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

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.

 

[nyvinter]

In the launch video, Spenser Starke says they started developing the game four years ago, it's not just a thing they pulled together after the OGL debacle in 2023. They announced it yes, but it had already been in going through internal playtest at that time. This makes DH just as old or slightly older than their campaign three.

I definitely agree about it being D&D or not is irrelevant for Amazon. They care about the numbers they show is generating now, and it got picked up because of the kickstarter rather than being a D&D cartoon. They don't give a toss about the game aspect.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

In the launch video, Spenser Starke says they started developing the game four years ago, it's not just a thing they pulled together after the OGL debacle in 2023. They announced it yes, but it had already been in going through internal playtest at that time. This makes DH just as old or slightly older than their campaign three.

I definitely agree about it being D&D or not is irrelevant for Amazon. They care about the numbers they show is generating now, and it got picked up because of the kickstarter rather than being a D&D cartoon. They don't give a toss about the game aspect.

Also, they have years and years and years left to adpat their existing campaigns if Amazon was concerned about it being tied to DND specifically. We're half a decade out minium of any campaign 4 getting animated either way

 

[Elvish Lore]

Hot take but not that hot I think: CR is done with very long campaigns.

Everyone thinking C4 will be 3-4 years long but... I think that model is done. I don't think the numbers make sense anymore... their viewership dwindles over the long run and the length becomes this obstacle to getting new viewers because people don't want to put in 2000 hours of watching to catch up (and, yea, I know there's other ways to catch up). Plus, they generate IP faster by spinning out smaller stories that might be ripe for adaptations into animation or video games, etc. I can even see them linking smaller campaigns with storylines and lore but start up with different characters.

No idea what length works for them now but C4 won't be the huge monstrosity that their previous big campaigns have been.

Daggerheart was designed for 30-40 sessions... not sure if that's coincidence or what. But with the hires of Crawford/Perkins, CR is aiming for legitimacy in the rpg design space (because they certainly already have it as media stars) and unless the Age of Umbra viewership numbers are super low and unless WotC doesn't come forward with a big sponsorship spend, it's hard to see how CR's next Main Campaign won't be using Daggerheart.

 

[nyvinter]

Daggerheart was designed for 30-40 sessions...

I ran a Dungeon World for 45 sessions — so I think you can easily run Daggerheart for 70-80. But that's half the length of their current campaigns anyway, so I agree. C4 and afterwards will probably be shorter and a bit more focused as a result.

 

[Clint_L]

I’ve watched every show CR has made…but that may not last much longer. Grimdark is not my taste in any media.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I’ve watched every show CR has made…but that may not last much longer. Grimdark is not my taste in any media.

I’m not sure they will be able to stick to grimdark. Improv generally defaults to comedy, and CR depends a lot of that. My players are similar - try and do grimdark with them and they will crack wise all the way through it. I think the closest they will be able to get is WH40K style jet black comedy.

 

[Reynard]

I’m not sure they will be able to stick to grimdark. Improv generally defaults to comedy, and CR depends a lot of that. My players are similar - try and do grimdark with them and they will crack wise all the way through it. I think the closest they will be able to get is WH40K style jet black comedy.

I was worried too, but in the end the show iscright in their wheel house: levity punctuated by moments of genuine tension, emotion and/or fear. It has a Souslike coat of paint, but it isn't really grimdark, or intended to be I don't think.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I doubt very strongly that Amazon cares (and likely many of the execs don't understand at all) what system the source material comes from.

WotC might well prefer a 5e-based show, but unless they sign a huge sponsorship deal (to my knowledge they don't sponsor CR at all these days), I doubt they get a vote.

They may have deals for future books like Wildemount.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Tried watched CR years ago and bounced off them, trying again with Age of Umbra to get a feel for the system.

I do think that Mercer running it in a more D&D 5E style will help more reluctant folks give the system a shot. I'm mildly interested, but as someone who already has a number of fantasy RPGs in the shelf to work with, I'm not sure I need another one unless it's doing something really interesting.

 

[ruemere]

I’ve watched every show CR has made…but that may not last much longer. Grimdark is not my taste in any media.

Nah, it's not grimdark. Yes, it's literally dark, there are some dark aspects, but otherwise it is good old fantasy.

A dictionary of my definitions:

• grim - your odds of survival are frankly,far away from being great. Calling them bad would be generous.
• dark - the world is in a bad spot. People do all the kinds of questionable things to survive.
• soulslike - you can do that, just need to get gud. Try another thousand times. Oh, and the world is in a dark place. Note that quality of soulslike implies being allowed infinite retries at a cost of losing one's meagre gains. There were attempts to introduce degeneration spiral but they failed, as the sheer number of retries exceeded one's ability to recover enough to continue.