability other than Steel/
Intimidate, you may roll a die after
threatening, attacking, or otherwise
alienating the witness. Even: discard.
certain gestures and symbolic
movements. Participants, already
tripping before they enter, leave
infected with the stories Marie
shares. They spend the rest of their
lives trapped in a hallucination based
on the performance Marie puts on.
Sometimes in their waking life, they
repeat some of the same gestures that
Marie made in her performance,
and it slips into the consciousness of
anyone who witnesses it.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty Adjustments: -1 if
terrified of losing control/altered
substances, +1 if altered substances are
normal for you
Toll: 2
Tags: Human
Injuries, Minor and Major: Soul
Decay/BlackTears

34
Micar
When Carcosa gained influence
over this realm, the hidden corners of
Paris began to look eerily similar to
the alien planet.Animated gargoyles
emerged in the dissonance between
the realities, creeping from the
shadows to haunt the streets of Paris.
They merely echo the much deadlier
Carcosan species whose form they
mimic. The resemblance between
gothic gargoyles and micar implies
previous Carcosan interference in
this realm. Digging into the dark
corners of Paris might lead your
investigators to an old journal of a
Gothic architect struck by grotesque
inspiration after glimpsing a micar.
The micar’s obsidian-like skin
differentiates it from an animated
gargoyle. It retains its sheen after
the creature is slain.When stretched
onto a frame and used as a mirror,
the beholder can wash it with blood
to scry into the past. Investigators
attempting this might catch a
glimpse of an important moment
that has already occurred, either in
Carcosa or on Earth. Seeing into
Carcosa requires a Difficulty 4
Composure test to avoid Shocks—
Minor and Major: TheTremors/
Hackles Raised.
Carcosans don’t like to see this
power fall into mortal hands.
When they get word of a micar
skin in circulation, they seek it out
relentlessly.
The micar skin appearing as a
McGuffin in your scenario may be
the only one on Earth. Uncommon
even on their native Carcosa, micar
don’t generally come to this realm
of their own accord. They cross over
either by accident, or when brought
by some other entity, in which case,
they never stray far from their
handler. Finding the micar is only
the first step. Then the would-be skin
owner has to deal with that armored
skin and a potential peeved and
dangerous handler.
A scratch from a micar leaves the
injured area glassy and vulnerable to
shattering until it heals.Worse, a bite
causes the victim’s body to gradually
crystallize, radiating out from the
wound. Their body shatters within
a week unless the afflicted area is
amputated.A healing salve can be
made from the blood of the micar. If
the micar’s handler is human, you
bet that they know the recipe for
the salve. Of course, a Carcosan-
influenced human might need some
persuading to divulge their secrets.
Though the salve doesn’t undo what
has been done, it halts the process
and keeps the crystallized body part
from shattering.
The Wars: Carcosans embedded
on both sides of the conflict import
micar from their realm, imprisoning
the creatures in secret munitions
facilities. Their enthralled lackeys
harvest micar bones and carve them
into bullets.As only living bone
works for this purpose, the creatures
must be kept alive until the last
scrap of osseous matter has been
agonizingly extracted. Micar rounds,
as they are called, lack the range
of metal bullets but fragment into
exceedingly dangerous shrapnel.A
large chunk lodged in a human body
causes a wound equivalent to a micar
scratch: Injuries—Minor and
Major: Micar Scratch/Micar Bite.
The squad may discover a bullet-
making installation or encounter
micar who have escaped their
captivity. Escapees may be seeking
revenge against their tormentors, or
simply venting their rage on anyone
they encounter.Alternately, they
attempt simply to survive in what

35
Micar
for them is an alien environment,
establishing a lair and preying
on soldiers for food. Investigators
encountering them could read the
next scene of bloodshed reflected in
looming clouds on the micar’s skin.
