The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – Shattered Realities, Exploded Selves

PARIS

Robin D. Laws BOOK ONE PARIS Publishers: Simon Rogers and Cathriona Tobin Designed, Written, and Produced by: Robin D. Laws Cover Art: Shel Kahn Interior Illustrations: Shel Kahn Collages: Dean Engelhardt Graphic Design: Christian Knutsson Copyediting: Colleen Riley, Cathriona Tobin Eagle-eyes: S. Ben Melhuish Indexing: Cathriona Tobin Special Thanks: Kevin Kenan, Côme Martin, Erik Otterberg, Galen Pejeau

Playtesters: Ralf Achenbach, Jack Anderson, Bradley Barger, Jeff Bernstein, Julien Berton, Alizée Bleue, Yosefka Bill, Jeff Borders, Mark W. Bruce, Shaun Burton, Kelli Butler, Brian Carter, Brendan Clougherty, Chris Cooke, Lizzy Cooke, Maudie Pepper Croal, Ashley Cyr, Jarrod Davila, Susan Davis, Mike de Jong, Dimes, Toorte Dot, Axel Eble, Jonathan Elcock, Davina Ellis, Anne Freitas, Jeromy French, Meg Gallagher, Nicole Gardella, Davy Gerard, Lloyd Graney, Jacob Haley, Justin Haley, Morgan Hua, Chris Huth, Bert Isla, Susan Isla, Paul Jackson, Bertram Jänsch, Sydney Jones, Zachary Joyner, Shel Kahn, David Kennedy, Joe Kimbrough, Zack Kline, James Kohl, Julaïe Koï, Rainer Koreasalo, Chris Lambertus, Nicole Long, Nyssa Mackinnon, Mark Manlapas, Côme Martin, John W.S. Martin, Damon Matthews, Dan McSorley, Dustyn Mincey, Chandreyee Mitra, Justin Mohareb, Arka Neirda, Thomas Nowell, Janne Nuutinen, Travis Offenberger, Tyler Omichinski, Erik Otterberg, Cameron Parkinson, Andrew Pfeiffer, Michael Pfeiffer, Florian Poisignon, Luke Powell, Jack Reidy, Tim Reiter, Christian "CJ" Jensen Romer, Aubrey Rush, Nat Sanderson, Tomi Sarkkinen, Liam Scanlon, Martin Schramm, Steve Seminerio, Eric L.M. Shuman, Scott Slonaker, Jebadiah Smalls, Becky Smith, Robert J. Smith, Simon Strietholm, Aser Tolentino, Megan Tolentino, Ben Wachtell, Scott Wachter, Brett Wagner, Markus Wagner, Paul Ward, Michael Warnick, Brian Watson, Mike Weber, Cory Welch, Calliope Westbrook, Dan Wiley, Joseph Williams, Charles Wright, Kim Wright.

SHATTERED REALITIES, Combat Special Cases, EXPLODED SELVES 6 Exceptions, and Explanations 59 Roleplaying Basics 6 Hazards 63 Mysteries of Paris 7 Regaining Pushes and Pool Points 69 This Game 8 Improving Abilities 69 Modes 11 Character Replacement 70 Characters 11 RUNNING THE GAME 71 A HOWLING To Arc or Not to Arc? 71 FROM CARCOSA 11 Scenarios 73 Kits 12 Self-Motivated or On Call? 73 Gender and Background 16 First Episode 74 Name 17 Taking the Premise as Read 77 Drive 17 Further Mysteries 77 That Deuced Peculiar Business 18 Antagonist Reactions 82 Subplots and Side Notes 83 DESCRIPTIONS 18 Maintaining Genre 83 Relationships 20 Tone 84 Investigative Abilities 21 Investigative Ability Descriptions 22 BELLE ÉPOQUE PARIS 86 General Abilities 28 City of Lights 86 General Ability Descriptions 29 Americans in Paris 87 How You Act is Who You Are 88 GAME RULES 33 The Century So Far 89 Getting Clues 33 Politics 92 Tests 38 The Press 96 Time Increments 43 Evocative Details 97 Refreshing Points and Pushes 44 Locations 98 Fighting 45 Haunted Paris 111 Shocks and Injuries 55 Horror in the Countryside 112 Shadows of Brittany 112 Artists and Bohemians 115

3 PEOPLE 115 CARDS 188 Artists and Bohemians 115 Injury Cards 188 Scientists and Inventors 125 Shock Cards 209 Occultists 126 Police and Thieves 133 APPENDICES 227 Upper-Crust American Names 229 THE KING, HIS PLAN, French Names 230 AND HIS MINIONS 138 The Unreliable Narrations TABLES AND REFERENCES 232 of Robert Chambers 138 Relative Challenge Table 232 Your Unreliable Universe 142 Physical Hazard Table 234 Mental Hazard Table 235 FOES 146 Investigative Ability Worksheet 238 Foe Format 146 Spotlight Tracker Table 239 Foe Master Table 147 Relationship Table 240 Group Matrix 240 GHOST OF Fight Trackers 241 THE GARNIER 168 The Alien Truth 168 INDEX 242 Inspiration 169 Scenes 170 Antagonist Reactions 186 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – Shattered Realities, Exploded Selves

SHATTERED REALITIES, EXPLODED SELVES

In The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, interwoven structure, or in a simpler, players take on the roles of young artists episodic mode featuring shorter studying abroad in Paris in 1895. When incidents of subjective reality horror in the publication of a play called The King any one of its four settings. in Yellow begins to overwrite the city To play the game, you need this book, with the supernatural reality of an alien which includes both the rules and the world called Carcosa, they plunge into central Belle Époque Paris setting. weird mystery. Each of the other settings appears in And they play European soldiers its own volume: The Wars, featuring fighting in the murky Continental War Europe’s 1947 War of Reclamation; of 1947. They come to realize that their Aftermath, the contemporary post- endless, inexplicable struggle occurs at Castaigne world; and This Is Normal the behest of Carcosa’s Yellow King, Now, our world with supernatural and plunge into weird mystery. corruption seeping in from the corners. And they play former resistance fighters in the present day, after the overthrow of the tyrannical Castaigne Roleplaying Basics regime, which has held America in its This is a tabletop roleplaying game, icy grip since the 1920s. They want to or RPG. rebuild their nation, but that requires— When playing an RPG, a group of you’re seeing a pattern now—a plunge participants gather to talk their way into weird mystery. through a story they spontaneously And finally they also play create together, adjudicated by a set of contemporary people in the world as game rules. we mostly know it—but what is that Unlike other types of games with strange masked creature lurking behind multiple participants, you don’t win or that dumpster over there? Could it be a lose a roleplaying game. Often you play harbinger of… weird mystery? many times, building a story featuring Something links these characters the same characters and situations. across time and alternate realities—a You come to follow them as you would grim destiny that may enable them to the episodes of your favorite serialized unravel the king’s ultimate scheme. television adventure show. The Yellow King Roleplaying Game (or All but one of the participants takes YKRPG when only an acronym will do) on the role of a particular fictional can be played using this overarching, character. These participants are called

