TOPIC: Tatters of the King

The beginning of Pipers [very probably] last ever paper.... (Dr Clancy will be happy!)

The Symbolism of Mountains

The maternal symbolism of the mountain conceiving individualism can be examined in the context of analytical psychology. Three significant symbolic meanings are identified: the mountain as maternity, the mountain as the one that brings about ego development, and which induces individualism. The definition and general characteristics of the mountain, the significance of the mountain in various cultures and myths, as well as the meanings that can be drawn from personal experiences can be analysed. As a result of analysis, it can be concluded that the mountain is an important symbol that encourages ego development and helps one to discover the mother complexes that are hidden in the deep abyss within the unconscious, so that it can lead to individualism.

Due to its sheer height, the mountain usually symbolizes desires, dreams, and hopes. Also, because its appearance seems enduring, it is perceived as a sacred space where human beings’ earthly agonies are purified. Furthermore, it represents broad-mindedness or benevolence.

The most profound symbolism of the mountain is that the concept of its mass is expressed as an actual being. It is combined with the concept of verticality, and then receives the characteristic of holiness. Like the cross of Christ or the cosmic tree, the mountain in this case is located in the centre of the world. The mystique the mountaintop holds originated from its role of connecting the three different dimensions together since it is sitting at the centre where the axis of the world penetrates.

Piper's Jungian twaddle had a profound effect on Clancy that evening. Perhaps it was the altitude and the sparse air, but somehow he seemed even more annoying than usual. He would not shut up about Christ's cross on the bloody cosmic tree. Clancy finally snapped and retired back to his tent. His annoyance festered into a silent rage, until finally, exhausted, he fell into a fevered nightmarish dream...

It was not Christ he saw on the cross. It was some blasphemous mockery of the christian effigy. A menace that he knew had been calling them all, blindly towards its loathsome siren call, ever since that night at the theatre when they all first met.

Bravo for Paul for taking us all on this adventure from the docklands of London to snow capped peaks of Himalayas.

Thoroughly enjoyable and although the world will never know of our sacrifice it can sleep easier knowing that, for now, there will be no return of the King in Yellow.

XII

The Caves at Drakmar
On the valley floor you discover remnants of a campfire, discarded tins of Italian sardines and a blood-stained hand-sized rock. Before sunset you have time to explore a couple of the caves. There are signs of previous occupation, but nothing to suggest anyone has been here in recent times. You use one cave for shelter for the night. Piper and Blossett have disturbed dreams.

The Gate
Next morning a sobbing can be heard that lures you to explore one cave entrance about 25ft up the cliff face. A dark tunnel leads to a carved chamber. The sobbing stops and a low laughter fades away. The exit tunnel opposite is obscured by a pale white light. A silhouette passes behind it – grotesque, elephant-headed. And then a human silhouette appears.

The Tcho-Tchos
The human form steps into the chamber. It is an abomination. Necrotic and charred skin, eye sockets with no eyes, a flaccid nose, a mouth with no teeth and only half a tongue. It stands before each of you – staring with it sightless eye sockets, smelling the air and drooling. It retreats. Behind you has gathered a crowd of humanoids - short, broad, dark-skinned and presenting a hedge of spear tips. One of these tcho-tchos steps forth, cuts the grotesque humanoid’s palm and paints a yellow sign in blood on the wall. The gate turns from white to blue.

The Plateau of Leng
The tchos-tchos urge you to step through the gate. The world beyond is an open tundra with no landmarks. The nightsky is pierced by brilliant stars that are familiar and yet not quite right. Twin suns hang low to the far horizon and a bright red star is directly ahead: Aldebaran. The tchos-tchos urge you onwards.

Quarrie
You spy a gaggle of tcho-tchos ahead, and among them stands Malcolm Quarrie. Quarrie is calm, polite and level-headed. He argues that his purpose is to bring love into the world. The world has been devastated by war, ravaged by a deadly global pandemic and financial turmoil sees populations face homelessness and starvation even in the world’s richest cities. The King in Yellow will be mankind’s saviour.

