The cast of Critical Role marks its ninth anniversary this week, and to celebrate they’ve launched the beta version of Daggerheart, a wholly new role-playing game to be published by their Darrington Press imprint. It’s a Dungeons & Dragons competitor that has been in development for a few years now and the beta version is massive, with a draft manuscript alone clocking in at nearly 380 pages. Thankfully, the eight-person cast is here to make it a whole lot simpler — and more fun — with a raucous session of character generation.
Lead by game master Matt Mercer, all seven of the core members of Critical Role showed up last night for a Daggerheart session zero — that is, the character generation and table-setting that proceeds the opening round of play. That gave them the opportunity to show off some of the things in this new game that make it so unique. They even mixed things up a bit by taking on classes and ancestries that go against their usual type.
Here’s where they landed on the first go-around:
- Marisha Ray rolled up Bunnie, a Troubadour bard of the Ridgeborne faun ancestry, a goat-like creature with square pupils and cloven hooves.
- Travis Willingham created Kexon Peros, School of War wizard and a Loreborne faerie, which in the lore of this world means he looks like a winged insect.
- Ashley Johnson, perhaps with the recent Oscars on her mind, lead with Oppenheimer “Oppy” Betabean, a Primal Origin sorcerer and a Seaborne frog person called a ribbet.
- Sam Riegel arrived with Pango Small, a Stalwart guardian whose Underborne giant ancestry gives him quite the stature.
- Taliesin Jaffe introduced the world to Sir Danté Terrapin, a Call of the Brave warrior who happens to be an anthropomorphic turtle man, also known as a Wildborne galapa.
- Laura Bailey’s Sweetpea Betabean is a Nightwalker rogue Seaborne fungril, that is a humanoid descended from a mushroom.
- And finally there’s Liam O’Brien’s Xarlo Grandall, a Divine Wielder seraph (a cleric-like healer class) who happens to be a Wanderborne simiah, an ape-like simian creature with deft, grasping feet.
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After character generation, the gang dove right into the one-shot itself, which you can currently find behind the paywall on their Twitch channel. The Daggerheart playtest continues for some time, with access available on the Darrington Press website and on DriveThruRPG. Fans encouraged to roll up their own characters, play a few sessions, and submit feedback that will be considered in the final product — due out in 2025.
