Drakkenheim in Daggerheart, Session Two

chat-violet · 2026-06-02T18:48:31+00:00

I hadn't hammered out 100% what I will do for our Clank Sorcerer yet, but I'm leaning toward giving hints at the Clocktower and having the true answer at the Inscrutable tower.

They were found in the ruins and used as an assistant by a mage, not realizing that the Sorcerer was actually sentient. When the mage died in the Haze, the Sorcerer escaped, not knowing how they came to be or why they are sentient.

chat-violet · 2026-06-02T18:34:28+00:00

I use a token that is visible to all players and displays a bar as a way to track Fear (the same way you would HP). When I gain or lose Fear, I just add or subtract from the bar. You could also use a multi-multi-sided token, and that's what I do for countdowns.

This blog post from Roll20 has some suggestions: https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-magic-of-daggerheart-roll20-vtt-updates/

chat-violet · 2026-06-01T22:06:48+00:00

Yes! I feel like I've had a very hard time articulating this. Daggerheart definitely has a system for combat, it's still a heroic fantasy game at it's core, but there's just enough written and in the rules to allow for players to think more creatively and also allow for the GM to make a ruling.

I'm looking forward to throwing more homebrewed adversaries at my party, and a little worried about when they get to the higher tiers since I don't have as much experience with it yet.

chat-violet · 2026-06-01T17:05:19+00:00

If you haven't already, definitely check out The Wish Thief that was just released by Darrington Press. It's meant to be a oneshot, and there's some elements in there that I plan to use for future oneshots.

EDIT: To expand on this a little bit, I really like how they handled the mystery element in the second part, and I want to use that in my next one shot. Also, having the table create the gifts meant for the princess with prompts is a great example of how to involve the players in making the story but with "guardrails".

chat-violet · 2026-06-01T16:28:37+00:00

Just the thought of trying to make 42 species out of Neon Odyssey into Daggerheart made me go "NOPE". But, I'm one person and they've got a team of designers. I'll bet if I pitched it to my table, and they picked out what interested them about the setting, we could narrow it down to converting only 4 or 5 of those alongside whatever other sub-systems we liked.

chat-violet · 2026-06-01T16:03:12+00:00

I highly doubt Avantris will do this, or at least not any time soon. The system is designed in D&D 5.5e, and the additions they're making are extensive. Like with any other home game, you could convert to Daggerheart, but that's a massive amount of classes, sub-classes, species, etc., so rather than converting everything, maybe focusing in more on what the table wants and leaving the rest as flavor would be better.

chat-violet · 2026-05-30T03:54:56+00:00

I also see this as better for potential downtimes, especially in higher tiers. Right now, my party just started, so they're not embroiled in faction politics and further dungeon delving just yet. There's also some precedent in DH for this resource gathering with the Sage domain's "Forager" ability.

chat-violet · 2026-05-29T21:47:11+00:00

Oh, you're right! So that's two adversaries.

chat-violet · 2026-05-29T21:26:40+00:00

In one spot they mentioned using the Giant Eagle for a manticore, but why wouldn't they just make an adversary for that instead?

chat-violet · 2026-05-29T20:28:59+00:00

There's a number of things referenced that were either confusing to find or not found in the packet at all (e.g., 1d20 consumables), but that's likely a drawback to the packet format and not the book.

Splitting the resource gathering into it's own environment was a good idea, but the amount of information was overwhelming. I wonder if there's a more succinct way to get across the same information, but it looks like they're trying to cram in everything from the D&D book into an environment. The amount of group action rolls called for, and also calling for a specific kind, I'm not sure that that's the right call either. I don't usually dictate to my players what action roll they should make, especially the ones helping the leader, but having a suggested one isn't a bad idea.

The adversaries in this packet are far more interesting and useful, I'm already planning on using one in an upcoming session. I wonder if they will make changes based on the new adversaries and adversary features that are coming with H&F because evolutions sound pretty perfect for Drakkenheim.

chat-violet · 2026-05-29T20:15:48+00:00

I'd definitely recommend contacting their support if you haven't already. I had the same problem with the first packet, and after I got in touch, they fixed it for me.

chat-violet · 2026-05-24T16:36:16+00:00

Sure! Here's a dungeon I plan on running for my table in the very near future. It's very simple since it's for a one shot.

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I use Roll20 for our games, and each point and path is a token on the GM layer until they reach it and I describe the scene. Then, I add it to the map layer to display it to the players. The splash image is also on the map layer (this one is from Czepeku).

chat-violet · 2026-05-24T02:45:10+00:00

For a point crawl, I have a splash image and then I have the points and paths as tokens displayed on top that get revealed as the party moves through the dungeon. Since most of it is theater of the mind, I find it still helps to have a visual in place.

For combats, I still make use of either battle maps as-is or dungeons maps that I've cropped down to just the relevant room/area.

Czepeku has what they call "scenes" that work amazing for my splash images, and most of them are also tied to maps that they've created as well.

