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FEATURES OF CARCOSA

• “twin suns sink behind the lake” — “twin suns sink into the lake”
• “where black stars hang in the heavens” — “the night where black stars rise” — “the whole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa”
• “strange moons circle through the skies”
• “the lake of Hali”
  • “along the shore the cloud waves break”
  • “the lakes which connect Hastur, Aldebaran, and the mystery of the Hyades”
  • “…but I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it…”
  • “I saw the black stars hanging in the heavens: and the wet winds from the lake of Hali chilled my face.”
  • “…outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.”
• “I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”
  • And now, far away, over leagues of tossing cloud-waves, I saw the moon dripping with spray; and beyond, the towers of Carcosa rose behind the moon.
• “I remembered Camilla’s agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act…”
• In Cassilda’s Song described by the epithets Lost Carcosa, Dim Carcosa.
• “the cloudy depths of Demhe”
• “where flap the tatters of the King”
• “songs that the Hyades shall sing […] must die unheard in Dim Carcosa”
• “where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon”
• “the Dynasty in Carcosa” [which Castaigne and Wilde believe somehow came to Earth]
  • “the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones”
  • “he began the wonderful story of the Last King” [Wilde believes to be Louis and/or Castaigne]
  • “the people should know the son of Hastur”
  • “King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades”

FEATURES OF THE PLAY

• “Cassilda’s Song” appears in Act I, Scene 2
• Camilla speaks to the Stranger in Act I, Scene 2
• “the very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterward to more awful effect”
• “No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged.”
• “I remembered Camilla’s agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act…”
• “I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter cry of Cassilda, “Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!””
• “I thought of The King in Yellow and the Pallid Mask.”
  • “my mind will bear forever the memory of the Pallid Mask”
  • “we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask”
• “we spoke of Hastur and Cassilda” [after reading the play]

EFFECTS OF READING THE PLAY

• “my eyes became riveted to the open page [at the beginning of Act 2], and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals”
• “the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent”
• “For those poisoned words had dropped slowly into my heart, as death-sweat drops upon a bed-sheet and is absorbed.”
• “…a mind benumbed and yet acutely sensitive (…) for I had been reading The King in Yellow”
• “She seemed dazed, and when I told her to lie down on the sofa she obeyed me without a word. After a while she closed her eyes and her breathing became regular and deep, but I could not determine whether or not she slept. For a long while I sat silently beside her, but she neither stirred nor spoke, and at last I rose, and, entering the unused store-room, took the book in my least injured hand. It seemed heavy as lead, but I carried it into the studio again, and sitting down on the rug beside the sofa, opened it and read it through from beginning to end.When, faint with excess of my emotions, I dropped the volume and leaned wearily back against the sofa, Tessie opened her eyes and looked at me.”
• “I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid.”

PROPER NAMES

Alar

• “Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”

Aldebaran

• “When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran…” [opening line of Imperial Dynasty of America]
• “…the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades…”
• “Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”
• See Hyades, below.

Aldones

• “Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones…”

Camilla

• Speaks to the Stranger in Act I, Scene 2 of The King in Yellow.
• “I remembered Camilla’s agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act…”
• “He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali.”

Carcosa

• A city. See Features of Carcosa, above.

Cassilda

• Sings a song in Act I, Scene 2 of The King in Yellow.
• “He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali.”
• “…that bitter cry of Cassilda, ‘Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!’”

Demhe

• “He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali.”

Dynasty in Carcosa

• See Features of Carcosa, above.

Hali

• A lake in Carcosa, where “the cloud waves break.”
• “where the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali”
• “He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali.”
• “At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King!”
• “…I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it…”
• “I saw the black stars hanging in the heavens: and the wet winds from the lake of Hali chilled my face.”
• “…outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.”

Hastur

• “When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran…” [opening line of Imperial Dynasty of America]
• “I [Castaigne] thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition…”
• “…the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades…”
• “the people should know the son of Hastur” (See Imperial Dynasty of America, below.)
• “At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King!”
• “Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”

Hyades

• “songs that the Hyades shall sing, where flap the tatters of the King, must die unheard in Dim Carcosa”
• “When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran…” [opening line of Imperial Dynasty of America]
• “…the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades…”
• “At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King!”
• “Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”
• “I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid.”

Imperial Dynasty of America

• A text written by Mr. Wilde (“The Repairer of Reputations”).
• “…from the beginning, ‘When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran,’ to ‘Castaigne, Louis de Calvados, born December 19^th, 1877…’” Also: “‘Hildred de Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe Landes Castaigne, first in succession,’ etc. etc.”
• “Mr. Wilde explained the manuscript, using several volumes on Heraldry, to substantiate the result of his researches. He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali. “The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever,” he muttered, but I do not believe Vance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King.”
• “the people should know the son of Hastur”
• “Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow!”

King in Yellow [play]

• See Features of the Play, above.

