Darrington Press has revealed the cover art and release date for Daggerheart: Hope and Fear, the first major expansion for Critical Role's fantasy RPG. The book lands on 25 August at Darrington Press Guild stores, friendly local game stores, and Critical Role shops in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the EU. A wider retail release follows on 22 September.
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Set up your group for freeThe headline feature is six Transformation Cards that let characters become vampires, werewolves, ghosts, shapeshifters, demigods, or the reanimated mid-campaign. These are not cosmetic changes. Each transformation alters how your character plays at the table, opening up new abilities while introducing fresh complications. If your group has been hungry for darker character arcs, this is Darrington Press leaning hard into that space.
Four new classes also join the roster: Witch, Warlock, Brawler, and Assassin, each with two subclasses. The book adds four Campaign Frames with ready-made worlds to drop a party into, six new Ancestry and Community cards for character creation, and a Dread Domain card set for new magical abilities. For GMs, there is a bestiary with over 130 adversaries spread across 28 environments, ranging from corrupted fey courts to collapsing pocket dimensions.
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Start organising for freeFor anyone unfamiliar with Daggerheart, the system's signature is its dual-dice mechanic. Every roll uses two d12s, one Hope and one Fear. Both dice are summed and compared against a difficulty number to determine success or failure, but the individual die that rolled higher determines the outcome's flavour. Roll high on the Hope die and you gain momentum and resources. Roll high on Fear and the GM gains fuel for adversary actions and complications. That constant push and pull is what reviewers latched onto. Wargamer called it "the narrative tabletop RPG of my dreams."
The standard edition is priced at $39.99, while a deluxe edition at $119.99 includes a magnetic gold foil box, GM screen, multiple dice sets, Fear tokens, and character sheet rip pads. Pre-orders are live now at daggerheart.com, with a digital PDF delivered two weeks before the physical release. Gen Con attendees in Indianapolis (30 July to 2 August) can grab copies early.
Sources: Gaming Trend | Bell of Lost Souls | Darrington Press