Aftermath: During the Castaigne
era, the prophetic property of
micar skin was heralded for its
parageometric qualities. Researchers
hunted micar for hybridization and
to use their skins as a technological
material.Almost all micar existing in
this realm today are derivations from
the original Carcosan species. These
micar are hidden away, either having
escaped to the shadows or having
been squirreled away by the last
remaining Castaigne sympathizers.
The most common hybrid is a
giant spider with the same glossy
black skin as the micar. It spins webs
of fractal black sheets of stone, used
as the raw material for knives and
billy-clubs.Victims struck by these
weapons have visions of potential
futures where they suffer horrific
turns of fate. Player characters
having these visions make Difficulty
5 Composure tests as if they had
actually experienced the situation
instead of merely viewing it to avoid
Shocks—Minor and Major: The
Tremors/Hackles Raised.
This Is Normal Now:As a
rampager, the micar took on
changing forms, varying beyond
that of a simple gargoyle. They learn
from the environment around them,
mimicking shapes that they see. For
the lovers of modern art, abstract
MICAR BITE
Injury
Each time you make a Physical
test, roll a die. Odd: your body
crystallizes and shatters, killing you.
Discard by using micar salve,
an antidote you can gain
through investigation during
the current scenario.
MICAR SCRATCH
Injury
-1 to Physical tests.A failure with
a margin of 2 or more shatters
the afflicted body part; this
becomes a Continuity tag.
Discard at the end of next interval
if not a Continuity card.
Discard by using micar salve,
an antidote you can gain
through investigation during
the current scenario.
statues are not as inanimate as they
used to be. If investigators come
across The Bean in Chicago and it
has turned black and started to move,
it may not look like the micar their
forebears encountered in the Belle
Époque. But they might want to run
first and ask questions later.
Numbers: 1
Other 4, Kill 6)
Difficulty Adjustment: -1 if
characters have seen visions in
micar skin, +1 if the micar is doing
the bidding of a Carcosan Noble, +1
if characters have encountered an
animated gargoyle and mistake the
micar for one
Toll: 1
Tags: Invasive
Micar Scratch/Micar Bite
THE TREMORS
Shock
-1 to Presence.
Discard by going to a scary location.
Discard by initiating an encounter
with a scary person, creature or entity
HACKLES RAISED
Shock
Pay 1 Health or Composure each
time a player character (including
you) attempts a SenseTrouble test.
Trade for “TheTremors” when
your Health and Composure
pools both equal 0.

36
Nokk
Following the post-Commune
restocking of the Ménagerie du
Jardin des Plantes, exotic animals,
including peacocks, chimpanzees,
and Gila monsters, can be seen there.
Carcosan energy corrupts both flora
and fauna in the 5th
arrondissement,
mutating certain animals, producing
mythic creatures like the nokk.
The intelligent aquatic predator
called the nokk swims corrupted
bodies of water. Its mutant form,
highly variant between individuals,
chaotically combines piscine,
crustacean and hominid anatomical
features. The nokk’s malevolent
aura interferes with human visual
perception, causing onlookers to
exaggerate the anthropomorphic
elements of its appearance.
The creature feeds on human
flesh, luring its victims to a watery
death.When the nokk detects a
person relaxing on shore, it plants
its prominent dorsal fin in the water,
forcing its body upright to serenade
its prey with an eerie melody. It
enhances the mesmerizing effect by
plucking its fin spines like a harp.
The art students may spot the local
specimen in the Seine when crossing
the Pont d'Austerlitz on their way to
paint at the Jardin des Plantes. They
may zero in on its hunting grounds
by noticing a concentration of other,
less dangerous mutated aquatic
creatures in the vicinity. Finding the
nokk isn’t as challenging as hunting
it. The nokk is fiercely intelligent,
possesses razor-sharp teeth, and
knows how to escape most fishing
traps and nets.To safely deal with
the nokk, one must lure it out of the
river by presenting it with the food
it prefers: living, human flesh.As it
feeds, kills, grows, and feeds again,
the nokk devours anglers and young
lovers strolling along the shore.
