Armitage Journal Fragments

Entry 428

Date Unknown

There is a balance in the darkness, a treacherous harmony between forces so ancient, they may well predate the stars themselves. Yet I fear that balance has begun to unravel. The cult of the maddened followers of the King in Yellow, grows more brazen. Their whispers have reached our city. I hear them in the wind, see their signs scrawled in the filth between cobblestones. They seek to draw the city into Carcosa’s web—a place of impossible geometry, where sanity is a fragile illusion.

But the King in Yellow is not the only threat. The servants of the Crawling Chaos, move in opposition, their schemes no less dangerous; as do the strange cult members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. While the King in Yellow's disciples yearn for madness and despair, the Crawling Chaos’s are drawn to subjugation through knowledge. They thrive on chaos, spreading it like a plague, yet each act of destruction serves some deeper, unknown plan. If the cults clash, it will be no mere battle—it will be a cosmic war of terror, and I fear we are caught between the ruinous designs of both.

What horrifies me most is the thought that we are not pawns in their game, but that the game itself is so vast, so incomprehensible, that we cannot even grasp our place upon the board.

Entry 431

Date Unknown

The Yellow Sign has appeared again, this time on a burnt piece of parchment left on my desk. Who put it there? I do not know. I dare not trust anyone now. The cultists of the King in Yellow are closing in, but I can sense the cold tendrils of another—the Black Goat of the Woods. Her followers stir, drawn by the increasing madness, as though they seek to capitalize on the frenzied state the King in Yellow spreads. Where the King in Yellow’s touch brings despair, the Black Goat promises fecundity and wild, chaotic birth—a mockery of life itself.

What is their aim? Are they rivals? Or do their foul aims align? If the King in Yellow drags the world into madness, will the Black Goat of the Woods follow, to birth an abominable new age in its wake?

My mind aches from the weight of these thoughts, and I begin to doubt even my own perceptions. The cults move as if they are guided by hands unseen, and I fear those hands may well belong to gods even older and crueler than we can imagine. If there is a salvation from this coming storm, I have yet to find it in any tome or sigil. I must continue to seek, though I suspect it is already too late.

Entry 435

Date Unknown

The Yithians... I dared not speak of them before, for fear that even acknowledging their presence would draw their gaze upon me. Yet now, with the looming threat of the King in Yellow's madness and the Black Goat of the Woods’s abhorrent fertility, their involvement seems unavoidable. The Yithians—time travelers, archivists, alien minds beyond our comprehension. They do not belong to our time, not truly. Their motives are as inscrutable as the stars they drift between.

I have found records, faint hints in forgotten scrolls, suggesting that the Yithians are not mere bystanders in this cosmic struggle. They have seen the rise and fall of beings like the King in Yellow and the Black Goat of the Woods before. They navigate the rivers of time, choosing moments of power, and intervening when necessary—not to protect us, but to safeguard their own interests. For them, time is a tool to be bent, twisted, and reshaped, and we... we are merely variables in their equation.

But why now? Why have they allowed themselves to be drawn into this conflict? I cannot help but wonder if the rising tensions between the King in Yellow's followers and those of the other Old Ones have threatened some delicate moment in time, some event critical to the Yithians’ plans. Or perhaps... they foresee something more dire, an end beyond even the reach of their temporal mastery.

The thought chills me more than any cult. The Yithians do not intervene unless absolutely necessary. What could drive such cold, calculating entities to act? What future do they see that we, in our ignorance, cannot even imagine?

I must tread carefully now. The Yithians are not enemies, but they are no friends to humanity. They exist on a different scale—one where we, even in our brightest moments, are but fleeting shadows. If they are involved, the endgame may be far more catastrophic than I ever feared.