Critical Role newest collaboration brings Viva La Dirt League to Daggerheart

A new show featuring Viva La Dirt League is heading to Beacon

Critical Role has been plenty busy. Not only did the animated adaptation of their second Dungeons & Dragons campaign, The Mighty Nein, finish in December, but its creators are hard at work on Campaign 4. However, even with so much Dungeons & Dragons on the company's plate, the latest actual-play show to come to Critical Role's streaming platform, Beacon, has made it clear they haven't left behind their own tabletop gaming system, Daggerheart.

Thanks to a collaboration with Viva La Dirt League, a sketch comedy troupe from New Zealand, very successful on YouTube, a new Daggerheart actual-play is on the way: Daggerheart: Azerim.

As revealed via Nerdist, the series follows Viva La Dirt League's Baradun and the Dickheads adventuring party, starring Robin Hartley as the Games Master, and Ben Van Lier, Adam King, Rowan Bettejeman, and Alan Morrison as his players. Azerim is the name of the fictional world where Viva La Dirt League's Epic NPC Man series is set. However, instead of traipsing through it using the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, they'll be playing through the Beast Feast Daggerheart campaign frame.

As for the plot, based on the trailer, it seems that the adventurers are chasing a simple thief after Bodger's Grandfather's Hammer goes missing, only to discover a spreading horror called Void that threatens everything the Dickheads know and love.

Daggerheart is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game from Darrington Press, Critical Role's publishing arm. It was first revealed in 2023, its beta launched a year later, and the RPG was officially released in 2025. Critical Role has done a few mini-series using the tabletop system, but it has yet to use it for its official, 100+ episode campaigns, instead sticking to Wizards of the Coast's 2024 edition of D&D. The last time Critical Role played Daggerheart themselves was Age of Umbra, which was delightful, but that was several months ago

However, as this collaboration between Viva La Dirt League and Critical Role shows, the company has far from forgotten its own RPG. More recently, co-founder of Critical Role and Daggerheart, Matthew Mercer, appeared on Acquisitions Incorporated's brand-new Daggerheart show at PAX Unplugged 2025, which was then also uploaded on Beacon. So, while the main campaign uses D&D, it seems that Critical Role plans to showcase its in-house system with new actual play from other groups, using Beacon as a hub.

It shows that the company isn't afraid to let others share the limelight of its own RPG. Considering Viva La Dirt League's signature wacky humor with escalating stakes, we couldn't think of a better show to spotlight the game, outside of Critical Role's main campaign. Daggerheart: Azerim is set to launch on Jan. 13 on Beacon, but fans with a VIVA+ subscription (Viva La Dirt League's streaming hub) can watch it on Jan. 20. It will land on YouTube on Jan. 27.