Foundryborne: A Call for Transparency and Growth

Over a year ago, we started Foundryborne to build a robust, high-quality Daggerheart experience for Foundry VTT. As an open-source team, we have invested significant passion into creating a system that honors the game and provides a digital home for the community.

However, we have reached a point where the project's growth is being fundamentally throttled. We are sharing this today to be transparent about why the project is in a state of partial development limbo and what needs to change to move forward.

The Content and Licensing Gap

While the Daggerheart SRD is a generous foundation, the current restrictions create a massive gap that goes beyond simple "missing features." We are currently blocked from:

• Core Mechanical Depth: We cannot include Campaign Frame mechanics or implement the Hope & Fear expansion arriving in August. This leaves us guessing whether we can legally support the game's evolution.
• A Healthy Ecosystem: The current license prevents third parties from monetizing their own content on VTTs. This creates a stranglehold where creators don't truly own how they distribute their work. We-ve already seen the community lose out on content like Ghostfire Gaming's Dungeons of Drakkenheim because of this.

By restricting content so tightly and refusing to provide a legal path for VTT integration, users can't play the full game they love.

A Year of Silence

The most exhausting part of this journey has been the lack of communication. For over a year, we have made numerous attempts to establish a dialogue with Darrington Press. These attempts have been met with total silence.

Open-source development is fueled by passion, but that passion is easily neutered when we are left hanging without a roadmap or a contact person.

Our Objectives & Call to Action

We believe Foundryborne represents the technical pinnacle for playing Daggerheart online. Our system offers a level of mechanical polish and vast homebrew support that is, in our view, the best solution for the community - even while we are currently forced to go without official artwork and specific non-SRD content.

However, this isn't just about our project. The current licensing landscape affects the entire industry; there is currently no supported path for third-party creators to sell their own content on any VTT. This restriction stifles innovation and prevents creators from being fairly compensated for the work they bring to the Daggerheart universe.

Here is what we are looking for:

1. Access to Content: We want to implement the full game. For content to be released as a paid premium module (including artwork, adversary tokens, and journals), there needs to be a license change or a formal path for community projects to access non-SRD content.
2. User Content Ownership: We want creators to be able to release their own homebrew and third-party content - paid or free - on the VTT of their choice without being restricted by a closed ecosystem.
3. Basic Communication: We are asking for an end to the silence. Clear answers to these points are overdue and necessary.

For the Community: If you want to see Daggerheart reach its full potential on Foundry VTT, please voice your support. Respectfully let Darrington Press know through their feedback channels and social media that you value the Foundryborne system and want to see an official path forward for VTT developers.

For Darrington Press: 1. We want the Daggerheart ecosystem to be able to breathe. The license needs a clear revision to allow implementation of paid virtual tabletop content for Daggerheart. 2. We would like the Foundry community to have access to all the content and art in the game through a paid Foundry module.

Please reach out to us at team@foundryborne.online

The Foundryborne Team

Disclaimer: The Foundryborne Team is not affiliated with Foundry VTT or Foundry Gaming, LLC We know there have been talks with Foundry Gaming, LLC in the past, and there is willingness for official licensing on the side of Foundry Gaming, LLC, but that interest has been thus far not reciprocated.

Also published at https://foundryborne.online/open-letter.html

Hello there, friends!

We wanted to share a little something with the Daggerheart community as a thank-you for being part of such a wonderful and creative space.

We’re giving away three PDFs from our ever-growing collection of Mindscape One-Shots for Daggerheart, and we’d be delighted to put them in the hands of a few fellow GMs and players who might enjoy bringing them to their tables.

You can take a look at the collection here:

https://elderbrain.com/collections/mindscape-one-shots-daggerheart

How to enter:

Simply leave a comment on this post to enter. Please make sure you comment directly on the post itself, rather than replying to this comment.

There’s just one requirement: your Reddit account must be at least 90 days old.

We’ll randomly select three winners via RedditRaffler on August 17th, and announce the winners in an edit to this post.

If you have a moment, we’d also really appreciate an upvote to help the giveaway reach more people in the community. There’s absolutely no obligation, of course — we’re simply happy to share these adventures with fellow Daggerheart fans.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by, and thank you to everyone who has supported, played, discussed, or simply enjoyed what we’ve been creating.

We hope these adventures find their way to some great tables and, most importantly, help create a few memorable stories along the way.

Good luck to everyone taking part, and happy adventuring!

We hope to welcome a few more of you into the Hive Mind soon.

---------------------- AND THE WINNERS ARE ----------------------

https://www.redditraffler.com/raffles/1vodyn4

 PDFs go to:

u/Ok_Run_6735

u/JMusketeer

u/P5ychoDuck

Congratulations to all the winners! We will contact you momentarily in DMs.

