Critical Role to Run Grimdark Daggerheart Miniseries

Critical Role has a new Daggerheart miniseries in the works, which will showcase the Age of Umbra campaign frame developed by Matt Mercer. In a recent video posted to social media, Mercer showed off the final print version of Daggerheart's core rulebook, which will release in May. During the video, Mercer discussed some of the campaign frames that will appear in the new book, including the previously announced Age of Umbra setting. In the video, Mercer announced that Age of Umbra will be featured in the next Daggerheart Actual Play miniseries being developed by Critical Role.

Mercer developed the Age of Umbra campaign frame as an intentionally grimdark setting inspired by Dark Souls and Kingdom Death: Monster. Speaking at PAX Unplugged, Mercer discussed the setting in further detail. "The campaign I created, Age of Umbra, is [similar to] a Soulsbourne," Mercer said. "It is a dark, challenging very grim place by design. In Daggerheart, our menagerie games are very silly and very fun and lean on flexing and going over the top with our characters. Age of Umbra is meant to be the opposite. It is a landscape that has been without gods for over 100 years; they abandoned the people and the realm itself is kind of rotting and dying. The survivors that exist there have to hold on to what community there is to get by as the dark things in the shadows grow darker and larger as time passes."

"There are threats and dangers whenever you rest that might give the GM more Fear," Mercer said later in the panel. "You might actually be attacked before you finish resting, so you want to have somebody take the Watch action while you have downtime to mitigate that danger. There are mechanics in this frame to set that theme that no place is really safe. There are things lurking out there and there's longstanding corruption beyond just damage that exists in this space."

The announcement, while minor, has some major implications for Critical Role. The popular actual play show recently wrapped up its third campaign and there was speculation that the show would switch from Dungeons & Dragons to Daggerheart for the next ongoing campaign. Considering that Age of Umbra is developed by Mercer and is being featured in a new miniseries, it seems like the plan is still for Critical Role to focus on Exandria in their ongoing campaign and use various miniseries to explore other kinds of stories and worlds. We'll have to see as Critical Role said they'll make more announcements about its future later this spring.

 

[Argyle King]

You're actually seriously undermining your own point there. That's absolutely a grimdark thing to happen. No question about it. Grimdark applies to the bad guys too, there's absolutely grimdark fiction where bad or powerful and moral guys get absolutely bodied in seconds after think they're the "king of the universe" or w/e (Malazan has some examples, for one, I suspect Joe Abercrombie has some bad guys who absolutely go out like suckers too).

You're confusing it with heroic fantasy, where that would never happen, and indeed, most heroic fantasy, the good guys wouldn't even interrupt the badguy's monologue, let alone absolutely body him in seconds!

The fact that you find it funny is all about how the event was presented and what your expectations were. You were presumably expecting heroic fantasy with some grimdark tropes (which to be fair, is a much better description of 4E than "grimdark", so not an unreasonable expectation), based on what you've said. What would really make it "grimdark" or not isn't "demon lord gets absolutely bodied in seconds", that's 100% within the realms of grimdark possibility, it's whether killing him is really a victory, really anything more than a temporary respite. If killing him brings a thousand years of bounteous peace then... that's probably not grimdark. If killing him temporarily halts a war that might start up again next year or next generation or even next century, and maybe this time it's worse, then it could well be. Also, 4E still screwed up, but it screwed up because it failed to fulfil heroic fantasy tropes, not grimdark ones.

Maybe I don't understand what is intended with "grimdark."

To me, if the setting fluff is presenting challenges as being serious, but the mechanics regularly lead to those challenges being trivial, that's difficult for me to take seriously.

 

[Argyle King]

You're actually seriously undermining your own point there. That's absolutely a grimdark thing to happen. No question about it. Grimdark applies to the bad guys too, there's absolutely grimdark fiction where bad or powerful and moral guys get absolutely bodied in seconds after think they're the "king of the universe" or w/e (Malazan has some examples, for one, I suspect Joe Abercrombie has some bad guys who absolutely go out like suckers too).

You're confusing it with heroic fantasy, where that would never happen, and indeed, most heroic fantasy, the good guys wouldn't even interrupt the badguy's monologue, let alone absolutely body him in seconds!

The fact that you find it funny is all about how the event was presented and what your expectations were. You were presumably expecting heroic fantasy with some grimdark tropes (which to be fair, is a much better description of 4E than "grimdark", so not an unreasonable expectation), based on what you've said. What would really make it "grimdark" or not isn't "demon lord gets absolutely bodied in seconds", that's 100% within the realms of grimdark possibility, it's whether killing him is really a victory, really anything more than a temporary respite. If killing him brings a thousand years of bounteous peace then... that's probably not grimdark. If killing him temporarily halts a war that might start up again next year or next generation or even next century, and maybe this time it's worse, then it could well be. Also, 4E still screwed up, but it screwed up because it failed to fulfil heroic fantasy tropes, not grimdark ones.

Maybe I don't get what people mean by "grimdark."

When the in-world problems are presented as serious while simultaneously also being steamrolled as a regular thing, that creates cognitive dissonance for me -and it's difficult for me to buy into a serious tone.

