Candlekeep Mysteries Review: A D&D Book That Belongs To Every Dunemaster’s Library

Over the past few years, the Dungeons & Dragons books have come close to the formula. There’s a bunch of narrative or heavy content up front, and then a few appendices full of monsters, spells, and magical items on the back. It’s a winning formula, of course, taking the original role-playing game to new heights. But it has also become a bit obsolete.

Mysteries of the candle is completely different. Inside you’ll find 17 new adventures from 20 different authors, each of which can serve as a starting point for a craft campaign or an interlude between published adventures. But, perhaps more than any other book in D&D 5th Edition, Mysteries of the candle gives way to dream. It’s a set of one-shots – adventures that can be performed in one sitting – but it’s also a set of tools and tips that can be placed in just about any setting you can imagine. This makes it a resource that every Dungeon Master (DM) should have on their library.

Vanity behind Mysteries of the candle is that it’s a book filled with other books, each taken from the shelves of a fictional library in the Forgotten Realms, the main setting for this edition of D&D. It begins with a heavy preamble describing the layout and customs of the titular candlestick. There is also a beautiful poster-sized map of its limits on the spine of the book. But exactly where these books are hidden in the world doesn’t really matter. Editor Wizards of the Coast is careful to encourage DMs to place the library and / or collection where they want – including in the world of Exandria, which is home to the popular new setting Matt Mercer created for Critical Role. , but also Eberron and Greyhawk.

Each of the chapters of Mysteries of the candle is named after the title of a fictional book, and each includes all the new content you’ll need to run a single 2-4 hour game with your friends. Of course, you will need the other three fundamental D&D books to lead these adventures – the Player’s Manual, the Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Photo: Charlie Hall / Polygon

Book titles in Mysteries of the candle only enough to spark your imagination, including gems like Mazfroth’s mighty digressions, Knowledge of Lurue, The Book of Inner Alchemy, and The joy of extra-dimensional spaces. But these aren’t just books to be taken off the shelf and devoured with the roll of a single dice. Many are complex magical artifacts that player characters will interact with throughout the adventure. Some are even mechanical or physical in nature, and figuring out how to read them in the first place is often a puzzle in itself.

Although these books have a story inside, each is treated as an object with a story of its own. This makes each book a different character in the adventure. Each is given a written description and illustration, great news for anyone investing in making props for their campaigns. There are a few, I think, that might even have a good life as handcrafted products on Etsy – particularly one that involves multiple cylinders that need to be rolled over wet clay in order to move forward. the story.

The adventures themselves are great and feature some of the best writing from this generation of D&D. The complications they present are a delight, including a sketchy book display with an even more sketchy employee collection; a mining village abandoned to sinister secrecy; a haunted house trapped in another dimension; and an earworm so poisonous it forces players to self-quarantine. This latest adventure, involving the earworm, is actually quite clever. The book at the center of the encounter is actually an elaborate clockwork contraption, the complexity of which is reflected in the adventure’s elaborate social interactions. There is almost no fighting at all. Instead, it forces the DM to take on the role of multiple NPCs. It’s up to the player characters to make things stand out, primarily through dialogue.

One chapter, titled “Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion” by Amy Vorpahl, made me laugh out loud as I read it. It’s utterly ridiculous to go so far as to introduce technologies that, even given the powerful magics at play in the Forgotten Realms, would be groundbreaking if they stood out. Of course, in D&D the DM is always in control. From that perspective, an adventure that causes all hell to break loose is a feature, not a bug.

In addition to writing, the artistic direction in Mysteries of the candle is unusually strong. The chapters include works by different artists, making each one look and feel totally different from the following. In contrast, the cards presented throughout the book are simple, almost without adornments. This is clearly by design, as it makes them easy to lift and re-theme for an entirely different setting. It also makes this book a great resource for DMs who went digital during the pandemic.

For bookworms of a different kind – that is, people who like to buy RPG books and read them like others would a novel – there’s another layer of fun to be had. A series of subtle nods to previous 5th edition campaigns, including The thunder of the storm king and Strahd’s Curse. Even by innovating on a new narrative ground, Mysteries of the candle Can’t help but wink and nod at the rest of the 5th Edition canon.

Although structurally an outlier, Mysteries of the candle nevertheless fits perfectly with the rest of the material of the 5th edition. Glad to see where the players are going from here.

Mysteries of the candle arrives March 16. A special alternative art cover designed by Simen Meyer is only available at your friendly local game store, while the standard edition of the book is available everywhere, including Amazon. Digital versions of the hardware are available for the D&D Beyond toolset, for Fantasy Grounds, and on the Roll20 platform.

Mysteries of the candle has been revised with a preliminary copy of the books provided by Wizards of the Coast. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find more information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.

Mysteries of the candle

Price taken at time of publication.

This anthology of 17 different one-shot adventures only requires Dungeon Masters to place a library somewhere in their world. Well, that and 3-5 rugged adventurers to find it.