The Wars: The nokk has migrated
from Paris searching for food and a
compatible mate. No longer confined
to the river, when it travels across
the land, it begins to mutate and
shed its scales; the process to become
mammalian is slow and agonizing. In
its weakened state on land, the nokk
isWeak (Escape 2, Other 3, Kill 3)
and can easily be killed — which is
exactly what it wants. If it is slain on
land, the creature’s body sinks into
the earth and falls dormant, only
to emerge much later.When the
nokk is found in its natural habitat, it
retains all its strength and is Superior
(Escape 4, Other 5, Kill 4).
Aftermath: Boaters and
commercial fishers report an
unidentified lake monster dragging
swimmers under the water and
capsizing boats in the Great Lakes
region. Sightings cluster around
Lakes Michigan and Erie, but
reports have also trickled in for
Lakes Huron, Superior, and Ontario.
After the war, the nokk migrated to
NorthAmerica as an invasive species
imported by decadent high officials.
Adapted to its new habitat, it no
longer feeds exclusively on human
flesh, and consumes other freshwater
fish to sate its appetite.Without any
predators — other than the occasional
hunter — the nokk has grown in size,
strength, and speed.Treat the nokk as
Vastly Superior (Escape 3, Other 6,
Kill 7) in its new habitat.
This Is Normal Now:A wealthy
magnate has hired French botanists,
painters, architects, and zoologists
to recreate an exact replica of
Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes
from 1895 just outside ofAlbany,
New York along the Hudson
River. The excitement around the
unfinished theme park project grows,
becoming a near-constant topic of
discussion in gardening, natural
history, and Francophile circles.To
sate the public’s appetite for more
information, the magnate has hired
Disruptive Events LLC to create a
virtual experience to show what they
can expect. DE’s version does not
show the project’s flaws or the nokk
that’s been relocated to the Hudson
River.Tickets for opening day start
at $30,000, and enthusiasts call the

37
Nokk
POSEIDON’S WRATH
Injury
Non-lethal. You can’t make Pushes.
-2 to all tests (except Preparedness).
Discard when you leave the boat.
BITTEN
Injury
-1 on Physical tests.
To discard, receive a Difficulty 4 First
Aid success, then make a Physical test.
event an experience of a lifetime.
The investigators might look into a
disappearance caused by a hungry
nokk or the shady operations of the
tycoon. The case likely takes them
both to the property, and Disruptive
Events head office, exposing the
magnate’s other questionable
activities.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty (Aftermath):Vastly
Superior (Escape 3, Other 6, Kill 7)
Difficulty (all other sequences):
Superior (Escape 3, Other 4, Kill 6)
you’re near a body of water; +1 if you
love music; +1 if you pick a water
lily; +6 if you can’t swim; -2 if you’re
carrying a knife; -4 if you’ve set a
trap containing fresh, human meat
Toll: 2 in Aftermath, otherwise 1
Tags: Mutant
Poseidon’sWrath/Bitten

38
Our Lady of Bones (Notre Dame des Os)
According to French Catholics,
Our Lady of Bones is a lesser-known
saint whose likeness is memorialized
in Notre-Dame de Paris.When the
art students ask for the saint’s given
name, the faithful fail to recall it.
They gladly volunteer that she raised
Lazarus from the dead or saved Saint
Peter from his torturous, upside-
down crucifixion. In their minds,
this miracle worker has always been
an important part of the Catholic
faith, and many humans venerate
her grey-clad personage as God’s left
hand.
Research turns up not a single
textual reference to her, aside from
a pamphlet or two printed only this
year. Belief in this saint began only
months ago. Neither martyr nor
human, Our Lady of Bones is a
Carcosan humanoid able to shape a
mortal’s perception of death.
