Emberdawn, WM
Daggerheart
This primer outlines the core mechanics and known lore of the Emberdawn campaign, functioning as a starting point for a collaborative worldbuilding process. The setting, based on Matt Mercer's Age of Umbra campaign frame, is intentionally designed with gaps that will be populated through player-driven character creation rather than pre-established exposition. Your choices regarding background, social ties, and personal history will be used to establish NPCs, events, nemesis and the campaign's political landscape, religious structures, and organisational factions. The aim is that the complexity of the world—including its rumours, key NPCs, and historical events—is the fruit of the characters you build, making the setting a truly emergent storytelling narrative.
The setting is system-agnostic, but mostly drawn around the Daggerheart TTRPG system. Other systems can be considered, depending on player choice, such as D&D 5.5e or MCDM's Draw Steel.
It draws heavy (and sometimes obvious) inspiration from the following media: the lore of Dark Souls, Elden Ring and Enshrouded, the Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun settings, the magic of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, the dungeon delving of Dungeon Meshi, character progression of Demon Slayer, the exploration mechanics of Tomb of Annihilation, musings about the apocalypse of Fallout, the Nemesis system of Shadow of Mordor, the worldbuilding of MCDM's Capital, the pantheon, mythos and stories of Critical Role and Dimension20, the complexity and grittiness of Aramán, Curse of Strahd and The Witcher, and of course, good-old inescapable Tolkien-esque fantasy.
The gods departed without warning or explanation. The sky closed. A crimson veil choked the light and let in the dark — a darkness that thinks, that hungers, that remembers. The civilized world as we knew it ended.That was four hundred years ago.
In the valley of Brightvale, a single flame still burns.
The world you know is small by necessity. Beyond the gates of Emberfort, the entry point into Brightvale, the land is claimed by the Umbra — an ancient, sentient darkness that corrodes everything it touches. Cities have fallen. Civilizations have collapsed. The great Armisian Empire, which once spanned continents and commanded dragons, exists now only in ruins beneath the shadow.
Brightvale is a plateau carved into the Teardrop Mountains, protected from the worst of the Umbra by two things: its altitude and its Beacon — a pillar of holy fire at the heart of Medsen, ignited four centuries ago by a man called the Dawnfather, who gave his soul to make it burn. Without it, the valley dies. With it, the Enduring survive.
Survive. Not thrive. Survive.
The Beacon flickers. The Umbra presses closer. And for four hundred years, no one has found a way to push it back.
You are a Venturer — one of the brave, reckless, or simply desperate souls who descend from the plateau into the Wastes below. Not soldiers (though the Emberguard may have trained you). Not scholars (though the Academy may have taught you). Venturers are a class unto themselves: specialists in surviving conditions that kill everyone else.
Every Venturer belongs to one of the five Guilds that organise life beyond the walls: the Explorers' Guild, which maps the unknown and maintains checkpoint outposts in the Wastes; the Slayers, who hunt the worst things the Umbra has spawned; the Caretakers, who recover and preserve what the darkness would consume; the Aetherweavers, who study and harness the arcane in a world that punishes magic; and the Emberguard, the armed vanguard that holds the line. Your guild shapes your training, your mandate, and who signs your contracts — but in the field, the Wastes don't care what badge you carry. Parties mix disciplines. Objectives overlap. You go where the work is, and the work is everywhere.
Venturing parties consist of 4–6 members. You are briefed on your objectives before departure, equipped from Emberfort's stores, and expected to return with maps, reports, and anything of value you've recovered. Survival is not guaranteed. Casualty rates are high. Reports suggest the Wastes grow worse every season.
Brightvale is not a world of hope, exactly — but it is a world of endurance. The people who live here have chosen, every day, to keep going. That choice has weight. So do its costs.
You will encounter moral complexity, factional conflict, dark history, cultural differences, and genuine danger. You are expected to tell a story about the choices you make, the community you build, the dark humor you share, the camaraderie you earn, and the moments of hard-won humanity you find.
Read the following documents before your first session:
