Why I built it
I'm Thierry. For a long time I looked for tools that let me play the kind of D&D I want. I don't only mean the limits you write into a character as flaws. I mean the ones that come from being unprepared, from forgetting things, from being out in the wild too long. That means someone has to track what you use: ammunition, food, spell components. Someone has to keep time. No tool did that for me.
So I started building a system for my own table that would take over that admin and let us focus on playing. Then the idea kept growing. Remember that monster with an immunity we forgot about, and the rewind that followed? Why not make the engine the keeper of truth for that as well?
I didn't want it to work only for the way my table plays, so the engine is flexible. You can switch a lot of rules off, play some of them differently from the rules as written, or choose the alternative rules the books offer. And I didn't want a combat tracker sitting next to a separate wiki, a separate calendar and a separate character sheet. So it grew into one toolset that keeps secrets, keeps time, builds characters and carries the admin.
Exploring limits, not power. Doing it by hand turns an adventure into bookkeeping.
What changes at the table
Other tools hold your information, but they don't react to anything. When I shoot an arrow, nothing happens. I open the inventory, find the ammunition and count it down by one. Or it's: "DM, three turns ago I did lightning damage to that elemental, but it resists lightning, right? I think I did 14, so that should be halved." And I've just interrupted another player's turn, or the DM's flow.
When I cast mage armor, the sheet should show the new armor class so nobody has to remember it. The same goes for every concentration spell. Lingering injuries are a great idea, but the bookkeeping puts me off; if the sheet holds the new state, it is much easier to just play the character.
What I don't want is a video game. So there's no virtual tabletop, and the app doesn't roll to hit or for damage. That happens at the table. The engine handles the math that follows the roll, so you can get on with narrating.
On the DM side: challenge rating is a poor guide to how deadly a fight is. We all know the monster that wipes parties at a low rating, and the high one that gets stomped because of action economy. I wanted a more reliable way to judge a fight, so I built a simple simulator, and I want to expand it.
Secrets and rules in one place
Most wikis let the DM hide some things, but they can't keep secrets between players, and they hold the world but not the rules. Give your players a cool sword and everyone knows what it does.
I wanted one place for both, where I as the DM decide who knows what. My warlock player can look up their own features, and the fighter only sees their own. Spells sit behind the same walls, so each player sees the spells their own character has. Player A has heard one thing about the villain, player B has heard the opposite, and I get to watch them argue and act on different beliefs.
In other apps players keep their notes somewhere else, because the DM can read the whole wiki. In Hearthmoot every player gets their own section for notes, and the DM can't see it.
I also wanted to pass a player a secret without the whole table noticing. If I say "check your phone", everyone asks what I told them. In Hearthmoot everyone is already looking at the app, so a private message looks like nothing.
Who I built it for
For the DM who wants to follow the rules but focus on the play. The DM who doesn't want to go back two rounds to fix damage for a forgotten resistance, and who wants players to manage their resources without becoming spreadsheet accountants.
For players who like to discover, in the heat of the moment, that they can't cast their big spell because they forgot to prepare, and now have to change plans or run. For the DM who wants to stir up mistrust with a whisper and some misinformation, and who wants to hand out loot without opening five sheets to add fifteen items.
For people who value the structure the rules give, without letting the rules run the game. The game should be ruled by play.
Who should not buy it
If you believe players should remember and track everything about their character themselves, Hearthmoot is probably not for you. You can switch a lot of it off, but then you lose most of what it's good at. Some of it can't be switched off: immunity, vulnerability and some reminders always run, and players enter their own damage.
If you want a battle map with tokens, use one alongside Hearthmoot. It has no positioning, so anything about where people stand is still settled at the table.
If you mostly run one-shots, the wiki does less for you, because it is built for long campaigns. You can make it work: secrets are tied to a character, and when a character leaves, its secrets are hidden from the players again.
If you need the official books inside the tool: there's no marketplace yet, so there's no ready-made content to buy. You can enter content you own yourself and use it as intended. That's more work, but your players will never see the whole book, so add what you need now and a bit more with each session prep. Everything you write and build can be exported as text files, so it's never locked in.
AI, money and your data
I built this whole toolset with the help of AI, and I'm not going to hide that. But I won't put AI generation in it, not for the foreseeable future. Using AI to help build a tool is not the same as having AI write your campaign.
A subscription lets me keep expanding and updating Hearthmoot, and it means the whole thing just works for you. Everything in it is connected, so a one-time purchase would mean running your own hosting.
The DM uses it most, so the DM pays. Players use Hearthmoot to look things up and build their characters, and that should be free. If the whole table paid, seven to thirteen people would all have to sign up and hand over their details, and I don't want your players' data.
Your campaign is stored in Europe. I like Europe's data protection, and it's where I live.
Before you open the demo
Open the wiki pages as the DM, then as Maren and as Corvin, and see how different they look. Watch the combat playthrough from the different views. Some things stay with you: advantage and disadvantage, damage rolls and tactics.
It can't play for you. It helps you focus on the play.