High Rollers D&D



High Rollers D&D is a Dungeons and Dragons series being played on the Sunday Tabletop RPG Show, part of the daily Yogscast livestream schedule. The show is broadcast live on the Yogscast Twitch channel on Sundays from 5pm GMT.

Backstory
For 1200 years the land of Arrak was a haven of peace and prosperity. This was the result of a once in a century event, the passing of a comet called Pelor's Light through the celestial plane. The comet blessed crops, healed the sick, and kept monsters in a magical sleep. However, on the 1300th year of the passing of Pelor's Light, the comet suddenly and mysteriously exploded, with the shattered pieces falling to the ground causing great destruction. This also awakened the monsters which had lay dormant and they once again began bringing chaos to the land. This event was called the Lightfall.

The adventure takes place in Arrak 46 years after the Lightfall. The world has slowly started to recover, with new towns and cities being formed. However danger still lies in the routes between these populated regions, and as such, groups travel in caravans between the cities for safety. We join our adventurers travelling as part of a caravan from the town of Greybell to Talis'Val, the capital of the Dawn Republic.

Dungeon Master - (Mark Hulmes)
Mark takes the role of DM for the series, using the D&D 5th edition rules, albeit with a few minor tweaks of his own such as swapping out dark vision for low-light vision, and doubling a single dice roll when a critical occurs where normally 2 separate die would be rolled. Arrak is also a custom land designed especially for this campaign.

Cam Buckland - (Chris Trott)
Cam is a human Cleric, known for being a bit of a trickster. He was found as a baby and raised by a group of travelling gypsy entertainers called the Bucklands. He is well travelled and has developed a charming charisma, but is also somewhat devious at times. Cam has now decided to leave the Bucklands to go on a journey on his own.

His appearance is a cross between a gypsy and a magician, with long dark hair and a goatee. He wears a waistcoat and a cape, and has a bandanna on his head. He has numerous daggers attached to himself in various places.

Elora Galanodel - (Katie Morrison)
Elf druid Elora is a very friendly though rather naive character. She is descended from royalty, her father being the leader of one of the great elven spires. Despite this she is not the least bit noble, instead being very casual and chilled. Elora wants to become a hero, praised for helping rebuild the world as others have before her following the Lightfall.

Elora has blue hair, while her clothing alludes to her regal heritage. A Bow and arrows are her weapon of choice, but she also carries a staff.

Jiutou Zhiji Jing - (Kim Richards)
Jiǔtóu is a tiefling, a spell caster demon with infernal power. At a young age she witnessed the brutal murder of her parents at the hands of the dragonborn, and was subsequently taken away as a slave. She toiled for a years becoming increasingly depressed and angry, until one day she escaped and sought shelter at a monastery. The nuns and monks took her in and taught martial arts and meditation to help her through the trauma. She values freedom and her objective now is freeing other tieflings.

Jiǔtóu has the distinctive horns and tail of a tiefling, and her dress is influenced by traditional Chinese style. She wields a vicious guandao as a weapon.

Trellimar Aleath - (Matt Toffolo)
Drow warlock Trellimar is a mysterious character, mostly keeping himself to himself. He hears voices in his head at times. Following the Lightfall, the drow were forced to make uneasy alliances with other races, mainly dwarves, in order to hold onto some quality of life. Trellimar is now on a quest to the Capital in order to find a specific implement for reasons only he knows.

He has an elf-like appearance and has long hair and dark skin. He wears a cape with a high collar (described by Matt as being similar to the style of Jon Pertwee) and wields a crossbow.

Falk - (Martyn Littlewood)
Martyn joined the stream for the eighth and ninth session, playing the half orc, half elf, Falk. Falk has always been an outcast, disliked by the orcs for being a halfblood. He was recently exiled from the orc camp because he was asking too many questions about the source of their power.He is scrawny for an orc, and wears a scarf and goggles. He carries a slingshot which he constructed himself.

Loben Trogdor - (CaffCast)
CaffCast joined the stream for the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth session, playing as the wild mage gnome, Loben Trogdor. Loben is a scholar, who has been studying the effects the Lightfall shards produce for decades. He desperately seeks to retrieve his research back from the Broken Sky after they had stolen his research.

Loben is three-foot tall and is middle-aged. His body hair is bright pink in colour. He often suffers the effect of wild magic surge.