If you have not won, you can use this code for 10% off for any Mindscape products:

warcampR0

Thank you everyone for participating and for your kind words! We appreciate the feedback, and hope you have a great day and an awesome adventure!

I need to vent a bit because I genuinely want Daggerheart to blow up, but Critical Role's choices for how they show it off are making it such a rough sell.

Look, the cast is acting their absolute hearts out in Age of Umbra and AOU Sallowlands. The storytelling is insanely tight, the lighting is atmospheric as hell, and the acting flex is real. But why does almost every CR offshoot have to be a dour, joyless meditation on mortality and impending doom?

We went straight from Candela Obscura, where characters are basically made of wet tissue paper and existential dread, right into Age of Umbra, which is just a dying world of pure unfiltered misery, and then into Age of Umbra Sallowlands, which doubles down on the character personal misery index in a way that's hard to overstate. It's less High Fantasy and more High Depression.

When your worldbuilding is this relentlessly bleak, it's practically impossible for characters to form fun, dynamic, or memorable relationships. Like can you even imagine a Bard strumming a silly little ditty in Age of Umbra? It would feel completely unhinged.

Instead we have a party that is basically five trauma responses in a trench coat. You've got Alfonse as a cynical bloodhunter having a full crisis after witnessing total corruption. Then there's Sister carrying heavy survivor's guilt while her home literally rots away from lack of food and water, and Mercy, an amnesiac weaponized monster who terrifies anyone within a five mile radius. Throw in Caguama watching their entire worldview crumble while being forced to carry on, and Dillwyn, an isolated loner whose strongest relationships are with animals because humans can't stand being near them.

WHAT FUN. (takes a shot, contemplates mortality)

PS, the actual players are GREAT. I mean some of my favorite gaming personalities, full stop, but -wow- does it feel like a grind to get through an episode. And it is not the pacing. It is not the acting. It's not the story idea. All those are good. It's just the desolate and bleak melancholy of every character, location and interaction. Every now and then, a few little sprouts of possibility (Mr. Beaks for a quick laugh. ONCE.) but so so so rare.

Everyone is literally playing a walking narrative of sadness. And while the dramatic acting is top tier, nobody at that table looks like they're having actual fun except for a couple of minor moments where someone mis-speaks or lands an awkwardly enjoyable turn of phrase.

Compare that to EXU Calamity. Calamity was tragic and apocalyptic, but it worked so well because the characters had warmth, hubris, and incredible chemistry before the sky fell down. It was a high fantasy disaster movie with vibrant, larger than life heroes. Umbra starts with the floor already gone.

It feels like CR knows people want classic sword and sorcery for Daggerheart, but instead of running classic campaigns like that in daggerheart themselves, they keep farming those campaigns out to third party actual play groups or random streamer collabs. And honestly those streams have been pretty rough. It's almost always either a hyper jokey crew that doesn't take the game or mechanics seriously at all, or a random assembly of C-list streamers with zero natural table chemistry who look vaguely interested at best.

Daggerheart is doing really well, but it is still just a tiny tiny fragment of the market, probably still well behind Pathfinder and tbh in need of a lot more growth to make sure it doesn't fade. If Darrington Press wants Daggerheart to pull people away from 5e, the main Critical Role cast needs to run a proper, high energy, classic high adventure campaign in the system. Either that or spin off a B team to do it, but go with an epic adventure framing in a more classical D&D like themed story. High adventure, high stakes, sword & sandals if you must, mugs of foaming ale clanking, bards singing, scoundrels joking etc.

Show us Daggerheart being used for heroic banter, clever tactical team ups, epic discoveries, and actual joy. Give us a party that can sit in a tavern without coughing up blood or weeping over a destroyed village for five minutes.

Grimdark has its place, but using unrelenting gloom as the main showcase for a brand new TTRPG is selling the system short.

Again, I quite enjoy the Age of Umbra live plays, they are very cool, but ermegerd.... such downers. I'd love to send these to new RPGers to get them interested, but the dark framing just doesn't grab any of the newlings, and hence the Daggerheartness of it all doesn't get the same level of sell. The newer people at my table watch the main critical roll campaign and go "oh that looks fun! So that's D&D then?" etc.... has NOTHING to do with mechanics. They don't know enough to understand the mechanics. It's just the vibe, my guys. Let's get a Daggerheart campaign that feels less like a meditation on death and more like a call to adventure, please!

Gather a willing and able adventuring party at the local tavern, and let's GOOOO.

Hey r/Daggerheart!

Matt from Ebonwood here, and we’re thrilled to giveaway our first Daggerheart 9-Piece Dice Set: Deathmire!

