Those who don't participate in Critical Role's burgeoning media empire beyond watching the weekly live play shows may be surprised to learn that the collective has its own tabletop publisher, Darrington Press, and its own TTRPG, Daggerheart.
The decision not to use Daggerheart for Campaign 4 was because they felt that changing too many elements of the show at once could alienate returning viewers. Sam Riegel mentioned this in one of his sponsored reads, slyly noting that not using Daggerheart was a bad business decision.
A collaboration between Daggerheart and miniature-making site Hero Forge was recently announced. “License Agreement” adds Daggerheart's ribs, Fungrill, and Symian ancestor body parts. These are frog, fungus, and monkey humanoids respectively.
Hero Forge generally allows users to create miniatures for free, with costs only incurred if users want to 3D print them and purchase their creations from the company. This new collaboration is different in that you'll have to pay $7.99 (per line) to access the new miniature parts before paying for the miniatures to be built and shipped.
dagger to the heart
Critical Role fans are criticizing Darrington Press for the new pricing strategy, as their previous collaborations were accessible for free. Murgandor's Reddit thread expressed disappointment with this decision, with several commenters saying they were planning to cancel their Hero Forge subscriptions as a result of the additional monetization.
“I've been a monster from the beginning and couldn't run an online D&D game without Hero Forge. I've been a Pro+Downloads subscriber for years. I'm very disappointed in Hero Forge for doing this and it breaks my heart that it's happening because of CR/Darrington. As much as I love both companies, I cannot and will not support this,” ZhaneTaylor wrote.
Fomaaaa also raises a valid point. Prior to this collaboration, Hero Forge did not have fungus, monkey or frog style bodies. This means that the company will most likely not release regular versions of these bodies, as they overlap too much with Daggerheart's ancestors. This means that users who want to use these anthropomorphic body types will have to purchase paywalled statuettes.
Darrington Press has yet to make a statement about the collaboration.
- number of players
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3-6 (2-5 + GM)
- length per game
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Depends on campaign
- publisher
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darrington press
- original release date
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2025
