The next Dungeons & Dragons book is an adventure anthology called Candlekeep Mysteries, which contains seventeen separate adventures that have been created by different authors. The author of one of these stories will be familiar to fans of streaming D&D shows, as Mark Hulmes of High Rollers and Nights of Eveningstar fame contributed an adventure called "The Price of Beauty" to Candlekeep Mysteries.
Candlekeep is a library city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting where scholars from around the world gather to share knowledge. The city will be familiar to fans of the Baldur's Gate series, as it played a large role in the story of the first game. Candlekeep Mysteries has seventeen adventures that are all tied to a book in the Candlekeep library. Each adventure has its own mystery that needs solving, and players will be sent to every corner of the Forgotten Realms in order to complete them.
Mark Hulmes recently spoke to Screen Rant about his "The Price of Beauty" adventure. "The Price of Beauty" involves a journey to a Temple of Sune, who is the goddess of love and beauty in the Forgotten Realms. Hulmes explained how he went from playing D&D on streams to writing part of its latest book, how his adventure gives players a chance to have their own beach episode, and how to write a mystery when all of the players have magical powers.
Today, we’re talking to Mark Hulmes, one of the authors of the upcoming D&D adventure anthology Candlekeep Mysteries. Mark’s adventure is called “The Price of Beauty”. So, tell us about the adventure you contributed to Candlekeep Mysteries.
I don't want to give too much away, because one of the big things with Candlekeep Mysteries is that they are all mysteries, and there is quite a few twists and turns in all of the adventures. The best way I can kind of sum up my adventure is your party will be asked to find a missing dwarven acolyte in the great library of Candlekeep, and that little adventure hook will start you on a journey which will lead you to an enchanted book, that will then take you to a magical day-spa, that's set in a mystical wood with a magical spring attached to it. You'll get to explore The Temple of the Restful Lily, which is a day-spa, and meet the inhabitants, the elven sisters who run it, and then a lot of the mystery will come out from there. I don't want to give too much away, but that's kind of the general premise of it all.
Now, you have a history with D&D, being the DM of the Nights of Eveningstar series. When were you first approached to work on Candlekeep Mysteries?
Yeah, so, I was approached to work on Candlekeep Mysteries by Bill Benham, who I'd met when we were doing a press tour event in Italy for Descent into Avernus, and a bunch of us, myself and Kim Richards from my D&D show High Rollers were invited as guests. Bill and a few of the folks from Wizards of the Coast were over there as well, and we just got talking about writing campaigns and homebrew and telling Bill about some of the things I'd done in my campaign.
Then, cut to a few months later and I had an email come in from Chris Perkins and Bill, saying "We'd like you to write on Candlekeep," and my first response was I wrote an email back saying "Hi, I think have you guys sent this to the wrong person." I wasn't quite sure if they'd actually sent it to the right person or not, or if my email got mixed in at some point. But they came back and said, "No, we'd really like to have your voice in it. We think that you're gonna bring something new and interesting to the team, and so we'd like to invite you to work on it." Which was a really huge honor for me personally. I've wanted to work on D&D and write D&D adventures for a very very long time.
How did the book come together? Did you collaborate directly with the other writers when coming up with your adventures, in order to stop people from using similar concepts and ideas?
No. So when we were approached, we were given an outline briefly, which was "We'd like you to create a mystery around a book in Candlekeep." We were given level ranges, we were given budgets for things like magical items and gold and things like that, and then it was kind of just a case of submitting a proposal of what we'd like to do. That was then taken in by Bill and Chris, who probably had to, like school teachers, go through and check everybody's work and make sure there weren't too many similar ideas and things. That came back and they were like "Yep, this is all approved, go ahead, give us your first draft." Wrote that out. First time I was about 4000 words over the limit, I had to cut it all down, and then submit it back to Bill and Chris, who gave me some initial feedback. I kind of worked on that, sent back a second draft that went to playtesters and editors, who then tweaked it a little bit more, then we got the final version of the book back later on.
What is the level range for the adventure?
So, my "Price of Beauty" adventure, I wrote it for a fifth-level party. A party of four to five fifth-level characters. You could probably adjust it on either end of that scale. You could maybe have a party that's a little bit lower or a little bit higher and it will still work out roughly the same.
The adventure involves an excursion Temple to Sune, who is the god of love and beauty in the Forgotten Realms. What was the inspiration for centering an adventure around Sune?