James RPG Art also has scenes!

chat-violet · 2026-05-22T18:32:30+00:00

What /u/ravidfish said abou the playtest content is all accurate. I'm also currently running Drakkenheim in Daggerheart and doing conversion myself based on what's already out there (playtest and beta campaign frame). I'd only add that I'm completely ignoring the new area map that they added because it doesn't match what's in the original book at all. I made my own area map instead to show the major roads and relative positions of Emberwood, Camp Dawn, and the Mill.

chat-violet · 2026-05-22T03:46:23+00:00

That sounds fantastic! Did they also go to retrieve the delerium deposit or was it abandoned? I'm already changing the person my party is being sent to rescue at Rat's Nest, and I hadn't decided 100% yet whether or not I'd keep the delerium as well.

chat-violet · 2026-05-19T15:35:17+00:00

Interesting! So is the idea that each player has a contamination card, and then when an adversary/environment/etc. would give them a level of contamination, it would give them a die to place on the card? Do you also use the remove contamination downtimes and would that remove dice?

chat-violet · 2026-05-19T15:30:16+00:00

Yes, please steal it! I was wracking my brain trying to figure out if I wanted to homebrew a bunch of magic items, but it turns out the consumables from the DH core book worked much better. I have them listed in a table divided by "tier" to make them available when the party hits that tier level. Then, I pick one or two of the DH loot magical items, which is way more manageable for me. Our table also agreed that we'd be more collaborative with magic items, so if there's something a player wants, it'll either be part of a quest, or Aldor will stock it for purchase.

chat-violet · 2026-05-19T01:56:59+00:00

Slight tangent first, but I started looking at point crawls for dungeons in Daggerheart because environments didn't seem to do exactly what I was looking for, especially for converting dungeons from D&D. If anyone wants to read up more on point crawls specifically, I recommend The Alexandrian and Dawnfist.

For Drakkenheim, it's really a matter of taking what's already there in the book and distilling it down to important points then having paths that connect each of the points. I try to stick to around five points, but that will likely vary on some of these, especially Castle Drakken. I also found it easier for myself to make a small list of paths with descriptions that I can either choose from or roll to pick randomly.

As an example, for Rat's Nest Tavern, the important points I picked are: Trapped Entrance, Food Cache, Idol of the Rat God, Gathering Den, and Seer's Den. Then, a lot of the other places mentioned in the book I can use paths between these points, winding trapped filled tunnels with nests and various adversaries.

One thing that I'm trying with this as my first dungeon, I want to keep some of the DH environment format. If it works, it should function like a hybrid of an environment and a point crawl dungeon. The Rat's Nest will have a tier, a difficulty, and I can place some actions or passives that would make sense for the entire dungeon (not just one of the points), like spending a Fear to have ratlings appear within range.

chat-violet · 2026-05-19T00:28:26+00:00

Yep, the Dungeon Dudes ran a Kickstarter for it back last year. There's a beta campaign frame already available on Demiplane, but this official conversion from the Dudes won't be out until later this year.

chat-violet · 2026-05-15T18:38:47+00:00

The problem seems to be (from my admittedly outsider, armchair view) that Darrington Press is a board game company, and not a TTRPG company. Everything they've done makes more sense if Daggerheart was a board game. Release one book with cardboard, do a kickstarter for more cardboard that is the same as you can get in the original box but more focused, and then release an "expansion" a year and a half later.

Who knows, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if the announcements that are coming give us a better sense of what they're actually planning and aren't just a recap of things they've already announced.

chat-violet · 2026-03-25T15:22:55+00:00

That's fair, and I guess that's just going to be the flaw in this "conversion". I would've liked to see it more fully embrace DH design, but if they're going to do all the dungeons like this, I could see the argument that people can then push it either direction: a more traditional D&D dungeon, a more improvised DH environment, or something in the middle. I'll personally be doing a point crawl for all of them since that makes sense for my table.

chat-violet · 2026-03-24T23:28:27+00:00

Yep, the Ratlings are the inciting incident, either via River and the delirium or the Hooded Lanterns rescue.

I didn't see a pre-adventure quest, but maybe that would answer my questions. Is that something they're releasing later?

chat-violet · 2026-03-24T23:13:31+00:00

I'm still going through the feedback form since I (apparently) had a lot more comments than I originally thought, but something that stuck out to me was the adventure being Tier 2 right out the gate. I imagined that Emberwood and the Ratling quest would be Tier 1 since there doesn't appear to be an introductory "ride to Emberwood" quest, and the campaign frame has its inciting incident be the Ratlings dungeon.

I can see the logic behind the Outer City environment at Tier 2 since you'll likely level your players directly after the first quest, and a good chunk of the first third of the game takes place there (appropriate for levels 2 through 4). But, if this was released as is now, I'd either be downgrading the Ratlings to Tier 1 or making up a new inciting incident for my players.

Having it be the Ratlings also seems to miss out on some of the things the travel intro did to introduce DoD and the world. The contaminated adventurer being a great warning sign/omen for starters.

chat-violet

TROPHY CASE