Aabria Iyengar

Aabria Iyengar is an American web series actress known primarily for tabletop role-playing game anthologies, streams and podcasts. She was the Dungeon Master (DM) for the first season of Exandria Unlimited. Iyengar has been both a player and a Game Master for multiple seasons of Dimension 20 and a guest DM on The Adventure Zone.

Career
Iyengar is the former Chief Marketing Officer for the dice-maker Dice Envy.

Actual play
Iyengar appeared as both a player and as the Dungeon Master (DM) in multiple actual play podcasts between 2018 and 2020 on the Happy Jack's RPG Network. Iyengar was originally a guest player, acting as Laura Bennett, in the actual play web series Kollok: 1991 on the Hyper RPG Twitch channel before joining the main cast in the second season in 2019. In 2022, Iyengar reprised her role in the sequel set 30 years after the first show – Kollok was broadcast on AMC Networks' FearHQ Twitch channel. Iyengar has been part of the main cast, playing as Koseh, for Into the Mother Lands since 2020.

In 2021, Iyengar was the DM for two actual play anthology web series – Misfits and Magic, the tenth season of Dimension 20, and the first season of Exandria Unlimited, a Critical Role spin-off. She was the first Critical Role DM after Matthew Mercer. Chase Carter, for Dicebreaker, stated that "both appearances were hits within their respective fandoms, leading many to clamor for more Iyengar". Iyengar also performed as a guest DM on The Adventure Zone, with the McElroy Brothers as players, in 2021. Christian Hoffer of ComicBook.com highlighted that "Iyengar has quickly built a reputation and fanbase due to her fantastic storytelling and rapport with players". Carter commented that "Iyengar is quickly becoming a household name in the realm of tabletop actual play. [...] Her fame has been a welcome change for many who are glad to see a Black woman garnering so much respect and excitement in what has been a predominantly white endeavor within a historically white hobby". Iyengar gave the Storytime keynote at the 2021 PAX Unplugged.

In August 2022, Iyengar appeared as gamemaster on Dimension 20: A Court of Fey & Flowers, a combination of Dungeons & Dragons and the Jane Austen-inspired game Good Society. She also joined the cast of the Vampire: The Masquerade web series NY by Night, playing as Margot "Fuego" Walker. Em Friedman, for Polygon in 2022, commented that Iyengar's actual play credits now "span nearly the entire industry" with her By Night debut.

In January 2023, it was announced that Iyengar, alongside Erika Ishii, Lou Wilson, and Brennan Lee Mulligan, would star in the creator-owned actual play podcast Worlds Beyond Number; the show premiered in March 2023 and ranked in Patreon's top twenty accounts within a month. Also in March 2023, Iyengar joined the third campaign of Critical Role as a guest star playing as gnome cleric Deanna. In April 2023, WizKids announced a new miniature boxed set of Exandria Unlimited characters including a figurine of Iyengar. In November 2023, Iyengar joined Candela Obscura as the third chapter's game master.

Personal life
Iyengar attended the University of Iowa where she was a member of their Division I volleyball team.

Iyengar first played Dungeons & Dragons in 2015 or 2016 when she was invited to her now husband's board game group and was given a cleric character sheet to play. Wired highlighted that "Iyengar was often the only woman or person of color at the table, and she faced a lot of other players questioning her knowledge of the game, as well as more overt harassment. As a GM, she now works to ensure her players don’t have to face those same challenges. [...] With the increased visibility of actual play games, [...] Iyengar has increasingly been able to tailor her playing experience to what she wanted it to be for both herself and her audience".