DNH5 Carcosa — Disappointing Dungeon Crawl

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen
    In Carcosa.

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

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

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

Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2.

DNH5 Carcosa is presumably the last module in the Hastur series from Dark Naga Games, written by L. Kevin Watson. It's a modestly priced (at least when I bought it) at $4 for a 30 page module plus illustration book, chocked with new original art. It takes up directly after DNH4 Confronting Hastur, which leaves the characters transported to Carcosa, the place from Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow.

I first came across Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow a few years before I got into Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu, in a book on UFOs by Jacques Vallee (the inspiration for the French guy in Close Encounters), who used the quotes from it to start chapters to convey the sense of other-worldliness, of eeriness, that he believed applied to UFOs and their inhabitants. If you aren't familiar with it, The King in Yellow is a series of short stories loosely based on Chambers' time in Paris, including a handful of weird stories involving a strange play and the effects it had on its readers. The play is set in Carcosa, which seems to be a city on an alien planet by a lake (the Lake of Hali), across from a neighboring city, Alar.

DNH4 Confronting Hastur Review - 30 Pages of Filler, 1 Page of Confronting Hastur's Statue

I was a fan of DNH1 The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil (so much so I apparently reviewed it twice), which was a fairly lengthy scenario involving tracking down and eliminating an evil cult that worshiped Hastur, a Great Old One from the Cthulhu Mythos. It wasn't very Hastur-ish (he's my favorite Great Old One), but it was good if you consider it a more generic evil god. Strangely though, the next two modules in the series had little to do with Hastur, or even adventuring, instead they describe sort of an alternate version of underground elves and the trading network they used.

With DNH4 Confronting Hastur, the action against the cult resumes. The PCs are once again tasked with finidng and eliminating the cult's stronghold. But in this case finding the hideout consists of simply talking to about half a dozen suspicious people. Not that the PCs determine they are suspicious, but some NPC does, simply giving them a list.

The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil Review — More like Generic Evil

The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil from Dark Naga Adventures might have a rather generic name, but it actually deals with the PCs coming across of a cult of Hastur (the Cthulhu Mythos deity) and presumably foiling its plans. I a big fan of the Cthulhu Mythos (my 2nd favorite RPG is Call of Cthulhu) and incorporate Mythos themes into my own game.

Hastur is perhaps the trickiest deity of them all, because it's not entirely clear that Hastur is even a deity in HP Lovecraft's own works. Though he made mention of the name, clearly referencing Robert W. Chambers work, most notable many of the stories mentioned in the King in Yellow. But Chambers work is eerie, surreal, even sensual, perhaps best captured in Karl Wagner's The River of Nights Dreaming. But ignoring all that, August Dereth made Hastur just another squid god, like Cthulhu.

The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil Review

The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil is an adventure from Dark Naga Adventures who seems to be the author, L Kevin Watson, though it's published by Fat Goblin Games. The name is a bit of a mouthful, clearly going for the old school naming method of The _____ (dungeon type) of ______ but perhaps having one too adjective too many. It's actually a dual statted adventure, both for 5th Edition and a generic "OSR" which is clearly AD&D, but possibly more 2e than 1e based on the power level, as the opponents have a lot of hit points. In any event, it's aimed at 4th to 6th level characters.

The Forgotten Evil in question is perhaps not so forgotten to most readers, it's Hastur, of Robert Chambers and H.P. Lovecraft fame. Or perhaps more Hastur as envisioned by August Derleth. Not the surreal, decadent Hastur of Chambers, nor the unspeakable and largely undefined horror of HPL. Instead, it's just a generic cult that grabs people and sacrifices them.