6 ROBIN D. LAWS the players. The haractersc are player mysterious to you, check out an characters, or PCs for short. Your rules example game and you’ll soon see how set may give you other synonyms for the it all comes together. PCs, for example, investigators, heroes, conspirators, or the team. As a player, you prepare for the first Mysteries of Paris session of play by inventing details about Mysteries the group investigates go your character, following a character something like this: creation process laid out by the rules set. •• Grit and rock dust found in the Typically one participant serves as the strange wounds of victims murdered Game Moderator—GM for short. near the morgue suggest that the The GM guides you through the gargoyles of the nearby Notre events of the game: Dame Cathedral have come to life. •• populating an imagined •• Addled by reading The King in world with compelling places, Yellow, a beloved art instructor people, and things for the main changes by night into a murderous characters to interact with brute—and the trail of victims •• portraying those secondary grows ever closer to the heroes. figures, called GMCs (Game •• The delightful but overbearing Moderator Characters) mother of an investigator arrives •• describing the setting’s in town to visit—and then seems places and things when your to have shed thirty years. She’s characters encounter them determined to spread the miracle •• deciding how the rules apply, cure to aging to America, but when should confusion about them arise the group goes to find the man •• refocusing your attention when the who treated her, they find only a group gets distracted or bored murder scene—and clues pointing to The ctiona in a roleplaying session a conspiracy of Rosicrucian occultists happens in each participant’s about to transform themselves into imagination. Just as your experience Nietzschean übermenschen. reading a compelling book doesn’t •• Once word gets out that the group provide an observer with rich visual knows its way around the occult, cues, playing a roleplaying game a foreign agent tries to use them remains a low-key affair. to contact the King in Yellow, to It used to be hard for absolute enlist his aid in a colonial war. newcomers to initially figure out what •• A mysterious but munificent the heck goes on in a roleplaying client pays the group’s portrait game. These days, lots of folks point specialist to create a weird, full-body video cameras at their tables, playing painting depicting him suffering online in real time for others to watch. from all manner of wounds, from Roleplaying streamers, as they are stab to gunshot. The client then called, then archive the results on goes on a murder spree, proving sites like YouTube. If RPGs still seem immune to all of the harms shown

7 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – Shattered Realities, Exploded Selves

in the painting. To stop him, the this case, the subjective reality horror group must locate and destroy the of Robert W. Chambers’ King in painting, which by the addition Yellow mythos. of the Yellow Sign has become a protective charm of unholy power. Rules Basics •• In a sequel to Chambers’ story “The When characters seek information Mask,” residents and household staff where it might be available, they in the wealthy Faubourg Saint- always gain it, provided they have Germain district are found in fancy an Investigative ability that fits the homes, transformed into marble situation. statues. Their jewelry cabinets gape In situations when interesting story open, robbed by thieves. Though possibilities arise from either success at first presumed dead, the victims or failure, characters make a test. They recover—temporarily altered by a spend a number of points associated serum first developed by a sculptor with a relevant General ability, roll named Boris Yvain. It works because a single six-sided die, and add both the appearance of The King in Yellow numbers to get a result. has bent the rules of physics in Paris. This is then compared with a To find the thieves, the investigators Difficulty number. If the result meets must learn who knew Yvain, now or beats the Difficulty, the character dead from suicide, well enough succeeds. Sometimes the margin to gain access to the formula. between result and Difficulty matters. Each General ability has a numerical rating. This number tells you how This Game many points you can spend on that YKRPG uses Pelgrane Press’ ability over the course of a scenario. GUMSHOE system, a set of roleplaying The number of points you currently rules focused on gathering information have available to spend is called your and solving mysteries. GUMSHOE says pool. If you’ve spent all your points, that failing to get information is never your pool equals 0. interesting. When your character uses At the start of a new scenario, your a relevant ability in a situation where pool returns to its maximum value, the scenario says there are clues to the rating. be found, you always get them. This In special circumstances you may simple premise allows us to present rich, be able to return your pool to its rating layered mysteries in which the object during a scenario. This is called a refresh. is not to randomly stumble across a few Unless directed to refresh only a key bits of information, but to piece certain number of points, you refresh to together the truth hidden within a your rating. larger web of clues. When you refresh or otherwise gain As with all of our GUMSHOE games, a particular number of points, you the rules have been specifically tuned to never receive more points than your a particular setting and style of play—in rating allows.

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When battling, chasing, or running close you are to dying. away from adversaries, characters •• Characters who are hurt in combat simultaneously test their Fighting or when encountering physical abilities, combining their results to obstacles take Injury cards, which compare against a Difficulty number exert various effects tuned to the reflecting the toughness of the enemy type of harm they’ve suffered. and the challenge of their tactical goal. •• Stability is no longer a resource When characters suffer hysicalp measuring how close you harm, they take Injury cards. Shock are to leaving play due to cards represent various sorts of mental emotional breakdown. and emotional strain. Text on these •• Characters who fail Composure cards describes their game effects and tests to resist enduring emotional tells you how to discard (get rid of) harm take Shock cards, which exert them. Where not otherwise specified various effects tuned to the situation. in the card text, you discard all Shock •• Characters die when they accumulate and Injury cards at the end of every too many Injury cards, or leave mystery. When you accumulate a play due to permanent mental certain number of Injury cards, the strain when they accumulate character dies. The same number of too many Shock cards. Shock cards means that the recipient Together these changes make this a has suffered a mental breakdown so new iteration of the core rules, which severe that they can no longer continue we call QuickShock GUMSHOE. to investigate and battle the occult To avoid confusion with standard forces of Carcosa. GUMSHOE, we sometimes highlight an When they succeed against a foe in a unrule, a reminder that a rule you may fight, characters pay a Toll, a number of have grown accustomed to does not apply points drawn in any combination from in the QuickShock version. their Athletics, Fighting, and Health pools, to avoid taking a Minor Injury card.

Rules Departures This ersionv of GUMSHOE departs from previous ones in a few key respects: •• Combat is faster, with each player making a single Fighting test. •• Combat is player-facing; the GM never makes tests for enemies. (In fact, the GM never rolls dice at all.) •• Combat is more heavily abstracted, emphasizing what the characters want to achieve in the story. •• Health is no longer a resource determining how

9 ROBIN D. LAWS

A HOWLING FROM CARCOSA

Four short stories by American Modes author Robert W. Chambers (1895– YKRPG can be played in one of two 1933) serve as central inspiration for modes. Choose which one you prefer this game. Published in the collection before character generation: The King in Yellow, they are, in addition •• Horror mode is the tougher to the title story: “The Mask,” “In of the two, likely yielding a the Court of the Dragon”, and “The higher character death rate. Repairer of Reputations.” •• Occult Adventure is a shade more Ambrose Bierce also writes of a place forgiving, though still no Sunday called Carcosa, in his short story “An promenade down to the café district. Inhabitant of Carcosa.” Chambers clearly mined it for references, but in that tale Carcosa is an ancient city, and Characters Hali the name of a philosopher the In the Paris portion of your series, the narrator contemplates. It also mentions players portray students of various arts Aldebaran and the Hyades, as stars the learning their craft and soaking in the narrator sees overhead after leaping sights and delights of the City of Lights. forward in time to an era long after They begin play blissfully unaware of his city’s reduction to ruins. These the alien and supernatural dangers too become touchstones, in a different they are about to encounter. Inchoate context, in the King in Yellow mythos. in each of them is a personality trait

BEYOND THE CYCLE Chambers wrote other horror stories and some pulpy supernatural adventures. Aside from a handful of ghost stories that turn on the same simple ironies as those of his contemporary and inspiration, Ambrose Bierce, his voluminous other works are corny and dated even before you reckon with their lurches into breezy period racism. References to a few of Chambers’ other tales appear sprinkled throughout the game’s four sequences. These appear as Easter eggs as a belated reward to those who have made the mistake of spending their time reading those tedious stories. If you haven’t, don’t let this game trick you into it. They truly are terrible.

