The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookHerein you shall find tips and information for getting the most out of this Campaign as we go forward. This packet is meant to get you thinking about the type of character you would like to create and to introduce you to the setting (London, 1890s) and to the Bookhounds Campaign frame, which we’ll be using for the next two Acts (which will encompass a number of scenarios).

Overture: The King of Shreds and Tatters (1603)--completed

Up next:Act I: The New Hellfire Society and the King (1897)--What do a decadent social club and a printing press have in common? The book trade sees a major boom as the market for certain types of books, documents, and even art, grows red hot. And a seemingly simple request leads to unforeseen complications.

Act 2: Who hasn't seen the Yellow Sign? (1898)--Nightmares, hallucinations and general madness are plaguing London's artistic set as a subtle corruption spreads across the city and a race is on among booksellers and even less savory folks to procure the original King in Yellow text.

The Bookhounds of London Campaign SettingBookhounds of London offers you a different kind of Mythos experience than the standard Call of Cthulhu Setting. It’s not about remote inbred towns, or swamp altars, or lost prehuman ruins, but a City of culture, gaslights, global power, and the height of fashion. It’s about the horrors—the cancers—that lurk in London, in the very beating heart of human civilization. Of course, London has its decaying, inbred populations—both East End drabs and West End aristocrats. A Templar altar might well crouch, mostly forgotten, in the dreary Hackney Marshes, but altars to false gods tower over the metaphorical swamps of Fleet Street and Whitehall as well. And as for lost, prehuman ruins, who’s to say what lies under London if you dig deep enough?

Your characters in this setting aren’t stalwart G-men or tweedy scholars this time around, serving their country or sealing off forbidden frontiers. They’re working the main chance, and selling maps (and maybe guidebooks) to those forbidden frontiers. They are Bookhounds, looking for profit in moldy vellum and leather bindings, balancing their own books by finding first editions for Satanists and would-be sorcerers. They may not quite know what they traffic in, or they may know rather better than their clientele. Peddlers of blasphemy and madness aren’t nice people, and their only consolation is that their customers are worse yet.

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookA Bookhounds Campaign is not about the actual quotidian details of bookselling, rather, it deals wit the outré and underground world revealed to those who traffic in Mythos times. The Book trade—even the books themselves—are the backdrop, the hook, the way into the horror.

Like all trades, the book trade exists to procure goods at a price and to sell them to buyers at a higher price. Thus, the bookman must always have two prerequisites to do a deal: a buyer and a book. They can come in any order: a book scout may spot a rare volume in a street sale, and then figure out who’d pay more than a few quid for it; an occultist may know a fellow Satanist who has recently become obsessed with the Ghorl Nigral, and start hunting texts by Mulder or von Junzt to sell him.

Creating a Bookhound CharacterThe Bookhounds setting prompts the creation of a different sort of character than those that usually appear in Call of Cthulhu. Bookhounds are people active in London’s underground trade in occult books (and other dubious literatures) and perhaps artwork (stolen or legit), Egyptian artifacts (definitely stolen) etc. In this campaign, all the characters will be associated with a particular bookshop (which you, the players, will be able to create). While you can choose any occupation for your character (within reason) there are certain occupations that are most appropriate for this setting. These occupations are described in alphabetical order below. Note: we will do character creation and bookstore creation at the start of the next session; this is designed to get you thinking about the character you want to play. Try to think about their backgrounds, the people they might know, etc. You should put some effort into these characters, as they are likely to survive much longer than the typical investigator. We will be using both Drives, more important in this setting, and special Character Traits.

AntiquarianAs much of a state of mind as a profession, you value the past and willingly immerse yourself in it. You may have a small independent income, you may be a resident scholar at a museum, gallery, or bookshop, or you may condescend to deal in antiques, books, or the objets d’art of a more gracious era.

Skills: Accounting, Bargain, Bibliography, Document Analysis, Fast Talk, History, Library Use, Textual Analysis, Persuade

Special: +1 to EDU, Appraise starts at 40 points.

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook

ArtistWhether you are a painter, sculptor, musician, an architect, or even a performer, you follow your Muse wherever she leads. Sensitive and temperamental, by reputation if not in fact, you already inhabit a demimonde that most never understand.