NPCs
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are designed to assist the main characters on their campaign, be it in a passive or aggressive manner. Granamyr is Trellimar's pet pseudo-dragon who assists him throughout the campaign. Some NPCs such as Torwen and Wald are played temporarily by the D&D participants if their main character is out of action over a period of time. Korak is the NPC with the largest role in the campaign so far, having story arcs linked to most of the adventurers. Other notable NPCs with major roles in the campaign includes Dimitriv, Varesh and Vixanis.

Music
Background music for the High Rollers D&D livestreams is provided by Battle Bards and Steve Bruce. Battle Bard's "Halfling Camp" is played regularly before the stream starts and during the break, often on a loop. It is considered to be an unofficial theme for the show. A fan cover version of Halfling Camp was played during the break in Session 13 and 14. An original composition by Steve called "Chroma" is usually played when the stream ends.

On 27 May 2016, Steve released the HighRollers (Official Soundtrack) album. The album reached number 1 in the Amazon soundtrack charts, and number 50 in the Amazon album charts overall. The album can be purchased on Amazon and iTunes. The "Rise of the Dragonborn" boss theme is not included on the album, but is available on Steve's bandcamp.

View HighRollers (Official Soundtrack) Track Listing by clicking Expand.
 * 1) The Story Begins (01:11)
 * 2) Jiutou's Meditation (06:48)
 * 3) Elora's Determination (02:19)
 * 4) Trell's Theme (03:25)
 * 5) Cam's Theme (02:80)
 * 6) Falk's Theme (02:27)
 * 7) Riverside Retreat (02:15)
 * 8) The Plains (01:58)
 * 9) Song of Travel (01:46)
 * 10) Time for Rest (01:20)
 * 11) Welcome to the Wilderness (02:11)
 * 12) The Burning Sands (02:12)
 * 13) Jungle Ruins (02:15)
 * 14) Barter with a Scamp (02:07)
 * 15) Bad Decisions (02:07)
 * 16) Dark Fire Drums (02:44)
 * 17) Battle March (03:28)
 * 18) Victory (00:33)
 * 19) Hope in Sadness (02:18)
 * 20) Temple of the Solemn (02:28)
 * 21) A Legend Ends (04:49)

Trivia

 * # rollonsunday is made the official Twitter hashtag for High Rollers D&D at Trott's suggestion.
 * The mini figures used are 25 - 28 millimetre scale.
 * Steve Bruce runs the livestream behind the scenes. In Session 6, he added blood splat overlays whenever anyone took damage, and a skull over Kim's face to represent her death on numerous occasions.
 * Several special guests have appeared on the show, Martyn on Sessions 8 and 9 and CaffCast on Sessions 13 to 15.
 * At the beginning of the series, both Katie and Matt had not played D&D before, although Katie had watched Critical Role and is somewhat familiar to the mechanics of D&D. Kim played a campaign long time ago but is inexperienced. Mark and Trott play regularly in different campaigns.
 * High Rollers sessions can have touch-ups to coincide with holiday celebrations, with Session 4 receiving a Chinese New Year treatment.
 * With scheduling issues either due to game conventions or personal matters, not all Sundays have the regular High Rollers livestream featuring all four players.
 * In Session 3, Trott was replaced by a cardboard cutout of himself.
 * In Session 7.5, Mark ran a solo campaign with Kim.
 * CaffCast provided a recap of Sessions 1 thru 9 on 27 March 2016.
 * Mark held Q&A sessions on 7 April 2016, 1 May 2016 and 18 June 2016.
 * Sessions 16 to 18 aired on Saturdays, but as Nilesy's livestream takes place immediately after High Rollers D&D, donation messages are not read out in order to keep with the streaming schedule.
 * There was no High Rollers livestream on 28 May 2016.
 * Critical Role's Matt Mercer has given shout-outs to Mark and High Rollers D&D, one of which was during a Q&A at Wizard World Portland (Wizard World Gaming at around 03:15:00). He later appears as a special guest on the Q&A Session, hosted by Mark, on 18 June 2016.
 * Mark published a homebrewed race, the Lightborn, on the Dungeon Masters Guild. Trott's character Cam Buckland is a buffed-up version of the Lightborn.
 * At the start of Session 4, Mark gave a shoutout to High Rollers summary contributors, including LadyFufu on the subreddit and the Yogscast Wiki.
 * Throughout multiple sessions, the green screen fell on the players on several occasions.

Links

 * Official High Rollers D&D Twitter
 * High Rollers D&D Subreddit
 * Official High Rollers D&D fan-art submission email address: highrollersdnd@gmail.com
 * High Rollers D&D Fans Discord server