11 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – A Howling from Carcosa that will drive them further toward Kits occult danger. Characters are created by combining In the early episodes of your series, one item apiece from two sets of kits. they become aware of the recent covert publication of a disturbing closet drama, Investigative Kits The King in Yellow. Over time they The rstfi kit, the Investigative kit, realize that its reality-bending ripple determines the characters’ fields of effect lies beneath all the bizarre events study and their Investigative abilities, they’ve been investigating. which they use to gather information. The default version of the series The itsk are: assumes that the characters are all, or at least primarily, Americans Architecture Student from wealthy families now living Architecture the artificially and temporarily Art History impoverished lives of students abroad. Officialdom This follows the pattern established by Technology Chambers in his story “The Mask.” It makes the characters outsiders Belle-Lettrist who have acquired some familiarity Belle-Lettres with Paris and its ways—a convenient History conceit allowing you to easily present Reassurance information to the players. Research Although it doesn’t evoke the Chambers stories as closely, you Landscape Painter could equally well have the characters Art History hail from elsewhere. The players Natural History might better relate to characters Negotiation from England, Canada, Australia, or Painting elsewhere on the Continent. One or two players may ask to play Muse Parisians. This hoicec works particularly Bonhomie well in the case of the Muse character Culture (see below) who becomes an insider and Inspiration their guide to the city. Miscellany If you or your players are all French, you may find it odd to play Americans Poet and prefer to recast the art students as Demimonde locals. Maybe they’re provincials living Intuition in the great city for the first time. Occultism Poetry

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Portrait Painter group—reciprocated or not. Assess Honesty Investigative abilities listed in italics Fashion are Interpersonal abilities. These Painting allow characters to get information out Photography of people. They are called out because Society some card effects trigger on the use of an Interpersonal Push—a Push using an Sculptor Interpersonal Investigative ability. Art History Allow the players to agree between Military History them who takes which kit. In the Sculpture unlikely event of more than one player Steel vying without relent for the same kit, have them roll dice, rerolling any ties. The eldsfi of study are all more or The player rolling the highest total gets less self-explanatory, except perhaps the preferred kit. for Belle-Lettrist and Muse. Explain Should you have more than seven that the first term refers to a writer for players (an already unwieldy number journals, magazines, and newspapers for an investigative game), the specializing in essays, editorials, the additional players are gadabouts. The occasional bit of fact-finding reporting, gadabout may pretend to be studying and perhaps the odd didactic fictional something, especially in letters back vignette. In today’s terms, the Belle- home cadging money from dear old Lettrist is a journalist who primarily dad. In reality he is frittering away the writes think pieces. family money while pursuing a life of A muse is a member of the arts aimless adventure in Paris. scene who does not personally The gadabout takes 4 Investigative create anything, but rather provides abilities also held by other characters. inspiration, impetus, and maybe Except for Art History, he can’t choose organizational work to either a single more than 1 ability from any one creator, or the members of an entire identity kit. artistic scene. Though we most often Does your group consist of fewer think of a muse as a woman, either than seven players? Invite the players romantically linked to one or more to fairly distribute the abilities from the artists, or their object of unrequited unused kits between the group, using infatuation, that isn’t the only way to whatever method makes sense to them. play the character. A male muse could be a man who functions as an impresario General Kits or critical ringleader. A woman could do Players then select a General kit. the same, maintaining an utterly chaste It reflects the most notable qualities and entirely respectable relationship allowing them to take actions in the with the male characters. And a man game world aside from information could have, or be the object of, romantic gathering. feelings for another member of the

13 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – A Howling from Carcosa

Athlete Scrounger A master of many sports and an Your knack for always having the impressive physical specimen. item you and your friends need may Athletics 8 occasionally require you to skirt Composure 6 traditional notions of property rights. Fighting 6 Athletics 3 First Aid 3 Composure 7 Health 4 Fighting 6 Mechanics 0 First Aid 0 Riding 2 Health 3 Sense Trouble 1 Mechanics 0 Sneaking 3 Riding 1 Preparedness 0 Sense Trouble 3 Sneaking 5 Former Cadet Preparedness 5 Recipient of military training, either informally, or as part of reserve officer Former Med Student education. Either formally or by watching and Athletics 6 learning from a family member, you Composure 6 know how to bandage wounds and even Fighting 7 sew up a puncture wound. First Aid 2 Athletics 3 Health 3 Composure 7 Mechanics 0 Fighting 5 Riding 3 First Aid 6 Sense Trouble 2 Health 3 Sneaking 2 Mechanics 0 Preparedness 2 Riding 2 Sense Trouble 2 Cool Customer Sneaking 3 A confident character, hard to shake. Preparedness 1 Athletics 4 Composure 6 Fighting 6 First Aid 0 Health 3 Mechanics 2 Riding 2 Sense Trouble 4 Sneaking 2 Preparedness 4

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Tinkerer Spent Time in a Factory You know a thing or two about As owner or worker, you spent your devices, newfangled and otherwise. youth amid the thundering engines of Athletics 3 industry. Composure 6 Athletics 5 Fighting 5 Composure 6 First Aid 0 Fighting 5 Health 3 First Aid 1 Mechanics 6 Health 2 Riding 1 Mechanics 6 Sense Trouble 2 Riding 0 Sneaking 2 Sense Trouble 2 Preparedness 5 Sneaking 3 Preparedness 2 Raised on a Farm As owner or peasant, you grew up in Any player preferring to build a the healthy air of a rural area. General ability list from scratch may Athletics 5 do so, allocating 32 points between Composure 8 the 10 General abilities. A group of Fighting 6 experienced GUMSHOE hands almost First Aid 3 undoubtedly prefers to skip the kits entirely Health 5 and move right on to scratch building. Mechanics 0 Players may also modify their kits, Riding 4 moving around any number of points, so Sense Trouble 0 long as the total remains 32. Warn them Sneaking 0 that they might regret it if the whole Preparedness 1 group lacks a crucial ability, like First Aid or Preparedness. Raised on the Streets Survival can depend on Composure Through lowly birth or unfortunate and Fighting. Going below 6 in either circumstances that were later reversed, can shorten a character’s lifespan. you spent your formative years fending Point out to players of previous for yourself in a big city. GUMSHOE games that Health isn’t as Athletics 5 vital to survival, and doesn’t come up as Composure 6 often as they might be used to. Fighting 7 Gadabouts can either custom build First Aid 0 their ability lists from 32 points, unless Health 4 another player decides to go that route, Mechanics 0 leaving a general kit left over for the Riding 0 gadabout to pick up. Sense Trouble 3 The above numbers apply to Sneaking 3 Horror mode. Preparedness 4

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19 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – Belle Époque Paris

BELLE ÉPOQUE PARIS

“None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his inward joy.” —Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