Our Lady of Bones is a gifted and
clever illusionist who weaves lies and
manipulates people’s emotions to
further her goal: to be worshiped as
a god. Drawn by unspoken desire,
prayers, and wishes, she reveals
herself to the recently grief-stricken,
cloaked in pallid light. Her presence
triggers an intense hallucination that
people of faith interpret as a holy
vision. She promises a boon, typically
the resurrection of the deceased,
in exchange for a sacrifice or the
execution of a task.Whatever the
bargain, she never fulfills her end of
it.
For weeks afterward, her illusions
continue to edit victims’ perceptions.
The living appear to shamble about
like rotting corpses. The undead,
including the ghosts and zombies she
employs as messengers and minions,
appear healthy and corporeal. If
her victim happens to be in the
presence of a corpse, Our Lady can
speak through its unmoving mouth,
delivering promises, threats, or
instructions. She can also whisper to
her addled visionaries through the
ashes, bones, or gravestones of the
dead. These communications may
include misleading information and
clues to lead pursuers into danger.
She can subject investigators
to this effect by harming them in
combat. Our Lady can also manifest
to player characters in mourning,
in which case they need Difficulty
4 Composure successes to avoid
Shocks—Minor and Major:
Whispers of the Grave/Command of
the Grave.
Our Lady needs to feed on the
living (or dead) to transmute the
Carcosan energies swirling into the
psychotropic aura lending her a
beneficent, human-seeming guise.
When sated, Our Lady of Bones is a
petite, brown-haired woman in her
thirties with blue-gray eyes dressed
in a gray and white silk gown.Art
students interrupting her feeding
see her true form — a writhing mass
of worm, bone, rotting organs, and
tallow.
The Wars: Shrines to Our Lady
of Bones appear in most villages
and towns throughout Europe, and
many churches possess effigies to
the popular saint. The Church has
designated November 1st
as her
official feast day. The Carcosan
has no shortage of worshipers — or
protectors — forming a human shield
of devotees who’d rather die than
allow her to come to harm. The
zealous worshipers are a growing
concern for theWasherWoman
(p. 106), who sees the Carcosan
illusionist as a threat to the natural

39
Our Lady of Bones (Notre Dame des Os)
order. Squad members encountering
either might inquire about the
other, gleaning useful clues about
their relationship, history, and
growing rivalry. This monster battle
premise works best if you’ve already
introduced each foe separately in
previous scenarios.
Aftermath: Our Lady of Bones has
subverted Catholicism inAmerica,
with churches, priories, and
nunneries rededicated to her service.
The Lady’s priests and priestesses
are trained to attack anyone
who interferes with her church.
Previously aligned with the regime,
her church faction threw its support
to the revolution in the final days.
Insurgents regard it as a nest of covert
revanchist support. Some argue that
its archbishops should be hauled
before theTruth and Reconciliation
Commission. Key members of the
Guardian and Mercantilist factions
revere Our Lady and protect her
institutions. Some might be in contact
with the dread entity herself, but
others devote honest reverence to
her, treating her as a genuine figure
of healing. They point to this raiser of
the dead as a symbol of theAmerican
renewal to come. This requires the
ex-insurgents to use their recon skills
to sort the sincere from the sinister
before charging into the nearest
cathedral with guns a-blazing.With
a congregation numbering in the
WHISPERS OF
THE GRAVE
Shock
-1 to Focus tests.
You perceive the undead as vital and
alive, and the living as undead.
Discard when the entity responsible
for this Shock is destroyed.
COMMAND OF
THE GRAVE
Shock
-1 to Focus tests.
You perceive the undead as vital and
alive, and the living as undead.
When you do the bidding of
the entity responsible for this
Shock, roll a die. Even: trade for
“Whispers of the Grave.”
millions, Our Lady’s power as a foe
has increased.
