Critical Role Announces Candela Obscura, New Ongoing TTRPG Series and Game

Critical Role has announced its second ongoing tabletop RPG series, featuring a horror game made using one of Critical Role’s upcoming new TTRPG systems. Today, Critical Role announced Candela Obscura, a new ongoing monthly horror series that will launch on Critical Role’s Twitch channel later this year. The series is described as a drama “that follows an esoteric order of investigators as they use centuries of knowledge to fight back a mysterious source of corruption and bleed.” Each episode will feature an inciting incident that forces a team of investigators (described as a circle) to uncover and solve the mystery at hand. Unlike the flagship Critical Role series, Candela Obscura was designed to feature standalone episodes that viewers and listeners can pick up at any point. The first episode of Candela Obscura will be released on May 25th, with VOD and podcast versions to follow two weeks afterwards. 

Candela Obscura will use a new roleplaying game (also called Candela Obscura) that was designed using the Illuminated Worlds system due for release by Darrington Press later this year. Illuminated Worlds notably uses a D6 pool style of gameplay and Candela Obscura will be the first look at the new system and how it can be adapted by different styles of storytelling. A quickstart guide for Candela Obscura will be released on May 25th with a full rulebook to be released at the end of 2023. Candela Obscura was originally created by Critical Role co-founder Taliesin Jaffe and Chris Lockey, with Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall serving as lead designers and writers, and Steve Failows and Maxwell James as producers. 

The cast of Candela Obscura includes Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, Anjali Bhimani, and Robbie Daymond. Matthew Mercer will join as the first arc’s game master. Interestingly, the wording of the announcement suggests that the show will have a rotating cast of GMs, although Critical Role did not confirm when asked.

The new announcement is notable in that it marks Critical Role’s return to releasing multiple ongoing series and that it is the first Critical Role show to use a game system created and owned by Critical Role. Darrington Press, the game arm of Critical Role, recently announced both Illuminated Worlds and Daggerheart as new TTRPGs coming out in the near future and speculation has been rampant that Critical Role will depart Dungeons & Dragons for another game system with the conclusion of the third campaign.