Darrington Press Announces Daggerheart: Hope & Fear

Daggerheart’s first official rules expansion.

At PAX Unplugged, Darrington Press officially unveiled ‘Daggerheart: Hope & Fear’, the highly anticipated first expansion for the Daggerheart roleplaying game. Launching in Summer 2026, the expansion expands the Daggerheart system with new classes, settings, mechanics, and player customisation options.

Following a successful debut year for Daggerheart, players and DMs will be chomping at the bit for more options, as the initial release came with a limited set of these.

A wealth of new character options

At the heart of Hope & Fear are four brand new classes, each with two subclasses:

Witch
Warlock
Brawler
Assassin

These eight subclasses arrive with their own card sets and mechanical identities, offering new approaches to magic, close combat, and narrative. The expansion also introduces the Dread Domain, a new domain for abilties tied to the Witch and Warlock that unlocks darker spellcasting.

Players will also gain access to:

Six new ancestries: Skykin, Tidekin, Earthkin, Emberkin, Gnome, and Aetheris
Six new communities: Duneborne, Hearthborne, Frostborne, Warborne, Freeborne, and Reborne

Overall, Hope & Fear makes character creation much more diverse, a real improvement over the small but focussed initial set of options.

New mechanics, transform your hero

One of the possible standout additions in the expansion is the introduction of Transformations, a new gameplay mechanic that represents supernatural or divine changes to a character’s nature.

Players can now become:

Vampire
Werewolf
Reanimated
Shapeshifter
Ghost
Demigod

Transformations can occur during a campaign or be selected during character creation, giving GMs new narrative tools and players new long term evolutionary paths.

Expanded bestiary and tools for storytellers

Hope & Fear includes over 130 new enemies and 28 new environments to play with, expanding the challenges and settings available to storytellers.

To support more customisation, the expansion contains a set of blank adversary sheets, making it easier for GMs to build unique threats for their campaigns.

The book also introduces four new campaign frames, offering the basic template for worlds and adventure concepts that groups can drop into immediately.

Gear, magic & more

Players will find over 100 new items, including weapons, armour, and magic tools that complement the new classes and environments. Combined with the Dread Domain and the new mechanical structures, Hope & Fear offers a huge amount of fresh options for players and GMs.