The rstfi section of a full YKRPG scandalous realism of his works. A fresh series unfolds in 1895 Paris. Its art generation rebels against his focus on student heroes from rich American the social and the tangible by dealing families have been established here with fantastic, dark, and outré subject for a year or so. They have somewhat matter. Some consider themselves familiarized themselves with their Symbolists; others, Decadents. temporary home and know the basics of Their influence extends past literature the setting, as conveyed in this chapter. to infuse painting and music with an If you are using another approach—using interest in the weird and mythic. an all-French main cast, for example— The onumentalm operas of Jules you’ll want to adjust the perspective Massenet elicit gasps with their given here. spectacular staging, as young composers Debussy and Ravel pursue subtler, stranger harmonies. City of Lights While the intelligentsia may fuss and In 1895 Paris beckons as Europe’s argue over the progress of the arts, most foremost center of arts, learning, visitors crave its brilliant and seductive technology, and luxury. The orld’sw amenities. In Paris, the pursuit of biggest star, the actress Sarah excitement is an around-the-clock Bernhardt, treads its stages. The affair. The oneyedm treat themselves to architectural wonder called the Eiffel the storied cuisine of pioneering chef Tower went up just six years ago. Auguste Escoffier, wear the clothing of The Impressionists, still controversial fashion titan Charles Frederick Worth, here but increasingly embraced in and meet out-of-towners at the Grand America, work and exhibit in Paris. Hotel, managed by the felicitously Though opposed to their new way of named André Million. painting, the École des Beaux-Arts When the sun shines, the cream of remains the world’s most prestigious Paris dons its finery and flocks to its school of art and architecture. cafés. They strut and socialize down its The ovelistn Émile Zola stands atop main boulevards, flirting, gossiping, the city’s literary heap, despite the and, above all, being seen. When the

86 ROBIN D. LAWS characters seek a witness or contact Your characters may invite turn-of- immersed in the social whirl, they need the-century well-actuallying by calling merely prowl its fashionable districts until absinthe a liqueur. At this point some they run into the person they seek, or a impertinent pedant will surely interject friend who knows where to point them. that one properly classes it as a spirit, At night attention shifts to clubs and because its sugar is added after the fact. cabarets, from the avant-garde Le Chat Absinthe drinkers described in Noir to the circus-like, libertinish this book include Proust (p. 122), Moulin Rouge. and Verlaine (p. 124), whose avid consumption will hasten his death a few The Green Fairy months from now. Absinthe, popularized at mid- Already a hazard to mind and body, century when a blight wreaked havoc the green fairy must surely accelerate on French vineyards, remains the the mental dissolution caused by totemic drink of Parisian excess. Of exposure to The King in Yellow. the herbs used in this anise-flavored spirit, the flowers and leaves of the wormwood plant take the blame for Americans in Paris its fabled hallucinogenic properties. Americans see the Continent Parisians personify its mind-blurring in general as a place of dangerous effect as “the green fairy.” In fact, the sophistication. No place embodies that real danger of absinthe comes from its more than Paris. devastatingly high alcohol content, As seen in the novels of Mark Twain paired with the tendency of drinkers and Henry James, Americans, including to slug it back as quickly as they would the rich ones, regard themselves as wine. And they slug back their wine as innocents and Europe and the French they would their beer. as wily debauchees and seducers. A beguiling ritual attends absinthe Naturally this conception both attracts consumption. Bitter on its own, it is and repels the wary, naifishAmerican sweetened during presentation by a traveler. sugar cube placed on an ornate slotted The haractersc presumably feel the spoon, which is then melted by water, allure more than the fear. Their families dripping into the green spirit. The likely regard their decision to come to herbal elements in the drink interact Paris as either enhancing their social with the water, turning the clear green cachet or endangering their morality liquid cloudy. Experienced and/or and good sense. Should this come up pretentious drinkers call this the louche. during a storyline, invite the player Disappointingly, we do not call creepy to specify which. A character’s family or disreputable people louche because of might be divided on the subject, of this phenomenon. course. You will see no flaming sugar cubes A realistically drawn rich American in a Belle Époque café. They’re family would never dream of sending anachronistic in this time period. a young adult daughter to live in Paris

87 The YELLOW KING RPG: Paris – Belle Époque Paris alone. They may fear that she might How You Act is become, like the American artist Who You Are Mary Cassatt, who resides here, an Americans may think of all Parisians embodiment of the “New Woman.” as wild and licentious, but that’s what Address this only if the player of such happens down at the Moulin Rouge. In a character wants to. One player might reality, inherited social class determines enjoy running around the city eluding the bounds of acceptable behavior. her stuffy haperone,c while another How people may act without suffering would consider any strictures annoying ostracism depends on birth. in the extreme. In a not unfamiliar pattern, aristocrats Used to living in a city that attracts can do what they want, the bourgeoisie the wealthy, ambitious, and creatively cleaves tightly to propriety, and the interesting from all around the world, poor have nothing to lose and no further Parisians see Americans as quaintly to fall. charming and refreshingly direct. Americans who think that the French Upper-class Parisians allow rich, Revolution wiped out the upper classes intelligent, or charming Americans over a century ago may be surprised leeway in minor breaches of decorum or to find a thriving aristocracy still in etiquette they’d never extend to their place. Hereditary nobles got their titles own young relatives. The bourgeoisie back in 1852. These are, in descending may fear the temptations handsome, order: duc, prince, marquis, comte, fickle Americans might place in the vicomte, and baron. Though an ultra- path of their respectable daughters. traditionalist faction seeks to return Tradesmen find New World visitors them to power, the monarchy is gone. agreeable if they pay their bills, Title confers social prestige, which resenting them otherwise. American can be leveraged into political power. students soon find that a round of drinks Many titled folk have fallen on hard goes a long way with the poor, including times and have been reduced to artists and writers eking out their daily incrementally pawning the family bread as they work on their yet-to-be- jewels. Hereditary rank can’t be lost, heralded masterpieces. whatever the scandal. In general, the In other words, casting the player aristocracy hews to the conservative characters as outsiders to Paris lets them faction that seeks to revive the temporal fraternize with all levels of society— power of the church. Members of sometimes in the same day. This this group avoid scandal not out of provides them an investigative edge social pressure but from preference over locals—official ones most of all. and conviction. That still leaves American expatriates the cast may enough aristocratic men and women gravitate to include Cassatt (p. 116), to pursue lives of pleasure—including Loie Fuller (p. 118), and James affairs, if conducted with a modicum McNeill Whistler (p. 124). of discretion. Wives suffer greater opprobrium for indiscretions than husbands but still, love is love.

88 THE WARS

Robin D. Laws BOOK TWO THE WARS Publishers: Simon Rogers and Cathriona Tobin Designed, Written, and Produced by: Robin D. Laws Cover Art: Melissa Gay Illustrations, Schematics, and Battlefield Sketches: Melissa Gay Graphic Design: Christian Knutsson Copyediting: Colleen Riley, Cathriona Tobin Eagle-eyes: S. Ben Melhuish Indexing: Cathriona Tobin

Playtesters: Jack Anderson, Julien Berton, Chris Cooke, Mike de Jong, Susan Davis, John DelaCruz, Dimes, Jonathan Elcock, Robustiano Fernandez, Davy Gerard, Lloyd Graney, Jurie Horneman, Blessing Huesmann, Joe Huesmann, Chris Huth, Paul Jackson, Shel Kahn, Shai Laric, Ben Loula, Michael Lovdahl, Côme Martin, Damon Matthews, Justin Mohareb, Thomas Nowell, Erik Otterberg, Laura Picraux, Rachel Picraux, Florian Poisignon, Jack Reidy, Tim Reiter, Christian "CJ" Jensen Romer, Liam Scanlon, Robert J. Smith, Seth Taylor, Aser Tolentino, Megan Tolentino, Tracey Trower, Scott Wachter, Paul Ward, Calliope Westbrooke, Charles Wright, Kim Wright.

