Characters / Candela Obscura

The Circle of the Vassal and the Veil

Auggie

August "Auggie" James

Played by: Ashley Johnson

Role: Slink

Speciality: Criminal

A paperboy from the Steel who got involved with Candela Obscura after witnessing the supernatural death of one of his friends.

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• The Artful Dodger: He's quite cheerful despite being a homeless young man and he manages to go by juggling between legal work and petty criminal activities.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Barely an adult at nineteen years old. It doesn't stop him from carrying his weight in the circle.
  Howard: Candela is recruiting fetuses now, are we?
• The Heart: As the youngest and least experienced with the supernatural member of the circle, Auggie is also the only one who doesn't have a Dark and Troubled Past. Each time they take a serious mental blow, he is quick to make sure that his friends are alright.
• Impersonating an Officer: In the second session, Auggie steals the gun and badge of an unconscious Periphery captain. He holds onto both, and in the third session he successfully uses the badge to convince a railroad station attendant that he's an officer of the law.
• Naïve Newcomer: He is the only character of the first chapter that starts the campaign without being affiliated with Candela and he had no knowledge of the supernatural side of Newfair before being a direct witness of an accident.
• Street Smart: His main asset. While not stupid by any means, he is the least educated member of the circle but makes up for it through cunning and guile.

Charlotte Eaves

Charlotte Eaves

Played by: Anjali Bhimani

Role: Face

Speciality: Magician

An entertainer from the Red Lamp District. She has the most experience with Candela of the Circle, having worked for them for over ten years.

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• The Face: Literally her role in the party. She is quite charismatic and can easily sway her target either through acting, seduction or simply persuasion.
• Handicapped Badass: She loses control of her right hand after taking a scar during chapter 2. It doesn't stop her from learning to use the Ghost Blade to take on the Snatcher in chapter 3.
• Magicians Are Wizards: She is a Stage Magician and mainly relies on her charisma and tricks, but when push comes to shove, she can conjure some genuine magick, at a price.
• Miss Kitty: She runs the Sight Unseen, in the Red Lamp District of Newfair.
• Parental Substitute: Charlotte takes a maternal interest in Auggie, and is protective of him to the point that she regrets his choice to join Candela.

Arlo Black

Arlo Black

Played by: Laura Bailey

Role: Weird

Speciality: Occultist

The only child of the wealthy Black family. She developed a keen sense for the Bleed after a certain accident and works with Candela in hopes to discover what happened to a certain person.

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• Brutal Honesty: She often states what goes through her mind without care to be hurtful. Charlotte notes it as an asset for the group.
• Car Fu: Faced with a warehouse door that's sealed shut by ice, Arlo's idea for how to force it open is to look around for a nearby car to ram into it.
• Cassandra Truth: She is entirely honest about her daily occupation to her family's servants but they dismiss her supernatural adventures her being a Ms. Imagination.
• Cast from Hit Points: She can use a Forbidden Ritual to invoke powerful magick by taking an immediate scar.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Arlo has a softspoken, somewhat spacey demeanor and her perspective on the world can seem rather off-kilter due to her lack of social skills and her keen interest in and contact with the Flare. She only gets odder as the story goes on and she accumulates Scars due to continued exposure to more and more Bleed.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: When she gains her second Scar, the unhealing wound in her corrupted right hand widens and manifests a glowing orange eye resembling that of the Snatcher that she and her Circle are fighting.
• Prophet Eyes: She gains a pair of black, pupilless eyes after taking her third scar as the result of her final Forbidden Ritual against the Snatcher. It spreads the greyed part of her skin to her face, granting her vision within the Flare.
• The Right Hand of Doom: Her right hand is entirely grey and cracked. She usually wears a glove to conceal it. After she used her Forbidden Ritual in the sewers, her scar manifested by expanding the surface covered by the grey skin.

Howard Margrove

Dr. Howard Margrove

Played by: Robbie Daymond

Role: Scholar

Speciality: Professor

A professor of philosophy at Briar Bank College, in Newfair. He often worked with Candela in the past and is already familiar with some of the secrets of Oldfaire.

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• Absent-Minded Professor: He gets easily distracted by his interest in the supernatural and doesn't really pay attention to what people say about him.
• The Big Guy: He has an impressive physique for a professor and can easily knock people with a single hit.
• Body Horror: Howard performs a trepanation surgery on himself (i.e. removes a small section of bone from his own skull) as the scar resulting from his fourth brain mark. As he puts it, all he needed was "to expand [his] mind".
• Genius Bruiser: Despite being the circle of the Vassal and the Veil's sole Scholar, he is also their best fighter, being quite effective at knocking out people with both brass knuckles and a blackjack.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the final encounter with the Snatcher, Howard finds himself the last member of the Circle still standing with no real options to take the creature down. He opts to light his hand axe on fire and charge the Snatcher head-on, using this suicidal charge as a last-ditch effort to tear Arlo's stolen face from it in the hopes that doing so will revive her. The gamble pays off and gives Arlo a chance to take the Snatcher down using her Forbidden Ritual skill.
• No Social Skills: He's known as a loner by his colleagues at the College. It is implied that he has no relationships whatsoever beyond his fellow circle members.
• Professor Guinea Pig: He has little regard for his own security, often putting himself in harm's way to satisfy his curiosity, even going full Body Horror in the second episode when he drills inside his own skull after taking his fourth brain mark.

The Circle of Needle and Thread

Nathaniel Trapp

Nathaniel Trapp

Played by: Travis Willingham

Role: Face | Slink

Speciality: Journalist | Detective

The youngest son of a wealthy family working in the railroad industry. He served as a lieutenant during the war and now works as a reporter for the Civil Tribune.

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• Blank White Eyes: His right eye becomes this due to the scar received in the first episode. He wears a blue contact to conceal it.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to his unnamed brother's Abel. His death was an accident, but he still blames himself for it, and so does his father.
• Calling the Old Man Out: An understated but lethally cutting example in the note Nathaniel writes to his father when the Circle sends Lucas Suarez to shelter at the Trapp residence:
  "Take care of this one as though he were one of your own, if that's something you know how to do."
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Passes out after drinking half a glass of bourbon.
• Cowardly Lion: Nathaniel calls himself a coward, wholeheartedly agreeing with Beatrix's critic of his character but as she recognize herself, his actions speak louder than his words and he always rises up to support his circle member.
• The Face: His role within the Circle, at least at first. As a Journalist, almost all of his abilities revolve around talking his way through things. This changes in the latter half of the second session.
• The Gloves Come Off: After things go pear-shaped in the second session, Nathaniel loads a pair of pistols into the empty holsters he's been wearing from the start of the campaign, signaling his shift from The Face who relies almost entirely on words to the more combat-ready role of the Detective.

Auntie Bee

Beatrix Monroe

Played by: Marisha Ray

Role: Slink

Speciality: Criminal

An old widow working at the Grayslate Sanatorium. She is an old friend of Sean's mother.

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• Cool Old Lady: Downplayed as she is only 55, but she looks (and acts) the part.
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Often complains about her hernia.
• The Heart: She is a non-combatant, a surrogate mother for two members of the circle and a mentor figure for a third. Nathaniel is the only one she doesn't have a close relation to, due to her scorn regarding his involvement in Sean's brothers' deaths. She eventually comes to recognize that he is as much a victim of the war as they were.
• Inspirational Insult: She coldly admonishes Sean when he's wallowing in Angst after his encounter with Lucas during the second episode. It doesn't take it well at first, but it comes from a place of love, and he comes to understand that.
• Mercy Kill: In the second session, she suffocates Draven Kingsley, who has been horrifically maimed by a shapeshifter beyond Jean's ability to help. As she prepares to do so, she notes she's had to do this before, presumably for fatally injured soldiers during the war.
• Shoot the Dog: Bee twice takes it upon herself to kill in order to spare other members of her Circle the burden. In the second session, she delivers the Mercy Kill to Draven Kingsley when it becomes clear there's no way to save him but Jean can't bring herself to accept it; in the third, she's the one who delivers the fatal blow to Sean.
• Younger Than They Look: Her art makes her look like she's well into her 70s but she's in fact only in her mid-50s. This may be the result of a rough life aging her prematurely, as she's been through quite a lot over the years and currently has to scrape to make ends meet.

Sean Finnerty (SPOILERS)

Sean Finnerty

Played by: Brennan Lee Mulligan

Role: Muscle

Speciality: Soldier

A veteran who served with Marion and under Nathaniel. He lost his two brothers during the war and his mother was put in a sanatorium under dubious circumstances.

