A new web series led by the popular YouTube personality Jovenshire takes a unique turn Dungeons & Dragons. Stuff of Legends is a new 6-part web series that combines Dungeons & Dragons play with puppetry. In the new series, Jovenshire plays the Dungeon Master for a game featuring Lisa Foiles, Brandon Rogers, Shanna Malcolm and Lasercorn. While ‘Let’s Play’-style D&D programs have become popular in recent years, Stuff of Legends also uses bar-style puppets (similar to Muppets) made by the Las Vegas-based DLUX Puppets to perform various fight and role-playing scenes. Jovenshire described the new series as Dungeons & Dragons meet Drunk History, but with dolls instead of actors.
“I’m a big fan of dolls,” Jovenshire told ComicBook.com when asked about the decision to bring dolls to the D&D table. “Like many of us, I grew up on it. We picked some ideas to help with storytelling. Dungeons & Dragons and we talked about puppets. Honestly, the question is why not puppets? ‘
“For me, I’ve been working on some animated projects,” Jovenshire continued. “And what I like about it is when you work with cartoons, your imagination is as far as you can take it and you can make whatever you can draw. But sometimes with comics you lose that physical comedy, you lose that physical aspect.And it was just very important to me.And with puppets you get it.You get the slapstick humor, you get the tongue in cheek, Three Stooges comedy, while you’re very animated.And if you like something so wild like Dungeons & Dragons, and you want to come up with all these different crazy concepts and monsters and just turn them into puppets. ‘
The show features a mix of live-action games and scenes performed by puppets. When the game starts in a fight or dialogue, Stuff of Legends cut away to the puppets of the show who record the scenes as the game continues. To bring this unique blend to life, Jovenshire explained that the show went through two separate production rounds – one in which the players were involved on a closed set, and then a second recording in which the puppets performed by the players. .
Originally Jovenshire saved Stuff of Legends as a potential project in which Magic: The Gathering, the popular trading card game produced by developer Wizards of the Coast. “[Wizards] had a green light program to promote Magic: The Gathering, and they were looking for different content creators to make products that were bigger than life to promote the game, “Jovenshire said. As a large Magic fan, I expressed this idea to include the D&D extensions with the feature Magic: The Gathering worlds. They loved the idea, but they’re like, ‘Wait a minute. It can actually only work for D&D, ‘and then we started looking at a bigger concept.’
Because Jovenshire works with Wizards of the Coast, he was able to get official samples of the Sample Manual and set the game in the Forgotten Realms, the main campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons. Asked if he actually made puppets out of iconic D&D monsters, Jovenshire mentioned that it was one of his favorite parts of the planning for the show. “I do have dolls of classic D&D monsters,” Jovenshire confirmed. “My favorite part about the pre-production of this was to literally go through the Sample Manual and think to myself, ‘What would look like a puppet?’ I do not want to spoil who our biggest bad end is, but the benefit of working with Dungeons & Dragons is able to use these classic monsters and give them a whole new look and atmosphere. So there will be deep cuts where other DMs will look and think, ‘Oh yes. I have to use one of the creatures. We haven’t done any of that in a while. ‘
Although Stuff of Legends contains iconic D&D samples, it will not be a series just for proven D&D fans. Each delivery will take only 30 minutes to allow for an optimal viewing time. “My big goal when it comes to making RPG shows is to be able to bring in that new audience,” Jovenshire said. “Especially in the last two years, I think D&D has become even more popular with just new fans. But not all fans can jump into a three-hour podcast or show that contains 50 episodes. So I wanted to make something digestible for new fans. fans, but also had deep cuts and was entertaining for people who have been playing for about 30 years.The way we tell our stories and use the dolls is a way to just stay focused on the show and keep jokes rolling . “
Stuff of Legends will premiere on Jovenshire’s YouTube channel on Tuesday 2 February.