Skills: Art, Art History, Bargain, History, Library Use, Persuade, Photography, Psychology

Special: during significant downtime in the campaign, you may practice your chosen art form(s) to regain a small amount of sanity. All artists have a beginning Art History skill of 40%.

AuthorYou use words to capture existence, to conceal yourself, to reveal the truth, or to sell fantasy to hungry readers. Perhaps all of the above. Your labors are solitary and your rewards sporadic; you may have too much time to think. With discipline and a modicum of skill, though, even a hack writer can still keep his head above water.

Skills: Art, Bibliography, Fast Talk, Library Use, Own Language, Other Language, Literature History, Persuade, Textual Analysis, Psychology

Special: Special skill of Literature History beginning at 40%.

BooksellerYou live surrounded by books, and you draw your living from them. Perhaps you see them as living things in their turn; with destinies entwined with a given customer, or capable of speaking to a sensitive reader and changing his life. Or perhaps you see them as horrible relatives you can’t get away from: draining your energies and resources with only grudging acknowledgement of your needs. Or it might be that you fell into the job because it was light work indoors.

Skills: Accounting, Art History, Bargain, Bibliography, Credit Rating, Document Analysis, Library Use, Other Languages, Persuade, Textual Analysis

Special: You own or manage the party’s bookshop. You may decide shop policy: which books to steal, which to sell, which to destroy; whether to move the shop, attend an auction, etc. In short, you are the party leader, if you wish to be, at least where the shop is concerned (you can always fob this responsibility off like real leaders do), if there are two booksellers in the group, whichever of you has the highest Credit Rating is the owner or manager. +10 percent to Credit Rating.

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook

Book ScoutYou resent terms like “bottom feeder.” Without you, books wouldn’t get from the tables and shelves of the unappreciative to the kind of shops where they belong. You find books at lesser bookshops or estate sales or wherever it might be, obtain them—by subterfuge, by feigned disinterest, by “five-figure discount” if the Devil drives—and resell them to a better bookshop for more money. If you’re pressed, maybe you just cut away the colored plates or maps for a quick sale. But you’d rather get the books cheap and sell them dear, and go out again before some bottom-feeder beats you to the next unconsidered trifle.

Skills: Aware, Bargain, Bibliography, Conceal, Fast Talk, The Knowledge, Stealth, Streetwise

Special: +15% to Aware, +10% to Streetwise. You can also pick up juicy gossip on bibliophiles, auctions, and street markets by dickering with booksellers and fellow book scouts or with touts in the underground book trade.

Catalogue AgentYou represent a secret buyer at an auction, can be the go between for two dealers who don’t trust each other, or simply be retained by a collector to find (and obtain) a much-sought after item. A less disreputable book scout, a bibliophile’s private eye, you take your commission from buyer, from seller, or from both: in a phrase, you are a mercenary of books.

Skills: Bargain, Bibliography, Conceal, Disguise, Fast Talk, Library Use, Psychology, Streetwise

Special: if you have (or can believably claim to have) a copy of the book they seek, you can interact with NPCs of any Credit Rating as though you shared their Credit Rating; get them to recommend contacts, do small favors, allow you into their club as a guest, or otherwise smooth your path.

Consulting DetectiveThere are things a Bobby can’t do, and things that a Bobby won’t do, and you’ll take money to do either. Sometimes you get dragged into something the Bobbies want you to stay out of, but you gotta stay in it to keep the Bobbies honest. What keeps you honest? Now, that’s the real mystery isn’t it?

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookSkills: Accounting, Athletics, Aware, Bargain, Drive Carriage, Fast Talk, Fist/Punch, Firearms, Grapple, Head Butt, The Knowledge, Law, Library Use, Locksmith, Persuade, Stealth, Streetwise, Track

Special: Lowered or negated sanity losses when viewing murder victims, injuries, etc (only of a non Mythos nature).

CriminalThose who live on the other side of the law are already aware of a secret world of degeneracy, desperation, and evil beneath the normal ways of civilization. Some criminals have built their own codes and laws to shield themselves from the realization that all human order is breakable by acts of will. Others revel in this discovery.