King in Yellow [individual]

• [of Castaigne’s crown] “The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it shall be worn by his royal servant.”
• “The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever…”
• “Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow!” (See Imperial Dynasty of America, above.)
• “…the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle…”
• “Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.”
• “Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard his voice, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me in waves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!’”
• “…but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask.”
• “Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.” [this said as the dead man comes for the Yellow Sign]

Naotalba

• “Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones…”

Pallid Mask

• “I thought of The King in Yellow and the Pallid Mask.” — “my mind will bear forever the memory of the Pallid Mask”;
• “…every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign which no living human being dared disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask.”
• “…but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask.”

Phantom of Truth

• “Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones…”
• “I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid.”

Phantom of the Past. In “The Prophets’ Paradise,” which is otherwise not directly related to the Yellow Sign mythos, Chambers speaks of the Phantom of the Past.

Stranger

• Speaks to Camilla in Act I, Scene 2 of The King in Yellow.

Thale

• “Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones…”

Uoht

• “Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones…”

Yellow Sign

• “taking with me the jewelled crown and the silken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign”
• “…every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign which no living human being dared disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask.”
• “Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply.”
• “Have you found the Yellow Sign?”
• “On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to any human script.” [The onyx clasp causes strange dreams and attracts a man long dead in “The Yellow Sign.”]

Yhtill

• “The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever…”

SOURCES OF THE NAMES

The notes below constitute a cursory research into the potential antecedents for the various proper names given above. Many of these are just curiosities and should not, with the exception of astronomical names and the names taken from Ambrose Bierce, be considered an assertion of a name’s source. In most cases, it’s more than likely that Chambers simply invented these names.

Alar: An obscure English word meaning “of or pertaining to wings” (OED). From which, an “alar prolongation,” which is a tapering extension of the cavity within a foraminifera’s shell, usually overlapping but sometimes distorting the creature’s whorls. The name also appears as the middle name of the protagonist in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Inhabitant of Carcosa.” The titular Count Alarcos in Benjamin Disraeli’s Count Alarcos: A Tragedy (1839, first performed 1868) was abbreviated as “Alar” in the speech headings of 19^th century editions.

Aldebaran: A star taking its name from the Arabic “al Dabarān,” meaning “follower,” because it seems to follow the Pleiades. It has the appearance of being the brightest star among the Hyades, but we now know it to be unrelated and much older than the Hyades. In 1888, it was discovered to have a binary companion.

Aldones: The Lombards referred to aldermen as “aldones,” apparently detailed in the Origo Gentis Langobardorum. This is mentioned in Charles Oman’s Periods of European History (476-918), p. 182, published in 1893.

Camilla: A common name of probably Etruscan origin. Passing through Latin, it can be found throughout Europe. A Camilla notably appears as a Volsci warrior princess in Virgil’s Aeneid, The name was popularized in English by Frances Burney’s immensely popular novel Camilla: A Picture of Youth (1796). Camilla Urso was a famous 19^th-century child prodigy violinist who emigrated to America from France and toured the country extensively from 1855 until she retired in 1895, the same year that Chambers’ The King in Yellow was published.

Carcosa: Taken from Ambrose Bierce’s “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” where it is the home town of a recently deceased (and disoriented) ghost. (The ghost also sees Aldebaran and the Hyades in the sky “through a sudden rift in the clouds.”)

Cassilda: A common name popular in Spain, possibly of Arabic or Visigothic origin. Saint Casilda of Toledo was a Moorish princess and a locus for a miracle of roses. Cassilda, ou La princesse maure de Tolède by M. L’Abbè G.A.L. was a popular French novel reputedly published in Tours in 1878 (although advertised as available for sale in the back of an 1873 novel) and republished in several editions throughout the late 19^th century.

Demhe: No known antecedents, although it does appear to be a rare word in 19^th century German texts.

Hali: Taken from Ambrose Bierce’s “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” where it’s the name of a fictional philosopher.

Hastur: Taken from Amrbose Bierce’s “Haita the Shepherd,” where Hastur is the “god of shepherds.” Chambers also gives the name to an attendant in “The Demoiselle d’Ys.”

Hyades (astronomy): The nearest open star cluster. From Earth it appears in the constellation Taurus, with its brightest stars forming a “V” in combination with Aldebaran. (Aldebaran is located much closer to Earth.)

Hyades (mythology): In Greek myth, the Hyades were the daughters of Atlas (their mother(s) being one of the Oceanid nymphs). Also known as the Rainy Ones. Their names and number are variable. Their brother, Hyas, was a hunter slain by his prey. Their ceaseless weeping for their brother caused Zeus to raise them into the sky as stars. Before their uplifting, they were tutors or nursemaids or consorts of Dionysus. (In some myths, Dionysus gave them the gift of immortality.) Dionysus was, of course, a god associated with masks.

Naotalba: No known antecedents.

Thale: Thales of Miletus was one of the Seven Sages who founded Ancient Greece. “Thale” also means “valley” in German, as well as being the name of a small German town.

Uoht: Likely invented by Chambers. An 1879 article by Rev. Daniel Henry Baigh in the Yorkshire Archaeological and Topological Journal regarding “Yorkshire [Tide] Dials” claims that “uoht” is Old German for the “third tide” at “the beginning of the morning.” There’s no reason to suspect that Chambers knew this.

Yhtill: No known antecedents.