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• Anti-Villain: A tragic exemple. He was on a path trying to be The Atoner for his crimes during the war. Still, his mother being locked in a sanatorium by a corrupt doctor, his war trauma going untreated and his Candela assignments adding additional pressure eventually made him crack and led to his downfall.
• The Big Guy: The resident Muscle of the Circle of the Needle and Thread. He's adept both with firearms and in hand-to-hand combat and always reacts quickly to danger.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he mercilessly disposes of those who wronged him.
• Death Seeker: Subtle but his war trauma seems to manifest as this. When Sean is fighting the squid dogs to buy some time for his friends, Brennan notes that if it were not for Nathaniel’s order to run, he would instead have kept fighting until death ensued.
• He Who Fights Monsters: As the circle’s Big Guy, he often gets physical with the eldritch horrors Candela fights, but coupled with his existing war trauma, the effects on his psyche are not for the best.
  Shapeshifter: I’m like you!
  Sean: No shit, I’m a monster too!
• Hollywood Action Hero: Checks all the marks. Hell, his entire introduction sequence wouldn’t be out of place in an Indiana Jones movie.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Doesn’t even notice he’s been badly bitten by the squid dogs before Jean points it out.
• Music for Courage: As the circle enters the underground tunnels, he starts singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game to lighten the mood.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Back when he served in the NoMAD corps during the war, he was sent on a mission to eliminate a supernatural threat and, following those orders, executed a dozen of children.
• Personal Horror: He despises himself for the above action. During the second episode, he receives a letter from his mom but despite the content being loving and kind, he initially reads it as a blistering rant.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: He's already on tracks when we meet him but it's further accelerated by the events of the chapter and comes to a climax when he is confronted by a shapeshifter recognizing him as a monster similar to himself. From then on, his Sanity Slippage does the rest.
• Sad Clown: Is often making jokes and cracking one-liners during assignments, but it's a facade hiding how deeply he is affected by his war trauma.
  Sean: (upon reading his personal file) The list doesn’t mention my keen sense of humor anywhere.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The awful things he did during the war are haunting him badly.

Jean Basar

Dr. Jinnah "Jean" Basar

Played by: Zehra Fazal

Role: Scholar

Speciality: Doctor

A physician who worked with both Candela Obscura and EONS for a time.

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• Combat Medic: She served as a nurse during the war and is perfectly capable of treating wounds in the middle of a battle.
• Daddy's Girl: She was very close to her father, he was the one who taught her how to sew, which eventually led her to become a surgeon. She is distraught when she realizes that her betrayal of EONS ultimately sealed his fate.
• Defector from Decadence: The opening sequence of the second chapter is her cutting her ties with EONS after they discovered she was a member of Candela as well. Her definite feelings toward the association remain unclear, but if anything, she doesn't like their disregard for human lives.
• Heal It With Fire: In session two, she uses the flames of her recently-acquired Bleed scar to cauterize a wound in Nathaniel's back.
• Playing with Fire: Her first bleed scar manifests as blue flames emanating from her left hand. She has little control over it but can use it to cauterize wounds quickly.

Marion Collodi

Marion Collodi

Played by: Luiz Carazo

Role: Weird

Speciality: Medium

A war veteran with psychic abilities.

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• Flower Motif: He is heavily associated with the Starry Sky Petunia, a flower that bloomed in his garden when he was a kid.
• Gender-Blender Name: Marion is a French name, diminutive for Mary. It's commonly a woman's name but is sometimes given to men, as well.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Due to a supernatural encounter when he was a child that took a piece of him, he never felt like he belonged anywhere.
• Mark of the Supernatural: He has a blue lightning-like scar on his torso that pulses when he uses his powers.
• Meaningful Name: His name alludes to his nature as an empty vessel for possession. Marion as in Marionette and Collodi like Carlo Collodi, the author of The Adventures of Pinocchio.
• Seers: He sometimes gets glimpses of the immediate future. It manifested for the first time on the battlefield and allowed him and Sean to survive. While useful, the visions are especially unpleasant because he struggles to differentiate them from reality.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A less extreme example as Sean but his time in the war scarred him too.
• Stable Time Loop: Luis makes full use of the Not Again ability and of his starting scar to rewrite Marion's origin story as an act of his own future self so that his soul would be preserved.

The Circle of Tide and Bone

Elsie Roberts

Dr. Elsie Roberts

Played by: Ashly Burch

Role: Scholar

Speciality: Doctor

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• The Berserker: Whenever she transforms into the Beast, Elsie becomes this. She does manage to gain a certain degree of control over the Beast, however, but it doesn't stop her from going berserk and severely injuring Rajan and Cosmo in Episode Three.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Elsie has contracted a terminal illness called "Cullet," a degenerative lung disease which is described as feeling like broken shards of glass in the lungs.
• Old Flame: Rajan is this for her, although she was unaware of his slow insectoid transformation until the events of the session.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: When under enough stress, Elsie transforms into a beast described as a cross between a mantis and an orca.
• Sole Survivor: In a manner of speaking. Oscar is the only other survivor of the circle but he had chosen to remain with Iomene, leaving Elsie all alone when she finally comes to after her encounter with the goddess. Ashly Burch also calls Elsie the only survivor in the closing introductions too, so make of that what you will.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Although she is still alive several years later according to her Epilogue, Elsie chooses not to use the ritual for more time given to her by Iomene, meaning that she will soon die from the cullet.