So, she's always been a goddess that I've loved as a player, like whenever I've looked at the Forgotten Realms. Like, she's not really used that much and I think that there's a lot of interesting things about that. In a world of magic and fantasy and all of these incredible races and lineages you can be, the idea of beauty, and I think that sometimes it can be mistaken as superficial beauty. There's a lot you can do there about love, you know, the love of the self, the love of your friends, the love of family, as well as romantic love, you know. The beauty of self-confidence and feeling good about yourself, the beauty of art. I think there's a lot of really interesting angles that aren't explored with her, and so, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to create an adventure that explored some of those things, obviously being called "The Price of Beauty," it's a lot about self-exploration and self-identity. As well as a little bit about how magic might influence that, make us feel about ourselves, things we might want to change and is it possible to go too far, you know? We live in a world of things like filters and apps that can make us look different, or change the way we are, you know, how bad could that get with magic and the things that could be temptations and offers to us there.
Did you pitch any other adventure ideas before settling on “The Price of Beauty”?
This was the first one I had. This was kind of like a strong idea I had in my mind. I really loved location-based adventures with strong themes. And so, the location I came up with and the concept that I had really stuck out to me. And it was just the first one I submitted and Wizards seemed to approve it and liked the idea, so I just ran with it.
Did you have the chance to come up with any unique monsters or magic items for the adventure?
Yes. So, there is a couple of little moments in there. There's a little bit of unique treasure. It's not particularly special, but the thing I think I'm most proud of is a very interesting NPC that I think will serve really well as the... I think DMs will get a lot out of them, you know, be able to really kind of go to town and really play them as vibrant characters. And then yeah, there's a couple of... there's a unique monster in there as well. But again, I don't want to give away too much.
What kind of playstyle does the adventure focus on? Will it be combat-heavy, will it feature a lot of role-playing, or does it use a lot of explorations and puzzles?
I would definitely describe it as a more roleplay-heavy adventure. The way that I kind of approached it is, this is almost a chance to give your party a filler episode. A beach episode. A break. It's kind of a funny idea about going to a magical day spa and getting embroiled up in something that's happening there. But, there's a lot of opportunities to talk to interesting NPCs.
It's like when there is downtime where the party can go shopping for magic items, or they've got a week in a town to get up to shenanigans and have fun. Those are some of my most favorite moments in D&D. And so, I wanted an adventure that gives the characters a lot of opportunities to shine as well. And I think that's definitely the focus. There is still combat and there's definitely still some exploration in there. There's a couple of interesting fights you can get yourself in and characters that like to explore can definitely find some secrets and maybe get some hidden clues and things like that. But yeah, this is definitely an adventure which is a great chance to let your characters unwind and maybe show off their personalities and get wrapped up in a cool mystery.
Like in Star Trek when they used to go the beach planet.
Yep, exactly. It's that kind of holodeck episode or your beach episode kind of thing. It's definitely meant to give you that kind of vibes and let your characters kind of get up some to shenanigans for a little bit.
All of the adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries are centered around mysteries. The problem is that they’re taking place in a D&D world, where characters have access to magic that can bend the rules of reality. This is a game with spells like identify, speak with dead, and zone of truth. How did you go about designing a mystery adventure in such a way that spellcasters can’t work it out straight away?
Well, I think that the challenging thing... That has always been a huge problem in D&D and I think that it comes down to a few level ranges, player creativity and as a DM, I personally love it when a creative player can use magic or abilities or skills in an interesting way, to give themselves an upper hand. And there's definitely a case of, you know, if player's use the right spells at the right times, they're definitely gonna learn some things.
I think one big trick is to make it so that sometimes figuring things out is the worst possible outcome. Where they suddenly realize how much trouble they're in or how complicated the situation is. And often, I think it comes down to proving that, you know, sometimes it's not just a case of "Well, we've figured out so and so is bad, but now we need to prove it to people who can give us the authority to do something about it." Or in the case of my adventure as well, it's deciding what you're gonna do with that information. Maybe you can figure out what the villain is up to, or maybe something that is being obfuscated or hidden away from whatever everyone else is supposed to know. What do you do next? I think that becomes the next challenge in the adventure, and that's where it leads to combat or awesome roleplaying and points from there. Also, good uses of clever villains spellcasting as well, villains aren't stupid, they know how to use things like mind blank and making sure their thoughts can't be read, and they're immune to zone of truth or scrying. Things like that can definitely up the ante and turn the tables back on the players as well.
Like in the old days, when they tried to do mysteries and everyone had an amulet of nondetection.
(Laughs) Yep, absolutely. The villains gotta have that prepared ring of mind shielding and amulets of nondetection or nondetection spells at the go. Yeah, and illusion magic is one of my favorite ones to use because that can really change things up and send the players on wild goose chases as well.
By the same token, does the adventure also guidance for DMs to help out the players if or when they get stuck?
I think with my adventure specifically, the way that I built, it's the kind of adventure where the player shouldn't really get stuck. It's a place to explore and they can get involved with it as much as possible. Ultimately, they're trying to find a missing person, and that should be fairly easy to do for any kind of adventuring party. I think that they won't particularly struggle, but there's a lot of big guidance at the start of the adventure about how to run the villains and some of the key traits in the mystery itself, which I think should be able to give DMs the edge they need if they do need to give the players a little nudge. There's quite a few NPCs as well, that are setup specifically to be allies to the party, who a DM could basically have them drop in and say "Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help to do this thing," and then that gives them like a really easy way to progress forward with the mystery.