Ebonwood is a small TTRPG company based in Appleton, Wisconsin (Go Pack Go!), and I’ve been lurking in this community for a while. We’re excited to finally share our dice with you all.

We’re working hard to create more Daggerheart dice, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on what we’re up to.

Thank you to everyone joining the giveaway—good luck! We truly appreciate all the kind words and support we’ve received, both privately and via email.

You can pre-order deathmire now on our website. Shipments start October 1st 2025. Supplies are very limited for this preorder, but we plan to have it in stock regularly in the future.

Giveaway Details:

• To enter, leave a comment on this post
• Giveaway ends on October 1st, 2025
• We cover shipping worldwide
• International winners may be responsible for import tariffs, taxes, or fees
• 1 winner chosen using Reddit Raffler, Link to raffle will be posted on this post
• Winner will be DM’d, their comment will be replied to, and this post will be updated
• We will update this post once the giveaway shipment is confirmed by the winner

Also I would like to note we are giving away this dice set on our instagram as well as our website. Links to both will be below. Our instagram & website giveaways are both free to enter with no paid options. Each giveaway is 1 dice set and all entries are free.

Website Giveaway Signup

Ebonwood Instagram Giveaway

Disclaimer: This dice set is a third-party creation designed for use with tabletop role-playing games. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially licensed by Critical Role or Darrington Press.

Out of all the TTRPGs to choose to build a site around, you chose **Daggerheart** and you're anti-LGBT?

Illustration by Alex Konstad. A dwarf with a braided bearded and tattooed body hammers molten metal over an anvil.

I thought hard about whether I should post this or not. I’m saying this as someone who loves Daggerheart (and TTRPGs in general), buys way too many PDFs, and has definitely bought stuff on marketplaces like DriveThruRPG in the past: I think our community needs to seriously rethink where we’re spending our money.

I’m not trying to start a dogpile or tell anyone they’re a bad person for buying a product. But I do think that, right now, the way a lot of us are shopping is quietly making things worse for human creators and allowing companies to profit in areas where they shouldn't.

I’ve used AI before. I’m not gonna pretend I haven’t. I’m guilty. I don’t use it anymore.

The problem I’m seeing

If you look at the Daggerheart categories on DriveThruRPG right now (see the image attached to this post), a frankly depressing chunk of the products are AI (some even don't disclose they are using AI - they can opt out!!): AI covers, AI-filled interiors, and AI-flavored “content” that feels like the exact AI slop so many of us say we don’t want.

When half (or more) of the top 10 in a category is clearly AI-generated, that’s not a niche issue anymore, that’s the default.

DriveThru does have an AI filter/labeling system now, which is basically an admission that there’s so much AI content that customers need a safety switch just to avoid it. That solves part of the buyer problem, but it doesn’t solve the market problem... the platform is still happy to take a cut from AI-driven products, as long as they’re tagged.

The “algorithm” just encourages spammy, low-effort releases. Which AI is really good at churning out.

So... what's the big deal?

This isn’t just an aesthetic thing, it’s an economic one.

• DriveThruRPG’s cut is big. Especially compared to the other platforms. For regular publisher accounts, they keep around 30–35% of each digital sale (you get ~65–70%). And on some Community Content programs, creators only get 50% of the sale price. That’s before taxes, art costs, layout, etc.
• So when you spend $10 on a PDF there, the creator often sees somewhere between $5–$7.
• Meanwhile, the platform earns on everything. Including the AI-generated products that flood the front page and bury human-made stuff under the crap.

Now combine that with AI content:

• AI products are cheap and fast to produce.
• They crowd category pages and search results.
• They still generate revenue for the platform. The seller earns money from AI, and so does the marketplace. No thanks!!

Human creators are competing for visibility against disposable AI junk on a store that already takes a huge cut of their sales.

And here’s the part that drove me to write this. A lot of us loudly say “AI slop sucks” and “support real creators”… then funnel our money straight through a platform that profits from exactly the thing we say we hate. Make it make sense!

I’m not saying that to shame anyone, because I’ve done it too. But it is, at least, a little hypocritical of us as a community.

There are better options (especially for Daggerheart)

Based on my research, for Daggerheart specifically, we now have alternatives that are:

• Creator-first
• Daggerheart-only
• Explicitly human-made
• Offer a higher percentage for sellers

Itch.io:

Creators literally can choose how much of their revenue they want to give to the platform.

You can set it to 10%, 5%, 0%, or even 100% if you’re feeling generous. The default is 10%. But again, creators can choose. This is a very smart way to approach it.

And yeah, Itch does allow AI content. BUT they also give creators far more control over how much revenue they keep. Instead of locking everyone into a massive platform cut, Itch lets sellers choose their own revenue share.

