#Runeterra Retcons | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tbposting · 7 months

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Thoughts on them meshing the Acrane and League lore? I am really unhappy with the decision because it means some of my favorite champions will be completely reworked. I honestly just wished they kept the two separate. I also think it's a horrible move on a story telling front, too, because now the Arcane team will be restricted by canon which is what made Arcane so fun and good in the first place. They got to experiment and explore characters and I am terrified for the future of Arcane after this decision.

Overall, I think it was a horrible decision and I can only hope they decide to go back on it, but I highly doubt it. Apparently Riot just really hates its writers and it's lore community lmao

It is a really, really bad decision, yeah. Arcane's greatest strength was arguably that it could tell good and interesting stories about its characters entirely unburdened by 13 years of shambolic canon MESS from the main game. Its version of Viktor simply could not ever have happened if Arcane had to respect canon, it could NEVER have done what it did with Singed or Heimerdinger or the Void.

The way they're trying to solve that is by saying "okay, ARCANE represents the canon now, and we'll change THE MAIN GAME to suit it" but that just creates exactly the same problem the other way around. Now the canon of the main game (and Legends of Runeterra and the Forge games) is going to be completely fucked by being forced to be shackled to whatever Arcane wants to do.

Arcane is predicated, it is a huge and important central part of its canon that magic is rare, that it is incredibly special and unusual, and that spellcasters and sorcerers are essentially fucking cryptids to the rest of the world. That is WHY being able to harness magic through Hextech is such a revolutionary technology, because it makes magical power accessible not just to the very few, but to the world.

But hang on a fucking second, the premise of DEMACIA AS A REGION is that magic is common, that it is normal and abundant and plentiful enough that the magical population of the country can launch a full scale insurrection to claim their rights.

The Demacian storyline requires it to be true that mages are commonly born into ordinary families, that everyone in the country knows someone who's a mage or someone whose kid or cousin is a mage, and that mages and magicians are commonly understood to be living in various states of hiding all throughout the country as a normal part of their communities.

And before anyone goes "yes but Piltover was founded to get away from the destruction of the Rune Wars so..." remember, so was Demacia, and it was founded inside a forest of magic-suppressing petricite trees.

Which means if Arcane is the central fount of canon now, Demacia... simply cannot exist in that universe. Not in any way that we would recognize it. And neither can any of the other regions, really. If magic is rare, mysterious and unknown to the vast majority of ordinary people, then Shurima doesn't work. Bilgewater doesn't work. The Freljord doesn't work. Not as they exist currently.

So either the main canon gets CATASTROPHICALLY retconned to hell to suit Arcane, or else Arcane has to very awkwardly retcon its own foundational premise to be like "uuuuh actually magic is normal and common in far away places in the world and everyone there is totally chill about it, and it's JUST Piltover that happens to randomly be founded in a place where mages don't get born and also they never travel to Piltover and also nobody from Piltover ever travels to places where mages are common."

Like, there simply is not a good way to merge the world state of Arcane with the world state of Runeterra as a whole without completely destroying important parts of either, and what gets me is there isn't even any real benefit to fucking doing it.

Seriously! What's the benefit? What does anyone get out of doing this? The only actual tangible benefit is that it will eventually (after like five years of constant retcons) be slightly easier for people who watched Arcane to understand what's happening on Summoner's Rift, which... who cares? The whole point of Arcane is that it expanded the reach of Runeterra to people who don't give a shit what League of Legends is! People who watched Arcane aren't going to tune in to Worlds and be like "oh my god that's Viktor getting a pentakill! That's the blorbo from my show, hooray, I am going to buy SKT T1 merch about it!"

This decision reeks from a million miles away of executive bullshit. It reeks of some bro in a graphic tee under a suit jacket wearing ugly $1000 sneakers being like "we should totally unify our brand appeal under a single consolidated IP umbrella to maximize audience engagement metrics" without any creative understanding of why different storytelling works for different mediums and you can't just find-replace a few keywords to turn 13 years of MOBA canon into TV show canon.

It's such a fundamental failure to understand that there is POWER in telling different stories in different mediums. Fucking Disney+-ass MCU-brained brand thinking is what it is.

#tb answers #arcane #league of legends

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mollysunder · 2 months

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Personally, I feel like Janna's worship in Arcane, specifically in Zaun, has faded or that she's generally unpopular as a goddess. In most League lore fir Zaun, Janna's presence is an afterthought at best if not outright nonexistent to most Zaunites. In the game, most Zaun champions react to her dismissively or with actual resentment like Renata, at best new characters like Zeri are delightedly shocked to know she exists at all.