Some older campaigns (like Tomb of Annihilation) could be quite prop-heavy. A lot of D&D players are still unable to meet in person to play. Did that factor into the design of the adventure at all? Was there any intent on making this easy to play on stream?
I wouldn't say necessarily like, changed to play on stream. I think that my natural way of running games, you know, I've been streaming D&D on Twitch and YouTube for five years now. So I think that I definitely automatically think in that regard of, you know, what's gonna be fun for viewers to watch. But also, you know, people playing on things like Zoom and stuff like that, because it is a bit more RP heavy, it's not like a grided combat dungeon crawl. I think that it's the kind of thing that works really well when you can just chat with your mates and roll some dice. I think that definitely helps us out in that regard. In terms of the tones and the themes, I think almost in a year of pandemic, the idea of going to a magical day spa and having a holiday with your mates will be quite appealing. I hope that comes through anyway.
Short adventures like the ones in Candlekeep Mysteries have become popular with groups around the world, as getting people together for extended campaigns can be difficult at the best of times. They’re also easy to use for one-off intro games at conventions. What advice would you give to DMs running “The Price of Beauty”?
My advice for people running "The Price of Beauty," for things like conventions or one-shots is, you know, focus on its more light-hearted elements. There's a lot of fun stuff in there as well. The key mystery of locating the missing dwarven acolyte is your main hook and there are NPCs that you can drop in if you're running short on time.
One thing I tend to do when running one-shots and things like that is giving myself a timer. If I'm running a two-hour game then set the timer for an hour and thirty minutes. When that timer goes off, that's the point where I just have an NPC literally drop into the party and say "Hey, I need your help, I know where this person is," or "I know where this item is located. I need you to come with me and we can go and get it and solve it now." I think that setting yourself timers like that is a good one.
But also, the whole point of this adventure is to let the players go off and do their own thing and have a laugh and get up to shenanigans. I think being flexible, being open to improvisation, and changing things up when you need to is definitely going to be key. The timer is definitely a big one that has helped me over the years for sure.
It’s likely that streaming games are still going to be an important part of D&D once the pandemic ends. How do you see this shaping the game going forward, both from an industry standpoint and a fan standpoint?
Well, it's such a fascinating topic. We've been doing this for a long time. I've been streaming and GM'ing and guested on all sorts of shows. One of the big things is, I think that's gonna continue to bring so many new people into the hobby. One of the common things that I hear whenever I go to conventions or when I meet fans of the show, or we get messages at the end of our streams. It's always "You guys helped get me into D&D," "I'm gonna start DM'ing for the first time this weekend," or "I'm gonna be playing for the first time this weekend because I've been watching you guys or watched Critical Role or Nights of Eveningstar."
I think that we're gonna continually see that, because, for the first time when I was growing up and played D&D, all you had was the books. You had the books and maybe if you were lucky, a friend who had played before who knew the rules. We had to teach ourselves the whole thing. Now, you can go on YouTube and you can watch other people play it, and that really dispels a lot of the myths, the mysteries, and the more negative aspects that pop culture has said about D&D and RPGs. And now you can see a bunch of fun people having a laugh, making jokes, being serious if they want to, having cool fights. You can learn from other DMs, you can see what other DMs are doing that you think "Oh, that's a really cool way of doing combat, that's a cool puzzle, I wanna use that." It's only going to help expand and grow the audience I think.
In terms of the industry, I think it's going to do a lot of good and shine lights on aspects of the game that need updates and need improvements. We're already seeing that, especially in fifth edition. Some of the legacy content that has always been in the game, just because, is having a light shined on it. We're saying "Hey, do we still wanna do this, is this still OK, is this still the best way of doing it." And I think that's gonna make it improve, especially the key part with this growth of the audience especially.
Wizards of the Coast recently announced that the entire Ravenloft campaign setting is coming back, in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. If you had to pick one of the old settings to return, which one would you want to bring back for fifth edition?
I think the D&D community would be very upset if I didn't say Spelljammer, because I know that's the biggest one that everybody wants. When I was getting into D&D, I came in at third edition. So for me, a lot of the older campaign settings really don't have as much grip on me. I never played Dark Sun, I never played Spelljammer, I didn't play Ravenloft until Curse of Strahd. The only one which I still have real childhood nostalgia for is Dragonlance because I read the books and they were one of my first introductions to fantasy, so I would love to see the Dragonlance setting come back for sure. But yeah, just because I love my sci-fi, mind flayer nautiloid ships, Spelljammer's one that I'd love to see tackled for a new era for sure.
Candlekeep Mysteries will be released on March 16, 2021.