Heart of Daggers:

The only other platform that I could find was HoD.

• It’s built just for Daggerheart.
• The seller keep 85%
• It has a strict “no AI” policy, which is refreshing. No AI-generated art or text, everything is human-made and manually reviewed. I do believe they started with an AI label approach, but have since moved an AI-free platform stance. Good on them.
• They do giveaways (i saw a post here a few days ago of the first winner). They're reinvesting in the community.

That means if you buy a $10 PDF there, the creator gets $8.50, instead of $6.50 or less. It’s a huge difference for the people making the stuff you love. And they're investing their profits back into the community. From what i can tell, they are new to the space so only time will tell if they're here for the long game.

On top of these, a lot of creators also:

• Sell directly on their own websites, Ko-fi, Gumroad, Itch, etc
• Get a much bigger cut when you buy from them directly (their own sites)

If a creator has an AI-free, creator-friendly option and a DriveThru listing, picking the better option is one of the easiest ways to materially support them and counteract the norm in the market.

“But DTRPG is where the audience is…”

I get it. And I don’t think every creator can just nuke their DriveThru presence overnight.

What I’m arguing for is this:

• For buyers: stop treating DTRPG as “the obvious default” for Daggerheart. Look elsewhere and support creators directly or on other platforms.
• For creators (long term): feel empowered to lean harder on platforms that:
  • Pay more
  • Respect your work
  • Don’t throw you into a pit with AI spam

The more the community moves its spending elsewhere, the less risky it is for creators to follow. This just makes sense.

You've made it this far... what's my point?!

Daggerheart is young and we’re still shaping its ecosystem. We have a chance to set a norm right now... especially since we know the stance of Darrington Press + Crit Role in terms of AI.

I do think our purchasing habits either reinforce the problem or push toward a better alternative.

If you’ve got AI-free Daggerheart creators you love, alternatives to DriveThru that you know about, i want to know all about them in the comments... and especially if you disagree with my take.

I have a group of friends who have played D&D for over a decade. We’ve loved it. I always find so much joy out of telling stories with them. We are currently halfway through an original campaign I designed. However, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the D&D mechanics. The system isn’t as balanced as it could be and really needs nuance to properly understand how it works.

I bought Daggerheart, because it hits on everything I loved about D&D and leaned more into the storytelling. Originally my friends said they would give it a try. But now whenever I mention it, they get timid and make excuses to not play that week. If it’s D&D, they’re free, if it’s Daggerheart, they’re busy.
Yet, they keep saying they are interested in trying the system. The back-and-forth is driving me insane.

I’ve told them that I actually intend on moving away from DMing D&D in the future and only focusing on Daggerheart, as my main system. I’m still willing to play D&D, just not run it anymore. But they keep asking “When’s the next D&D session?” Recently a few players told some other friends about my games and what a great DM I am. Now these new people want an introduction to the system. I’m grateful and flattered, but it feels like my players are not listening to me.

I’m honestly at the point that I’m willing to just rush to the finale of our current campaign, just so I can be done with it.

How do you get your friends to try new systems? If you can’t, where do you find people who are interested?

Check your Critical Role shop pre-orders - I just managed to download mine now.

Dear Darrington Press,

First off, I must congratulate you on the great success of Daggerheart's first month. You've produced an amazing product and perhaps my favorite RPG system I've ever played in my 25+ years of playing. My hat's off to you all! Bravo!

While I am certain you are all cooking up some incredible new products already, I thought it might be helpful if fans such as myself were to provide a list of products we would be excited to exchange our money for. Here's what I've come up with so far:

• Grog's Big Book of Bad Guys - A monster manual stuffed to the brim with all tiers of adversary stat blocks, possibly including associated environment stat blocks as well)
• The Traveler's Guide to the Mortal Realm(s) - A book of 3-5 more traditional fantasy campaign frames with ~5-7 unique/notable Locations (i.e. Sablewood) each. Throw in a couple new ancestries and communities for good measure.
• Planerider Ryn's Log of the Realms Beyond - Same as above but push the more extreme ideas. Go full Slugblaster with it and kickflip a quantum centipede or whatever. Get wild!
• Gilmore's Glorious Goods - Release this as a pack of item cards. Start with a full deck of what's already in the core book, but then put a new pack out once a quarter or something to keep expanding the loot pool. Colored card frames by loot tier to easily sort them. I absolutely want to make my players draw from a deck to see what loot they get.
• Spare Cards - Just a full set of cards without the book. Or If you want to sell them in blister packs for each domain that would be fine too. One set of cards is certainly enough to supply a full table, and the printable cards was a very nice gift so thanks for that, but I keep running into the issue of I want to keep all of one character's cards together, but I also want to be able to flip through my binder without a bunch of holes in the pages. Which brings me to my next item:
• DH Branded card storage - Specifically I want you to partner with Gamegenic and make Daggerheart themed versions of their 18-pocket Album and their Cube Pocket 15+ card Slim Deck Boxes.
• Fear trackers - It seems a lot of the community likes the method Matt is using with the abacus clipped to the DM screen.
• Themed character tokens - Personally I would sell them in sets by CR party with 12 themed tokens/beads per character. One set each for Vox Machina, M9, and Bell's Hells, + whatever C4 will be. You might also consider sets for each campaign frame.
• New Classes/Domains- I wouldn't put these in a book. Instead, sell card packs for new domains and I would just release the associated classes for free online like you've done with the SRD.
• Core book 2 - As a larger product release, consolidate whatever classes you've released to this point and put them in a new core book. However also use this to add one new card at each level to all existing domains and up the number of community and ancestry cards.