If you think about it, Piltover has more things that acknowledge Janna with than Zaun. In League, Piltover named its wealthiest neighborhood, the Blue Wind Court, which is one of Janna's powers. Meanwhile, in Arcane, the show defines Zaun with Jinx's special birds (crows) than Janna's own sacred birds, the blue bird, in Zaun to lay claim to the space.

Sidenote: Convergence and Legends of Runeterra are the exception, but Convergence's worldbuilding is pretty opposite day on Zaun's lore and tone. And LoR's Janna and her followers don't actually fit the aesthetic of Zaun, they all look like they live somewhere else in Shurima. It all makes it seem that League really didn't know how to integrate a Janna into Zaun after the first story retcon.

#arcane #janna lol #league of legends #zaun #arcane meta #lol lore is interesting because the gods and spirits people wordship are real #so in theory if you ask for real tangible things from your very real god why wouldn’t worshippers resent and abandon a god #who doesn't answer their prayers #the same can be said for a goddess of fresh air with worshippers that live in a place completely characterized by smog #wouldn't they eventually resent or abandon Janna's worship altogether when things don't change #obviously there's more to it but we can explore it together #why can't i keep these things short

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zephyr-rat · 3 months

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The State of League Lore Sucks

So riot made a post where they "regretfully" laid off 11% of its staff and listed their direction for their future.

It does not look great.

Like, we all knew that the decommissioning of the short stories and the lore universe page in favor of a "single canon" around Arcane was always going to be a bad sign.

Now, the decommissioning of Riot Forge, sidelining of Legends of Runeterra (which the writing was always on the wall for that but now they said it), and laying off 11% of their staff, including major writers like Graham McNeill just confirmed my belief.

When they said that Riot wanted to make a singular canon, it came off to me as "we will only make it canon, if it makes us money."

Now we're seeing that in action with how much deprioritizing, retconning, and decommissioning of efforts to expand on the League of Legends story IP because traditional lore engagement doesn't make money. It doesn't drive player engagement in their eyes.

The one time lore does make money for them (Arcane), they immediately try to have the lore revolve around it in a gauche effort to capitalize on it and make more money. In that effort, they throw away the lore writers' work and essentially called them worthless while enforcing a lore ban with no additional short stories to ensure a "singular canon."

I will guarantee you that once Arcane is over and the cow cannot be milked anymore, lore is back to being disposable. The executives will focus on the next craze instead of developing their IP and expect lore fans to cheer when they throw pathetic scraps merely hinting at a story instead of actually giving us one.

It was probably always like this, given Riot's history. Either way, I'll try to commit myself to Twitch and ZAC. I rped as them back in high school, I made a game prototype surrounding Twitch, and I'm currently writing a story about the first time the 2 met right now. I am deeply personally invested in these characters, and they've always given me comfort. I know that riot will never touch those 2 characters. They don't make money and they don't appeal to the wider audience, but they appeal to me. I'll make sure that they'll live concretely somewhere as actual characters instead of cardboard cutouts because it's what they deserve.

#league lore #league of legends #lore #this sucks #arcane #legends of runeterra #riot forge #cynical

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goldlightwriting · 24 days

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I know I'm in the minority, but I am honestly, truly glad that they retconned the Brackern being the source of Hextech. Even before Arcane, I was never a fan of that plotpoint. I talked about it a bit in Skarner video essay, but my feelings on the matter have only strengthened.

To simplify my thoughts: I just don't see what everyone else does in the old Skarner lore. I never found it particularly 'deep' or 'tragic.' I can tell there was an ATTEMPT to make it so, but I feel like the attempt falls flat for a variety of reasons.

Like, the core of Skarner's prior story was KIND of an environmental message; people using up a rare and limited resource to power their city, with the added tragedy of that resource being alive and sapient. Humans continued to exploit the Brackern regardless though, because most people just couldn't understand that Hexcrystals were alive and the few who did were just cruel bastards that didn't care.

There was supposed to be this whole dilemma of "could the people really give up on using Hexcrystals if they found out they were effectively torturing living people by using them, even if that threatened to compromise their way of life?" And honestly, I don't think that's much of a dilemma.

