I gave this book four stars because overall I really enjoyed reading it, I am looking forward to playing with it, and I overall love the art. I reduced one star due to a couple of issues. First, it claims to have "8 all new assignments" on this webpage (non-limited edition version) but elsewhere it's explained that it's 3 fully-written assignments from the suggestions in the core rulebook and 5 all new assignments. For additional context, the original core rulebook included a few fully written assignments and a list of additional assignment ideas (about 3 sentences long) that were meant to spark ideas for players, without many details provided. In the format provided, these ideas were not playable as written.
However, I believe this to also be incorrect. In my opinion, 4 of these new assignments are fleshed out core book suggestions and 4 are all-new completely unique assignments. The original six assignment suggestions from the core book were Champagne Problems, Fool's Gold, The Icebox, Lifeblood, Sleep Tight, and Under the Big Top. This new book's assignments include Fool's Gold, Lifeblood, and Champagne Problems. Without too many spoilers, I personally think the description for Under the Big Top and one of the assignments in this new book are too similar not to count it as four written out assignments from the core book suggestions. The other four assignments are 100% unique - no doubt about it.
My additional reasons for removing one star are more important issues for removing one star than my issue above. My first important issue is that some of the stories' details didn't make sense (but I can't go into that without serious spoilers). I know it's a world of magic, and I can play this however I want. However, I want details and stories to make sense within the world and context provided, and that wasn't the case for 2 of the assignments. My second important issue is that I also disliked how the art was presented: the cover page for each assignment contains all of the art for the assignment. Which means spoilers. So you can't share the beautiful art with the players. Also it feels a little cheapened: the artist couldn't make 8 additional pictures? The art is wonderful and I am just a little disappointed I cannot show the introductory image at the beginning of each assignment. (And it's not as worthwhile after the assignment, when players have already seen the art in snippets throughout the assignment.)
Overall, I still give this supplemental book 4/5 stars and would highly recommend it to other fans of Candela Obscura. It is entertaining and comes with a variety of stories that I would just as much love to watch in a movie/series or read in a novel as I would love to play around a table.