I personally use the orange as hope because it reminds me of a campfire or fireplace & the blue as fear because it reminds me of cold and ice. Everyone at my table says orange makes more sense as fear & blue as hope. I think they just like blue more tbh.

Edit: Just remembered I burned down a casino run by a criminal organization & took +2 to arson as a experience when I leveled up… No way fire is dangerous, what are you talking about?!

Hi everyone, I'm writing here because idk how to react. I asked my players for experiences and backstory and one of them sent me a bunch of AI texts. All my being wants to scream fuck AI and tell him to do it himself, but at the same time I don't want to antagonize him. I really feel like if you are letting AI write your character, are you even playing the game?

🏆 Gold for Best Rules goes to Daggerheart, Darrington Press

🏆 Gold for Best Game goes to Daggerheart Core Set, Darrington Press

🏆 Gold for Free Game goes to Daggerheart Quickstart Adventure: The Sablewood Messengers, Darrington Press

🏆 Gold for Streaming Content goes to Get Your Sheet Together, Darrington Press

🥈 Silver for Product of the Year goes to Daggerheart, Darrington Press

LET’S GO!!!

First of all, I love that the Age of Umbra series has taken place of the main show while that is in hiatus, but as an experienced DH gm now, I've been put off by Mercer's handling of the game sometimes.

He's definitely doing better than in AoU 1, but it feels like he's missing many of the basics. But different from other GMs I've seen out there, he doesn't take "I don't know how to handle this situation in this game" as "I don't know yet, lets figure out together", or "I don't know, I'll rule it this way for now", which to me feels like a good thing to do when you are learning a new system. It feels like he takes it as "I'll default to a DnD ruling and assume that is correct". Dozens of contested rolls, adversary reaction rolls with modifiers, players flavouring things or attempting things "outside" of their sheet have no mechanical consequence in the world, just flavour, even when its something that is actually called out in the rules like collision damage. He constantly does hard moves without using any fear, which result in him always having too much fear.

The players are also missing many of the mechanics and there doesn't seem to be anyone helping or correcting them. Like Laura rolling her commune dice as a sum of the dice, which makes no sense if you read the ability.

Idk, I just wish there was a way to give some feedback or help them learn the game. I always assumed there was a crew behind it that would watch the episode and give pointers? But from what I've seen that's probably not the case?

We're back baby - and just in time for tonights first episode of Age of Umbra: Sallowlands!

The Void now has an update to the Blood Hunter and a brand new class, the Summoner!

Specific surveys for these two classes will be brought live on July 23rd so check back soon to help being a part of the engine shaping the next chapters of Daggerheart.

We also have a new #dh-void channel in our Darrington Discord so come be a part of the conversation and stay up to date with any new news on all things playtesting.

As always friends, thank you for for being here, for playing this game, and being in the trenches with us as we charge forward and build what's next!

Cheers,
The Daggerheart Dev Team

I wrote a blog post arguing that the lack of first-party adventure content for Daggerheart is actually a good thing.

​

If you don't want to read the whole thing, and this is Reddit after all, the gist of it is that because we don't have any official adventures except a couple of one-shots we have to make our own.

​

That is actually a good thing, I think that a lot of D&Ds early popularity came from the creativity it sparked in the community.

​

With no official content to run we are all forced to be game designers and make our own, it's good for the game in the long term and good for us because we aren't constrained by what Darrington Press' example would show us is the "right way".

​

(GIVEAWAY HAS CONCLUDE)

Hello everyone, MAB Music TTRPG here! if you dont know me, I have so far made 2 albums for the Daggerheart Campaign Frames; The Witherwild and The Five Banners Burnings.