Skills: Athletics, Aware, Conceal, Drive Carriage, Fast Talk, Firearms, Fist/Punch, Forgery, Grapple, Head Butt, Kick, Knife, The Knowledge, Locksmith, Stealth, Streetwise

Special: +20 points to Streetwise, +20 points to Aware

DilettanteYou are self-supporting, living off an inheritance, trust fund, or other source of independent income. Free from the pressures of employment, you may dedicate yourself to any pursuit you choose.

Skills: Credit Rating plus up to four different areas of interest.

Special: You may use your Credit Rating to call on personal connections in any field of endeavor. These contacts will generally be relatives, old schoolfellows, and similar people of your social class.

ForgerYou do the world a service: you increase the supply of something precious and desired. Thanks to you, there is one more priceless portfolio or octavo, one more autographed novel or signed letter in the world. Thought of correctly, you’re more artist than criminal, more publisher than cheat.

Skills: Accounting, Art (Calligraphy, Engraving, Printing), Aware, Bargain, Chemistry, Conceal, Craft (Bookbinding, Papermaking), Document Analysis, Forgery, Persuade, Psychology

Special: for every 20% you have in forgery, you may declare that you are “the last word” in one specific type of forged book or document: American passports, Blake Illuminations, German religious texts, or Satanist grimoires. By narrative fiat, your work in that field cannot be

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbookdetected as a forgery under any circumstances short of your confession. It is perfect. You can also use Streetwise to find out the “true bill” on underworld rumors, especially about book and document thefts.

OccultistYou always knew there was something else, something more to the world than the crude lies and vague approximations of history, religion, and materialism. There is an inner truth, and you are inside its threshold. You might be a Rosicrucian, an esoteric Freemason, a student of ancient wisdom or of new revelation. Perhaps your more recent investigations have overturned your previous approximations… but you were certainly right about the failure and short-sidedness of conventional wisdom.

Skills: Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Other Languages, Occult, Philosophy and Theology

Special: you know the occult scene in London, in Britain, and perhaps anywhere else you happen to visit in the course of the campaign. Arcane scholars, eccentric anthropologists with wild theories, Satanists, ritual magicians, Theosophists, and other sorts accept you as “one of them” and will exchange gossip, tips, and other useful social connections and knowledge. While with fellow occultists, or when dealing with the occult social scene you can use Occult as if it were any interpersonal skill (within reason or with good justification). This ability doesn’t necessarily work on Mythos cultists, zero sanity magi, and other devotees of the Great Old Ones and their ilk. An Occultist might “in actuality” be an antiquarian, author, dilettante, etc, nevertheless, Occultist characters can use the Occultist ability instead of what their “standard” occupation’s special might be. ProfessorYou might be a calm solon, dispensing the wisdom of the ages between puffs on your pipe. You might also be a hapless child in an adult’s body, incompetent in anything except Middle High German, and vainglorious and petty about that. You might be the second, and think you’re the first, to the great delight of all who behold you.

Skills: Credit Rating, English, Library Use, Persuade, and up to three fields of study

Special: as long as your academic credentials are intact, you can use your Bureaucracy skill to gain nearly unrestricted access to closed library stacks, research laboratories, and even many private and government archives. +2 to EDU, +10% to Credit Rating.

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook

New SkillsArt History (01%)You’re an expert on works of art (including the practical arts such as furniture and pottery) from an aesthetic and technical point of view. You can: distinguish real works from fakes, tell when something has been retouched or altered, identify the age of an object by style and materials, accurately estimate the price of an artwork, call to mind historical details on artists and those around them.

Athletics (Dex x2%)Athletics allows you to perform general acts of physical derring-do, from running and jumping to throwing a spear, to dodging a falling object. Combines the old skills: climb, dodge, jump, swim, and throw.