Like, if Skarner and/or Seraphine ever managed to get the word out and reveal the truth about Hexcrystals to a massive audience, I genuinely think that would be the end of Hextech... Except not really because the lore established that synthetic Hexcrystals are a thing so there's already an easy solution the issue regardless. They're more fragile and not as long-lasting, but if you can create cheaper copies that AREN'T alive to power your machines anyway then Piltover could still probably function with relatively the same degree of efficiency, especially if research was done to improve on the synthetic copies.

Also, we have to take into account that this is Runeterra: a world with like a billion different forms of magic. Piltover is NOT the only or first nation to use magic technology. Shurima, Icathia AND Ixtal all figured out how to make machines powered by the arcane, and one could even argue that Demacia has something like that going with its petricite golems. Hell, Zaun even has chemtech, which has its own share of problems, but still!

My point is that the brackern crystals were never the only viable source of power for Hextech in Runeterra. There are SEVERAL alternatives that could be reached if people actually took the time to look, and the only reason that no one does is because, again, most Piltovans just don't see a reason to.

New Skarner's lore has issues. I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of making him a full-on villain and it's a little unclear exactly what/where the Brackern are now, but I at least think this version of the character offers a bit more genuine nuance than the Brackern Crystal plotline ever did.

#Skarner #League of Legends

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demacianpuppet · 7 months

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You know that the worst thing with the new lore retcon is? Riot Games haven’t actually done anything to solve this problem at its source, which is 100% a bad faith manager who knows nothing about his job and has all other power and no good will to do anything.

Because every single problem they try to “solve” wouldn’t have existed in the first place… if they simply would have listened to the narrative writer in the first place.

Then Riot Games finally started to earn their “s” in the name, they probably had discussed about canon and if it is shared on all of their Runeterra IPs. It seems that they clearly decided against it back then - because making sure everything is canon you have to manage so many different teams, which is so much ressource and time. I can almost understand it. They clearly didn’t care enough about their IP to do the work properly but it is, on a manager level, more than reasonable.

The actual problem starts with the Sentinel of Light event. I know, we all hate it and it was obviously an awful lore for so many reasons. And the fault was because the skin writers wrote the light novel instead of the normal writer… which is not really what happened.

First of all, I’m pretty sure the narrative writers worked on that event as well. Second, this whole event was a mistake of management. People enjoyed the Spirit Blossom Light Novel, which was light-hearted, so they thought it would work with SoL.

So some higher up said it had to be like the SB event. The narrative writers explained that it wouldn’t make work for this kind of story and this resulted in firing three writers, some who have done some of the best work in the Runeterra IP.

The event flopped, because surprise, people don’t like if their champions are treated like dirt and Riot Games apologizes… without truly gasping that the problem was.

After that and the success of Arcane, the higher up didn’t do anything with lore (aside from the Riot Forges games, which have been in development for some time).

They told us that they are moving away from written media, because the engagement is not high enough, while refusing to give us a tab in the League client or fix the Universe website.

They say they want to do more interactive media, but this is awful for archiving purposes (see the Briar teaser in the client) and takes so much more time and resources to do.

A longer short story can be written, edited and translated into a few weeks and it would all take less time and resources than any cinematic.

Cinematic and written media are not even competing in the same narrative niche. Cinematics are great but these are just so much more shallow, in the end.

So, we have a higher up who clearly knows nothing about narrative writing - instead of listening to the people who know their craft, they fire them and produce an event which everyone acts like never happened.

At the same time, they lack the insight and/or willingness to make lore more accessible and try as usual to explain that “people are not engaging enough with it” even if enough people complained about the lack of updates outside of Riot Forge.

(I promise you, if that higher up would have any power over Arcane, the quality either would have suffered immensely or it would have never been made. Quite simple.)

And I promise, that higher up earns so much more than these three narrative writers they got fired.

However, this is a tech company. So of course we can expect that kind of person to ruin even more lore. Because of course they keep their job even though they know nothing about the power of well-written IP.

It is that simple - you don’t develop lore to make money with it, at least not a video game like League. You create it for customer loyalty. This is not 2013 anymore. The main selling point back then was that League could run on any PC. It still does, but the competition is much higher. Fortnite, Roblox, cheap Steam Games.

It is not that easy to win over the new player but you have to make sure to keep the ones who are still playing. And making them invested in the IP is an excellent strategy.

Somehow, they are unable to grasp that.

