Worlds Beyond Number

History

Worlds Beyond Number is an actual play audio drama; their initial story, entitled The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One, premiered in March 2023. It follows a trio of friends on their adventures through the fantastical world of Umora, a campaign setting created by Brennan Lee Mulligan. Mulligan serves as the initial gamemaster, while Erika Ishii plays the character of Ame, a witch; Aabria Iyengar plays Suvi, a wizard; and Lou Wilson plays Eursulon, a spirit. The first book of this campaign ran for four seasons with the finale of book 1 released on August 12, 2025.

The second campaign, Solari, is set in space and features Iyengar as the gamemaster. It premiered on March 17, 2026. In May 2026, they announced that Solari would go on hiatus during Iyengar's maternity leave, with Wilson serving as the gamemaster for an upcoming interstitial campaign. This campaign, World Turner, premiered on September 1, 2026.

Also in May 2026, Worlds Beyond Number and Skybound announced a Kickstarter campaign for a prelude graphic novel adaptation based on The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One. The story was created by the cast members; the graphic novel will be scripted by Jadzia Axelrod with art by Sarah Webb. In June 2026, the campaign exceeded its funding goal on the day it launched.

Production

Worlds Beyond Number airs on a biweekly schedule on various public podcasting platforms. The show also has exclusive content for their Patreon subscribers; this includes their behind-the-scenes Fireside Chats aftershow. The narrators – Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Lou Wilson – are also the show's co-creators. Taylor Moore, of Fortunate Horse, was the original producer, designer, and composer. Moore created the "soundscape" to accompany Mulligan's game descriptions; he used Pro Tools. Moore stated that they chose audio as their storytelling medium due to affordability. On the podcast's creation process, Moore explained that it started with "a few story meetings, writers meetings" between him and Mulligan before Mulligan speaks "with the cast, usually one-on-one". From there, Moore built "a recording studio in the bedroom of an Airbnb" in Los Angeles and they recorded "a bunch of episodes in there"; he then cut these episodes with an assistant editor.

The second campaign, Solari (2026), was produced by Worlds Beyond Number itself; it featured edit and sound design by Jino Jang-Hansen, at Big Giant Head, and a score by Will Savino. The show was recorded from a new studio.

Game system

The first campaign, The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One, uses Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as its role-playing game system. Mulligan explained that they "edit out a lot of the dice rolling and the doing math and me looking up an ability. But people, especially people that are familiar with the game will see the mechanics at work right away". On picking D&D as the first campaign's system, Mulligan highlighted that its "mechanical offerings", such as "adventure, high-stakes combat, mystery, intrigue, skill checks, a very well-designed codified magic system", allow "for a certain kind of problem-solving and cleverness". Iyengar and Wilson play as a wizard and a paladin, respectively. Ishii uses the witch character class which was created for the show by designer Mazey Veselak with additional design by Brandes Stoddard. A playtest version of this class was then released to the show's Patreon subscribers in October 2023 before it went on sale in December 2024.

The second campaign, Solari, uses the Stillfleet role-playing game system.

Campaigns

The Worlds Beyond Number storyline occurs across campaigns that either consist of story arcs played over multiple episodes, or in one-shots recorded all at once.

Reception

On February 1, 2023, more than 2,500 people watched the cast livestream on Instagram as they launched the Patreon page for their podcast. The podcast is ranked first in the Patreon 'Games' category and tenth among all Patreon accounts by number of paid supporters, as of April 2024.

Henry St Leger, for Dicebreaker, described The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One as a "D&D campaign that feels half Critical Role, half radio drama, enjoying the machinations of its original fantasy world like children watching clouds scroll by above them, occasionally interrupted by a storm". He praised the slow pace where it took eight months for the main characters to increase a level, noting that "it feels removed from the usual pressures of levelling-up as fast as you can to save the world in the nick of time. The minutiae of character development is as important – if not more important – than how many spell slots you have, and the ability to defuse or sidestep situations, to find alternative ways forward when you know your strength isn’t enough, is crucial". He highlighted that this "original fantasy setting by Mulligan" focuses on "everyday people caught in the middle of insurmountable geopolitical tensions" and takes the time "to flesh out the life of the world at its own pace" which allows the audience to "luxuriate in the details".

Charlie Hall of Polygon highlighted the lack of combat in this campaign, noting it has sparked discussion on why the show is using Dungeons & Dragons as its game system. Hall commented that "while the many D&D materials published by Wizards of the Coast are heavy on the combat – including major campaigns and some anthologized adventures – there's nothing in the rules that stops players from working together to tell stories and build the kinds of interconnected narratives on display in Worlds Beyond Number". He opined that "the non-combat interactions in Worlds Beyond Number are some of the best I've experienced in any actual play".