Black Mouth Cur Gamecraft was kind enough to share an early look at Candlelight Inquisition, an independent game designed by Will Fish that focuses heavily on psychological investigation, institutional dread, and gothic noir themes.
The book establishes an atmospheric, late-industrial landscape within the bleak Vinndesian Empire, where player characters serve one of many morally grey factions, such as the state-sanctioned Inquisition.
It’s a fun game, fun in the counter-intuitive sense that intense dark media is, offering a different and strangely welcome dark escapism. The book offers up an independent system optimised for gaming groups who want to prioritise collaborative mystery over tactical combat simulation. The layout establishes an immediately sombre atmosphere, pairing high-contrast imagery with detailed setting lore. The book offers up an independent system optimised for gaming groups who want to prioritise collaborative mystery over tactical combat simulation.
The layout establishes an immediately sombre atmosphere, pairing high-contrast imagery with detailed setting lore. By embedding character progression directly into the shifting political landscape of the setting, the book offers a cohesive framework for long, multi-session campaigns. Will Fish cites an eclectic mix of industrial-era dark fantasy and psychological video games as primary inspirations for the project, grounding the game’s authority in traditional tabletop mechanics while crafting a distinct horror identity.
The Forged in the Dark System and Edges
Mechanically, Candlelight Inquisition relies on a standard 2d6 resolution layout to navigate uncertainty, adapting its core resolution philosophy from Blades in the Dark. When a player character undertakes an action with an unpredictable outcome, they roll two six-sided dice, add situational modifiers, and check the sum against three tiers of success: a perfect success on a 12 or higher, a standard success with a cost between 8 and 11, and a bad outcome on a 7 or lower. The system heavily incorporates abstract trackers called Clocks to visually chart mounting tension or investigative progress.
The primary way characters influence their probability of success is through the deployment of Edges. Derived from traits, training, or equipment, Edges represent finite, public resources stored in specific pools. Rather than being locked into rigid mechanical skill lists, players apply their Edges flexibly through narrative justification, describing exactly how their background, tools, or situation sway the odds in the fiction. Players invoke an applicable Edge to add a +1 modifier to a roll, spending it until their next opportunity to recuperate. Conversely, negative Edges represent temporary hindrances or severe physical injuries, which subtract from a roll’s total. This interplay is mediated by position, a mechanic where the game master gauges the environmental risk as dominant, delicate, daring, or desperate before any dice are cast.
Character Generation and Castes
The character creation phase begins at a group level, requiring the party to establish their collective operational purpose by selecting a framework such as Police Investigators, Ruin Delvers, or a local Conspiracy. Once the overarching group roles are decided, players roll a pool of 5d6 to distribute among core statistics, resources, and social status. This initial allocation defines the character’s baseline resilience and determines their placement within a rigid, legally binding social hierarchy:
- Citizen: The hereditary economic elite, granted legal protections, trial by jury, and the unique right to own firearms.
- Freeman: Independent labourers or merchants who operate outside the nobility but lack state legal protections.
- Obligant: The restricted majority of the population, legally bound to a specific lord, industry, or the imperial state itself.
After selecting a caste, players complete an internal personality assessment known as the Archetype Test. Rather than measuring technical training, this test categorises the character’s philosophical worldview into one of four distinct archetypes: the people-focused Empath, the analytical Intelligentsia, the idealistic Partisan, or the pragmatic Professional.
Professions and Experience
While a character’s archetype determines their psychological advancement options, their functional skill sets are governed by distinct Professions. Players spend points from their initial dice pool to unlock various careers across thematic groupings such as Academic, Con, Doctor, Investigator, Mechanist, Mystic, Noble, Soldier, Survivalist, and Tradesman. A player opting for the Investigator: Inquisitor track, for instance, gains analytical skills, specific search questions tailored to detecting manipulation, and a unique mechanical move called Catch Lie.
Progression is deeply intertwined with the setting’s timeline rather than abstract encounter points. At the end of a World Cycle, a meta-temporal tracker governing the movement of rival political factions, the game master awards new advancement features to characters who significantly altered or exposed a faction’s plot. This downtime allows characters to spend time training to unlock fresh career paths, expand their existing Edge pools, or master supernatural abilities.
The Dream Magic System
Supernatural elements in Candlelight Inquisition manifest through Dream Sorcery, a volatile practice where mystics enter a shifting, subconscious dimension via sleep to alter the Waking World. Spells are known as somni and are strictly categorised by their association with alien greater powers, such as the Ceramic Mind, the Collector, the Living Flame, the Moon King, or the Red Mother. Practising this art requires the collection of symbolic physical objects or specific sensory triggers in the real world before drifting off.
The book details a varied list of rituals, including Ashen Return, which reconstructs a destroyed object from its ashes until the caster next sleeps, and Path Between, which allows a group to cross physical distances by navigating the Moon King’s Gardens. When operating inside the Dream, the boundaries of reality loosen, making unusual methods viable. However, characters must manage a dedicated Lucidity Clock; if this tracker fills up, the dreamer loses control, exposing themselves to mental trauma, subject drift, or the attention of hostile spirits.
The Game Master and Horror Mechanics
The final third of Candlelight Inquisition equips the game master with structural tools to maintain an atmosphere of psychological horror. Physical or mental wear-and-tear is tracked through granular mechanics, where unresisted damage manifests as semi-permanent wounds. Accumulating excessive injuries results in permanent Trauma Scars, which reduce a character’s maximum willpower track and can eventually doom them to permanent madness or death.
To heighten pacing during high-stakes scenarios, the book outlines formal rules for Initiative and Stress Events. When characters witness terrifying anomalies, violate their internal ideals, or face a betrayal, they immediately cede the initiative to the game master and must roll to protect their sanity. The inclusion of crisis clocks prevents players from lingering indefinitely at crime scenes, ensuring that the broader imperial factions actively advance their conspiracies while the party hunts for clues.
Overall
As I said at the start of this Candlelight Inquisition review – this is a fun TTRPG to some definition of “fun”. I enjoy the sombre stakes, the politics and the challenges. I also know I’m a member of some gaming groups who really would not take to the setting or gameplay. Therefore, I recommend it! If you’re looking to nudge outside your comfort zone or are already adept in the darkness of difficult choices, then the Inquisition might suit you.
The TTRPG will be available from some local game stores in Central Texas (support if you can), Studio 2, IPN, and later from DrivethruRPG.
Disclosure: Geek Native’s copy of Candlelight Inquisition was provided free for the purposes of review.