Rajan Savarimuthu

Rajan Savarimuthu

Played by: Noshir Dalal

Role: Scholar

Speciality: Professor

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• Body Horror: Beneath his fine jacket and shirt, he has a hive full of locusts built into his chest. By mid-Episode Three, Rajan's body becomes increasingly more insectile with the amount of damage he sustains, most notably his eye which becomes a black compound eye of an insect in the confrontation with the Serious Man, and also his arm which is stripped of dead flesh by his locusts and changes into a clawed, three-fingered insect hand after he and Cosmo are attacked by Beast!Elsie.
• Functional Addict: Rajan uses a narcotic called Scarlet just before a mission, with a casualness that implies regular use - and that doing so will not significantly disrupt his ability to function.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rajan chooses to give all that remains of him to Iomene as part of a deal that would release his sister from her imprisonment.
• Old Flame: Elsie is this for him, and he still harbours strong feelings for her despite the knowledge of her Beast (which he considers to be "glorious") and her terminal illness.

Cordelia Glask

Cordelia Glask

Played by: Gina Darling

Role: Face

Speciality: Magician

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• Heroic Sacrifice: Chooses to become one with the sea as part of a deal she makes with Iomene to see that Mina is safe, although it is implied that her spirit survives among the waters.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Has the closest friendship within the Circle with Cosmo, who is at least over sixty years her senior.
• Miss Kitty: Madame Glask runs a casino and discreet brothel in Newfaire called "The Glass Cat Casino."
• Statuesque Stunner: Downplayed somewhat, but standing at 5'7" makes her at least above average height.
• You Can't Go Home Again: In exchange for her riches and ownership of the Glass Cat per the bargain she made with the gods of the sea, Madame Glask traded away her sense of home and family. As much as loves her casino, it will never be her home, and as much as she cares for her girls and Mina, they will never be her family.

Cosmo Grimm

Cosmo Grimm

Played by: Liam O'Brien

Role: Weird

Speciality: Occultist

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• Cool Old Guy: He's ninety-seven years old and still active as a field agent for Candela. Despite frequent attempts by the organization to persuade him to retire and take up the role of Lightkeeper, he refuses because "I enjoy the field, I enjoy the hunt." Considering the kind of wear and tear the PCs in prior Circles are shown to take within as few as three assignments, the fact that he's lasted this long is a testament to his abilities... and he also finds time to keep up a social life with occasional visits to Madam Glask's casino.
• Heroes Love Dogs: He has a long-haired black-and-tan dachshund named Godot (based on Liam O'Brien's real-life dog Sprigg).
• Intergenerational Friendship: Has the closest friendship within the Circle with Elsie, who is sixty-four years his junior. He also has a very close friendship with Madame Glask, who is also (at least) over sixty years his junior as well.

Oscar Grimm

Oscar "Cary" Grimm

Played by: Sam Riegel

Role: Muscle

Speciality: Soldier

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• The Big Guy: Serves as this role for the rest of the Circle, especially working for Madame Glask as her bouncer/bodyguard. Ironically, Oscar is 5'6" and somewhat crippled, having to walk with a bad limp and with hands that haven't healed properly after being badly broken.
• Chain Pain: Oscar's favorite weapon is an approximately four-foot-long piece of chain that he uses quite effectively.
• Death Seeker: After living as an immortal for 87 years and outliving his wife, brother and daughter (not that he remembers them), all Oscar truly wants is to die and not come back.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: While posing as grandfather and grandson, Oscar is really an immortal with Eternal Youth, and Cosmo's father.
• I Choose to Stay: Oscar decides to remain with Iomene with all of his memories restored to him, both to help in her task and keep her company. Iomene, for her part, promises Oscar that if the end was to finally come for them both, that they would face it together.
• Meaningful Name: Oscar is Sam Riegel's middle name.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Played for laughs as Oscar offers candy to a child and Sam realises how that might look to an outside observer.
  Oscar: You want a candy? (Beat) I guess that sounds creepy, huh? Forget it, don't worry about it. Just go home.
  Child: Do you actually have a candy?
  Oscar: Lots. But you shouldn't take candy from strangers.
  Aabria: (to Sam) Make a Sway roll.
  Ashly: (to Sam) How's your Sway, bud?
  Sam: (to Ashly) My Sway is terrible.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Manages to outlive Cosmo when the latter finally dies of old age by the end of Episode Three. He also outlived his daughter Iris long before the events of the session.
• Resurrective Immortality: Oscar is restored to life every time he dies, but loses some of his memories each time.
• Sole Survivor: In a manner of speaking. He and Elsie are the only ones who survive to the end of the session. However, by virtue of his Resurrective Immortality and the fact that Elsie has a terminal illness that will eventually kill her soon (as implied by her Epilogue), Oscar is effectively the last surviving member of the Circle of Tide and Bone.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: He clearly views his immortality as a curse (having it forced upon him by something from the Flare), having to outlive his daughter and see his own son as a 97-year-old man while he stays young.
• Walking Spoiler: It's rather difficult to talk about Oscar without going into spoiler territory; just look at all those spoiler tags!

