Critical Role, the most renowned group in Dungeons & Dragons, will soon launch their new and fourth main campaign, which will do many things differently than before. In a new announcement, they talk about the faces of the campaign, the story, and the new world being created with two extremely important people behind DnD.
Who is involved in the new campaign of Critical Role? Critical Role has always based the rules of their main campaigns on the framework of Dungeons & Dragons despite their own world “Exandria”. In the fourth campaign, they venture into a new world called “Aramán,” which has been created by the new Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan, who will replace the long-time DM (Dungeon Master) Matthew Mercer for the first time in this new campaign.
Due to the new world, some “homebrew” elements, or self-created content, will be incorporated into the game, bringing incredibly exciting and presumably truly rules- and DnD-compliant expansions. For these elements, none other than two extremely important names behind Dungeons & Dragons itself worked:
Chris Perkins, former Game Designer, and Jeremy Crawford, former Game and Lead Rules Designer of the fourth and fifth editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
Both left Wizards of the Coast in 2025 and now work for the team that has made a name for themselves with their rule sets and garnered a lot of loyal fans.
Here you can see the trailer for “The Mighty Nein” on Amazon Prime, which is based on Critical Role’s second campaign:
Campaign 4 will be very different from previous campaigns
What news has been announced now? In their announcement on YouTube, the familiar faces of the group talk together with their new DM about more detailed information regarding campaign 4.
The cast consists of a total of 14 players, who are from the core team of Critical Role and already known guests. A significantly larger number than before, for which they have made further changes to their usual storytelling approach.
Campaign 4 will take place in a so-called “West Marches” style. This means that the group will be split into different groups and adventures, some of which act independently and some interact with each other to advance the story.
The first 4 episodes will introduce all characters in shared scenes before they split into 3 smaller groups for the rest of the story: the Soldiers, the Cunning, and the Seekers.
Here you can see the first concept arts of Aramán from campaign 4 (Source: YouTube, Artist: Clara Daly)
What is Campaign 4 about? The world of Aramán differs significantly from Exandria. In the setting and time of campaign 4, there are no gods anymore, which will be an important point of the story.
Instead of gods, the inhabitants of this world draw their powers and faith from domains rather than divine beings. For this reason, “alternative” powers gain influence.
Through the homebrew elements introduced to the campaign by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Jeremy Crawford, and Chris Perkins, there will be new subclasses, backgrounds, feats, and spells, which should also be of solid quality due to the DnD veterans.
Since it is a new world without any previously known lore, the fourth campaign is ideal for those interested in starting with Critical Role. No prior knowledge is needed, so you can start completely “blindly”. If you want to get a little taste of homebrew items from Critical Role, this list could be something for you: 7 magical items from the most renowned group in Dungeons & Dragons that you should definitely know
