HighRollers: Lightfall

Lightfall is a campaign setting made for Yogscast's Dungeons & Dragons series High Rollers D&D. It is broadcast live every Sunday, 5pm GMT/BST, on the Yogscast Twitch channel. The campaign began on January 17, 2016, and has aired 48 episodes as of May 2017.

The campaign is designed by Mark Hulmes and begins 46 years after the titular cataclysm event. It follows a group of adventurers helping the people of Arrak, as well as to discover and confront their individual past. Mark Hulmes is the dungeon master for this campaign, with Chris Trott role-playing as lightborn cleric Cam Buckland, Katie Morrison as elf druid Elora Galanodel, Kim Richards as tiefling monk Jiutou Zhiji Jing and Matthew Toffolo as drow warlock Trellimar Aleath.

Backstory
For 1200 years, the world of Arrak was a haven of peace and prosperity. This was the result of a once in a century event known as the Passing of Pelor's Light. It is a comet, a gift from Pelor, that radiates positive energy, which blessed crops, healed the sick and kept monsters in a magical slumber.

There is a celebration for the 13th Passing of Pelor's Light. The comet emerged into the world and rises up to the sky. As it reaches its peak, however, tragedy strikes. The comet shatters into thousands of shards! It fell across Arrak, flattening homes and cities, and destroying governments and economies. Monsters are now awaken and start ravaging the lands. Everything is thrown into chaos. Till this day, no one knows how or why the event, known as the Lightfall, happened.

46 years have passed. The world is slowly recovering. Heroes have come and re-established cities and nations. The towns and cities act as beacons of light in the darkness. They are safe-havens, with organised armies and militias, as they protect the people against monsters and dangers that lurk in the hills, woods and dungeons.

Our four adventurers are travelling to Talis'Val, the capital of the Dawn Republic. As it is safer to travel in groups, Cam, Elora, Jiǔtóu and Trellimar are in a caravan with other people. The story starts here as our adventurers begin their journey across Arrak to help the people and fight against monsters, eventually becoming Heroes of the world.



Dungeon Master - (Mark Hulmes)
Mark takes the role of Dungeon Master 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. Mark also custom-made Arrak, the world specially designed for the Lightfall campaign.

Cam Buckland - (Chris Trott)
Cam is a lightborn 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 weapons of choice, but she also carries a staff.

Jiutou Zhiji Jing - (Kim Richards)
Jiǔtóu is a tiefling monk, a humanoid with infernal ancestry. 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 and used to wear a powerful sentient bracer called Crownrend, which she took off after it almost killed Cam without her knowledge.

Trellimar Aleath - (Matt Toffolo)
Drow warlock Trellimar is a mysterious character, mostly keeping to himself. 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 save his kind from the evils in the Underdark.

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. He also carries a magical mask, Shroud of Eyes, bestowed unto him by his patron Dah'Mir.

Falk - (Martyn Littlewood)
Falk is a half-orc, half-elf battle master that guest-stars in Episodes 8 and 9. Falk has always been an outcast, disliked by the orcs for being half-blood. 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)
Loben is a rock gnome wild magic sorcerer that guest-stars in Episodes 13 to 15. Loben is a scholar, who has been studying the effects the Lightfall shards produced for decades. He desperately seeks to retrieve his research from the Broken Sky.

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

Jasmina Celladore - (Kat)
Jasmina (commonly known as Mina) is a half-human, half-drow bard that guest-stars in Episodes 27 to 29. After losing her parents and family due to a fire set on the town they were in by a hobgoblin tribe, known as the Burning King, Jasmina now focuses on stopping them.

Jasmina has long, wavy hair ombre-coloured from white into blood red. Her eyes are different colours: one red, the other blue. Being a performer, she wears a belly top and a long split skirt, all coloured emerald green and adorned by inexpensive, homemade jewels. Burn scars are covered by an ornate jewelled armour piece that adorns her left arm, her burn visibly spread from her neck to her hip on the left side of her body.

Reynard Ferehorn - (Tom Hazell)
Reynard is a human hunter that guest-stars in Episodes 41 to 48. Claimed to have killed a chimera near Redcrop, the famed-yet-flamboyant hunter is hired by the Council of Guilds to investigate reports of suspected Broken Sky activities surrounding a hill dwarven town of Velderbarn.

Possesses a "Natural 19" only barely being beaten by Cam.

Elyssa Grant - (Viathan)
Viathan is a human that guest-stars in Episode 49.

Factions
There are various factions in the Lightfall campaign. The known major ones are Broken Sky, Council of Elves and the mega-faction Government of the Dawn Republic, which comprises of smaller factions such as Arcane Brotherhood and Council of Guilds.

Minor factions include Burning King, Darkscar Clan, the various Drow Houses, Grimfang Clan, Powder Beards and the Bucklands.

Arrak and the Multiverse
The Lightfall campaign is described to take place "on the world of Arrak", though it is unclear if the world is named as such since Arrak is technically a continent. Nonetheless, the campaign spans across the countries and super-regions on Arrak, each having its own diverse culture and history. These countries and regions are Bresseras, Dawn Republic, the Troubled Lands, Unbroken Empire and the Underdark. As of Episode 49, the campaign has visited the following major settlements and regions in order of appearance: Tallfield, Longwood Forest, Feyden, Talis'Val, Garden of Stones, Melody, Spire of Winter, Hallow and Velderbarn.

The continent Arrak is located on the main material plane unofficially known as the Surface. Just like the other worlds of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, the Surface is the centre of its own multiverse. The Surface has two parallel material planes, Feywild and Shadowfell. These three material planes are connected to the Inner Planes and Outer Planes, each hosting individual planes connected to the physical and the philosophical respectively. Arborea, Astral Plane, Far Realm, Sigil and The Abyss are planes that have either been mentioned or visited throughout the campaign.

Episode Guide

 * See also: List of High Rollers D&D episodes