I’m currently doing a deep dive into the mythology of the Yellow Sign and the King in Yellow. Originally created by Robert W. Chambers for his 1895 short story collection The King in Yellow, they were later adopted into the Mythos by H.P. Lovecraft. Like most elements of the Mythos, they have spilled out in a multitude of variations.

I decided that I wanted to really lock down my personal understanding of Chambers’ original mythology, sort of “unsullied” by the work of later authors. To that end, after reading Chambers’ collection, I went back through his stories and pulled out all the “facts” (or, perhaps more accurately, references) pertaining to the underlying mythology. Then I thought other people might find it useful, so I’m sharing it here.

There are five key works:

• “Cassilda’s Song” (reproduced in its entirety below)
• “The Repairer of Reputations”
• “The Mask”
• “In the Court of the Dragon”
• “The Yellow Sign”

The first section provides excerpts from these stories, which are then followed by a topical breakdown.

If you want to read The King in Yellow for yourself (which I heartily encourage you to do), you can find it at the Gutenberg Project. If you want to do an even deeper dive, I recommend Kenneth Hite’s excellent Annotated King in Yellow. You might also enjoy checking out The Hastur Collection, which, edited by Robert M. Price, collects a number of key post-Chambers stories in the evolution of the King in Yellow mythology.

FRAGMENTS OF THE PLAY

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CASSILDA’S SONG

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

Cassilda’s Song in “The King in Yellow,” Act I, Scene 2.

EXCERPT FROM “THE MASK”

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.

Stranger: Indeed?

Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.

Stranger: I wear no mask.

Camilla: (terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask!

The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2

EXCERPTS FROM “THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS”

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During my convalescence I had bought and read for the first time, The King in Yellow. I remember after finishing the first act that it occurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the book into the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in the firelight. If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals and crept shaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear forever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. When the French Government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain, nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterward with more awful effect.

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THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA. One by one I studied the well-worn pages, worn only by my own handling, and although I knew all by heart, from the beginning, “When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran,” to “Castaigne, Louis de Calvados, born December 19th, 1877,” I read it with an eager, rapt attention, pausing to repeat parts of it aloud, and dwelling especially on “Hildred de Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe Landes Castaigne, first in succession,” etc., etc.

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I know what the massive safe holds secure for me, for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of waiting is hardly enhanced when the safe opens and I lift, from its velvet crown, a diadem of purest gold, blazing with diamonds. I do this every day, and yet the joy of waiting and at last touching again the diadem, only seems to increase as the days pass. It is a diadem fit for a King among kings, an Emperor among emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it shall be worn by his royal servant. (…) I was glad he thought the crown was made of brass and paste, yet I didn’t like him any the better for thinking so. I let him take it from my hand, knowing it was best to humour him.

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One morning early in May I stood before the steel safe in my bedroom, trying on the golden jewelled crown. The diamonds flashed fire as I turned to the mirror, and the heavy beaten gold burned like a halo about my head. I remembered Camilla’s agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act, and I dared not think of what followed—dared not, even in the spring sunshine, there in my own room, surrounded with familiar objects, reassured by the bustle from the street and the voices of the servants in the hallway outside. For those poisoned words had dropped slowly into my heart, as death-sweat drops upon a bed-sheet and is absorbed. Trembling, I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil’s creature, and what he said—ah, what he said.

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“I wish they were bound in gold,” I said. “But wait, yes, there is another book, The King in Yellow.” I looked him steadily in the eye.

“Have you never read it?” I asked.

“I? No, thank God! I don’t want to be driven crazy.”

I saw he regretted his speech as soon as he had uttered it. There is only one word which I loathe more than I do lunatic and that word is crazy. But I controlled myself and asked him why he thought The King in Yellow dangerous.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, hastily. “I only remember the excitement it created and the denunciations from pulpit and Press. I believe the author shot himself after bringing forth this monstrosity, didn’t he?”

“I understand he is still alive,” I answered.

“That’s probably true,” he muttered; “bullets couldn’t kill a fiend like that.”

“It is a book of great truths,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, “of ‘truths’ which send men frantic and blast their lives. I don’t care if the thing is, as they say, the very supreme essence of art. It’s a crime to have written it, and I for one shall never open its pages.””

(…)

“I gave him ten minutes to disappear and then followed in his footsteps, taking with me the jewelled crown and the silken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign.”

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Mr. Wilde explained the manuscript, using several volumes on Heraldry, to substantiate the result of his researches. He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali. “The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever,” he muttered, but I do not believe Vance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King. Fascinated and thrilled I watched him. He threw up his head, his long arms were stretched out in a magnificent gesture of pride and power, and his eyes blazed deep in their sockets like two emeralds. Vance listened stupefied. As for me, when at last Mr. Wilde had finished, and pointing to me, cried, “The cousin of the King!” my head swam with excitement.

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I showed him a list of thousands of names which Mr. Wilde had drawn up; every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign which no living human being dared disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask.

The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and the whole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa.

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Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply.

“Well,” he said, “I see it. What is it?”

“It is the Yellow Sign,” I said angrily.

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Louis…

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Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the Yellow Sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King!

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“Ah! I see it now!” I shrieked. “You have seized the throne and the empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow!”