INTO THE WARS 4 French Hero 85 What the Squadron Does 4 Foreign War Hero 86 Navigating This Book 5 Black Marketeers 87 CHARACTERS 6 Brothel Keeper 88 Pick Your Premise 6 Villagers 88 Who They Fight For 6 Peasants 91 Nationality 7 Not Everything Has When Women Fight 7 to Have Hitler In It 93 Orientation and Heritage 7 Scenarios 94 Kits 8 Shadow Squadron 94 General Kits 9 RUNNING THE WARS 94 Names 11 Report for Execution 96 Drives 11 Military Police 98 Connection 15 Hazard Scenes 98 That Damn Peculiar Thing 16 Chain of Command 99 Hey, Where’s Sequence Arc 101 the Relationships Step? 17 The Hook 103 New Abilities 17 The Development 103 RULES ADJUSTMENTS 24 The Alien Truth 103 Fighting 24 A FEAST FOR WOLVES 103 SHATTERED EUROPE 26 Possible Climaxes 104 Why Carcosa Fights 26 Scenes 105 The Loyalists 27 Origin Story 125 The Enemy 28 Shock cards 130 Warped Timeline 28 CARDS 130 Battlefronts 29 Injury cards 142 Behind the Lines 29 APPENDICES 163 The Fighting French 30 Character Creation 165 BATTLE WEARS Embracing the Premise 165 NO MASK 33 YOU’RE IN Shell Shocks 33 THE WARS NOW 165 War Hazards 35 Weird War 166 Travel on Foot 38 French Infantry Ranks 167 The Machinery of War 38 Investigative Ability Terrifying Terrain 58 Worksheet 168 FOES 64 Group Matrix 169 Commanding Officer 79 Relative Challenge Table 169 PEOPLE 79 War Hazard Table 170 Comrades 81 Shell Shocks Table 173 The General 85 INDEX 174 The YELLOW KING RPG: The Wars – Into the Wars

INTO THE WARS

In this, the second sequence •• The squad investigates reports of The Yellow King Roleplaying that a brilliant but eccentric Game, players portray a squadron Loyalist commander has gone of soldiers fighting on the rogue. They find that he has European battlefield of 1947. carved out a swathe of crucial There they unravel supernatural territory not for your side, but as mysteries arising from the his own domain, supported by Carcosan phenomenon that enemy deserters who worship generated this alternate reality. him as a living god. When they This struggle reflects not one meet him, they find that his specific war from our timeline, but face has gone pallid and mask- all of them from 1914 on. like, and his discourse now In a typical episode, the squad runs to feverish monologues faces both a conventional military about Hastur and the Hyades. problem and a weird mystery •• Desperate holdouts the stemming from the increased group is dispatched to flush influence of the ellowY King from their cavern turn out over the world. The story never to be much less human, requires them to sacrifice the first and considerably hungrier, in order to deal with the second. than their orders indicate. •• Dispatched on a deserter hunt, the squad finds the targets What the Squadron Does dead. But still running around Weird mysteries of The Wars go the countryside shooting something like this: anything that moves. •• Soldiers billeted in a remote •• Sent to find out why a bridge village disappear. The locals are can’t be bombed, the squad too frightened to tell the truth. sees the glowing sigils on its •• Assigned to hold an old church support pillars. Now they have as a sniper tower in anticipation to figure out how to deactivate of an enemy advance, the this otherworldly protection, squad encounters a malign before enemy troops arrive entity that intends to drive and cross it, pushing further them to violent madness by than ever into French territory. altering their perceptions. •• An enemy special forces

4 ROBIN D. LAWS

team penetrates the squad’s out your version of the Continental base security at will. What War, from its contending alliances power allowed them to to the role the King in Yellow assassinate the commanding and his court play in driving the officer and then seemingly conflict. It also covers the culture dissolve into thin air? and organization of the French •• A walker (a tank on mechanical army in this timeline. legs) acquires a murderous “Battle Wears No Mask” covers mind of its own and turns on its the mental and physical dangers former masters. Can the squad of the battlefield, as well as the figure out how to take it down? setting’s Carcosan-influenced •• Behind enemy lines, the squad retro-tech war machinery, from finds a dairy farm stocked with stalkers to dragonflies. mutant cattle. A weird antennae “Enemies” features foe profiles juts from its central barn. for both the mundane and eerie What’s going on here, and how opponents the squad may wind do the investigators stop it? up fighting. •• The squad discovers that a “People” sketches out some French brigadier general was supporting characters to pull into also a powerful figure half a your scenarios as needed. century ago. She looks the “Running the Game” ties these same today as she did back elements together with advice then. The characters suspect to assist you in GMing this something sinister about her sequence. personal agenda. The players The sample scenario, A Feast recall her as a terrifying villain for Wolves, pits the squad against their Belle Époque characters a village of cannibal peasants in never managed to defeat. thrall to that legendary demon- wolf, the Beast of Gévaudan. “Appendices” include the Navigating This Book character sheet, tables used in “Characters” takes you through this sequence, and an introductory character generation, including handout for players, “You’re in the the connections, mundane or Wars Now.” Give this last item, eerie, between this new group available as a PDF from the YKRPG of PCs and the ones from Paris. resource page at pelgranepress. (If you’re restricting play toThe com, to the players before your first Wars alone, you’ll skip that step, session of The Wars. naturally.) The section ends with a few adjustments to the rules as provided in Paris. “Shattered Europe” gives you the elements you need to build

5 The YELLOW KING RPG: The Wars – Characters

CHARACTERS

Character generation proceeds up in some other trouble, they as follows. can only continue to explore the battlefield, encountering supernatural mysteries all Pick Your Premise the while. This option suits Before starting your series, groups who chafe at the choose a premise. Here are three mission structure otherwise to start with; you might prefer to implied by a military setting. devise your own. •• Military Police. The team •• Shadow Squadron. The serves as a military police squad forms the core of a unit. Most of their cases occur unit specializing in reverse offscreen, revolving around camouflage operations. finding and hauling away It stages scenes meant drunk and disorderly soldiers. to be picked up by enemy Scenarios feature their less- reconnaissance, using props routine investigations, which and stagecraft to make it lead them into confrontations seem as if key positions are with Carcosan mystery. occupied by forces that are in fact nonexistent. As the only unit that does this, they get Who They Fight For dispatched all over the place. The players belong to a unit of This gets them moving and the Loyalist infantry, one of the encountering a wide variety two international alliances mired of situations from which to in a conflict that grinds across the springboard into weird mystery. map of Europe. Some refer to it •• Report for Execution. Early in as the Continental War; others, as the sequence, the characters the War of Reclamation. are released from their military “Who’s trying to reclaim what?”, duties to submit themselves your players might ask. On that for execution. Instead they point, no two arguing soldiers choose to seek freedom and quite agree. And thinking too hard safety elsewhere. But as in on the matter hurts a poor grunt’s a dream where you try to get head: Difficulty 3 Composure somewhere but always wind

6 ROBIN D. LAWS test to avoid Shocks, Minor sexes is assumed and goes and Major: Dulled Thinking/ without comment. Throbbing Migraine. 2. Treat the additional stresses Loyalists call the enemy by a they face as women on the variety of insulting nicknames, but battlefield in a way that allows mostly simply as the Enemy. them to fight and overcome The forces of Carcosa covertly misogyny and sexism. manipulate both sides, in a Go with choice 1 unless manner you choose; see p. the entire group expresses a 26. The players may or may preference for 2. not discover the truth behind This preference does not override the war in the course of their your X-card protocol, if you’re investigations. using one. Whatever the initial agreement, players can still raise their cards to dial back or edit out Nationality situations they find distressing. This book assumes that the players portray French soldiers. If played in isolation, without Orientation and Heritage an arc tying together all of the The setting imposes no YKRPG sequences, you might restrictions on player characters prefer to adapt this to another of any sexual orientation. As with nationality the group finds orem female characters, have the group familiar. This is left as an exercise decide whether they prefer to for custom-tailoring GMs. handle this in an idealized way, or as a source of story conflict. Go with conflict only if everyone finds When Women Fight it acceptable. Making this choice Players can choose to play implies that attitudes about women. If any do, that means orientation in this 1947 remain that your version of this alternate as far from ideal as in our 1947. history has women serving in full Members of the French Foreign combat positions. Legion may have transferred into If none do, that means that your your squad—meaning that you 1947 battleground hews closer to can play people of any extraction, our timeline and does not yet allow heritage, or national origin. You women to serve in combat. might be French citizens or not. When including female PCs, If none of the players choose to ask the players if they want the play French citizens, clearly you’re series to: a Foreign Legion unit seconded to 1. Address their participation in the European battlefield. combat in an idealized way, where equality between the

