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* InadequateInheritor: None of Cassilda's three sons are ruler material.
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* ExternalRetcon: Ryng manages to compromise between the original, extremely ambigiously used name Hastur, which may refer to a place just as well as a person, and August Derleth's rather liberal interpretation that Hastur is simply the King in Yellow's true name by making Hastur the name of the planet on which the play is set on, and in the end have the King declare "[[RoyalWe We]] are Hastur" to indicate that his presence has overwhelmed the entire world.
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* ExternalRetcon: Ryng manages to compromise between the original, extremely ambigiously ambiguously used name Hastur, which may refer to a place just as well as a person, and August Derleth's rather liberal interpretation that Hastur is simply the King in Yellow's true name by making Hastur the name of the planet on which the play is set on, and in the end have the King declare "[[RoyalWe We]] are Hastur" to indicate that his presence has overwhelmed the entire world.
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->''"Songs that the Hyades shall sing,\\
Where flap the tatters of the King,\\
Must die unheard in\\
Dim Carcosa."''
-->--From Cassilda's Song in ''The King in Yellow'', Act i, Scene 2
In 1999, playwright Thom Ryng wrote a production-length facsimile of the "real" ''King in Yellow'' based on Chambers' short stories (and following the rough plot laid out by Kevin Ross in the ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' RPG). Set on the world of Hastur, the play centers on the last generation of a dying, world-spanning Imperial dynasty; Queen Cassilda must find and choose a royal heir before she dies, but one of her kids is an empty-headed socialite, one has joined the ReligionOfEvil, and the last is a hothead who is too young to be crowned.
Meanwhile, her brother plots to assume the throne for himself, the SinisterMinister High Priest undermines her family's power with the common folk, and as if that wasn't enough, a mysterious phantom city appears, bringing with it a dark messenger and all manner of unsettling omens. And then things go downhill.
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!!This work provides examples of:
* AnachronismStew: The play is supposed to be over a hundred years old, but its vocabulary is inappropriate for Third Republic-era France and the stage directions involve technical references impossible in that period. Justified in that this is supposedly Ryng's "modern English translation" of the text.
* AristocratsAreEvil: Although some are just {{Jerkass}}, or hopelessly naive.
* TheAtoner: Thale, eventually.
* TheBlank: The Stranger in Pallid Mask aka the Phantom of Truth, whose equivalent haunts the protagonists in "The Mask". He is a living corpse whose face is white smooth like a mask.
* BlindSeer: Actually, eyeless altogether.
* BreakTheCutie: Camilla.
* BreakTheHaughty: Aldones, Naotalba.
* CallBack: Across multiple texts. Ryng uses all of the lines and passages quoted in Chambers' short stories, here found in their "original" context.
* CassandraTruth: If you pay attention, you'll see that the Stranger actually tells the characters everything they need to know.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Bremchas, TheFool.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Cassilda tortures the Stranger for the entirety(!) of Act 2, Scene 1.
* CorruptChurch: The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign.
* {{Determinator}}: Cassilda.
* TheDragon: Alar to Aldones. The Phantom of Truth to the King In Yellow.
* EldritchAbomination: The King in Yellow, probably.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Stranger says his name is "truth", and indeed, he always tells the truth, although rarely do the other characters correctly interpret what he says.
* EvilChancellor: Aldones.
* TheEvilPrince: Also Aldones. As Cassilda's brother, he needs to get all three of her children out of the way in order to be king after her.
* EvilUncle: Aldones seems to hit all of the tropes that begin with "evil."
* ExternalRetcon: Ryng manages to compromise between the original, extremely ambigiously used name Hastur, which may refer to a place just as well as a person, and August Derleth's rather liberal interpretation that Hastur is simply the King in Yellow's true name by making Hastur the name of the planet on which the play is set on, and in the end have the King declare "[[RoyalWe We]] are Hastur" to indicate that his presence has overwhelmed the entire world.
* FictionalDocument: Ryng's first edition claimed to be a translation of the "original French play." Of course, there is no original play, in this world at least...
* TheFool: Bremchas, a drunken (and possibly insane) guardsman who might be the only character who really understands what's going on in the play.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Camilla.
* GunsVsSwords: Only the royal family are allowed to carry swords, as a symbol of rank. The guards all carry muskets.
* HumanoidAbomination: The Stranger.
* JackassGenie: In the last scene, the King in Yellow answers the surviving characters' prayers, but always in ways that pointedly do not profit them.
* MacGuffin: The Yellow Sign.
* MasqueradeBall: Act 1, Scene 2.
* MindScrew
* OhCrap: When Cassilda sees the fabled city of Carcosa appear, she knows her dynasty is at an end.
* TheOphelia: Camilla.
* PoorCommunicationKills: If anyone had told Cassilda that her son had been imprisoned, a lot of tragedies could have been averted.
* PopularIsDumb: Camilla is the centerpiece of Yhtill's social scene, but apparently not all that bright.
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight.
* ReligionIsMagic: The priests of the Cult of the King in Yellow are shown to be capable of becoming invisible at will.
* ReligionOfEvil: Played with. It's not clear whether the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign are actually evil or whether they simply have a {{Jerkass}} leader.
* RoyalBlood: The members of the royal family seem to have absolute power in the city, regardless of their actual title.
* RoyallyScrewedUp
* RoyalWe: The King in Yellow addresses himself in this manner. None of the mortal royalty follow the suit.
* SignificantAnagram: Bicree and Bremchas are anagrams of Bierce and Chambers, respectively.
* SinisterMinister: High Priest Naotalba.
* SinsOfOurFathers: Apparently everything that goes awry in Yhtill is because the first king murdered the old prophet twelve generations ago.
* StandardRoyalCourt
* SuccessionCrisis: If Cassilda doesn't name an heir, this may happen. Aldones tries to set one off intentionally.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Bicree and Bremchas.
* TheUndead: At the end of the play, the King in Yellow overruns the imperial city with an army of the dead.
* UpperClassTwit: Uoth, Cassilda's hot-headed youngest son.
* VestigialEmpire: Ythill apparently once covered the better part of the planet, but a dozen rulers later it's rare for anyone to even leave the capital city.
* VillainousBreakdown: Aldones loses it at the end.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Aldones wants to return the empire to its glory days for the sake of his father's memory.
* WhenThePlanetsAlign: Cited almost verbatim.
* YouCantFightFate: Cassilda spends the entire play trying to avert the ancient prophecies, but of course everything she does just makes it worse.
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