Bibliography (01%)You’re an expert at books from an aesthetic, historical, commercial, and technical point of view. You can: distinguish real tomes from forgeries, tell when a book has been retouched or altered, identify the age of a book by style and materials used, call to mind historical details on famous books, printers, publishers, etc, recall details of book sales and auctions, know or estimate what libraries might hold a specific book

Bureaucracy (01%)You know how to navigate a bureaucratic organization, whether it’s a government office or a large business firm. You know how to get what you want from it in an expeditious manner, with a minimum of ruffled feathers. You can: convince officials to provide sensitive information, gain credentials on false pretenses, find the person who really knows what’s going on, develop and maintain contacts within bureaucracies with which you have regular dealings, locate offices and files, borrow equipment or supplies.

Document Analysis (01%)You’re an expert in the study of physical documents (as opposed to the contents of a text). You can: determine a document’s approximate age, identify the manufacturer of paper used, tell forged documents from the real thing, identify distinctive handwriting, match printed documents to the type of press used.

Forgery (01%)You can create a false document, forge handwriting with a sample to work from, or (given time) fake an entire book. This ability does not convey any special skill at creating “aged” paper or ink, or at

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbookbookbinding or any ability to write or otherwise create a given volume—you must have skill in these abilities as well.

Literature History (special)You are an expert on the “classics” of literature and how literature has evolved over time, from the epics of Homer to the latest Conan Doyle story. You can: recall details about classic works and their authors, you can identify influences in later works, you are also familiar with the histories of the various genres.

Philosophy and Theology (01%)You study human religions and philosophies in their various forms, both ancient and modern. You can: supply information about religious and philosophical beliefs/practices, quote relevant tags from major scriptures, recognize attributes of various saints, gods, and other religious figures, identify whether a religious practice or ritual is orthodox or heretical, fake a religious ceremony, quote famous philosophical treatises

Textual Analysis (01%)By studying the content of texts (as opposed to their physical characteristics as documents) you can draw reliable inferences about their authorship. You can: determine if an anonymous text is the work of a known author, determine the era in which a text was written, identify the author’s region and level of education, tell a real work by an author from a fake one.

The Knowledge (EDU + INT%)Since 1865, London cabdrivers have been tested by The Knowledge of London Examination System, or “The Knowledge” for short, covering 320 routes through the city, encompassing 25,000 streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross Road. With this ability, you know the London streets like the back of a cabdriver’s hand. Helps to remember/identify details of landmarks, businesses, establishments, etc., to find the fastest/least observed routes, recall details of London neighborhoods, other helpful knowledge about London geography.

Streetwise (10%)You know how to behave among crooks, gangsters, dopers, hookers, grifters, and other habitués of the criminal underworld. You can deploy criminal etiquette to avoid fights and conflicts, identify unsafe locations and dangerous people, make and utilize criminal contacts, successfully price illegal goods such as drugs, stolen items, or weapons, gather underworld rumors

Stealth (10%)

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookStealth allows you to perform general acts of stealthiness. It takes the place of the old skills Hide and Sneak. It also allows you to surreptitiously pocket an item or filch something from a person’s pocket. Also allows you to shadow a suspect without revealing your presence.

An Brief Introduction to London and the Times, 1897For more detail, I recommend you check out http://www.victorianlondon.org

Current Monarch: Queen VictoriaCurrent Prime Minister: Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury

The Victorian Age was a bright time for the British Empire, which reached its zenith during the 1890s. The 19th century saw London transformed into the world’s largest city, and a geopolitical, financial, and trading capital. As the hub of the Empire, it was the most important city on Earth, in short, the center of civilization.

From a distance, we always see London in evening, fog swirling, mystery and adventure lurking around the next corner, across the next bridge, or perhaps in those miles of interconnecting sewers that honeycomb the earth below. 1890s London is a city of legend. Monsters (real and fictional) such as Jack the Ripper, Count Dracula, Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Hyde stalked the city’s streets to do battle with heroes like Sherlock Holmes and mystical societies like the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society filled every lodge. Who knows what darkness and evil might lurk down the city’s narrow alleys, slimy sewers, in dank basements, and hidden backrooms?

The population of London and its suburbs had grown to approximately 6.5 million people by the 1890s. A significant number of which lived in the densely packed East End. London itself was divided in 28 metropolitan boroughs, each governed by its own mayor and council, plus the City (the historic City of London in the center of the metropolis) which was a separate municipality headed by the Lord Mayor.