The Circle of The Crimson Mirror

Malcolm Trills

Malcolm Trills

Played By: Imari Williams

Role: Muscle

Specialty: Soldier

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• An Arm and a Leg: Somewhat downplayed. When he was still a soldier, Malcolm's left hand was partially disintegrated by a glowing artefact during the Great War. The rest of his squad was not so lucky, however.
• Artificial Limbs: His left hand is a copper prosthetic that contains a bleed detector and a containment vial.
• The Big Guy: Serves as this role for the rest of the Circle, as a former soldier.
• Sole Survivor: Is this for the rest of his squad while fighting in the Great War, when an artefact they were tasked with investigating disintegrated them all and took Malcolm's left hand when he reached for one of the soldiers.

Leo Amicus

Leo Amicus

Played By: Taliesin Jaffe

Role: Face

Specialty: Journalist

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• The Dandy: A bohemian bachelor with foppish mannerisms and fine clothes.
• Idle Rich: Although his profession is nominally that of a journalist, he is in fact a "professional man of leisure."
• Sanity Slippage: After finding what he thinks is the clock that is the source of the Terrible Ticking in his head, Leo starts attacking it with every implement he has on him, trying to take it apart piece by piece, and making sure to do so slowly as if he's torturing it. Malcolm eventually discovers him hunched over on the floor, grinding the glass embedded into his broken hand into the side of a large rock while mumbling to himself and rocking back and forth, before taking too much Brain and going completely catatonic.
  Malcolm: Leo, what the fuck are you doing?!
  Leo: It can break... It can break...
  Malcolm: Leo, you have to get your shit together, we have to get the door open now!
  Leo: Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Very downplayed, but based on what he says on the subject it's implied that he believes in this:
  Leo: If it's a problem money can solve, it's not a problem.
• Terrible Ticking: Leo constantly hears a ticking sound in his head, the result of a "game" gone wrong, during which his friends and sister died. As a result he hates silence, and has covered his apartment in music devices in an attempt to drown out the noise.
  Leo: (stammering) We wound- I-I-I wound the clock. It was... It was... We wound it. I sat in the circle. It-it-it ticked and ticked... And we waited... It was going to be a game. It was a game. It was just a stupid, stupid game, and... the lights went out... And then... And then- Do you hear that? It (stammers) It's so hard to think with...
  Liam: Do you hear them screaming, Leo?
  Leo: It-it ticked.
  Liam: Those teenagers.
  Leo: It ticked, and ticked, and ticked, and ticked... There was something in the dark, and I was so, so, so scared... [...] There were eyes. There were eyes. And each... With each tick they got closer, and they found the others, and they chased the others, and it wasn't the tick, tick, tick tick tick tick tick! It just, it wouldn't, it wouldn't- It would just find... Time just bent, and I was so- I was so scared. And I woke up, and the world was... different. I woke up, and I don't know what I— They were dead. I don't know why I'm not dead. I don't know why I'm not dead. It's just- It's still in, it's still... I... Please make it stop! Can you just please make it stop?!

Edgar Lycoris

Dr. Edgar Lycoris

Played By: Alexander Ward

Role: Scholar

Specialty: Doctor

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Grimoria

Grimoria

Played By: Aimee Carrero

Role: Weird

Specialty: Medium

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• The Baby of the Bunch: In a Circle of men in their thirties and forties, eighteen-year-old Grimoria is this.
• Con Artist: Her backstory's mention of "clever scams" implies that she is or was once this before joining Candela. It turns out to be the former, as Grimoria works for the Foggs, dealers in (fake) curiosities, as a Phony Psychic when she isn't working with Candela.
• Only One Name: Goes by the mononym of 'Grimoria.' Her real name is Alma.
• Phony Psychic: Her job with the Foggs is to pose as one of these, spinning stories of the supernatural about the fake artefacts and items they attempt to sell to their gullible customers.
• The Smurfette Principle: Is the sole female member of the Circle of the Crimson Mirror.