As you set off building your own adventures within Candela Obscura, we recommend drawing from the same cultural Touchstones that inspired us.

Books: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern; Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee; Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman; Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz; A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab; Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley; the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Comics: Hellboy created by Mike Mignola; Bizenghast by M. Alice LeGrow; Constantine created by Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben; Department of Truth by James Tynion IV; The Invisibles by Grant Morrison

Films & TV: The Prestige by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan; As Above, So Below by John Erick Dowdle; Crimson Peak by Guillermo del Toro; Penny Dreadful by John Logan et al.; Ripper Street by Richard Warlow et al.; Arcane by Christian Linke and Alex Yee et al.

Video Games: The BioShock series by Ken Levine et al. from 2K Games; Bloodborne and Elden Ring by Hidetaka Miyazaki from FromSoftware

We would like to tip our hats to the TTRPG Blades in the Dark by John Harper from Evil Hat Productions. John’s work is an incredible inspiration both in mechanics and tone, and it is our great joy to count them as a friend. Should your investigators turn to a life of smuggling and thievery, we encourage you to take your circle to play among the scoundrels of Duskvol.

Additionally, Vaesen by Nils Hintze et al. from Free League is a game of beautiful Scandinavian lore. Though set within completely different worlds, we hope that the monsters of the Mythic North would find themselves at home among the creatures from beyond the Flare.