Image by Miquel Utrillo; edited by me
Investigate the unfathomable in 1920s mystery. 🏳️🌈-friendly
Agents wanted for hazardous assignment. Constant danger, sworn secrecy, maddening horrors. Safe return doubtful. Become an unsung hero today.
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Wednesday - 5:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 2.5–3.5 hours
1 / 5 Seats Filled
Report Adventure
StartPlaying Money Back Guarantee
If your game doesn't happen, we guarantee a refund. Just reach out to StartPlaying Support. Refund Policy
Schedule
About the adventure
You have entered a gilded world of terrifying magick. You are now an investigator of the unknown. A bulwark against the supernatural. A sacrifice for the cause. Candela Obscura has recruited you. 🔍 Collect and connect clues. 👾 Endure eldritch horrors. 🌘 Find hope in a doomed world. 💀 Maybe, just maybe – survive… Second investigation starts on November 11th! Free Mini-Session-0 to onboard new players. ---- CAMPAIGN "Vulture of Avarice" You will portray investigators of the paranormal in a city inspired by an alternate vision of 1920s London. Your characters are also members of the secret society Candela Obscura, an ancient order sworn to exorcise magickal corruption. Together you will investigate murder cases of a highly magickal nature. In this campaign, a string of strange murders all point towards a single malevolent entity. While hunting it, your investigators are pushed to the limits of their mortal forms or even beyond. What is the light that keeps you going? How do you resist the corrupting allure of power and magick? HIGHLIGHTS ✨Learn to play. New system? No problem! I am a patient and passionate teacher. ✨LGBTQ+ inclusive. Unwelcoming to bigots of all stripes. ✨Immersive atmosphere Uniquely voiced NPCs and plentiful background music and illustrations. ✨Human art by real people. No generative AI in sight. GAME STYLE 🌆 Sandbox Mysteries You’ll collect clues to answer classic Whodunnit questions: Who? Why? How? The path you take to find your answers is entirely up to you. Which dark secrets will you uncover along the way? The world is beckoning with forbidden powers. 📖 Shared storytelling Players can shape this world as well. Invent places, people, history – and I will bring them to life for you. ⚔️ Conflict There is no tactical combat in this game. Violent conflict is resolved through narration and the occasional throw of the dice, just as any other moment of tension. 🤝 Cooperation I encourage team play at my table. It should go without saying, this is not a game for murder-hobos or for big egos who try to dominate the conversation. It is also not a game for people who want fantasies of racism or sexism. ❗Candela is a horror game, but the horror should not come from reliving real life trauma.❗ THEMES Horror – Like Call of Cthulhu, the horror in Candela Obscura revolves around the corrupting influence of a looming and inescapable evil. Hope in a Doomed World – Unlike much of the Lovecraftian mythos, Candela Obscura maintains that humanity has a future worth fighting for. All characters have some light that guides them. Maybe a strong conviction, maybe just a sliver of optimism they just can’t seem to shake. Classism – As always, the casual cruelty of the wealthy is the real horror.
Game style
Combat Lite
Roleplay Heavy
Sandbox / Open World
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
1 year on StartPlaying
34 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Inclusive
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
Hi, I’m Peter. An instigator of mirth and mischief. I believe in games that offer players agency and meaningful choices. I believe in kindness and generosity. Coziness and cooperation. You want a games with a dense atmosphere and a rich story? A story that is build from and shaped by your ideas? Look no further! Take a seat at my tables. Or contact me for a custom game. ________________________________________________________ Come on over and say "Hi!" on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/syrsapperlot.bsky.social Pretty things for Daggerheart: https://starlitarchivesgames.substack.com ________________________________________________________ 🎇Highlights Evocative theater of the mind, Immersive voice-acting, music and illustrations. Story-focused & player-driven. No railroads in sight. Kindness and inclusivity ________________________________________________________ 🎭Experience 25+ years of public performance, including: * Teaching at universities for 7 years; * Acting in 10 theatre performances (plus various smaller projects); * Directing 3 theatre performances (plus various acting workshops); * GMing 50+ TTRPG convention games across a dozen game systems. On occasion: DJing; Model United Nations; Literature and poetry performance. ________________________________________________________ 🖼️Trivia about me I’ve spend years living in Germany, the UK, Central Asia and Russia. Also, a few months in South Korea. Once, I bought a hat on top the Great Wall of China. Once, I made a campfire to stave of the bitter Siberian winter. Didn’t help. Once, I ripped my trousers on stage mid-performance. Once, I directed an Austrian stage play at a Kyrgyz night club. Once, I played Santa at a Christmas market hosted by a German embassy. I have yet to reach the shores of my imagination. ________________________________________________________ ❣️Things I love: All things pen and paper and polyhedrons; Traveling on the Trans-Siberian railway; My music collection (digital and physical); The Theatre, both as audience and performer. ________________________________________________________ Where does the name ‘Sapperlot’ come from? ‘Sapperlot’ is an old-timey German way of expressing surprise or amazement, like ‘Blimey!’ in British, or ‘Holy Smokes!’ in American English.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
During session zero we will create a team of investigators together. Players can choose from ten different archetypal character options (e.g. “The Explorer” or “The Professor”), each with their own set of special features. You can then customise those basic archetypes to you heart’s delight. For example, is your Explorer more of a boisterous daredevil, or more of a sly sewer-rat?
