Hey all, I know this is a bit of a long update, so here are the important sections if you want to skip the story :)
The End of Daggerbrain
I don’t want to keep anyone hanging, so I’ll cut to the chase:
Daggerbrain.com will be shutting down August 31st, 2026.
This has been such and amazing journey and is definitely not the end of the road for me as a Developer, TTRPG lover, and Daggerheart fan. But after lots of prayer and consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot continue working on Daggerbrain
Why I made this decision
First of all, I want to say Thank you to Darrington Press for releasing an amazing game and sharing it with players creators like me! Daggerheart is a great addition to the TTRPG landscape and I wish all those at Darrington Press the best. I’ve got lots more people to thank, but I’ll put that all together in the next section :)
So why after almost 10 months of work is Daggerbrain shutting down? Well, there are two main drivers: My personal convictions that conflict with the direction that Daggerheart is taking, and the lack of communication or response from Darrington Press.
I’ll start with the communication issues. Unfortunately the reality is that Darrington Press has decided not to respond to or interact with the community of fantastic developers and creators making tools for their game. This is totally within their rights and I am not faulting them for it, but it does mean that building a sustainable business in the Daggerheart ecosystem is limited (especially due to the limitations placed on VTTs in their Community Gaming License).
That issue aside though, I have also been coming to grips with the clash between my convictions and the overall direction that Darrington Press wants to take Daggerheart. I try to follow the teachings of Jesus and have realized that this game which I love has more and more content that blurs the lines between good and evil, right and wrong. For example, the dread domain, blood hunter class, and the stance on the LGBT ideology.
I hope none of this comes across as “holier than thou” or whatever. honestly it’s been difficult for me to come to this conclusion because I really love Daggerheart and other TTRPGs like DND that all have similar content in it. But at the end of the day I feel like there is a difference between enjoying a game with friends where we build the stories together (where we can decide how to play and what content to use) and building a business around those games and thus supporting things I don’t agree with.
So I realized that I can’t in good faith continue to build on Daggerbrain while also respecting and trusting the picture of right and wrong that Jesus describes in the Bible.
Open Sourcing Daggerbrain
A huge part of this journey for me was proving that I can build a digital tool that people love, and honestly I think that part was a great success! It has been super rewarding getting to work on a real-world project that has real world users and building Daggerbrain has let me flex my UX design muscles in a way that I haven’t before.
While I’ll be the first to admit that the code for Daggerbrain may not be google level quality, it does do the job decently well and I’d love to make it available for others to build upon or just use as inspiration.
As of today, I am making the source code for Daggerbrain open source on Github and available under the MIT license. You can view the repository here: https://github.com/forewit/daggerbrain
Thank you’s!
To my number one supporter (my wife!) thank you for your constant encouragement!
To all of you the awesome community of people who supported me through this journey, thank you!!! Honestly ya’ll made it happen and I hope you continue to have a great time out there and find awesome tools to help make your games better
And finally, thank you to my good friend Brian who inspired this whole venture :) Hopefully my character won’t die too quickly in our next game because of this 😅
FAQs
When will Daggerbrain be shutting down?
Daggerbrain.com will remain active until August 31st 2026.
Will there be future updates?
Unfortunately there will likely be no new updates to Daggerbrain…
I bought a subscription, now what?
All subscribers will be receiving a full refund for their subscriptions in the coming days. Also, all subscribers will continue to access to unlimited characters and homebrew items through August 31st 2026 for free.
Can I still subscribe?
No, as of June 15th, new subscriptions are no longer available.
Still have questions?
Reach out anytime at marc@daggerbrain.com. I’ll do my best to respond quickly