The East End of London was the commercial and money-making section of the metropolis, harboring the docks, the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, the Royal Mint, the post office, and other public buildings.

The West End was more exclusive, where the wealthy and the upper classes made their homes, and where the center of government for the

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookEmpire was located. Here were Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and cultural and scientific adornments such as the British Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The luxurious houses of the aristocracy found in the West starkly contrast with the poorer, crowded hovels of the East End, particularly east of the City in Whitechapel and Spitalfields.

North of the City were the comparatively comfortable homes of the lower middle class, while south of the Thames (the ‘Surry Side’ of London) were poor dwellings near the river and more fashionable dwellings further south. Though gasworks and such were south of the Thames, London had no specific manufacturing center: factories and workhouses could be found throughout the county.

Important Areas of LondonLimehouse: encompassing Chinatown and dock and warehouse areas, as well as opium dens and other seamy establishments; life was cheap in this lower-class area.

Soho: the foreign quarter, also containing a number of restaurants, theaters, and entertainment halls.

Spitalfields: a poor section of the East End, where new immigrants congregated.The City: the financial center of London, and the oldest part of the city—the original site of Roman Londinium. Within its boundaries, which stretched from the Temple on the east to the Tower of London on the west, were the Bank of England, Stock Exchange, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Custom House, General Post Office.

Westminster: The seat of government, stretching from Hyde Park on the west to the City on the east, and containing many of London’s best known landmarks: Westminster Abbey, Scotland Yard, Big Ben, Parliament, and most foreign embassies.

Whitechapel: in the East End, where the poor and miserable huddle in decrepit buildings and common-lodging or doss houses, clinging to life as laborers, costermongers, criminals, streetwalkers, beggars, and scavengers. This was the primary hunting ground of Jack the Ripper.

Timeline (1892-1897)1892Diesel patents his internal combustion engineFirst automatic telephone switchboard introdycedTchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker Suite opens.British defeat Ijebu in Nigeria using Maxim gun

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookArthur Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes publishedAbu Dabi becomes a British ProtectorateScottish universities admit womenThe Dalton Gang killed in KansasJ.R.R. Tolkien born

1893Franco-Russ alliance signedRevolt against South Africa Company crushed with machine gunsArthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes dies at Reichenbach FallsSecond Home Rule for Ireland fails to pass House of LordsHenry Ford builds his first carFour-color rotary press installed by Joseph Pulitzer in New YorkWorld’s first Ferris wheel opens in Chicago

1894Korea and Japan declare war on China win battle of Port ArthurGeorge Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man opensBritain establishes Protectorate over UgandaFrench Anarchist tries to blow up Royal Greenwich ObservatoryArgon discoveredManson discovers Malaria spread by mosquitoesArthur Conan Doyle’s anthology the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes publishedRudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book PublishedAldous Huxley bornRobert Louis Stevenson dies

1895Sino-Japanese War endsX-rays discoveredPremière of Oscar Wild’s The Importance of Being EarnestFirst pocket camera introduced by Eastman KodakMotion Picture Camera developedLee-Enfield rifle adoptedH.G. Wells’ The Time Machine PublishedThomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure publishedPrince Albert (George the VI born)Sir Thomas Huxley dies

1896Anglo-Egyptian forces begin reconquest of the SudanRadioactivity discovered in RadiumDaily Mail Newspaper foundedMahdist War, British and Egyptian victory at the Battle of FerkehOlympic Games revived in Greece

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookHelium DiscoveredFirst motion picture film showed to a British audienceH. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau published 1897—present yearMarconi sends the first wireless communication over open seaElectron discoveredHawaiian Islands annexed by the USMark Twain on world lecture tourQueen victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee celebrating her accession to the throne in 1837.First horseless electric taxi cabs begin operating in LondonBram Stoker’s Dracula publishedH. G. Well’s Invisible Man Published

1890s Underworld Slang

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s HandbookBookhound terminology and Notes on Books

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook

The King in Yellow: A Campaign in Three ActsPlayer’s Handbook