within the radicals handbook i believe i have uncovered a major conspiracy of epic sector shattering proprtions.

the Hydra Lock conspiracy

within the radicals handbook it describes these ancient terrible devices at things that can bring darkness to an entire world but being as they are locks they need a key, a key once held by the Night Traveler the one who will return at the end of days or more commonly known as Solomon Haarlock. This key is located in The House of Dust and Ash adventure as the ornate silver key with a strange inscription that doesnt do much of anything and is up to GM discretion to see what it does. this inscription sounds very much like what hydra lock lore makes the locks out to be something to do with sleepless dreams im sorry once again if i had the books i would be so much more accurate.

With this key and a power source you could power this lock but what power source, i believe the Council of Seven or whatever their name is i dont have the book with me but the council consists of seven major daemons that we all know of ranging from Solomon himself to Baephomael to the void hungerer (i believe it is Komus) in fact i believe any planet that gets shone on by Komus's light is a planet with one of these fabled locks. with this information one could somehow conjure these seven demons and be the eighth center piece the key holder...with the power to destroy the sector.

of course these locks must be guarded by something just as terrible but who knows...this is all conjecture at best and tenuous tieing together of mangled information throne i feel like an inquisitor savant.

maybe this will be what the third book of the haarlock trilogy will be about, maybe not, but hopefully this is good food for thought as maybe you havent connected these dots yet and you can see it all link up now. and FFG if i just spoiled something please accept my most sincere appologies...or let me in hehehe

That's a fine theory, but that Silver Key is an easter egg as all of DH's designers are big Lovecraft fans.

In fairness, it does look like the Hyades Lock is a similar Easter egg- after all the Hyades is said to be the star cluster in which Carcosa resides, along with the nearer Aldebaran. And while the Silver Key is perhaps linked to the Dreamlands, there is still significant thematic crossover with the dreamlike and reality bending madness of the Hastur Mythos. I do sense someone connecting some dots and developing the original Easter egg idea- Alan Bligh perhaps who wrote both books?

The key connection is that the Hyades Locks are described as " great locks to the portals through which all shall pass to endless sleep, held fast by ages and secured by the key. " The enscription on the Silver Key says " shown me the portals of sleep ". Also it says in the RH that the Key was held by the Herald. And in Tattered Fates the Widower names himself the Herald of his Master, the Last and First of the Haarlocks, who might also be called the Dark Traveller. It makes sense that the servant of the Haarlocks might once have held or protected the the Silver Key that was in their possession before the auction. The note at the end of the RH entry that the Istvaanians have gotten involved in an ancient and terrible plot that is too big for them, also links into the whole Haarlock trilogy.

So the Key opens the portals of sleep- entry into the Dreamlands? Unfortunately that doesnt kill entire worlds usually, just allow the key bearer to enter into the Dreamlands (Warp?). But the use of the the words Herald (for the King in Yellow is the Herald of Hastur) and Hyades point to a connection with Hastur/Carcosa/King in Yellow Mythos , which again can have a dreamlike or surreal quality before entire cities or worlds are folded into Carcosa, which would fulfill the Hyades Locks apparently apocalyptic legend.

SJE.

You might be on to something! We're discussing the exact nature of the Tyrant Star here , and it's a tantalizing idea that the key to the portals of sleep may be involved.

Now I have read most of The King in Yellow, but never came across a concept of dreamlands. In which story is this mentioned?

The Dreamlands are from HP Lovecrafts short stories - no limited to, but including the Silver Key and Through the Gates of the Silver Key . Those 2 stories star Randolph Carter who was an alter ego of Lovecraft, especially since some of these stories are based off Lovecrafts own dreams.

The Dreamlands are a place that some special dreamers can access in their sleep - a fantastic, phantasmogorical land of talking cats, ruined cities, enchanted woods, far off ports and lurking terrors like the Plateau of Leng. Chaosium did a supplement on it for their Call of Cthulhu RPG (on which Dark Heresy is heavily influenced)

SJE

And FFG winner for serendipity/co-incidence -

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp