Dispatch

Vol 31: Hope & Fear

The Book from Burbank arrives as GenCon looms. A road to nowhere, and a rain of blades. Then, crafting the perfect villain and running the perfect game—with insights on social environments, parents, and racoons. Plus: the Reaper Corp and a wizard with a sniper’s rifle.

SPOTLIGHT

As the arrival of Hope & Fear pre-orders this week sent their buyers into a tizzy, the Spotlight shines on Sadie Lowry, the Expansion book’s Lead Editor who spent the last year wrangling the ideas and idioms of dozens of contributors into a cohesive, coherent, and compact edition. We are indebted to you and your team's tact and tenacity, mademoiselle. Bene factum!

NEWS & RELEASES

Hope & Fear is Here

The enchanted eagle has landed, at least for the now-sated/seated H&F pre-order buyers. Birdsong fills the air! Baubles are on display! Adventure beckons! And, of course…

Conferences & Confabs

Can’t get enough of Daggerheart or Darrington? SDCC has a few open AP slots today and tomorrow if you’re in SoCal, and while GenCon is sold out, you might just intercept a wild card if you roam the floors. [Ed: you might also get you hands on a physical copy of Courts & Shadow, a GenCon-exclusive from Kobold Press.]

Deutsche'n Dagger

Alas, if land, sea, or air is not on the table, partake of time travel and spend a couple of hours in Germany with this actual play GM’d by Spenser and played by Rowan the Ranger.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

The cool kids over at the Panic Table are auctioning a guest seat at their table for the ENNIEs. Bids close tomorrow at 12:30pmET (Sun, July 26). Some advice: hide the steak knives. [Ed: Darrington is also auctioning a seat, albeit at a much higher strike price. Note that all proceeds go to charity.]

Platform Postings

Demiplane's long-awaited homebrew feature was released in beta this week, initially focusing on custom equipment, while Heart of Daggers—which has had homebrew for some time—announced that every single item and Adversary from H&F has already been added to the platform with its own custom artwork (though won't be released until 8/25 when the SRD is updated).

Duality Drops

Two dice makers have released chonky duality dice in various Domain colours to test your personality. Treasure Packs from Sirius Dice ship with a randomly selected colour, while Mad Dragon lets you pick up front. Which path shall ye choose, adventurer?

Nowhere Man

Out of nowhere comes Road to Nowhere, an official adventure frame from Darrington and Jack Panic/DNGN CLUB. While many designers ask "how do I get D&D stuff into Daggerheart?," Panic is motoring in the other direction, expanding the horizon for what's possible on the platform and discovering some of the most inventive ideas in the space.

DISCUSSIONS

Block Head

So much of a GM’s “choose and resolve actions” step in the game is bedevilled by not considering practical “on set” details. For example, a GM was stymied by their Rogue constantly slipping into the middle of an Adversary pack and dealing heavy damage by casting Rain of Blades—only to be asked: “How did he get into the middle of the group without some adversarial re/action?” and “why wouldn’t the Adversary group spread out?” To which we’ll add: slow down, think it through. Act like a director blocking the scene and ask “how?” several times.

What's My Motivation?

“I think people often conflate making a character with a pinned-down backstory, and making a character who's firmly tied into the setting. You can have one without the other.”

That’s cavegirl, reflecting on the confusion players and GMs have around character creation. In her view, your character should be in conversation with the setting, but not necessarily tethered. She goes on:

“I also think that while making a character who's well connected to the setting (with ties to NPCs, motives to act, oppinions about the big issues of the game, etc) is vital, the history of who they were before that I couldn't give two shits about; who they are *now* is what matters.

Or, to phrase it more bluntly: I don't give a shit where your vampire went to school or how they learned auspex; what I want to know is what they think of the current prince and what they intend to do about it.”

Battle of the Bands

Overheard: "Draw Steel is the scene in Thor: Ragnarok where "Immigrant Song" plays. Daggerheart is the alternate universe where "Holding Out for a Hero" is the soundtrack to that scene."

VIBE CHECK

Adversary, adorable, or both? AuraDMG's Wild Fungril duo.

*Per Janke's Moon Knight. "This art piece haunts me in the best way.* *I love it.*"

🎯 GM TIPS

Crafting Villains to Create Experiences

C&C makes the astute observation that a villain shouldn’t be defined by their backstory or motivations, but by the specific experience the GM wants to create for their players. By treating villain creation like criminal profiling, she outlines four steps to build the perfect, purpose-driven antagonist. Worth your time.

Using Game Loops to Manage Campaigns

A lot of GM advice is to learn story structure: character, acts, beats, etc. But the gist of Stephanie’s video is to understand game loops. Once studied, they allow you to structure campaigns quickly and efficiently, lowering your prep while raising the overall player experience. At 30min, it’s one of the longer advice videos. But it’s detailed and smart and also worth your time. Bonus: Sly Flourish's 10 Adventure Types

🤔 KNOWLEDGE CHECK

WHEREIN WE ASK the community for pearls of wisdom. This week, Redd on social encounters.

What makes for great social encounters in your games? I’m a huge fan of backstories—specifically leaning into ‘anchors’. These can be sensory, memories, beliefs, emotions, people etc. During character creation, I give my players a list of anchors, and they choose as many as they want to answer. Like ‘A promise you cling to, even though it hurts’. Intimately knowing the characters leads to some wonderful moments of provocation. They hear the name of an ex lover, [see] a tattoo/symbol that matches the one on the PCs arm, [smell] a drifting scent—of grief and loss—that almost makes them throw up. For me, it turns roleplay into something they feel in their bones, as opposed to simply ‘reacts in character’.