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EXCERPTS FROM “THE MASK”

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Alas! I had found The King in Yellow. After a few moments, which seemed ages, I was putting it away with a nervous shudder, when Boris and Jack came in bringing their marble rabbit.

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The last thing I recollect with any distinctness was hearing Jack say, “For Heaven’s sake, doctor, what ails him, to wear a face like that?” and I thought of The King in Yellow and the Pallid Mask. I was very ill, for the strain of two years which I had endured since that fatal May morning when Geneviève murmured, “I love you, but I think I love Boris best,” told on me at last.

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Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my sorrow even to myself.

The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord. These thoughts passed through my troubled mind as I lay sick, but they were hopelessly entangled with visions of white creatures, heavy as stone, crawling about in Boris’ basin,—of the wolf’s head on the rug, foaming and snapping at Geneviève, who lay smiling beside it. I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter cry of Cassilda, “Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!” Feverishly I struggled to put it from me, but I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it, and I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow.

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EXCERPTS FROM “IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON”

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I was worn out by three nights of physical suffering and mental trouble: the last had been the worst, and it was an exhausted body, and a mind benumbed and yet acutely sensitive, which I had brought to my favourite church for healing. For I had been reading The King in Yellow.

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I crept to the door: the organ broke out overhead with a blare. A dazzling light filled the church, blotting the altar from my eyes. The people faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised my seared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging in the heavens: and the wet winds from the lake of Hali chilled my face.

And now, far away, over leagues of tossing cloud-waves, I saw the moon dripping with spray; and beyond, the towers of Carcosa rose behind the moon.

Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard his voice, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me in waves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”

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EXCERPTS FROM “THE YELLOW SIGN”

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For some time I tossed about the bed trying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. It filled my head, that muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from a fat-rendering vat or an odour of noisome decay. And as I lay and tossed about, the voice in my ears seemed more distinct, and I began to understand the words he had muttered. They came to me slowly as if I had forgotten them, and at last I could make some sense out of the sounds. It was this:

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

“Have you found the Yellow Sign?”

I was furious. What did he mean by that? Then with a curse upon him and his I rolled over and went to sleep, but when I awoke later I looked pale and haggard, for I had dreamed the dream of the night before, and it troubled me more than I cared to think.

---

I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to any human script.

“It’s all I had to give you for a keepsake,” she said timidly.

I was annoyed, but I told her how much I should prize it, and promised to wear it always. She fastened it on my coat beneath the lapel.

“How foolish, Tess, to go and buy me such a beautiful thing as this,” I said.

“I did not buy it,” she laughed.

“Where did you get it?”

Then she told me how she had found it one day while coming from the Aquarium in the Battery, how she had advertised it and watched the papers, but at last gave up all hopes of finding the owner.

“That was last winter,” she said, “the very day I had the first horrid dream about the hearse.”

I remembered my dream of the previous night but said nothing, and presently my charcoal was flying over a new canvas, and Tessie stood motionless on the model-stand.

---

“The King in Yellow.”

I was dumbfounded. Who had placed it there? How came it in my rooms? I had long ago decided that I should never open that book, and nothing on earth could have persuaded me to buy it. Fearful lest curiosity might tempt me to open it, I had never even looked at it in book-stores. If I ever had had any curiosity to read it, the awful tragedy of young Castaigne, whom I knew, prevented me from exploring its wicked pages. I had always refused to listen to any description of it, and indeed, nobody ever ventured to discuss the second part aloud, so I had absolutely no knowledge of what those leaves might reveal. I stared at the poisonous mottled binding as I would at a snake.

“Don’t touch it, Tessie,” I said; “come down.”

Of course my admonition was enough to arouse her curiosity, and before I could prevent it she took the book and, laughing, danced off into the studio with it. I called to her, but she slipped away with a tormenting smile at my helpless hands, and I followed her with some impatience.

“Tessie!” I cried, entering the library, “listen, I am serious. Put that book away. I do not wish you to open it!” The library was empty. I went into both drawing-rooms, then into the bedrooms, laundry, kitchen, and finally returned to the library and began a systematic search. She had hidden herself so well that it was half-an-hour later when I discovered her crouching white and silent by the latticed window in the store-room above. At the first glance I saw she had been punished for her foolishness. The King in Yellow lay at her feet, but the book was open at the second part. I looked at Tessie and saw it was too late. She had opened The King in Yellow. Then I took her by the hand and led her into the studio. She seemed dazed, and when I told her to lie down on the sofa she obeyed me without a word. After a while she closed her eyes and her breathing became regular and deep, but I could not determine whether or not she slept. For a long while I sat silently beside her, but she neither stirred nor spoke, and at last I rose, and, entering the unused store-room, took the book in my least injured hand. It seemed heavy as lead, but I carried it into the studio again, and sitting down on the rug beside the sofa, opened it and read it through from beginning to end.

When, faint with excess of my emotions, I dropped the volume and leaned wearily back against the sofa, Tessie opened her eyes and looked at me.

*****

We had been speaking for some time in a dull monotonous strain before I realized that we were discussing The King in Yellow. Oh the sin of writing such words,—words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of a soul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with such words,—words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death!