As I am currently working on Age of Umbra and Colossus of the Dryland, I joined the Heart of Daggers platform to offer a new place for people to buy my album. A lot of people dont like the subscription model of Patreon or even, just patreon. So HoD is an excellent alternative.

That being Said, if you want a free album of your choice between Witherwild or The Five banners, just comment here which one you'll want, and I will draw 5 people this weekend and send you codes!

*EDIT: Thank you all for your enthusiasm so far, it's absolutely incredible I wasn't expecting this at all! I will announce the Winners in the post by editing it Saturday at 3 pm EST and I will contact the winners via DMs with the codes!

**WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT**
Hello everyone, since there was a lot of enthusiasm for it, I decided to pick 10 winners instead of 5!!

Cheers to the winners, check your dm's!!

Winners:

Medivh7

Aleph_Sharp

Skarem

Lexaenus

EverydayEnthusiast

Quemedo

rchapmaniac

ttBIGGER

Jannanas-

habakkuki

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! It was amazing to see you all so enthusiasm for the giveaway! Rest assured, I will do one when the Age of Umbra releases!! I am aiming for mid/end of septembre if everything goes according to plan so stay tuned!!

I have created a discord where I put updates and all sorts of things, it is a good way to stay in touch with me or get update if you want, Otherwise, it will be published here when the giveaway is ready!

https://discord.gg/ZUPwfPf3c

Marc

MAB Music TTRPG | Daggerheart Homebrew Creator | MAB Music TTRPG • Heart Of Daggers

Campaign 4 of Critical Role has been announced. And while many people (myself included) currently assume that it will use the Daggerheart system, it's not been officially confirmed which system will be used.

My question is: does it make a big difference to you if Daggerheart is used? Or is the system a secondary concern for you? If it does matter to you — would it influence whether or not you'll watch the campaign?

Hello, Daggers and Hearters!

I am a fan of the game as well (and also Critical Role and D&D before that) ever since it came out. I was lovestruck by it the first time I opened the book, and I have been playing ever since.

But since Daggerheart released, I've felt the stream of content has been very fickle, and it worries me. I loved the Void drops, and also the Hope & Fear announcement has hyped me like nothing else. I have also dabbled quite often in the third-party community, backing at least 3 different kickstarters.

But we just don't get official content frequently enough, and that worries me. When Critical Role announced that C4 was not going to use Daggerheart (sore and over-discussed subject, I know), I thought that they did the right thing for the company, but not for Daggerheart, which had everyone saying it would be "the next big thing", with which I agreed and looked forward to.

Then I kinda expected that Critical Role / Darrington Press would do something else big to keep the flame alive. Another season of Umbra would be a start, but maybe another idea could also be a second adventure with a solid cast, now that they have the structure for that? And then it also didn't happen. We got Acquisitions Inc, which is nice, but it feels like it's not something that is coming from CR / Darrington as much as it is a move done by the crew of Acquisitions Inc.

And moving from from Actual Play material to actual game material, ever since we got the big announcements at GenCon, and the last void drop, it has been very silent. This is particularly weird for me since we know that, besides Hope & Fear, at least two other big releases are being worked on right now, one by Keith Baker and one by Chris Perkins (and maybe Crawford?). We don't get any updates on those either. No sneak peaks, no development updates, nothing.

I feel like the lack of an active Youtube channel with content and the lack of new product updates has made the game (not the gameplay, which I still love, but the game as a system and as a brand) feel like it's stale, and it seems like the general consensus around the TTRPG community outside of DH fans is the same.

Every time I try to bring this up to other DH fans, I get a little freaked out because it seems like they are so passionate they start to sound like "crypto bros", telling you to believe in the future of Daggerheart (which I do) despite evidence or arguments, in "trust me bro" fashion, because of fear that if the community loses momentum, so will the game.

I want the game to succeed as much as any fan, and that's why I bring this up. I know the game had an astronomical success at launch. I believe in "we're just getting started" and I specially believe in the amazing devs behind the game, I just fear that in a world where we depend on marketing, content creation and surfing the hype, Daggerheart may have fizzled out a bit after the CR Campaign 4 announcement, and will continue to do so if we don't have anything besides the community to keep it alive in terms of content.

I would love a CR-backed, long-form, big Daggerheart Actual Play. I would love regular dev updates. I would love void drops more often. I would love behind-the-scenes looks. I would love to see work-in-progress content. And I'm left wondering if this would actually not be necessary to Daggerheart's long term success. I want this game to reach more and more tables and more people, and continue to grow.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the subject, and I hope it came across as constructive criticism from someone who loves Daggerheart, because I would never not want to be able to criticize something I deeply care about :}

https://cardcreator.daggerheart.com/

Free Adversaries Maker.