What do you do to set them up? I always have a handful of meaningful social encounters in my back pocket. Meaningful, in that they either have something that the party needs/wants, or they have the potential to shift the narrative in some way. I sprinkle them in whenever I think there’s an opening for some NPC-to-PC roleplay, they need a little direction, or just because it’s fun!

From a recent game: The PCs had to negotiate the release of another player, who’d been captured for ‘crimes’ and was due to be executed the following day. One of the PCs had lost their father in the same way, so an anchor was already in play here. I used the Royal Advisor stat block for this encounter, with their passive ability alone punishing any weak argument—which meant the PCs really had to build a strong case and every single roll towards this pardon really mattered!

How do you encourage your players to invest in the moment? For me, investment typically comes in through their anchors, where possible, so it’s personalised. It can also be through me or the PCs laying down the stakes. I make it matter to them—they make it matter to me. Consequences are key. Whether they desperately need a specific ingredient to save their fellow PC’s limb from rotting away, or they bump into someone from their past who wronged them, but acting now could incite war. Dangling that juicy golden carrot always keeps things interesting!

[Ed: Redd offers a free PDF to assist with developing anchors.]

🍺 HOMEBREW

Wizard with a Sniper Rifle

We debated including Jack Panic's WWASR because—ffs—how often are we going to showcase this man's work? But then, are we scolds? Will we dampen a fire? "Hey Mozart! STFU. Dickens! Put down the pen. Taylor—stop strumming!" No. No we will not. Shine on your crazy diamond. Shine on.

Your Parents

Perfect. Put it in the CRB. (Though maybe up their Stress to 20.)

Jimothy!

The original video, Rob's statblock, this artwork, a 3D model—and baby Jimothy!

🌎 CAMPAIGN FRAME

Graveheart

While video game artist and designer John Gronquist is a bit quieter than some of his publishing peers, his work is delightfully absurd, expertly crafted, and a joy to play. So we took note when he shared a peek at his upcoming work:

"Graveheart is a Super Science and Sorcery campaign set in the dark far future of the Underworld, the land of death itself. It's been tens of thousands of years since anyone has called it by the name "Hades." Since then billions of human, synthetic, mutant, or otherworldly souls have found themselves drawn into the mythic Underworld of mankind, as the wars of humanity spread into the stars.

Now the Underworld is overloaded with souls, vastly more than can be processed into their Afterlife. Worse yet, Hades the Lord of Death, has gone missing. Thanatos, the lord in command of Reaping souls, has left to find him, leaving the poor old Ferryman of Charon in charge.

You play members of Charon's Reaper Corp, indentured to his service in payment for sins you no longer remember. You hunt Rogue Spirits who wish to break the cycle of life and death and release themselves from the prison of this land. As you pay off your debts, travelling across the savage lands, you wonder if perhaps the Rogue Spirits might have the right idea after all."

John's company, Hack Shack, will release the frame as PWYW in the next few weeks and, if demand is high, release additional adventures and supplements to extend the (dark and deadpan) world.

🎨 CRAFTY

Zinophobia

JP Coovert's 4-pt zine series is a handy soup-to-nuts primer, but the fourth and final video is particularly helpful when deciding on paper stock, coatings, and the overall economics of printing.

Artful Essays

Three great posts from Clayton appeared on our radar: an update to his canonical post on public domain art resources, a clever study on how to design hyperlinks in PDFs, and—an oldie but new to us—gestalt laws for RPG design.

Mike Underwood examines the word count of H&F's new campaign frames and what it means for writers.
Love authentic medieval fonts? We have you covered.
An excellent layout set-up checklist from Graftbound.

🛠️ TOOLS & RESOURCES

Weekend advice: crack open Hope & Fear and stream MAB Music's sweet ambient campfire loop. (Or try his new tavern track if you're looking for something a bit more jaunty.)

The Roundup:

Rarebitt made some fillable character sheets for the updated Blood Hunter, then went on to make some for all the H&F classes.
Here are loot tables that combine the CRB with H&F, thanks to PrinceOfNowhereee.
Maleficent-Detail has added the Demon of Despair to their beautifully-crafted mini collection. [Ed: Adversary Designer Chris Davidson has advice on deploying the DoD.]
While Daggerheart dispenses with initiative, some players become paralyzed with the "no, after you" phenomenon. This Foundryborne plugin is for them.
Enjoy some wine as you track HP, Stress, Armour and Hope, courtesy of Knektknekt.
Traipse says: The same way equipment and gear help you get things done in the dungeon, Friends and Contacts help you get things done in the city.

INSPO

No one is rolling with Hope in the world of Holly Humphries. Her UK countrysides are blighted with dark omens and corrupted wildlife, as if the seeds of Stephen King novels bore fruit and began to wander. (Black tidings aside—that crow armour is fucking sick.)

STORYTELLING

The Craft

Daggerheart thrives on improvisation, but great improv still leans on storytelling craft. Screenwriters have been refining these tools for decades: character arcs, backstory, conflict, resolution, irony. They’re the scaffolding that help spur‑of‑the‑moment play land with impact.

One of the best craft crash courses comes from Scriptnotes, the OG podcast by John August and Craig Mazin. Their “How to Write a Movie” episode (also in transcript) lays out a deceptively simple model: introduce your character with a worldview, then spend the story stress‑testing them—rather torturously—until they emerge changed. Bonus points for ironic twists along the way.

For GMs, this is a reminder that campaign frames and adversary stat blocks are only half the toolkit. The other half is understanding how to put your characters’ worldviews in the line of fire, and then give them the space—and the stakes—to come out the other side, transformed.

Bonus: Over a thousand hours of Scriptnotes has been duck-pressed into a bestselling book. We recommend it as the unofficial companion to the CRB. [Ed: Re-upped from Vol #4 for new subscribers.]