This Is Normal Now:A new
American televangelist claims “the
Second Coming is upon us” and
shares images of the dead returning
to life as proof on liveTV. Our Lady
of Bones hides in the shadows behind
multiple evangelical organizations,
gifting power-hungry members of
the clergy with her illusions until
she’s ready to introduce herself as
the world’s salvation. Clues lie in her
illusions; Our Lady can’t control
who is and isn’t affected by footage
capturing her glamour.Victims who
succumb to her charms fall down
a path of zealotry as true believers
are sure they’re witnessing Jesus
of Nazareth’s return to earthly
miracle-making. Convinced that the
Second Coming is nigh, they fatally
neglect themselves and others in
their care.A wave of shocking news
stories, with astounding negligence a
common theme, ripples through the
investigators’ news feeds, prompting
them to see the hand of Carcosa at
work.
Numbers: 1
Difficulty: Overwhelming
Adjust to Other Sequences: +2 in
Aftermath
you’re mourning a loved one; +1
if you’ve played your character as
devoutly Christian; -2 if you’ve
prayed to her; -4 if you’ve offered a
sacrifice to her
Toll: 3
Tags: Carcosan
Shocks, Minor and Major:
Whispers of the Grave/Command of
the Grave.

40
Pan
Content advisory: Incorporates
themes of sexual assault and abuse. Be
certain of your group’s desire to confront
horror’s darkest themes before using this
foe. Be ready to make adjustments on the
fly if a player requires them during the
session.
In classical myth, the god Pan
lusts for the nymph, Syrinx.To save
her from his unwanted attentions,
Zeus turns her into reeds. Pan
smashes them, but afterward, struck
by remorse, crafts a set of flutes to
remember her by.
The reality-twisting energies of
Carcosa have conjured Syrinx and
her unwanted lover into physical
being. Seeking her love once again,
Pan pursued Syrinx through the
streets of Paris until she could run no
further.With no other gods to help
her, Syrinx attempted to take her
own life on the banks of the Seine. In
a fit of anger, Pan molded and shaped
her living body into a set of flutes.
However, the first time he played
them, Syrinx defended herself with a
thunderous song that removed Pan’s
ability to see, hear, smell, or feel her
— even when she’s nearby. Enraged,
Pan seeks her desperately, deceiving
the unwitting to help him recover the
flutes.
Though Pan claims otherwise,
Syrinx is a living, breathing,
conscious set of flutes with a mind
and heart of her own. Syrinx is
affectionate to music aficionados and
musicians alike and can communicate
with her chosen guardian through
music capable of expressing complex
emotions. Currently, Syrinx
performs at Le Chat Noir (Paris, p.
100). The audience experiences her
as a captivating instrument played
by in-house musicians. The art
students might stumble across havoc
wrought by Pan as he attempts to
track her down and use their knack
for investigation to beat him to her.
When they Research the Greek
myth either in a library or university,
they’ll discover the truth and are
free to confront Pan for his crimes.
On Pan’s death, Syrinx reverts to her
original body — perhaps thanking the
art students with a boon they can use
in an upcoming scenario.
The Wars: The squad learns that
a platoon of French soldiers has
become obsessed with finding Greek
gods, abandoning their posts to
search for Pan. The squad may be
tasked with bringing the soldiers
back to the front, encounter soldiers
looking for Pan, or hear a rumor
that it’s not safe to travel in the
woods at night.When the squad
investigates, they find out the soldiers
have already encountered Pan and
struck a deal with him. In exchange
for finding his flutes, the god falsely
promises to end the war. In reality,
he plans to recover Syrinx and then
murder the soldiers before they can
turn on him.
Aftermath: Now an invisible spirit,
Pan recruits potential allies for two
reasons: to help find his flutes and a
fresh corpse for him to inhabit.To
achieve his goals, Pan pretends to be
other gods or assumes the identities
of loved ones who’ve passed. The
player characters may encounter Pan
multiple times during investigations
without realizing one spirit is lurking
behind the scenes; to do so, they
can set up a meeting where Pan’s
targets can compare notes. Pan is just
as untrustworthy and dangerous as
before, and in his incorporeal form,
he still cannot sense when Syrinx
is nearby.When the investigators

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