I'm the kind of GM who improvises a lot, and even I still get caught spending hours looking for fitting background music, or writing interesting story beats for the next adventure. Quest and Candle was founded to take some of that pressure off, while making your game night more memorable in the process.
Whether you're running Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Draw Steel, or Distal (that's my game!) it's all good. Here's how we help:
1. We write up one-shot, system-agnostic, fantasy quests. No AI nonsense, just good old fashioned elbow grease... and Google Docs, I guess.
2. As a part of the quest, we also put together a thematic hand-out, in the form of a note, with a wax seal that's broken at game time. It'll have either a tangible piece of the quest, or some thematic read-aloud paragraph to give your players something tactile to explore.
3. Then we develop a scented (soy wax) candle that evokes the experience we want you to have. Sometimes we'll start from the candle side, if we've got a good idea for one, and work backward from the scent to build out the quest.
4. Then we head over to Spotify to curate two playlists fitting the experience. One for the calm, or exploration-related moments, and a second one for combat.
5. You, as the GM, read the one-page session notes, and pick out some monsters from your favorite game system that fit the descriptions presented. Quests intend to have some exploration, puzzle solving, and combat, but this isn't a hard rule.
Here are a handful of questions that some folks might want the answers to.
+ What TTRPG systems are supported?
We write system-agnostic fantasy quests right now, so more broad fantasy systems, like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Distal, are all fair game. If you niche down into something like the Witcher TTRPG or The One Ring, you'll probably need to do more interpretation to get things to make sense.
+ How long do the quests take?
This will vary from quest to quest, but an average of two hours. Longer if you're dropping it into an existing campaign or are herding cats, shorter if the party mainly cares about the combat.
+ How does a candle/handout/playlist help?
Text messages vibrating in our pockets, small children careening down the hallways. Maintaining focus can be difficult. Setting the tone by sight, scent, sound, and touch acts as a force multiplier when you (the GM) are trying to bring people back into the moment.
+ What's the turnaround time to ship a candle?
In short, two weeks or less, depending on the stock available. When a candle is poured, it needs to settle for two weeks so that the oils and wax play nice. At the same time, we're a wee little startup (just two folks) with limited resources and a basement to make stuff in. So there's a juggling act between purchasing more materials to make the candles and ship them, and ensure we've got enough stock on the shelves to settle for the time they need. When we've got a better handle on what folks are most interested in purchasing, and when we'll need to re-up inventory, I'm sure our turnaround time will go down some.
+ Where do you purchase your candle wax and scents from?
Our fragrances and soy candle wax are from Candle Science, but we're starting to look at other sites for fragrances to broaden our horizons. And because of the cost, fml.
Where do you purchase your candle jars from? - We mainly (at the moment) get glass from Fillmore Containers. While the pricing is reasonable, the shipping is like another 33% on top of what you're buying, so we're looking for alternatives here as well.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
-Wrel