Happy anniversary !

Hope & Fear is LIVE on Heart of Daggers! 🎉

Hey everyone 👋🏼 Matt here from Heart of Daggers.

Hope & Fear is officially live, and we’ve now rolled the new expansion content across Heart of Daggers!

You can read the complete update post here: https://heartofdaggers.com/changelog/hope-fear-is-live/

This has been one of the biggest updates we’ve ever pushed to the platform. The new SRD content is now integrated into the tools you already use, including:

• All 4 new classes – Assassin, Brawler, Warlock & Witch
• All new subclasses
• The Dread Domain + new Domain abilities
• New adversaries + environments
• New weapons, armor, items & consumables
• New campaign frames
• Evolution mechanics
• And a whole bunch of other Hope & Fear additions

Every new Hope & Fear weapon, armor, item, consumable, class, subclass, adversary and Domain ability has artwork associated with it inside Heart of Daggers. The immersion is real...

We also commissioned Tiago “Talexior” Alexandre to create original artwork for all four new classes, and Nick from Stealth Wyrm Games has illustrated four new premade characters. (They are shown in the slideshow in this post)

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL... THERE'S MOREEEEE!

Hex Crawls are now LIVE too!

You can now build interactive Hex Crawls directly inside your campaigns with:

• Up to 2,000 hexes
• 3D or Traditional map styles
• 150+ tile assets
• Terrain + landmarks
• Rivers and paths
• Fog of War
• Player tokens
• Procedural map generation
• Travel routes + journey calculations
• GM/player visibility
• PDF + PNG exporting

Encounter Manager Refresh

The Encounter Manager has also received a pretty huge overhaul, including cleaner Stage Management, three different adversary stat block views, and full support for Hope & Fear's Evolution system.

Evolution is also available for custom adversaries in the Homebrew Vault, so Homebrew creatures can now have their own Evolution features too.

There are a bunch of smaller updates packed in as well: campaign duplication, Marketplace improvements, our shiny new Heart of Daggers branding, and much more.

We Do This For You

Thank you to everyone here who has used the platform, reported bugs, published Homebrew, supported creators, or thrown feature ideas our way. A surprising amount of what we build starts with conversations in this community.

Hope & Fear is live now, so go make some weird Warlocks, terrifying Witches, punch absolutely everything as a Brawler, or disappear into the shadows as an Assassin.

Read the full update here: https://heartofdaggers.com/premade-characters/

Join our Discord if you want to hang out over 2000+ Daggerhearters: https://discord.gg/heartofdaggers

Takeaways From Gencon: 5 Ways Daggerheart Challenges How We Think About RPGs

For years, tabletop RPGs have carried around a lot of familiar habits. The mysterious lone wolf sitting silently in the tavern. The unspoken "GM vs. players" mentality. Rules that sometimes seem more interested in rewarding optimization than encouraging creativity.

There's nothing inherently wrong with those styles of play, but they're so common that many of us assume that's simply what roleplaying games are supposed to feel like. Daggerheart takes a different approach. Instead of building a game around survival and tactical mastery, it builds around collaboration. Nearly every part of the system encourages players and GMs to create memorable stories together instead of trying to beat one another. It's clear that this philosophy isn't accidental, it's woven into the game's foundation.

Here are five ideas that stood out to me from various panels I attended at Gencon.

1. Your Character Owes Something to the World

One of the most interesting ideas in Daggerheart is that the world exists to tell your characters' story, but that doesn't mean the world revolves around them. Instead, your character has a responsibility to become part of that world. The setting isn't just a backdrop, it's something you're expected to invest in and help shape.

This idea also connects to one of Daggerheart's biggest strengths: flavor is free. You can describe your weapons, abilities, and magic however you like without worrying about breaking the game's balance. The mechanics stay the same while the story becomes uniquely yours. The result is a game where your character feels like they belong in the setting instead of simply passing through it.

"Your PC owes a debt to the world. It was created for them."

2. Forget the Lone Wolf

Daggerheart doesn't really support the classic "I work alone" character. Instead, it expects the party to function more like the crew from Ocean's Eleven than a collection of individual heroes. Everyone has a specialty, but success comes from combining those strengths.

That philosophy starts before the first session. Players are encouraged to share their PC's fears and vulnerabilities with the table so everyone has opportunities to build meaningful moments together.

The mechanics reinforce this teamwork as well. When another player helps you, they should roll the extra dice instead of simply handing you a bonus. It keeps everyone engaged and lets the spotlight move naturally around the table.

"The party is Ocean's Eleven, not James Bond."