What was that Thing?
Amongst other things you ask Quarrie about the grotesque humanoid in the chamber. That, says Quarrie, is (or was) Anzalone. He has become the eyes and ears of Chaugnar Faugn. An unfortunate fate. He is neither living nor dead and will suffer torment and servitude for all eternity. Anzalone had passed through the chamber’s gate when the light was white – leading to the Plateau of Tsang, home of Chaugnar Faugn. He should of course passed through when the light was blue – to the Plateau of Leng, where the King waits.

The Upper House
You reach a large squat temple surrounded by monoliths. Quarrie ascends the many steps and enters. You follow. Immediately you enter a dark labyrinth. Quarrie has gone ahead of you and is lost to sight. An occasional fluting sound is all you have to orientate yourselves forward. You wander the corridors and steps for perhaps two days, hungry, tired and thirsty, before ascending a stair to an open plaza beneath the stars.

The Plaza
Two great columns stand close together; a pale white light between them. Beside the column is a lectern. Quarrie is here. He has been waiting for the King to arrive. The constellations above start to look more familiar to you. The stars are almost right. Now you are all gathered – the King appears.


More to follow.....

XII continued

The King in Yellow
The King stands 8ft tall and wears a tattered robe of yellow and white. Despite their being no breeze, the cloak flutters – almost offering you the opportunity to reach out and accept its grasp. The hood casts a deep shadow over the King’s hidden visage. When finally he looks at you – he has no face, there is just a void littered with stars and the suggestion of black wells for eyes, like the Carcosan sky you witnessed in Scotland. The King has no voice, but you each hear him in your heads: “Who will guide me?”

William ‘Billy’ King
Quarrie accepts a flapping tendril of the King’s robe. The King proceeds to cut Quarrie’s palm with a bony slender finger. Just as the blood is about to drip on the lectern, Billy King pulls the trigger of his shotgun. Half of Quarrie’s head explodes. He drops dead at the feet of the King. The King requests again – “Who will guide me?” After a second and third request, nobody replies. The King in Yellow executes Billy King with a single stroke, drawing a finger across his throat. Billy slumps to the floor – bleeding out from the mortal wound. The King in Yellow disappears.

Dr Walter Clancy and John Stevenson
Hours pass. The King appears again. “Who will guide me?” Clancy replies that nobody will guide the King. Clancy’s throat is slashed. The blood flows freely and Clancy falls dead. The King once more disappears. Stevenson rashly dashes through the gate – the pale white light between the columns - and is lost to sight.

Barnabus Piper and Jacob Smythe-Blossett
Hours pass. The King’s return to the plaza is surely imminent. Piper and Blossett decide not to wait, but instead jump through the white gate through which Stevenson passed hours earlier. They find themselves standing in a barren wasteland. Maybe this is what Hell looks like?

A Fate worse than Death
Before them stands a grotesque humanoid with charred hairless skin, a deformed face with no eyes, no teeth and torn out tongue. It is mindless. It gurgles and drools. Living dead. But this is not the same terrible creature from the chamber. This one wears Stevenson’s clothes. Stevenson is condemned to a living death and eternal torment as a servant of Chaugnar Faugn.

The End
You hear a boom. Like the resonance in Drakmar, but now louder and clearer. The heartbeat of a Great Old One. A dark shadow is cast across you. A huge hand grasps Blossett. Blossett's bones crack and blood seeps out of every orifice. His flesh is twisted, torn and punctured. Piper stands rooted to the spot – he cannot run. His fate is the same as Blossett’s, squeezed to death, a bloody pulp in the grip of a Great Old one.

The World continues to Turn
What a blissful thing it is to be ignorant. Millions of people spend their days without knowledge of the terrible cosmic dangers that threaten their existence. They will never know of the selfless sacrifice made by five anonymous heroes who saved the world.

With no one left to guide him, the King in Yellow returned to his home, across the gulf and beyond the red star. Maybe in another thousand years, the stars may be right.


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Thank you all for playing.

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great game and write up paul. thanks for running

wont be able to make this week, daughter's school concert