FWIW, I also have similar issues with buying into a lot of horror movies. However, in the case of those, it's the opposite reason: the protagonists are often so stupid and inept at basic tasks that it takes me out of it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe I don't get what people mean by "grimdark."

I mean no insult by this but yeah - or your definition is very unconventional.

When the in-world problems are presented as serious while simultaneously also being steamrolled as a regular thing, that creates cognitive dissonance for me -and it's difficult for me to buy into a serious tone.

That's not an issue that relates to grimdark specifically. That's a completely separate thing. In grimdark it's not that big threats can't be steamrolled, sometimes the full might and majesty of the Imperium descends on a Genestealer Cult and utterly annihilates it. What makes it grimdark isn't the Genestealer Patriarch putting up a good fight - he might get absolutely schooled in seconds by a team of Deepstriking Terminators. Rather it's that there's probably a Tyranid Hive Fleet headed there already, and maybe they won't arrive for 50 years, but will anyone be able to stop them when they do? All you're doing is buying time. In the grim darkness of the 41st century, there is only war.

Additionally as I think you alluded to, grimdark is also not maximally serious, generally speaking. When it tries to be, it tends to fail as a tone for a variety of reasons. Thus a demon lord being steamrolled is within the bounds of grimdark (so long as it doesn't lead to long-term happiness and flowers), but it's definitely without the bounds of valour-oriented heroic fantasy, because valour-oriented heroic fantasy demands a good fight to vanquish the evil. It's definitely tonally dissonant if the demon lord gets curbstomped in that case (esp. without a speech, as I noted).

It's worth noting that heroic fantasy isn't always like that - obviously Lord of the Ring isn't, but that's a separate and potentially interesting discussion, where Tolkien engaged in some very early "trope subversion", because he didn't want Frodo to engage in a heroic confrontation like Bilbo kind of had, and Bard definitely had, but rather to prove the worth of the little guy who believes in something.

 

[Argyle King]

I mean no insult by this but yeah - or your definition is very unconventional.

That's not an issue that relates to grimdark specifically. That's a completely separate thing. In grimdark it's not that big threats can't be steamrolled, sometimes the full might and majesty of the Imperium descends on a Genestealer Cult and utterly annihilates it. What makes it grimdark isn't the Genestealer Patriarch putting up a good fight - he might get absolutely schooled in seconds by a team of Deepstriking Terminators. Rather it's that there's probably a Tyranid Hive Fleet headed there already, and maybe they won't arrive for 50 years, but will anyone be able to stop them when they do? All you're doing is buying time. In the grim darkness of the 41st century, there is only war.

Additionally as I think you alluded to, grimdark is also not maximally serious, generally speaking. When it tries to be, it tends to fail as a tone for a variety of reasons. Thus a demon lord being steamrolled is within the bounds of grimdark (so long as it doesn't lead to long-term happiness and flowers), but it's definitely without the bounds of valour-oriented heroic fantasy, because valour-oriented heroic fantasy demands a good fight to vanquish the evil. It's definitely tonally dissonant if the demon lord gets curbstomped in that case (esp. without a speech, as I noted).

It's worth noting that heroic fantasy isn't always like that - obviously Lord of the Ring isn't, but that's a separate and potentially interesting discussion, where Tolkien engaged in some very early "trope subversion", because he didn't want Frodo to engage in a heroic confrontation like Bilbo kind of had, and Bard definitely had, but rather to prove the worth of the little guy who believes in something.

I understand that it can happen (that a fight be steamrolled).

I wasn't under the impression that it was assumed to be a common occurance.

I agree that 40k does Grimdark well.

If what is meant by "Grimdark" is just putting an edge-lord paint job on everything, I'm probably not the target audience for that. I'm also typically not the target audience for Mercer's style. So, the game is likely a pass (for me personally).

However, I'm glad that there is an opportunity for others to be introduced to a wider variety of games. For the people who want that experience, I hope it fulfills their needs and is successful.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree that 40k does Grimdark well.

I mean, it invented it, it'd better!

I dunno if I'm telling you something you know but the term "grimdark" literally comes from "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war", which appeared on the box of 2E 40K (and the version with "the 41st century" was used in a book inside that). Albeit the illustration on the box arguably undermined it somewhat lol - it looks like a nice day and everyone is wearing cheery colours!:

People mistakenly attribute it to 1E 40K (Rogue Trader), but that quote is a bit different:

 

[Reynard]

Let's not confuse grimDARK with grimDANK.

 

[Scribe]

Grimdark continues to be misunderstood. I love it dearly lol

 

[Argyle King]

I mean, it invented it, it'd better!

I dunno if I'm telling you something you know but the term "grimdark" literally comes from "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war", which appeared on the box of 2E 40K (and the version with "the 41st century" was used in a book inside that). Albeit the illustration on the box arguably undermined it somewhat lol - it looks like a nice day and everyone is wearing cheery colours!:

View attachment 401854
People mistakenly attribute it to 1E 40K (Rogue Trader), but that quote is a bit different:

View attachment 401855

I only have a casual experience with Warhammer.

•I like some of the lore.
•I bought a lot of the lizardfolk minis because they fit my idea of lizardfolk better than D&D.
•The video games tend to be good.

Aside from that, probably the closest experience I have to what I think might be "grimdark" is the old Mutant League Football game on Sega Genesis.