Fan stories power Riot Games own 'League of Legends' documentary series

The first episode of a four-part League of Legends documentary series is premiering Thursday on Twitch at noon PT.

The miniseries Live|Play tells 12 different stories of LoL fans and players from around the world, including esports athletes, cosplayers, event photographers and more.

You can watch the trailer for the first episode here:

After streaming on Twitch, the episode will be available on developer Riot Games' YouTube channel Friday at noon PT.

Riot is supporting and hosting the series, the brainchild of Riot Games director David Roth. Roth said his own conversations and experiences with League of Legends players inspired Live|Play.

"It's not always who you have in your head -- that 12-year-old, 13-year-old, 14-year-old kid whose sole purpose in life is to troll and to ruin your game," he said. "When I hop onto a game of League of Legends or when you hop on, there are interesting stories behind those summoner names."

Roth and his team documented 10 different stories as they unfolded and two stories that already happened. For the subplots they couldn't get footage of, the team got those involved to recount what happened and hired animators to bring the stories to life.

The stories were filmed across the globe, and the team chose not to re-dub them to English so viewers get immersed in those different cultures.

"If we filmed in Brazil, everything is in Portugese, if we filmed in Korea, everything is in Korean," Roth said. "So it's not an English-only program... It's really trying to bring these communities together instead of making them too much the same."

The rest of the episodes are expected to release every two weeks, airing on Twitch every other Thursday and coming to YouTube the next day.