Currently the Circle of the Broken Dawn consists of a veteran Doctor, an aristocratic Explorer and a haunted Medium.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You will need a free Alchemy account. I recommend downloading the desktop app. A browser version is also available. Communication between sessions will take place in Discord.
What Peter Sapperlot brings to the table
⭕Session Zero --> A conversation about safety at the table; --> Learning the rules of the game and testing they in the virtual table top; --> Creating a team of investigators together. 💡Learn-to-play Candela Obscura is light on rules and I’ll teach you all you need to know in less than 30 minutes! I am an experienced and patient teacher. Should you be new to Candela or to the Alchemy VTT I’ll gladly guide you through all the steps and answer all your questions. (You are new to roleplaying games in general? Hop on in, Candela is easier to learn than D&D, for sure!) 🎭Voice Acting I am bringing over a decade of theatre experience to the table, onstage as well as offstage. I have fun portraying a diverse cast of characters and bringing them to live with a wide range of voices. 🎇Immersive Atmosphere I offer a fully immersive gaming experience in Alchemy VTT. This VTT covers all our virtual gaming needs in one neat package. It is no longer necessary to switch between different browser windows and maybe get lost in distraction on the way. Focus on the game you want to play. Helping with the immersion into the theatre of the mind is a selection of background illustrations and ambient music. 🌆Sandbox-style Candela Obscura’s world building is brimming with secrets to discover. In the city of Newfaire, where our story takes place, you can go anywhere and try anything. At the same time, the setting truly shines when interwoven with your ideas. Similarly, you can follow the story’s suggested path or trailblaze solutions and problems that I could never have dreamt of. 🗺️The World of Candela Obscura Characters live in a gilded world inspired by the real-world 1920s. Ostentatious wealth and maniacal merriment reign at the top of society. Their riches are fuelled by misery and backbreaking labour at the bottom. And unbeknownst to most, magick threatens to devour it all. In the world of Candela Obscura, magick is a corrupting force. It taints the souls and spoils the bodies of all those exposed to it. In secret, Candela Obscura protects the world from magickal corruption, fights incursions from the beyond and drives all magick back to whence it came.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Headphones
Platforms used
Safety
How Peter Sapperlot creates a safe table
The internet is dark and full of terrors. I wish to carve out a tiny enclave of safety and inclusion for all of you at my table. During a Session 0 we will address expectations and wishes for the campaign. We will also determine topics or tropes players do not want to encounter in their stories, so called Lines (hard boundaries) and Veils (topics that can be implied, but should not be spotlighted). During weekly sessions I will maintain an Open Door Policy. There won’t be any hard feelings or explanations needed, should you ever wish to leave the table – temporarily or permanently. Furthermore, Alchemy offers an X-card feature. Leaving is a measure of last resort. Preferably, players use the X-card to indicate when something in the narrative makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. In the middle of every session, there will be short break for everyone to recharge. Before and after every session there will be short check-in, an opportunity for anyone to share how they are holding up – with regards to the game as well as in real life. As a player, I never liked tables where everybody just dashes away after the curtain falls, like a flock of very nervous birds. Sharing, naturally, always remains optional. As part of that aftercare, I will use Stars&Wishes. At the end of each session, players can award a Star to highlight a moment, other player or NPC. I will then encourage everyone to express a Wish, something they would like to see change in future sessions, or an idea they would like to become part of the shared narrative. I strongly believe in trust as the fundamental pillar of any ttrpg game. Without trust creativity can’t flourish, let alone any collaborative storytelling. Therefore, I will always strive to be a patient teacher, an attentive listener and an inclusive, non-judgemental host.
Content warnings
Safety tools used