7 The YELLOW KING RPG: The Wars – Characters

Kits Sergeant As seen in Paris, characters are Interrogation created by combining one item Intimidation apiece from two sets of kits. Law Military Logistics Investigative Kits As before, the first kit, the Private Investigative kit, lays out each (Civilian Occupation: Writer) character’s Investigative abilities. Humanities Inspiration Lieutenant Lowlife Blueblood Occultism Leadership Military Science Distribute kits to players as Political Science follows. When continuing on from the Terrain Private (Civilian Paris sequence: Occupation: Medical Student) Start by selecting the player Intuition you think would best handle the Medicine role of leader. You’re looking for Reassurance a player who moves the story Science forward, contributes positively to decision-making, and will still Private collaborate well with the rest of (Civilian Occupation: Merchant) the group when given a measure Accounting of imagined power. Look for a Assess Honesty player who can comfortably occupy Military Logistics the spotlight without hogging it. Negotiation Oddly, spotty attendance can be a plus. This means that sometimes Private the Lieutenant will be a hands-off (Civilian Occupation: Peasant) GMC leader, and other times a PC. Farming In the bizarre case in which Salt of the Earth every single player would do Hunting equally well in the role, give the Terrain Lieutenant kit to the player who portrayed the Architect. If no one Private (Civilian Occupation: played the Architect, choose a Photographer) player at random. Flattery Now distribute the rest of the kits Intuition based on the types each player Photography took on in Paris, as seen in this Science table. At the end, match up players without kits to kits without players.

8 ROBIN D. LAWS

Paris Equivalent The Wars Character Pick player best suited to command role; if all equal, use Lieutenant Architect

Poet Medical Student

Portrait Painter Merchant

Landscape Painter Peasant

Muse Photographer

Sculptor Sergeant

Belle-Lettrist Writer

When starting with The Wars: choices, they may notice that a Lay the kits out on the table and couple of them pair naturally with let the players negotiate who particular Investigative kits: the gets what. Lieutenant with the Tactician, Do you still have kits left over? and the Medical Student with Invite the players to distribute the Shepherd. You may wish to the abilities from the unused point out that the Shepherd is kits between the group, using metaphorical, as in “shepherd whatever method makes sense of people” rather than a literal to them. sheep herder. Players may modify kits, moving around any number of points, General Kits provided the total remains 54 Use General kits with a group points for Horror mode, 60 for unfamiliar with GUMSHOE, or in a Occult Adventure. one-shot game. Lay them out on a For groups who know GUMSHOE, table and leave players to negotiate including those who have just who gets what. played a Paris sequence, In Occult Adventure mode, modify have them build from scratch. each kit ahead of time, adding Remind players that Composure, 2 points apiece to Composure, Battlefield, and Fighting are Battlefield, and Fighting. survival abilities; they likely want As players paw through the to spend 6–8 points on each.

9 AFTERMATH

Robin D. Laws BOOK THREE AFTERMATH Publishers: Simon Rogers and Cathriona Tobin Designed,Written, and Produced by: Robin D. Laws Cover Art: Jessica TC Lee Interior Art: Jessica TC Lee DocumentArt: Dean Engelhardt Graphic Design: Christian Knutsson Copyediting: Colleen Riley, Cathriona Tobin Eagle-eyes: S. Ben Melhuish Indexing:Cathriona Tobin

Playtesters: Vincent Bill, Yosefka Bill, Alizée Bleue, Hugh Coates, Susan Davis, Toorte Dot, Jonathon Dyer, Holly Easter, Joshua Flora, Nicole Gardella, Jurie Horneman, Chris Huth, Paul Jackson, Shel Kahn, Brett Longworth, Tamsyn Michael, Justin Mohareb, Arka Neirda, Dean Newman, Charlie Nicholson, Sydney Jones, Zachary Joyner, Jake Prewitt, Scott Wachter.

FROM THE ASHES 4 PEOPLE 65 Weirdness Level 5 The Press 67 CHARACTERS 7 Peers 67 A Key Detail 7 Criminals 68 Investigative Kits 7 Cops 71 General Abilities 9 Business Interests 71 Heritage and Identity 9 Regular Folks 72 Drive 9 Tags 77 Parallels 10 FOES 77 Worst Memory 10 Foe Profiles 78 Goal 10 Crisis 95 New Investigative Ability The Alien Truth 95 Descriptions 13 Opportunity 95 Absent Abilities 16 Risks 95 New General Abilities 17 Cast of Characters 95 RULES ADJUSTMENTS 19 SLEEPING DOGS 95 Relative Challenge Table 19 Timeline 96 Post-Revolutionary Shocks 20 Scenes 96 TWISTED HISTORY 21 Denouement 121 The Slip Before the Fall 22 Additional Antagonist The Castaigne Dynasty 25 Reactions 121 The Struggle and CARDS 124 the Overthrow 28 Shock cards 124 Where Are They Now? 30 Injury cards 129 Much to Rebuild 30 Chit cards 140 Next Door to America 31 Hit cards 149 NOW WHAT? 33 APPENDICES 157 America in Recovery 33 Welcome to The New Cops 35 the Aftermath 159 Factions and Issues 39 REFERENCES 162 Interacting with Factions 41 Relative Challenge Table 162 Pursuing the Goal 43 Post-Revolutionary Shocks 163 Scenario Elements 48 Investigative Ability Sweet Victory 52 Worksheet 165 Government Lethal INDEX 166 Chamber FAQ 54 TECHNOLOGY 54 Weapons of the Old Regime 58 Political Leaders 65 The YELLOW KING RPG: Aftermath – From the Ashes

FROM THE ASHES

In the third sequence of a hidden population of unearthly The Yellow King Roleplaying creatures remain. Even as they Game, players portray former fade from memory, their covert partisans who helped topple an existence complicates the task of authoritarian government backed rebuilding America. by Carcosa. Though intent on taking part In the present day, but in the in this noble effort, the player same alternate timeline seen characters soon discover they in The Wars, the totalitarian can’t entirely set aside the skills dynasty known as the Castaigne they honed as anti-regime regime took over America in a guerrillas. When the minions and 1920 coup. Aided by the King in monsters of the Yellow Sign stir, Yellow, its kleptocratic Emperors they investigate—often finding that suppressed dissent, spied on what they learn aids them in their citizens and monopolized greater political objective. industry. Its protectionist cronyism Cases they encounter enriched a small elite, slowing might include: economic development and •• murder at the People’s Congress, scientific innovation. As a result, committed by regime sorcerers post-Castaigne America looks like intent on reopening the gates a brutalist 1950s with more or less •• the disappearance of explosives 1980s technology. from a rebel supply cache, After five years of accelerating pointing to a counter- protest and insurgency, revolutionary cell led by the culminating in outright civil war, ghost of a Carcosan noble the Castaignes were driven from •• someone knocking off power. The freedom fighters’ munitions shipments headed final strikes shut down the gates for disposal facilities allowing free traffic between •• sabotage against worlds. The aliens who happened damaged utilities to be on this side when they blew •• an ally learns that a contract are now trapped here, and anxious has been taken out on her to return home. They may have life—and the assassin is the lost their grip on covert power, inhuman former interrogator but lingering occult energy and who once tortured one of