We talked on, unmindful of the gathering shadows, and she was begging me to throw away the clasp of black onyx quaintly inlaid with what we now knew to be the Yellow Sign. I never shall know why I refused, though even at this hour, here in my bedroom as I write this confession, I should be glad to know what it was that prevented me from tearing the Yellow Sign from my breast and casting it into the fire. I am sure I wished to do so, and yet Tessie pleaded with me in vain. Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.

The house was very silent now, and not a sound came up from the misty streets. Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a grey blot in the gloom, but her hands were clasped in mine, and I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid. Then as we answered each other, swiftly, silently, thought on thought, the shadows stirred in the gloom about us, and far in the distant streets we heard a sound. Nearer and nearer it came, the dull crunching of wheels, nearer and yet nearer, and now, outside before the door it ceased, and I dragged myself to the window and saw a black-plumed hearse. The gate below opened and shut, and I crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And now I heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes starting from my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room I did not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were useless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in the face. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.

I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. As for me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, careless even whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gathering up his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest beside me, which I understand.

---

Go to Part 2: Carcosa and the Play

Although marred in the execution, Night Below is still a classic is well worth your attention and effort.

Review Originally Published October 1st, 2001

There needs to be more products like Night Below. Period. End sentence.

Night Below, a supplement for the now defunct AD&D, was marketed as both “The Ultimate Dungeon Adventure” and “An Underdark Campaign”. It fails at the former (there are a plethora of dungeons which succeed at being bigger, more innovative, more believable, more exciting, and/or some combination of the above), but its success at the latter is what makes it notable and worthy of imitation.

To put it simply, Night Below did not content itself with merely being a module: It is, in fact, a complete campaign – designed for months of gameplay and complete with more than a dozen adventures tied into a cohesive plot.

This is a type of product that the industry needs to see more of. (For other examples, check out Dream Pod 9’s The Paxton Gambit for Heavy Gear and Gold Rush Games’ Shiki for Sengoku.) I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I would welcome the ability to pick up a complete campaign in one shot and start playing. If nothing else, it gives me time to prepare for the next campaign.

Let’s take a closer look at what Night Below has to offer:

PLOT

Warning: From this point forward, this review will contain spoilers for Night Below. Players who may end up playing in these modules are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

The Big Concept: Deep within the Underdark, the Aboleth Savants – powerful creatures with the power to dominate others – lurk within the Sunless Sea. There they have laid plots for the construction of a massive magical artifact, designed to expand their innate domination powers for hundreds of miles, allowing them to subdue surface creatures without any need for battle or risk. The PCs, of course, have to stop them from doing this – although, for a very long time, they won’t have the slightest clue of the true evil which lurks behind their foes.

The Night Below campaign is split into three parts:

The Evils of Haranshire: In Part I of Night Below, the PCs begin as 1st or 2nd level characters in Haranshire, a typical, rural fantasy setting (which can be easily slipped into any campaign setting – suggestions are given for placement in Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms). In order to construct their artifact, the aboleths have need of spellcasters – and to get those spellcasters they have established bands of kidnappers on the surface. The campaign, in fact, opens with a kidnapping attempt involving one or more PC spellcasters. As the campaign unfolds, the PCs slowly uncover the full truth behind the kidnapping rings – while also going on some a few side-trips. In the big wrap up for the first part of the campaign, the PCs succeed in destroying what they believe to be the central lair for the kidnappers… only to discover the kidnappers’ connection to an unknown power in the underdark.

Perils in the Underdark: In Part II of Night Below, the PCs pursue their leads into the Underdark. They almost immediately make contact with friendly svirfneblin, who will provide them with cautious aid. This section of the campaign is largely concerned with the PCs slowly building up enough strength to assault the City of the Glass Pool – a settlement of kuo-tua deep within the Underdark which guards the gateway leading to the Sunless Sea and the root of the evil. Along the way, the PCs will make contact with a variety of bad guys (trolls, grells, quaggoth, hook horrors, puddings, oozes, and derro) and good guys (the svirfneblin and a group of good elves living in the Underdark). Part II comes to its smashing conclusion as the PCs succeed in overthrowing the City of the Glass Pool (or, at the very least, pushing through it into the depths beyond).

The Sunless Sea: In Part III of Night Below, the PCs have succeeded in penetrating all the way to the Sunless Sea – wherein dwell the sinister Aboleth Savants. But they will have to make their way the Aboleth’s city – and along the way will encounter a number of other enemies and allies. Again, a thin line needs to be tread in the forming and maintaining of alliances. In the campaign’s epic conclusion the PCs will (hopefully) defeat the Aboleth Savants and overthrow their seat of power for all time.

BOX CONTENTS

Night Below is one of those boxed sets which you can shake without hearing the echoes formed by empty space within. Three 64-page books, 16 pages of Player Handouts, 8 two-sided reference cards, 8 new Monstrous Compendium entries, and 6 full-color poster maps are packed into the box – making it a hearty value for the $30 price tag.

