Critique of the Candlekeep Mysteries: a D&D book that belongs to every Dungeon Master bookshelf

In recent years, Dungeons & Dragons books have verged on the formula. There are a lot of narratives or heavy rule content in the front, so some appendages full of monsters, spells and magic items in the back. It has been a winning formula, for sure, pushing the original RPG to new heights. But it has also become somewhat obsolete.

Mysteries of the candle it is completely different. Inside, you will find 17 new adventures by 20 different authors, each of which can serve as a starting point for a homemade campaign or an interlude between published adventures. But, perhaps more than any other book in the 5th edition of D&D, Mysteries of the candle makes room for dreaming. It is a set of one-shots – adventures that can be performed in a single session – but it is also a set of tools and tricks that can be placed in almost any environment you can imagine. This makes it a resource that every Dungeon Master (DM) should have in his bookshelf.

The presumption behind Mysteries of the candle is that it is a book full of other books, each taken from the shelves of a fictional library in Forgotten Realms, the main setting for this edition of D&D. It starts with a robust preamble that describes the layout and customs of the candle holder. There is also a beautiful poster-sized map of your boundaries at the back of the book. But exactly where these books are hidden in the world is not really important. Publisher Wizards of the Coast is careful to encourage DMs to place the library and / or its collection anywhere they want – including in the world of Exandria, home to the new popular scene created by Matt Mercer for Critical Role, but also Eberron and Greyhawk.

Each of the chapters in Mysteries of the candle is named after a fictional book title and each includes all the new content you need to run a single game for two to four hours with your friends. Of course, you will need three other basic D&D books to conduct these adventures – the Player’s Book, a Monster Manual, and the Master’s Guide.

The titles of the books in Mysteries of the candle alone are enough to stir your imagination, including jewelry like Mazfroth’s powerful tours, Lore of Lurue, The Book of Inner Alchemy, and The joy of extra-dimensional spaces. But these are not just books to be pulled off the shelf and devoured with the roll of a single dice. Many are complex magical artifacts with which players’ characters will interact 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 one is treated as an object with its own story. This makes each book a different character in the adventure. Each receives a written description and an illustration, excellent news for anyone who invests in props for their campaigns. There are some, I think, that could even have a good life as handmade products on Etsy – especially one that involves several cylinders that must be rolled up on top of moist clay to move the narrative.

The adventures themselves are tremendous and feature some of the best writing in this generation of D&D. The complications they present are a delight, including an incomplete bookstore with an even more incomplete collection of employees; an abandoned mining village with a sinister secret; a haunted house trapped in an alternative dimension; and an earworm so toxic that it forces players to quarantine. The last adventure, involving the earworm, is actually quite clever. The book at the center of the meeting is actually an elaborate clock mechanism, the complexities of which are mirrored by the elaborate social interactions of the adventure. There is almost no combat. Instead, it forces the DM to assume the role of several NPCs. It is up to the characters of the players to reveal things, mainly through dialogue.

A chapter, entitled “Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion” by Amy Vorpahl, made me laugh out loud as I read it. It is totally ridiculous, to go so far as to introduce technologies that, even given the powerful spells at play within the Forgotten Realms, would be blown up if they were lost. Of course, in D&D the Master is always in control. From this perspective, an adventure that causes all hell to break free is a resource, not a bug.

In addition to writing, art direction in Mysteries of the candle it is exceptionally strong. The chapters include works by different artists, giving each one a totally different look from the next. In contrast, the maps presented throughout the book are simple, almost unadorned. This is clearly intentional, as it makes them easy to lift and re-theme to an entirely different environment. It also makes this book an excellent resource for DMs who went digital during the pandemic.

For avid readers of a different kind – that is, people who love to buy RPG books and read them like other people would do a novel – there is another layer of fun. Spread throughout this set of adventures are a series of subtle nods to the campaigns of the previous 5th edition, including Storm King’s Thunder and Curse of Strahd. Even while opening new narrative paths, Mysteries of the candle I can’t help but blink and nod to the rest of the 5th edition canon.

Although structurally an outlier, Mysteries of the candle however, it fits perfectly with the rest of the material in the 5th edition. I’m excited to see where the players are going from here.

Mysteries of the candle arrives on March 16. A special alternative art cover designed by Simen Meyer, is only available at your local friendly game store and on Amazon. Digital versions of the material are also available for the D&D Beyond toolkit, for Fantasy Grounds and on the Roll20 platform.

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Mysteries of the candle has been revised with a pre-release copy of the books provided by Wizards of the Coast. Vox Media has partnerships with affiliates. This does not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.