Getting started as a DM

Running a campaign takes five steps: create an account, name your campaign, save the campaign's sign-in, invite your players, and confirm your email. The whole thing, including the campaign being built, takes a few minutes.

1. Create your account

Sign up with an email address and a passphrase of at least 15 characters. There are no composition rules, so a memorable sentence works as well as a complex password. No card is needed, and the trial runs 14 days.

2. Name your campaign

Signing up leads straight into naming your first campaign, with no empty dashboard in between. Three fields: a campaign name, the web address it lives at (this is permanent once set, so read it twice), and the name you will go by at your own table. Submitting starts building it. That takes a few minutes, and you can leave the page open and come back to it.

3. Save your campaign sign-in

Once the build finishes, you get a sign-in card for the campaign itself: its address, your name, and a passcode, shown exactly once. That is separate from the passphrase you signed up with. The passphrase gets you into your Hearthmoot account, and the passcode signs you into the campaign's own wiki instead, the same way every player at your table will sign in. Copy it before you move on. If you lose it, it can be reset from your account, like any other seat.

4. Invite your players

From your account, invite a player by typing their name. Nothing else is asked for. That creates a seat and hands you a passcode for it, shown once, for you to send however you already talk to your table, such as Discord or a text message. Hearthmoot never emails a player on your behalf. On their end, joining takes no account and no email address: they open your campaign's address and sign in with the name and passcode you gave them. Full detail on that side of it is in the player quickstart.

5. Confirm your email

A confirmation link goes out the moment you sign up, and there is no rush to act on it: nothing is blocked while you wait, with one exception. If the address is not confirmed within 48 hours, your campaigns pause until it is, and subscribing needs a confirmed address too. A banner on your account carries the deadline and a "send it again" button, and confirming a paused account brings it back by itself. Nothing is deleted while any of this is happening.

The wiki and editor, briefly

Your campaign is a wiki from the moment it exists, and you write it in place. Open any page, click Edit, and start adding content right where you are reading it. Every page is a stack of blocks, and each block carries its own visibility: some are open to the whole table, some are addressed to particular players, and some stay held back for you alone until you choose to reveal them. New pages and new blocks start held back by default, so nothing reaches a player just because you wrote it down. The full picture, including every tier and how the editor works, is in the wiki guide.

Ruleset details, such as 2014 or 2024 rules, house rules, and variant options, are campaign settings you change after creation. Once you are signed into your campaign, open the Admin area and find them under "Rules & Settings" in the side panel.