I'm maybe imaging some connection between the two, and with the appearance of elements from The King in Yellow in the show, True Detective bringing the latter to the forefront, that's entirely possible. It makes sense to me considering both characters are related with madness and entropy. I even want to think there was an adventure in Dungeon that centered around a play similar to The King in Yellow, but related to Tharizdun.
EDIT: Found it in the wikipedia article (duh!); it's And Madness Followed in DNG# 134, which actually does feature The King in Yellow.
...It makes sense to me considering both characters are related with madness and entropy. I even want to think there was an adventure in Dungeon that centered around a play similar to The King in Yellow, but related to Tharizdun...
-Just happened to take another look at that while I was looking into "Home Under the Range for inspiration for the "Profession (Herder)" skill.
I think the baddies are supposed to be opening a gate to the Far Realm (which I don't use, at least not yet), but Tharizdun would be a good Oerth equivalent.
The setting for the first run of adventures in the last campaign I ran (Western Sterich) had some heavy Far Realm connections, although there was only a hint of anything big going on, which was soon forgottenby the players (just as I wanted), but was eventually supposed to lead back there once they had saved Sterich from tyranny involving a plot engineered by the Scarlet Brotherhood.
If you've been watching True Detective, don't plan on watching, or don't mind spoilers, look at the IO9 article I posted above, especially for a particular symbol that shows up in the show. It would be kind of eerie if I believed in that sort of thing, but still gave me a little thrill as a fan of GH. Who knows, maybe the show's writers are rollers of the dice.
...a particular symbol that shows up in the show. It would be kind of eerie if I believed in that sort of thing, but still gave me a little thrill as a fan of GH. Who knows, maybe the show's writers are rollers of the dice.
The best guesses for the identity for "Y" in Castle Maure are Yog-Sothoth or the King in Yellow (but it's probably Yog-Sothoth).
The d20 version of the Call of Cthulhu RPG by John Tynes and Monte Cook had an interesting paradoxical take on the King in Yellow/Hastur. "Some say he is the embodiment of the entropy principle, the inevitable tendency of all things to move from order to disorder or chaos. Others claim he has a bond to determination, its exact opposite, the idea that all things proceed mechanistically from cause to effect, with no possibility of free will or divergence from the fated course."
The latter interpretation seems to be the one they're going for in True Detective, with Cohle rambling on about how time is a closed circle, with everyone doomed to repeat their actions in a single life for all eternity and the only escape possible being acceptance. Cohle doesn't think he can make his life better, he can only take solace in knowing exactly what kind of man he is.
The d20 description of Hastur finishes with the take that John Tynes used in his short film The Yellow Sign, that the King in Yellow exists as potential and that artworks featuring him summon him into existence.
Which is also sort of what's going on in "...And Madness Followed" in Dungeon #134. Which features an NPC named Kohl. I'd be tempted to set its climax in Innspa, if only because it sounds a bit like Innsmouth.
I'd also recommend Cults of Freeport for a very good take on the cult of a more entropic King in Yellow.
If I ever use "And Madness Followed" I probably would have changed it around some to make it more specific to Tharizdun, but now, with the popularity of True Detective, I see that as more of necessity.
Tharizdun would work perfectly as a replacement for the King in Yellow in the Freeport series, where it is portrayed as a personification of madness and entropy who views the continued existence of the world as a personal affront.
In the Dungeon adventure "...And Madness Followed," the King in Yellow is tied (as Jamesdglick said) to the Far Realm; the play The King in Yellow opens a rift to that plane, mutating all the humans nearby and letting in creatures like wystes. I suppose that could be Tharizdun too, if you want to portray Tharizdun as an entity imprisoned in the Far Realm bent on bringing madness and mutations to the material plane. That doesn't quite say Tharizdun to me, though. A possible alternative is Y'chak, listed as an equivalent of either Hastur or Nyarlathotep in the 3rd edition aberration sourcebook Lords of Madness. Then again, I'd probably also use Y'chak as the one responsible for the fall of Sulm, since turning people into manscorpions doesn't really say Tharizdun to me either. And possibly the mysterious father of Graz'zt.
I didn't remember Y'chak from Lords of Madness, but my back story was using Shothotugg, one of the other Elder Evils associated with the aboleths as the basis for the Chaos Scar setting. It worked for me with the description of Shothotugg traveling through the gulf of space, from world to world, having it be the body that crashed on the surface of the Oerth creating the Chaos Scar. It was acting as an agent of Tharizdun, working to free him and bring about the destruction of the Oerth and the planes, or something like that. I hadn't figured it all out yet, but the players had a while to go before they would be high enough level to deal with it.
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