4 ROBIN D. LAWS

the PCs nearly to death become just another factor of ••people who knew the ordinary life. weird secrets of a genetic research facility start Fading losing their memories A mental fog surrounds the role •• people keep disappearing in of the supernatural in the world, a rubble-filled neighborhood especially in connection to the and local kids swear that one Castaigne regime. Only a few of the condemned apartment key insurgents, like the player structures has come to characters, fully remember the life, and grown hungry presence of Carcosan entities in the world. Even they sometimes feel these events, which they Weirdness Level directly experienced, fading from When preparing your Aftermath memory. Only when they confront game, choose the Weirdness Level the uncanny again do the full that most appeals to you, and recollections come flooding back. that you think will most appeal to External records of what happened your players. The Weirdness Level are also vanishing: photos blur, describes the extent to which the electronic files corrupt themselves, general population understands paper documents go missing. the existence of Carcosa and Reality seems to be rewriting the supernatural, and its role in itself back to a normalcy free of bringing about and sustaining the Carcosan influence. Or is that Castaigne regime. effect itself a new trick on the part of the King and his court, an Overt attempt to erase the evidence to Everyone knows about Carcosa, let humanity lull itself once more the Yellow King, and the existence into a vulnerable ignorance? of supernatural beings. People may want to forget, but they can’t—in Covert part because a population of Only an unlucky few ever monsters remains at large, still came to accept the existence of endangering the lives of ordinary the supernatural. The Castaigne folks. Sighting a shade or harbor regime kept it its otherworldly master (see “Foes”) is like running secret weapons just that—secret. across an unexploded bomb: As key members of the resistance, extremely distressing, but the player characters learned entirely within the bounds of about Carcosa and its creatures. accepted reality. Like the rest of the movement This choice lends your game they took great pains to protect an urban fantasy vibe in which the general population from this abnormal powers and beings mind-destroying knowledge. The

5 The YELLOW KING RPG: Aftermath – From the Ashes provisional government continues be treated as delusional if they that policy today. come forward. For the average person the The difference between Fading sighting of a supernatural being and Covert lies in the expected profoundly shocks both the senses response of the characters to and one’s assumptions about knowledge of Carcosa. Here, what can exist in the world. Once both they and their enemies try to seen, a sphyx or shatterling can’t keep it concealed. In a game of be forgotten—but good luck Fading Weirdness, they’re trying convincing friends, family, or co- to preserve information before it workers of what you saw. Most vanishes, and may go so far as to witnesses to such events keep attempt to awaken people to the it quiet, realizing that they’ll truth of what happened.

6 ROBIN D. LAWS

CHARACTERS

that allows you to illuminate As with each new setting, details of this horror-inflected reality character creation for Aftermath in an interactive Q&A format. adds a few wrinkles to the now- When the questions break out, established pattern. flip to p. 54, where a FAQ Start by introducing the premise awaits. to the players, paraphrasing the Once they run out of questions material from the introduction. about the world and their Prior to your first game session, characters’ experiences, it’s send them the “Welcome to the time to start marking up those Aftermath” introductory handout character sheets. (see “Appendices,” p. 159). Head to pelgranepress.com for our page of YKRPG resources: there you’ll Investigative Kits find aPDF booklet version of the Investigative kits for this document including additional sequence are as follows, pages of art seen elsewhere in distinguished by each character’s this book. civilian role or occupation. When carrying on from The Wars, find the player whose A Key Detail previous character had the highest A particular detail of this reality Mechanics ability. Resolve ties comes up during character with a die roll if necessary. That creation: the Government Lethal player takes on the role of the Chambers. First installed in 1920 Lethal Chamber Technician. just before the Castaigne takeover, Assign the other roles according these suicide booths remain in to the chart below. service in city parks and other Once those roles are assigned, convenient locations throughout give the remaining kit to the player the USA. who just played the Lieutenant. If One of the characters was a more than one kit remains, have Government Lethal Chamber the player choose. repair technician before the Start with the assumption revolution and has (probably that the characters held these reluctantly) returned to the job in occupations before the war and the months since the regime fell. are now returning to them. Remain When that fact comes up, your open to suggestions from players players will likely have many on what they might be doing now questions. This provides a device instead of their old jobs. 7 The YELLOW KING RPG: Aftermath – Characters

The Wars Aftermath

Character with highest Mechanics Lethal Chamber Technician ability (resolve ties with die roll)

Writer Journalist

Merchant Marketing Coordinator

Peasant Waiter

Medical Student Doctor

Photographer Photographer

Sergeant Security Guard

Lethal Chamber Technician Doctor Counterinsurgency Forensic Anthropology Interrogation Medicine Leadership Science Technology Reassurance

Journalist Photographer Bullshit Detector Architecture History Art History Inspiration Flattery Research Photography

Marketing Coordinator Security Guard Accounting Cop Talk Bureaucracy Intimidation Psychology Law Negotiation Streetwise

Waiter People Person Intuition Occultism Trivia

8 THIS IS NORMAL NOW

Robin D. Laws BOOK FOUR THIS IS NORMAL NOW Publishers: Simon Rogers, Cathriona Tobin Designed, Written, and Produced by: Robin D. Laws Cover Art: Aaron Aurelio Acevedo Interior Illustrations: Aaron Aurelio Acevedo Document Art: Dean Engelhardt i-Seddit Forum Written by: Dean Engelhardt Graphic Design: Christian Knutsson Copyediting: Colleen Riley, Cathriona Tobin Eagle-eyes: S. Ben Melhuish Indexing: Cathriona Tobin

Playtesters: Scott Buchan, Urchin Colley, Susan Davis, John Dawson, Ely Fernandez-Collins, Salman Hamid, Chris Huth, Jurie Horneman, Paul Jackson, Jesse, Shel Kahn, Noah Kittleson, Justin Mohareb, Graham McCabe, Henry McCulloch, Illidasi, Jeremiah Monk, Benjamin O'Connor-Rose, Joshua O'Connor-Rose, Scott Paeth, Courtney "TrinitysEnd" Randleman, Christopher Riff, Jason Riley, Jake Sargent, Emlyn Thompson, Curtis Tom, Scott Wachter, Paul Whiteley.

