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Unfortunately, at least for my averages, Candlewick Manor is just that bloody good.
Benjamin Baugh, RPG.net's own Bailywolf, has officially joined Greg Stolze as RPG authors who I'd read for the sake of reading. The narrative voice is clear, interesting, and delights in putting across the kind of grimly victorian vibe as suits Candlewick Manor down to the ground. Examples are available in the samples to be found at the link above, but you have to love any book that has such sidebar titles as "It Tastes of Burning!" "My Momma is a Pine Tree?" and "Your Strange Customs Make Me Feel Itchy and Uncomfortable."
However, for the uninitiated, I'll back up the truck. The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor is a followup and semi-sequel to a game called Monsters and Other Childish Things. (Reviews available here and here. Apologies for the formatting in the second link, the contents of the first paragraph are located in a response I made at the bottom.) Monsters is about children and the monsters from outside space and time who are their friends. Candlewick Manor extends this idea by placing the players in the roles of hapless, miserable orphans not untouched by the strange themselves, in a town with as many monsters of the human variety as any other.
The Book Itself.
For the record, because some folks are interested in these things, I purchased the Print+PDF bundle from IPR. The book is a very well constructed glossy softcover, with great cover-art from Robert Mansperger, and feels solid in the hand. Correspondingly, the PDF is a good one and easily legible on-screen.
The only typos of note distinguish themselves by their immateriality - where they exist at all, they are incredibly minor.
You do need Monsters and Other Childish Things to get the most from Candlewick Manor - but they're both highly recommended, at least by me.
On To Actual Content!
The book opens with a discussion of the kinds of stories designed to work in Candlewick Manor, and holds to the entertaining but clear narrative voice established in MaoCT. Here's an example: "The mystery of the question 'Who am I?' is as much a part of a Candlewick game as 'What is that?' and 'Oh God, is it getting closer?' and 'Who mauled and ate my best friend’s leg?'" And it's entirely true. Candlewick Manor does work in many ways that are not at all what I expected, and is much improved by these differences.
The PCs are left with a strategic lack of definition at the beginning of the game, all the better for such gaps to be filled in during play. They have, instead of Relationships from MaoCT, Echoes which are evocative fragments of memory that the PCs themselves don't understand. Some given examples are "Aching Knuckles," "The Taste of Sour Pickles" and "Birdsong and Night." There is an elegant and interesting system in place for Echoes, where the player and the GM might find the tables shifting in mid-play. Echoes aren't set ahead of time, they're generated during the game - becoming Relationships with the People, Places and Things of Candlewick Vale. Which means that it's entirely possible for you to discover that your nemesis, who you are currently fighting to the death, is also your long-lost sister who you never knew you had. Meanwhile of course, she's still trying to shank you in the trousers, because she hasn't figured that out. Or maybe she doesn't care. The fun part? That's a surprise for the GM as much as for the player. And as a GM, this sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.
Character generation rules are as succinct as they are interesting, involving the asking of questions about how you see yourself versus how you're seen, for example. Additionally, the orphan PCs are particularly unlovable because they all have something creepy about them that sets them apart - even as it grants them eerie powers.
The rules for Creepy Power creation will be familiar to people who've read Monsters and Other Childish Things: the PCs have something of a monster about them.
Already there's a lot of potential conflict on the table: The PCs are outcasts, isolated children in an environment that simultaneously dismisses and distrusts children - let alone children who are weird, and who might be able to do unwholesome things... such as learning about all of Candlewick Vale's terrible little secrets.
Life in the Vale.
I have to admit that this is one of the sections where Candlewick Manor diverges from what I expected. It's not a campaign book in the traditional sense, to any extent at all. It provides a hugely detailed sandbox, and all of the tools you could want to create a campaign in it.
Chapter 3 is entirely about running a Candlewick game, and details this process. The PCs are set loose in the environment, and any direction they go in will lead to Adventure! (Physician's Note: Horrible maimings and emotional trauma may also apply.)
Chapter 3 is short but sweet, detailing the thematic approach that the concept suggests, and the best ways of making it happen. Along with that, there are notes about Monsters. Monsters work slightly differently than in Monsters and Other Childish Things, for one thing being slightly more vulnerable to (and wary of) torch-wielding mobs. And just as the PCs start out without Relationships or with Monster friends, so too do the Monsters start out alone. And dangerous. But that shouldn't stop them being susceptible to a big old hug... right? There is a sidebar on Page 31 that contains the Awesome supply of several other whole game concepts in crystalline form, but I'll let you discover that for yourselves.
Chapters 4 and 5 are two of the largest in the book, detailing the characters and places of Candlewick Vale. There are something akin to 50 NPCs with their own tangled web of interests and passions here - and to which the PCs might find themselves suddenly and inconveniently linked during play. Comedy gold! All of the write-ups are evocative and drip story-hooks. Much thought has been put into the Candlewick Vale environment, too. Not a section of it lacks terrible possibilities for enlightenment and/or peril, including pirate treasure, prohibition bootleggers, and forest mining camps pressing into the territory of slumbering Things.
Such as the Monsters covered in Chapter 6. All of the monsters have a place where they dwell, lurk, or hang out. They're further examples of Mr. Baugh's fluency and imagination when it comes to creating beautifully horrible things that are also funny and touching using the system showcased in MaoCT. Anyone seeking more excellent examples, if the ones provided in MaoCT weren't enough, can apply directly herein.
Chapter 7 is about The January Boys, a selection of pregenerated characters that are also available as a free sample at page linked at the top of the review. They're funny, they're sad, they positively drip with potential.
Chapter 8 is a One Roll Mystery generator specifically angled at Candlewick Manor. The book explores using them in two different ways: Firstly, they can be used to generate the core mysteries of a campaign before the campaign begins. Alternatively, they can be used to generate the mysteries during the game, and have systems included for integrating this process into normal game mechanics. I practically itch to try em out, although this is a section that Mr. Baugh himself notes might not be for everybody.
Delicious Conclusions.
Candlewick Manor is a very good book. Its authorial voice is funny, clearly comprehensible, and invites you into the world of the game as much as it does to the world of the author: it feels like Mr. Baugh had a lot of fun writing this, and it's infectious.
As noted earlier, the samples available at the top link should give you a feel for whether that tone is going to be your sort of fun.
One flipside to its sandbox nature which I'll note is that there are secrets I really want to know more about. It doesn't really count as a downside, since it basically means I'd read prose novels set in Candlewick Vale in a heartbeat... But essentially, if you like getting The Skinny On Everything before running a campaign, this isn't going to be quite what you're looking for. On the other hand, campaign ideas practically write themselves as you read it, or at least they did for me.
In the end, I can't think of a better summary than this: While reading Candlewick Manor, my girlfriend checked on me repeatedly. Why? On at least one occasion I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, on others I was described as producing "Wicked cackling," and "Unsettling 'Oohing' noises."
Don't you want to see what noises this book will prompt from you?
- The Unshaven.
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