The King in Yellow during a stage performance.
The King in Yellow is an enigmatic and magical two-act play that is somehow tied to Hastur, one of the Ogdru Hem, which presumably influences people to worship the deity.
Description[]
The King in Yellow is not exactly a play per say but something along the lines of a mirror, a sentient text that shows the reader or the observer not what is written on the page but what lurks within one's own mind. Basically, the play reveals the deepest and worst parts of man, exposing it for all to see.
It influences all who read the manuscript or watch a performance, which leads them to worship Hastur and dedicate their whole existence in serving him. The affected would then form cult and secret societies in order to continue the spread the play, and through that the worship of Hastur.
Overview[]
The King in Yellow's origins are widely unknown with many speculating that its conception can be traced back all the way to ancient Greece where it was acted through theatre in Athens. Centuries later, pieces of the manuscripts were discovered and completed by famous playwrights like William Shakespeare until it found its way to the 21st century, falling into the hands of obscure American author Robert W. Chambers. Due to the danger of the plays, groups like the Federal Bureau of Control and Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense destroy all suspected copies of the play, as well as arrest the influenced.
The play can be found across the world, at both universities and theaters, as well in the hands of private groups and individuals, all of whom read and sometimes enact the play. The titular King in Yellow is more of a conceptual parasite that infects and corrupts narrative, identity, and sanity itself. It is a disease that infects the wounds inflicted into dreams which if not properly treated could spread throughout the Collective Consciousness and ravage it at the seams. Alan Wake deduces that the King in Yellow is a tool used by Hastur to intrude into the imaginative minds of humanity's collective consciousness, where he warps the standardization of human perception, eroding the line between reality and fiction, self and story.