INTO THE NORMAL 4 Redcap 51 CHARACTERS AND RULES 6 Scratcher 52 Home Base 6 Slitherer 53 Names and Identities 6 Sludger 53 Kits 8 Soultaker 54 General Abilities 9 Stan 55 Drive 9 Vector 56 Familiar Face 10 Walkdoll 57 Freaking Weird Moment 10 PEOPLE 60 New Investigative Abilities 11 Corporates and Functionaries 60 Relative Challenge Table 12 Out on the Town 61 CARCOSA TODAY 14 Between the Cracks 62 Warning: Use of Word Law Enforcement 65 “Normal” May Be Ironic 14 Minding Their Own Business 66 The Reintegration Complex 15 RUNNING THE NORMAL 68 The Timeline 18 From Randos To Heroes 68 The Big Mystery 19 Creating Scenarios 69 Reintegration 19 Crossing the Sequences 71 The Standoff 20 Completing the Arc 72 On the Scene 20 Parallels 73 Important Safety Precautions 22 THE ALIEN TRUTH 74 ORGANIZATIONS 24 The King and His Court 74 Abzynth 24 Carcosa 80 Blackstar 25 GM MASTERCLASS 84 Center for Incident Control 27 The GUMSHOE Ethos 84 Disruptive Events LLC 27 Narrating Character Exits 90 McAidrai BioMaterials 28 Interweaving the Sequences 92 Sapienc 30 CARD DESIGN 96 Strategic Allocation Title 97 Association 31 Effects 97 Temple of Hali 32 Discard Conditions 99 The Tomorrow Foundation 33 ENTANGLEMENT 102 /yel/ 33 The Alien Truth 103 MODERN SHOCKS 36 Scenes 104 FOES 40 CARDS 126 Foe Master Table 40 Injury cards 126 Bandit 42 Shock cards 142 Brainbat 42 APPENDICES 158 Bulger 43 How to Solve a Case 160 Elders 44 When Player Characters Fight 162 Fleener 46 Investigative Ability Worksheet 168 Follower 47 Relative Challenge Table 169 Glowdog 48 Group Matrix 169 Hoardling 49 Modern Shocks Table 170 Hungerworm 49 Scenario Worksheet 173 Legend 50 INDEX 174 Rampager 51 3 The YELLOW KING RPG: THIS IS NORMAL NOW – Into the Normal

INTO THE NORMAL

In This Is Normal Now, the commune together. They just players portray ordinary people in want to be left alone to pursue our contemporary world. a philosophy they call digital Or so it seems. Zoroastrianism. But why does Then one day an occult their belief system appear to presence concealed right out in be contagious, and who is that the open, amid the din of buzzing masked guru they follow? smartphones, the incessant anxiety ••Despite the protestations churn of social media, and the of its reclusive author, the visual blare of video billboards, publication of a new horror makes itself known to them. This novel leads to a rash of revelation speaks to an intuition attempted suicides from young they can no longer ignore. readers who hope to meet its Something has gone deeply awry. monstrous main character. Others can’t yet sense it, but for Over an extended This Is them, the mask of the everyday Normal Now sequence, the group has been suddenly torn away. finds the pieces of a larger puzzle To find uto what is happening to concerning the Yellow King the world around them, and who mythology and the subtle yet they really are, this group of until- blatant alterations it has wrought. now unremarkable individuals take Their fates intertwine with one or on unlikely and unexpected roles. more conspiratorial organizations They become… investigators. that either profit from or fight the Early on the group might be Yellow Sign effect. drawn into isolated cases such as: Perhaps they even take it all the •• A van full of teenagers way back to 1895, and the actions disappears in the parking lot of of their original set of characters an isolated venue for an EDM at the outset of your epic arc. show. Is this connected to the fire that killed sweatshop workers at this location a hundred years ago? •• Coders working on a hypnotic new virtual reality experience quit en masse to form a

4 ROBIN D. LAWS

5 The YELLOW KING RPG: THIS IS NORMAL NOW – Characters and Rules

CHARACTERS AND RULES

This section shows you how lived in NYC in Aftermath to create This Is Normal Now now appear as residents of characters, and includes rules a completely different city. adjustments for this, the final sequence of The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Names and Identities Tell the players that the final sequence is set in something very Home Base similar to our reality and timeline. As the players flesh uto their When carrying on from characters, tell them where this Aftermath, the characters here sequence takes place. This is either: are alternate-timeline versions ••Modern-day New York of the investigators they were City. This choice maintains playing before. continuity with Aftermath. They have the same names, Groups outside North America appearances, and ages. The may prefer this choice, players they decide how much of avoiding a lot of work adapting their previous quirks and personal the proper names and local details they retain. assumptions found in this book. These people have been ••The city you live in (or the through much less than the ex- nearest big city if you live in partisans of Aftermath. As the a smaller community). This first essions begins, none has choice brings the horror directly witnessed a supernatural closer to home and saves you event, fired a gun in anger, been time looking up geographical in a serious fight, or suffered a details of a faraway city. Don’t life-threatening injury. They’ve worry about continuity: the been drawn together by a bond different worlds of YKRPG none of them can quite explain are not alternate timelines or ever bothered to question. that extrapolate from a Together they enjoy the footloose single historical divergence life of urbanites in their late 20s point but instead magically and early 30s, going to clubs, spawned refractions of one checking out restaurants, and another. The characters who maybe even playing a round or

6 ROBIN D. LAWS two of Cards Against Humanity owner of a weed dispensary. at the local game cafe. Other characters have drifted Here, the Lethal Chamber only a little from their post- Technician is a small-time Hipster Castaigne selves, to reflect Drug Dealer. The character a contemporary vibe. In this maintains a select client list, reality, Aftermath’s Journalist is selling only small quantities of the a Technical Writer. The Waiter soft stuff ot fellow hipsters and is a Barista; the Photographer, a well-off types old enough to be Graphic Designer. The doctor has their parents. The Dealer steers come down in the world and is clear of the gang violence that now a CPR Instructor. surrounds street buys, always The security guard is still a security pays distributors in advance, and guard, perhaps with big dreams knows which cops to pay off. of becoming a private detective. Suggest that the character might When playing This Is Normal have other ambitions to put into Now as a standalone, ask players play once the nest egg reaches a to assign names and quick certain level and it comes time to backgrounds to the characters sell off the client list. suggested by the kits. If you’re setting this sequence in To skip the kits and their a jurisdiction with legal or quasi- character concepts, go around the legal pot, the player can instead room letting each player choose elect to cast the character as the one Investigative ability from the

Aftermath This Is Normal Now

Hipster Drug Dealer/ Suicide Machine Technician Dispensary Owner

Journalist Technical Writer

Marketing Coordinator Marketing Coordinator

Waiter Barista

Doctor CPR Instructor

Photographer Graphic Designer

Security Guard Security Guard

7 The YELLOW KING RPG: THIS IS NORMAL NOW – Characters and Rules master list until all are spoken for. Security Guard Make sure that each takes at least Cop Talk one Interpersonal ability. Electronic Surveillance Intimidation Terrain Kits As before, the first kit, the Technical Writer Investigative kit, lays out each Computers character’s Investigative abilities. Humanities Kits for this final equences are: Reassurance Research Barista Intuition Investigative Ability Master List Occultism Accounting (Academic) People Person Architecture (Academic) Trivia Art History (Academic) Bullshit Detector (Interpersonal) CPR Instructor Bureaucracy (Interpersonal) Forensic Anthropology Computers (Technical) Inspiration Cop Talk (Interpersonal) Medicine Electronic Surveillance (Technical) Science Flattery (Interpersonal) Forensic Anthropology (Technical) Hipster Drug Dealer/Weed Humanities (Academic) Dispensary Owner Inspiration (Interpersonal) Bullshit Detector Intimidation (Interpersonal) Streetwise Intuition (Interpersonal) Law Law (Academic) Technology Medicine (Technical) Negotiation (Interpersonal) Marketing Coordinator Occultism (Academic) Accounting People Person (Interpersonal) Bureaucracy Photography (Technical) Psychology Psychology (Academic) Negotiation Reassurance (Interpersonal) Research (Academic) Photographer Science (Academic) Architecture Streetwise (Interpersonal) Art History Technology (Technical) Flattery Terrain (Technical) Photography Trivia (Academic)