Critical Role’s Candela Obscura is but a pale shadow of its inspiration, Blades in the Dark
Critical Role’s Candela Obscura is but a pale shadow of its inspiration, Blades in the Dark
I've never played Blades in the Dark, but maybe this will be a good introduction to it at least with a different setting.
The setting of blades is while well crafted utterly dark and dreary. Personally I cannot stand it. So anything that is forged in the dark (what the generic mechanics are called) but with a bit more sun is in my opinion pretty much an upgrade. So if you are interested in the forged family of systems and you find CO's setting/premise go for it.
Can also recommend you to have a look at the larger FitD ecosystem as there are plenty of goodies.
Candela obscura is meant to be a horror game, so I doubt it's going to be with "a bit more sun". IIRC it's supposed to be call of Cthulhu-esque
Going by the article's description it sounds like it's just fantasy 1900s (but without racism and other bigotries) which doesn't sound anywhere near as grim as Duskvol's "the world has ended and our electricity runs on souls". The regional map for example just looks reads as "generic fantasy" to me.
I dunno, i havent read it, but it describes itself as 'horror' several times, and calls itself "investigative horror". From what i've gleaned it was supposed to be victorian-esque call of cthulhu? But i'm also not 100% sure.
You’re needed, investigators: join the secret society Candela Obscura to confront occult horrors from beyond, keeping hidden the true nature of magickal incursions besetting our world.
Candela Obscura (bestowed the hashtag #CandelaObscura) is a new tabletop roleplaying game that places you in the roles of investigators working for an esoteric order. In this game of investigative horror, individuals of varied talents are brought together under the organization Candela Obscura. You’ll pursue strange occurrences and encounter dangerous magicks, fighting back against a mysterious source of corruption and bleed. Candela Obscura is the first to use the Illuminated Worlds System, a newly designed system that uses 6-sided dice and lends itself to narrative, arc-driven play.
Anything compared to Duskvol is sunny. That city and its atmosphere is so oppresivley dark and dreary. The sun literally doesn't shine and no stars illuminate the night sky.
I don't find Cthulhu horror that dark. Damp and misty sure. With the cosmic/existential horror being rooted in ones insignificance and the ungraspness of the infinite existence there is little explicit need for darkness. It can be dark yes, just doesn't need to be.
I'll check them out! Thanks for the resources you linked below, too.
Is there a good way to browse the fidt ecosystem?
On DrivethroughRPG.com you can browse by rule system
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?ruleSystem=100226
Itch.io has a Forged in the Dark tag
https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-forged-in-the-dark
And I found a list of fan creations on the blades webpage. Not sure how maintained that is but it is there.
https://bladesinthedark.com/fan-creations
Awesome thank you!