STRENGTHS

Night Below succeeds at crafting a comprehensive, epic campaign. Carl Sargent demonstrates how a well-constructed campaign looks less like a series of disjointed modules, and more like a cohesive story – with a distinct beginning, middle, and end all of its own. This, above all, is Night Below’s most impressive accomplishment, and is reason enough to pick up the boxed set in and of itself.

But you can also strip-mine Night Below with great ease: There’s a great wealth of material here (literally enough on which to base an entire campaign), and you can use large hunks of it without ever touching the overall structure of the campaign at all. For example, I plucked out the source material for two of the towns in Haranshire for use in completely different campaign. You could also pluck out such jewels as the Rockseer Elves subplot and use that as a stand-alone adventure in and of itself (or even as the basis for an entire campaign). And so forth.

WEAKNESSES

Unfortunately, Night Below also comes with its share of weaknesses:

1. The most pervasive problem in the campaign was the lack of clear organization and/or layout in the product. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a lot of material here and – unfortunately – it’s organized in such a poor manner that it’s extremely easy to get lost in it all. In many ways, the campaign is presented almost as a stream of consciousness. As such, it desperately needed to be reorganized into distinct chunks: Here’s the section where the PCs fight the orcs. Here’s the section where we describe Haranshire. Here’s the section where the PCs investigate the troll lair. And so forth.

2. Although he’s constructed an extremely impressive story arc, I feel that Sargent doesn’t always take advantage of the opportunity to foreshadow future developments. Perhaps this is a minor complaint, but I feel that a little more interweaving of the overall structure would have resulted in a story with more depth.

3. Night Below suffers, unfortunately, from the standard 2nd edition problem of referencing/requiring every supplement under the sun. This type of thing drives me nuts: Did these people actually expect their fans to own all 10,000+ supplements they produced?

4. At several points in the course of the campaign, Sargent brings what I can only describe as “XP mentality” into the game world. Most notably, the svirfneblin are constantly advising the PCs to go take care of one threat or another in order to “strengthen them up” (i.e., gain the levels necessary) for the final challenge. I just can’t accept this with a straight face. For example, imagine the United States during World War II saying: “Well, we need to take on Japan. I think we need to go take out Argentina and Venezuela in order to ‘strengthen up’ for the final challenge.”

5. I’m not a big fan of the “1001 fantasy races” model of campaign world design – in which, every time you turn a corner, you’re bumping into a new race of intelligent humanoids. Night Below has this syndrome in spades – which is why, as much as I respect and appreciate the product, I will probably never run it in full myself. If you have a similar distaste for this particular style of D&D, be warned that Night Below will require significant amounts of alteration (and may, in the end analysis, simply not work for you).

CONCLUSION

Night Below is a bang well worth your buck. If you can track down a copy, it’s well worth your time – either to use in whole or in part.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Author: Carl Sargent
Publisher: TSR
Line: AD&D
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 0-7869-0179-9
Year of Release: 1995
Product Code: 1125
Pages: 225

Now that the full campaign model of Night Below has become almost bog standard in the RPG industry, it’s interesting to look back at a time when that wasn’t true. With that being said, I think Night Below has still stolen a march: There are a lot of reasons why these big campaigns just work better as boxed sets. (Although we’re starting to see more and more of that from third-party D&D publishers.)

As I mentioned at the end of the review, Night Below is not a campaign that I ever ran for myself (although I did cut off chunks and use them elsewhere). There was a point where I was dabbling with the idea of remixing it to have a less linear form, but the group I was running for back then fell apart and I haven’t revisited it since.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Go to Part 1

Consider two scenarios. In the first:

Player: I want to hack the Lytekkas mainframe.

GM: Make a DC 20 Hacking check.

And in the second:

Player: Okay, I’ve seduced the secretary to social engineer login credentials and Suzie has snuck in and planted a spoofed router to give us remote access. Let’s hack the Lytekkas mainframe!

GM: Make a DC 20 Hacking check.

When reduced to this core dynamic, we can immediately see that something has gone wrong here. Spread out over the course of several actions and multiple minutes of gameplay, however, this is a trap that a lot of GMs fall into. It can get even more egregious if failing the Seduction or Stealth checks can scuttle the entire hacking attempt, resulting in rolling to failure that actually makes the clever, detailed planning LESS likely to succeed than no plan at all.

Either way, though, this sort of thing is hopelessly frustrating to the players, and will quickly result in them no longer bothering to make plans. If their actions are pointless — or, worse yet, debilitating — why would they continue making the effort? Without correction, gameplay will become a flat, rote exercise. Players will also disengage from the game generally.

MAKING PLANS

I don’t know what plans your players might come up with. (That’s the fun part!) They might be simple and straightforward, or they might be astoundingly complex Rube Goldberg machines. But if the players come up with a good plan, then — compared to the default or bullheaded approach — the plan should mechanically do one or more of the following:

• Reduce the number of required rolls. (Which could include reducing how many characters need to make a roll.)
• Eliminate the need to roll at all.
• Increase the number of rolls, but not the total number of successes required across those rolls.
• Reduce the difficulty of the roll(s).
• Grant a bonus to the roll(s).
• Change the skill/ability being rolled (presumably to one the PC is better at).
• Reduce and/or change the potential consequences of a failed roll.
• Improve the potential benefits of a successful roll.

This is, ultimately, a specialized case of allowing player expertise to trump character expertise: The player has gone to the effort of making a plan, and that effort should be reflected in your ruling.

PLANNING TIPS

I frequently find it useful to explain exactly how the plan is benefitting the PCs.

Player: Okay, I’ve seduced the secretary to social engineer login credentials and Suzie has snuck in and planted a spoofed router to give us remote access. Let’s hack the Lytekkas mainframe!

GM: Make a DC 12 Hacking check.

Compared to our earlier example — where it was a DC 20 Hacking check — the careful planning of the players has had a huge effect! But if the players don’t know the original difficulty of the check, their perception may be that their plan was pointless.

GM: The stolen login credentials and wi-fi access point each reduce the DC of your Hacking check by 4, so I need a DC 12 Hacking check.

With a clear understanding of the benefits, these players will go looking for more opportunities to shift the odds in their favor.

What if the PCs come up with a bad plan, though? Do you still need to reward them by following the guidelines above? Absolutely not. (“Yes, I understand that you thought triggering the sprinkler system in the server room would make it easier to hack the network. But what actually happens is the servers are all knocked offline and you’ve lost your vector for making a Hacking check.”)

Along the same lines, it’s OK for plans to go awry. For example, failing the Seduction check can cause all kinds of complications or even scuttle things entirely, IF a success on that check would grant a truly meaningful benefit. That’s not rolling to failure; that’s taking a gamble. (In the movie Sneakers, a partial failure on a Seduction check gives the PCs access to a programmer’s ID card, but also causes the programmer to twig to what’s happening and raise the alarm halfway through their heist.)

COMBAT PLANNING

Tactical planning in combat should follow the same general guidelines as any other planning, but there’s a specific issue to watch out for in combat: action economy.

Whether performing stunts or coordinating with other PCs, if a plan requires a setup or supporting action, the potential benefit for that action must be larger than just making an attack yourself. To put that another way, you need to look at the total cost (including the opportunity cost) of the plan and make sure that the payoff is larger than the cost. If it isn’t, don’t be surprised when the players all default back to, “I hit it with my sword.”

Unfortunately, it turns out that it can be quite difficult to find this balance, particularly if you’re responding on-the-fly to some bespoke plan the players have just thrown together. And it turns out most RPGs aren’t designed to help you with this. (Although there are some that do.) So there are a few rules of thumb that I use.

First, if this is a one-off situation, I’ll err on the side of making the payoff more powerful. I’d rather have it be worthwhile than not, and even if I get it wrong, it’s a one-time advantage, not the end of the world. (If the setup is easily repeatable in every fight, on the other hand, you need to be a little more cautious so that it doesn’t become something abusable and, therefore, boring.)

Second, instead of making a check as a separate action (which carries with it the opportunity cost of whatever else the action could have been spent on), incorporate the check into the existing action. Now you just need to balance the payoff against the increased likelihood of failure (due to the additional check), and that’s a lot easier to do.

Example: You’re playing in a system that doesn’t normally track flanking bonuses, but a player wants to flank an enemy to help another PC’s attack. If you required them to make some sort of bespoke flanking action instead of their normal attack, the benefit to the other player would need to be larger than the potential damage of the attack they passed up. But if you instead rule that they can take a penalty to their attack to grant a bonus to their comrade’s attack, that’s a lot easier to balance.

Alternatively, if a PC is spending an action to do nothing except set something up, then the benefit of successfully setting it up should be, at a minimum, granting a full bonus action (either to their future self or another PC). For some reason, this can often feel as if it’s “too much,” and there are systems and situations where trading one type of action for another isn’t balanced (so I’m not saying that every set up should be granting a blank check). Keep in mind, though, that even with the exact same action, simply delaying when it’s taken from the moment of setup to the moment of payoff is already a disadvantage (albeit it balanced by the potential benefits of being able to batch actions up).

FURTHER READING
The Art of Pacing
The Art of the Key
GM Don’t List

Q. asks:

What’s the difference between a campaign and adventure? I also see you talk about “scenarios.” What’s the difference between an adventure and a scenario?

The short answer is that, for me, a campaign is made up of multiple adventures and I use “adventure” and “scenario” interchangeably.

To understand why, let’s take a little dive into the history of these terms. Plus, I think it’ll be fun.

The origin of campaign is a military campaign. (Which, in turn, comes from the French campagne — literally the “open countryside” in which the armies are maneuvering. The “campaign season” was when warm weather allowed the armies to maneuver and seek battle; to be “on campaign.”) In gaming, it referred to wargame battles which were linked together, so that the outcome of one battle would influence the next. Notably, Dave Arneson ran a Napoleonics campaign in which a heavily modified version of Diplomacy was used to set up the individual battles. The “campaign” was, effectively, the wider world in which individual battle scenarios were set, and this usage carried over when Arneson invented the modern roleplaying game with his Castle Blackmoor campaign.

This early use of the term “campaign” was also influenced by the open table style of play used by Arneson, Gygax, and other early GMs, with a single campaign being not just the adventures of one group of PCs, but many different groups. It wasn’t unusual to hear the phrase “campaign world,” and “campaign” itself was often used as essentially a synonym for “the game setting.”

