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Critical Role Announces Age of Umbra Daggerheart Campaign, Starting May 29th

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An 8-part Daggerheart miniseries is coming from Critical Role. Announced today, Age of Umbra is a new Actual Play series featuring Matthew Mercer as game master and co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham as players. The new miniseries will take up the bulk of the summer months, providing more of a break to the core cast ahead of an assumed fourth full-length D&D campaign.

Daggerheart is a new TTRPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press. Although the base game is intended to be a high fantasy RPG, the game includes several "campaign frames" that add additional rules for specific types of stories. Age of Umbra was developed by Mercer and draws inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Tainted Grail, and Kingdom Death: Monster.

The miniseries will air on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube, with episodes airing every Thursday. The first episode debuts on May 29th, with Session 0 airing on various Critical Role platforms on May 22nd.

The full description of the series can be found below:

Age of Umbra
is an eight-part Daggerheart mini-series from Critical Role of dark, survival fantasy, debuting May 29 on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube. Set in the Halcyon Domain, a world abandoned by gods and consumed by darkness, the series begins by following five people from the isolated community of Desperloch as they fight to protect their own in the face of rising horrors.

The Halcyon Domain is a lethal, foreboding land where the souls of the dead are cursed to return as twisted, nightmarish forms. A dark, ethereal mass known as the Umbra roams and holds these fiendish monstrosities, further corrupting anything it touches. Sacred Pyres keep the corruption at bay, and small communities endure through cooperation. Out in the beyond, whispers speak of ancient secrets and powers, wonders of a lost age, ready for discovery to those brave enough (or foolish enough) to seek them.

Game Master Matthew Mercer leads fellow Critical Role co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham in a high-stakes actual play exploring hope, sacrifice, and survival in a world where death is only the beginning.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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I am fascinated by the choice of a more "ArdKore" setting conceit for the series. Some of the design aesthetics so far for Daggerheart have read as very cute, and I have to think this is to highlight how the system is more versatile than one might assume.

Yes, for people like me who bounce off 'very cute'. This is about the only reason I would even glance at the system, and even still the 'very cute' has me resistant to parting with money.
 



The reviews on BGG are not very good. But I'm certain they can gauge how many will sell and print only that much, for fans.
Outdated view. There are hardly any reviews of the final version. While this may be indication of mellowing popularity, there were changes made to the final version.

Note: some reviewers found by Google were markedly political, and so I am not considering their opinion to be reliable.
 

I think the Soloist were talking about their boardgames here, not the ttrpgs. I've heard a lot of how their boardgames are a bit lacklustre from non-CR haters. And boardgames are a different skill to make good, so not surprised that they're among the 70% mediocre boardgame makers out there, there are a lot of them.
 

Outdated view. There are hardly any reviews of the final version. While this may be indication of mellowing popularity, there were changes made to the final version.

Note: some reviewers found by Google were markedly political, and so I am not considering their opinion to be reliable.
I was replying to the question about CR's board games.
 


I'm getting that feeling from some people as well, and like you say, I can't explain why. The best I can tell you is that our group of 5E players really bounced off of it hard. If you're coming from a traditional playstyle, it may be a bridge too far for some players. For our group it was the Initiative system (or lack of system) and the armor rules. I, if I'm honest, still don't understand why they didn't like the armor rules, but that was a very unpopular thing.

I loved what I saw, but I come from running and playing PbtA/FitD and similar systems, so I was not surprised by what I saw in the system. I'm not sure it is close enough to be a bridge system for people who don't have any experience beyond 5E. We will see.
Now you have me interested: what are the armor rules?!
 


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