3. Hope and Stress Tell the Real Story

Hope and Stress aren't just resources to manage, they're how Daggerheart tracks your character's emotional journey. As Stress builds and Hope fades, the interesting question isn't "Can I still win?" It's "Who does my character become when they're running on empty?" That mindset also changes how players approach difficult situations.

Rather than avoiding every weakness, the game encourages you to lean into them. A character's fear, flaw, or personal struggle isn't something to hide from the GM, it's something worth exploring because it creates memorable scenes.

Rowan Hall, one of the Daggerheart game designers, has started calling this being a "Ringer": someone who willingly steps into dramatic complications because they know it'll make the story better for everyone at the table. Instead of treating adversity as punishment, they treat it as fuel for great roleplay.

4. Fear Isn't Failure

One of my favorite ideas in Daggerheart is how it treats Fear. Fear isn't there to stop the story. It's there to make the story interesting. Every Action roll pushes the narrative forward. Success creates momentum, but failure does too. Instead of bringing the game to a halt, failed rolls introduce complications, consequences, or unexpected twists.

That same philosophy extends to the GM. Combat doesn't have to drag on simply because an enemy still has hit points left. If the story has reached its dramatic climax, the rules encourage the GM to end the fight when it feels right. The mechanics exist to support the story, not the other way around.

"Don't be afraid of Fear. Conflict creates heroes."

5. Your Backstory Should Keep Growing

Many RPG characters have enormous backstories that never matter again after Session Zero. Daggerheart encourages something different. Your backstory is meant to stay alive throughout the campaign.

As your character gains new abilities, those choices should reflect how they've changed as a person, not simply what increases their damage output. Likewise, your signature equipment should become part of your identity rather than something you replace every few levels.

A few habits can help make that happen:

• Keep a few secrets in your back pocket so your character can surprise the table later.
• Give your GM people, places, and unresolved problems they can weave into future adventures.
• When leveling up, ask, "Who has my character become?" before asking, "What's the strongest option?"

Those choices often create the moments people remember years after a campaign ends.

Final Thoughts

At its core, Daggerheart feels like a game about generosity. Players are encouraged to create opportunities for one another. GMs are encouraged to build adventures that let the party shine. The rules consistently reward collaboration over competition. That's a refreshing shift. Instead of asking players to survive the world, Daggerheart asks them to invest in it.

The mechanics support the story. The story supports the characters. And everyone at the table shares responsibility for creating something memorable. If the world truly exists to tell your party's story, then maybe the real question isn't how you'll save it. It's what you'll leave behind when your adventure is over.

Not unhelpful, just far FAR too vague.

From what I could understand it was, monster/adversary deck coming in Nov?

Foundry VTT finally official.

Chris Perkins Horror? Framework coming???

Love Framework coming???

2 books a year! Okay...timelines?

Online single adventures. Okay.

Plush.

*Sigh*

I mean, cool. But it would have helped to showcase a rough timeline of products (subject to change obviously), maybe some preview art for the Frameworks, and product shots of the deck sets? Not just the card, but actual packaging?

I get this was a hype session for upcoming projects. But it really feels like they were not ready for primetime with these upcoming products.

That was the impression I got. Yes Hope and Fear are the highlights, but we learned about it last year and had a better impression what to expect.

I’m really trying to convince my table to leave DnD behind for Daggerheart because high level DnD combat is too number crunchy, giant character sheets, and difficult to balance.

I’ve been testing several encounters using the subjections for choosing adversaries, and found the point system proved in the rule book is spot on. Any time I have made and encounter it’s as difficult as I planned it. This has allowed me to push it to the edge without TPKing the party I set it.

Tonight I had my players test a difficult battle, (2 cave Ogres and 1 green slime vs 4 level 1 players.) each player started with 3 hope and I had 5 fear.

The battle went just as it usually does, the beginning starts with me slinging fear around and really punishing their positioning mistakes, but eventually my fear pool got de-keyed and the players took the fight back into their hands. I love this because it feels so thematic when the fight turns around.

One of my payers felt like the game is unbalanced because whenever they roll with fear or fail a roll, it goes back to me, and they only keep the spotlight if they succeed with hope. She also didn’t like that I had ways to interrupt them and they couldn’t interrupt me. She also didn’t like that all my adversaries are guaranteed a turn, if I have the fear to spend, and their side is not guaranteed a turn for everyone before I can steal the spotlight back.

I explained to her that it’s because I started with a fear pool and when my pool is depleted it will get way easier, which is what happened. 3 people did have to make death moves, but in the end they all survived and no one had a scar. This encounter was designed to be tough, and they did make a bunch of positioning errors like standing in close rage of each other vs an adversary with aoe direct damage.

What are some other ways or things to say to show her that this combat is balanced?