This also meant, though, that the “campaign” was the collection of all adventures that took place within that shared setting. As dedicated tables became more common, the meaning of “campaign” shifted. It still referred to all of the adventures taking place in a shared continuity, but for most groups that continuity now consisted of the adventures of a single group of characters.

The origin of module was also quite literal: It referred to any product designed to be plugged into your game. It originally referred to all supplements (the game as a whole was seen as literally modular), but the usage rapidly narrowed to refer only to adventure modules, largely because that’s how TSR referred to its adventure products. This resulted in “module” becoming essentially synonymous with “adventure” or “scenario.” (The latter term, you’ll note, also derives from the “scenarios” used for wargames.) This is significant because… well… what does adventure mean for an RPG?

See, the original D&D modules (e.g., Dungeon Module T1: The Village of Hommlet) were really conceptualized as setting supplements: You’d take the location described in the module and literally plug it into the hex map of your campaign world, keying it to one of the hexes. As play moved away from “campaign worlds” shared by multiple groups, however, dedicated tables increasingly gravitated towards episodic play: The DM would buy an adventure module (Keep on the Borderlands or The Lost City or White Plume Mountain or Steading of the Hill Giant Chief) and that would be the next adventure their group would play through.

(This is also influenced by the fact that many of TSR’s earliest modules were originally created for us in convention tournaments.)

Because these modules were now being used by so many DMs as episodic adventures, it naturally followed that published adventures began being written with this in mind: They’re not just cool places for the PCs to explore; they’re specific premises (rescue the princess! recover the stolen gem!) that point at specific conclusions. (The Day the Old School Died dives into a very explicit example of this.)

This all evolved fairly quickly at the dawn of the hobby, and by the mid-‘80s the terms had settled into a pretty common usage: A campaign was a collection of linked adventures (and that link was usually the dedicated group of PCs who played through those adventures together). And the terms module, adventure, and scenario were all used pretty much interchangeably.

But that brings us back to the question: What is an adventure? Is it dungeon? A mystery? Unraveling a grand conspiracy? Obviously, it could be any or all of those things, and the length/scale of a single adventure can vary wildly. For example, a dungeon adventure could be a micro-dungeon with just a couple of rooms or it could be a large dungeon with multiple levels and dozens of rooms.

This became significant when companies started publishing collections of linked adventures. The original Dragonlance modules — a linked series of sixteen modules (including non-adventure modules) — were notable, with their massive success being followed up by Scourge of the Slave Lords (which collected the original A1 thru A4 adventure modules) and Queen of the Spiders (collecting G1-G4, D1-D2, and Q1), but it was a widespread trend. (For example, this is the same time period in which Chaosium was publishing Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Masks of Nyarlathotep.) Are these one big adventure or many different adventures? The perception of Scourge of the Slave Lords and Queen of the Spiders was certainly influenced by the fact they were previously published as separate adventures, and they were labeled “Campaign Adventures” by TSR.

The distinction, though, could be (and can be) pretty vague. For example, DLE1 In Search of Dragons was a single large “Official Game Adventure” from TSR, but it’s made up of a dozen different adventure locations. What, if anything, makes it different from Scourge of the Slave Lords? Where’s the line between “investigating a cult” (single scenario) and “investigating multiple branches of the cult, each of which is a separate scenario” (Masks of Nyarlathotep)?

On the other hand, Scourge of the Slave Lords and Queen of the Spiders were still being described as books you would slot into a larger campaign, running them for PCs who would go adventuring before and/or after these mega-adventures/campaign adventures/adventure collections. But these two books were also linked. So were they collectively on big adventure spread across two books? A campaign with two adventures? A campaign made up of roughly a dozen different adventures?

Fast-forwarding three or four decades, we can see that very little of this muddiness has actually changed: Is Lost Mine of Phandelver a single adventure or a collection of adventures? Is the answer the same for Dragon of Icespire Peak, which uses an explicit jobs board? What about Curse of Strahd? That has a single, dominant villain. Is that different from Storm King’s Thunder, which has several independent villains scattered across the world, but all linked to the same current events? And is that different from Rime of the Frostmaiden, which has multiple bad guys with no direct connection, but all operating in the same area? Is Hoard of the Dragon Queen + Rise of Tiamat a campaign when it’s published as two separate books/adventures, but no longer a campaign when it’s published in a single-volume edition? What about when it was published in a slipcase or as a giant boxed set with a bunch of individual adventure booklets?

Or consider a megadungeon. Is a megadungeon a single adventure? Or can you think of the megadungeon as being made up of many different scenarios divided up into separate levels? (There’s a reason why true megadungeons are sometimes referred to as “campaign dungeons.”)

To make a long story short, the line between “campaign” (many adventures” and “mega-adventure” (one adventure, but its scope is vast!) can be pretty fuzzy, and it has been for a long time.

Personally, I think it likely that most “adventures” that last more than ten sessions are likely to actually be a campaign made up of several different linked scenarios. I think this distinction has gotten a little muddier over the last decade because Wizards of the Coast has such a predilection for publishing 200+ page campaign books, but I think it still largely tracks to how most people are using the terms.