Travel far beyond the boundaries of Hale in Beyond the Lighthouse, an unofficial Candela Obscura supplement bringing three brand-new countries, factions, and 20 ready-to-play modules!
I am, as always, a sucker for character creation options and so while there is a lot of incredible content in Beyond the Lighthouse in terms of the countries, their history, traditions, and the notable persons living within them, what I really wantto get into is its factions.
In Beyond the Lighthouse, new factions such as The Exoteric Order of New Sciences (EONS), the Red Hand, and the Ardent give players new opportunities to approach the game in unique ways. I’ve always appreciated that Candela Obscura’s Circles automatically give everyone at the table a shared starting point, but what if you weren’t a Circle, but a Cacophony – a group where characters are from a mix of factions, sharing a goal, but with different and sometimes competing interests?
How does it play out when you are sent out on assignment, and the member from EONS is set on new ways of combining Magick and Science, while the one from the Red Hand is most focused on securing Magickal and Bleed Artefacts? How does the table juggle different priorities of the factions they are tied to? When in direct conflict with one another’s interests, how will the Cacophony resolve the matter along with everything else they are facing? What if someone’s interests change over the course of play, and they become a member of a different faction? What if someone everyone believed was a member of one faction, was actually a spy from another the whole time?
See? It’s fun to think about! Worth noting that you do not need to do this – everyone can be from the same faction, but if you want to mix things up a bit, the option is there. And it’s tempting.
Of the new factions, The Ardent caught my attention most. Shocking, I know, that the secret society working in the shadows is the one I was most drawn to. Surely nobody saw that coming! This faction is one specifically tied to the Kingdom of Sienne, one of the three new countries introduced in this supplement.
Briefly, The Ardent are a sect within the Order of Light – the dominant faith in the Kingdom of Sienne – and members range in role and status. In addition to not being publicly known, they have a reputation with the other factions as being religious fanatics, unquestioningly loyal to both the Queen, and their faith. Now, they are dedicated to Queen Imogen, and there’s an excellent reason for it! A reason which goes well beyond the fact that she is the one who personally inducts each individual who joins this faction. (Queen Imogen as a character herself is quite compelling, I’m interested in seeing how different people will portray her at their tables.)
As a faction, the Ardent deal with phenomena best described as supernatural threats. In the course of their duties, they balance their desire to protect Sienne, its people, and the environment. Over time, these priorities have allowed the Ardent to contribute significantly to the advancement of gear and devices used to purify Bleed, and convert it back into Magick. This approach reflects a wider difference in the understanding of Bleed in Sienne, and I am, personally, quite a fan of the idea that how places that aren’t Hale would have developed in their own unique ways, and approach the same problem – Bleed – differently as a result. It makes the world as a whole feel richer, and the love for Newfaire show in this supplement bleeds (ha) through the pages.
If I was to play a member of this faction – keeping in mind that I have yet to play a Candela Obscura game, I’m working on it – I would select the Tidebinder speciality, whose role is the Face. Tidebinders in Sienne are healers with knowledge passed down through generations who understand, among other things, that good food and company is medicine. Their abilities include things like “the dose makes the poison,” which, once per assignment, allows you to make a poisons kit out of your medicinal supplies, and “open hearted,” which, once per assignment, allows you further insight into the pain, sorrow, or suffering driving a phenomenon or person.
Of the new chorus (circle) abilities presented, I’m keen on “We Learn from Each Other” as it allows characters to gain abilities from outside their speciality upon advancement. I’m always interested in ways to make my characters a little different than usual, and what better way to do so than grabbing an ability from a different specialty?
Beyond the Lighthouse also comes with several modules, and what immediately struck me here is that there is a Motivations section for them. Earlier, I mentioned that factions might have competing interests, and the Motivations in the modules brings those to life. I’ve read a lot of games where, when describing the setting and various organizations at play, it will be shared that some of them are rivals, butt-heads over how XYZ is done, etc., without actually bringing that back… anywhere. It is left to the person facilitating the game to weave that in as they see fit, and flesh out the motivations of a faction in any given situation as best they see fit. Beyond the Lighthouse is giving them to you, helping to flesh out the world even more and, in my opinion, really underscoring the care that has gone into the factions and their differing approaches when it comes to dealing with all manner of phenomena in Sienne.
It made me excited! I like the idea of flipping through modules to gather the motivations of a given faction in order to gain an even deeper understanding of what makes them tick. I think this is especially useful if you wind up creating new modules for your table and want to introduce some of the factions brought to life in this book. For me, having these so clearly presented gives me a more comprehensive knowledge base to draw upon, and one that is easy to reference. What can I say? I love examples, and translating “set on new ways of combining Magick and Science” into “we need to recover our scientific equipment so we aren’t caught having been near this artefact… which we also want to capture and experiment with/on,” makes it much more concrete. Seeing how the goals of the factions show up in actuality is good fun, and getting to witness the different ways the faction goals have been interpreted in each module is a treat in itself.
If you want to bring your Candela Obscura game Beyond the Lighthouse(‘s) glow, this is the supplement for you. It offers a rich expansion of the world of Newfaire, and a fascinating dive into countries far – in some cases a 70 day journey by sea far – away from Hale. With new factions, specialties, 20 new modules, all packaged together with three new countries, Beyond the Lighthouse is a fresh take on the world of Newfaire, and one which I think effectively answers the question of what has been going on elsewhere in the world.
You can find Beyond the Lighthouse funding on Backerkit until November 2, 2025.
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