A Tier 1 Adventure Starter for Daggerheart

A fog-choked port town is under assault by undead raiders and aquatic monstrosities capturing victims for a sentient ghost ship known as the Bonewaker. Destroy it and its forces will fall, but doing so may require the summoning of an angry sea horror.

What is an Adventure Starter?

An Adventure Starter is a compact, themed toolkit designed to help GMs quickly start a game of Daggerheart. It provides core elements for running a one-shot, including:

1. player-facing questions that invite the table to help establish the setting, invent the sea horror, and create the ritual to summon it
2. an exciting opening scene
3. descriptive moments to support immersion
4. ready-to-use NPCs and encounters that can be dropped in as needed
5. stat blocks for all referenced environments and adversaries

Two versions of the adventure are included. For GMs who prefer improvisational play, the first section presents the opening scene and building blocks to inspire the rest of the session. For GMs who prefer more structure, the second section presents the adventure using the 5 Room Dungeon framework.

The new environment and 9 new adversaries are available in the Heart of Daggers Homebrew Vault.

Version 1.1 (Feb 15, 2026): Fixed typos and corrected/clarified some adversary abilities.

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Cover image art by Alderdoodle (alderdoodle.co.uk).

This product includes materials from the Daggerheart System Reference Document 1.0, © Critical Role, LLC. under the terms of the Darrington Press Community Gaming (DPCGL) License. More information can be found at https://www.daggerheart.com. There are no previous modifications by others.

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