How Travis Legge Uses Astral to Stream the Epic World of “Scarred Lands”
Travis Legge is Onyx Path Publishing’s line developer of Scarred Lands, a “grimbright fantasy setting” loosely inspired by Greek mythology with a heavy metal flavor. Travis is a prolific creator in the tabletop roleplaying gaming industry, boasting numerous bestselling titles on DMsGuild.com and DriveThruRPG.com. As if those accolades weren’t enough, Travis is also the creator and Dungeon Master of Scarred Lands: Myths and Matchmakers on Twitch.tv. To make his show engaging and easy to run, Travis uses Astral as his tabletop roleplaying tool of choice.
“We use Astral for maps and tokens, dice rolling, and character sheet management through D&D Beyond links,” says Travis.
“I started using Astral TableTop in October of last year,” he says. “I’ve seen quite a bit of its development as a user.”
Scarred Lands: Myths and Matchmakers began around the same time. Set on the continent of Ghelspad, the show follows the journey of characters making their way through an epic, war-torn world.
“The world is still recovering from a war between the Gods and the Titans, which took place on the ground, among the people,” says Travis. “There are several members of the longer lived peoples that were alive during the Titans war, and many others who had grandparents who fought in this conflict. There are remains of some of the Titans littering the landscape and tainting the areas where they fell. Within this backdrop, the adventurers must find a way to survive, thrive, and maybe just make the world a better place. Of course not all the Gods are good or just. Some nations are run by tyrants who worship evil gods. From Titanspawn to corrupt royalty, there is no shortage of evil to face in Scarred Lands.”
Scarred Lands uses the 5th Edition OGL, but introduces several new playable races and unique takes on subclasses that fit along with the greater themes.
Travis uses a combination of custom maps designed for Scarred Lands and maps provided in Astral to build the epic world.
“Games are very easy to prepare for and run with Astral,” he says. “The ability to link D&D Beyond character sheets and monster profiles directly to the token controls is HUGE and saves me a ton of time and energy on stream.”
Dungeon mastering a streamed game can take some practice. Travis recommends “[having] fun. It’s easy to forget that part, if you let yourself. If you can keep your eye on that goal, everything else should fall into place. If you feel lost, overwhelmed, or if things are not working out properly, just take a breath and remind yourself: this is supposed to be fun. If a DM or a player on a stream is not having a good time, the audience will absolutely notice.”
Ultimately, Travis’s love of roleplaying games comes down to one thing: storytelling. “I love stories,” he says. “I love telling stories and listening to them. Tabletop RPGs, when they are run well, are unique in that the story being told is completely collaborative. Most mediums rely heavily on a single storyteller to guide the narrative. Even in film or stage, where there are actors involved, those actors are still operating within the bounds of a script or play. In a tabletop RPG, you can do literally anything. The story can go anywhere.”
Learn more about the Scarred Lands setting by picking up a module on DriveThruRPG. Travis also helms a community content campaign for a story arc called Vengeance of the Shunned, available via the Slarecian Vault community content program for Scarred Lands. Get caught up with Scarred Lands: Myths and Matchmakers on YouTube.
Ready to start your own campaign in Astral? Go to AstralTableTop.com to set up your account — for free!
