Age of Umbra - A Beginner Friendly Daggerheart Campaign

Age of Umbra - A Beginner Friendly Daggerheart Campaign

As seen on Critical Role - In a dark and broken age, you are heroic survivors desperately trying to hunt down nightmares and keep your community safe.

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

1

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
2 NEEDED TO START
$25.00

/ Session

Details

3 players following this game

Weekly / Monday - 6:30 PM UTC

Session Duration / 2.5–3 hours

Campaign Length / 5+ Sessions

1 / 5 Seats Filled

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This game will begin once 3 players have joined

Meet your party members

1/5

About the adventure

**Free Session Zero** A Daggerheart campaign for everyone - whether you've never played before or have been following and playing the game since it was announced! This will be a campaign focused on roleplaying, storytelling and collaboration in which all the players have a real chance to impact the world with their own imaginations, as we build it together. Part Heroic fantasy, part survival horror, the Age of Umbra Campaign Frame draws on the influences of Dark Souls and other dystopic fantasies. This campaign will draw from the players' imaginations as well as mine to create a dark fantasy world of dread, horror, but also glimpses of light and transcendence.

Game style

Roleplay Heavy

Meet the Game Master
Neurodivergent
Published Writer
Voice Actor
No Gen AI

2 years on StartPlaying

61 games hosted

Highly rated for: Voices, Creativity, Storytelling

Average response time: Under 1 hour

Response rate: 100%

About me

Welcome to my page, adventurer… I’m Josh, also known as Faz and The Thespian Gamesmaster. 🎭 actor 🔮 improviser 🎤 voice over artist, 🧑‍🏫 acting teacher ♾️ autistic 🐶 dog owner 🏳️‍🌈LGBTQIA+ & BIPOC Friendly and, most importantly, 📖🧝‍♀️🐉👻🧛📖 Gamesmaster. I’ve been playing roleplaying games for many decades now, and gamesmastering them for almost that long. I have hosted long running campaigns in every Dungeons and Dragons edition since Advanced, The World of Darkness, Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu and 7th Sea – as well as running one shots and shorter adventures in numerous other systems. At the moment I’m also interested in running Daggerheart, as it leans so well into the collaborative storytelling space where I’m happiest and think I have the most to offer my players. I bring a sense of fun to my games, and want to include everyone in the wonder and joy of creating a world and adventuring together, discovering epic and comic highlights. As an actor, I’ve worked at the Royal National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe, as well as London’s West End, among many other fine theatres. My voice over credits include numerous plays on BBC Radio 4, various audiobooks and you can hear me on such films as The Prince of Persia, John Carter and A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey. I’ve taught improvisation at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Drama Studio London, and am currently the improvisational acting teacher on the Musical Theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In improvisation, I’ve appeared in almost all of the London 50 hour improv marathons, I’ve worked with The Showstoppers and am a founding member of the award-winning School of Night. I recently played the late great Gary Gygax, at the 2026 London Improvathon. "Having played in many 50 Hour London Improvathons with Josh, I can personally vouch for his improvisational and narrative skills! Any players at his table will be in more than capable hands." - Mark Meer, (male) Captain Shepard from Mass Effect, genius improviser and DM.

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Character creation

Creating your character

You're welcome to look at the rulebook and come up with ideas, and we'll be creating characters together during our session zero. If there's a particular class that you'd like to play, you'll be able to reserve that on my discord server on a first come, first served basis. We'll be using official published classes only, so just the main rulebook until the Hope and Fear sourcebook is released.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

You'll need free accounts on Discord, and Fantasy Grounds, which can be found at https://www.fantasygrounds.com/ - it needs to be installed but it's free to play. We may migrate to Alchemy (also free) later on, once they've ironed out their system.

What The Thespian GM brings to the table

I offer collaboration as we shape the world of our campaign together. I'll be led by the players in the sandbox style, shaping our play by what the group is most interested in. I'm a professional actor and voice over artist, and I promise well rounded and differently accented NPCs and dramatic situations. I don't envisage the game being too combat heavy, but what there is will be intense. I embrace the rule of cool - as I think does the Daggerheart system.

Homebrew rules

None

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Webcam

Safety

How The Thespian GM creates a safe table

We will be discussing Lines and Veils in the session zero, and drawing up a document from that. We'll also use the Fantasy Grounds X card add on.

Content warnings

Alcohol Use
Animal Death
Blood
Character Death
Classism
Death
Emotional Abuse
Extreme Violence
Fire
Gore
Insects
Mass Death
Mind Control
Murder
Mutilation
Pandemic
Snakes
Spiders
Suicide Ideation
Trauma
Violence
Body Horror
Child Death
Torture

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions