Worlds Beyond Number

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.^[2][3][4] 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.^[5] The first book of this campaign ran for four seasons with the finale released on August 12, 2025.^[4][6]

The next campaign is set in space and features Iyengar as the gamemaster.^[4][7] The campaign's title is Solari.^[8][9] It premiered on March 17, 2026.^[9] Additionally, the show will record from a new studio.^[7]

Worlds Beyond Number airs on a biweekly schedule on various public podcasting platforms.^[1][10] The show also has exclusive content for their Patreon subscribers; this includes their behind-the-scenes Fireside Chats aftershow.^[11][12] Taylor Moore, of Fortunate Horse, was the original producer, designer, and composer.^[1][10][12] Moore created the "soundscape" to accompany Mulligan's game descriptions; he used Pro Tools.^[10] Moore stated that they chose audio as their storytelling medium due to affordability. On the podcast's creation process, Moore explained that it starts with "a few story meetings, writers meetings" between him and Mulligan before Mulligan speaks "with the cast, usually one-on-one".^[10] From there, Moore builds "a recording studio in the bedroom of an Airbnb" in Los Angeles and they "record a bunch of episodes in there"; he then cuts these episodes with his assistant editor Jared Olson.^[10]

The first campaign, The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One, uses Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as its role-playing game system.^[2][12] 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".^[12] 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".^[12] 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.^[12][13] 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.^[14][15][16]

The second campaign, Solari, uses the Stillfleet role-playing game system.^[9]

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.^[17]