It is a pity that so many good writers have to try to create good work while your management is only trying to sabotage them. Only for them to be erased because their management was unable to think more than two weeks ahead. That a pity indeed.

#I'm sure this is full of grammar and spelling errors and not worded as good I could #but I just wanted to get it out of my chest #anyway aside from the lore perspective #i think nobody is talking how fuck-up their managment has to be #remember how one of the ceo blamed the writers for blackleash on the Seraphine lore #that a great ceo!#league of legends #arcane #lol #my analysis #faceless mumbling

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heartate · 6 months

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riot is constantly retconning and rewriting their lore for not only individual champions, but runeterra as a whole, and while i love getting more lore, it gets so irritant with how often it happens and i am particularly attached to my own lore at this point so i’m going to have to sit down and figure out what i’m going to do about the vesani lol 😭

because they certainly did not exist when i wrote my origin lore post for ahri years ago, and i would like to retain my lore of ahri where she doesn’t learn and develop empathy until she’s been eating the memories and emotions of her victims, and draining them to husks without remorse 😫

#and the whole bit and whatnot with the noxian blahblahblah #god! rewriting lore… mm.#i may add to it when i have time but i’m just swamped with uni and big depressed lol.#ooc.#tbd.

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piltover-sharpshooter · 1 year

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//I might make a huge lore discussion post later where I talk about the 2014 Runeterra Lore retcon, and how while I feel it was a good thing, screwed over a lot of characters who used to be good aligned by what I have to assume is the writers trying to make them more morally gray but instead turned them more into villains.

#occ #or I might not #depends of how I feel post this nap

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agentblurr · 1 year

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Don't get me started askmeme + league of legends fandom?

Ah yes the good ol' lol fandom

To be fully bitchy, it's the bittersweet reality of im so fucking glad they finally did a tv and Arcane was great! it got the attention it deserved! it has its own fandom!

But it's also that I certainly think of the Arcane fandom (tho obviously intensely related to the larger League universe) is it's own fandom? Like the oddness of when it first came out and to see people be like "why do you call it caitvi? violyn is the obviously the better ship name" (this was a very small thing but I did see a few people saying this) and it's just like well bud for nigh on a decade Vi was Vi and her original name being Violet was a very popular fanon that had never been confirmed by Riot. It's very tiring to see people be like "Arcane is great but league sucks!" as if the league lore isn't everything Arcane is based upon (it will be interesting to see what gets integrated into official lore since Arcane does also retcon a bunch of stuff). To be blunt again, I'm excited for more Arcane! I'm absolutely chomping at the bit for when we get to more interesting parts of Runeterra (since I'm a Demacia and Freljord slut. Also Shurima slut holy shit there's so much history and so many cool characters in/from Shurima)

Not to mention that Arcane just brought in younger fandom politics, the writing portion of the league fandoms small and (at least to me) felt pretty "ship and let ship" until anti bullshit really came in in a wave with Arcane :(

Basically im just here to quietly continue vibing in my part of the lol fandom and don't really interact with the Arcane fandom

#asks

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infinite-xerath · 1 year

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Something but the current Varus managed to take a shit on Ionian Hunter Varus and Darkin!Varus by combining both parts without what worked.

Original Varus was known for taking on the very thing he devoted his life and loss his family to guard on to him for Vengeance in a moment of weakness he regrets.

Which the current Varus lore has the dead family but not the irony of original Varus.

Keeping the cheap “dead family turned me evil” part but not any of the pathos.

But the current lore also shits on Kai and Valmar. Turning them into road bumps in the story of Varus the Darkin.

So it does both poorly

I fucking despise the Darkin retcon and consider it a symptom of Riot trying to connect all the lore together making Runeterra feel smaller with only a few important dudes then the more carried old lore.

Eveything being Targon or the Void makes the world feel smaller.

Wasn't expecting to get another message like this again. Like, I don't really know what to say, honestly. I agree with nearly every point you've made here. It's more-or-less the same points I've made in my video essay. I appreciate that we can agree the new Varus is pretty awful, but like... This feels like beating a dead horse at this point, and that's coming from a guy who'll gladly take any opportunity to dunk on Rise of the Sentinels.

On that note, the one point I disagree with is your belief that Runeterra feels smaller now. There are like a dozen regions that all have their own plot lines and stories happening, and only two of them are actually related to the Void. If anything I appreciate when Riot can connect things in an organic manner and hate it when they fail (see the messy situation that is the vastaya.)

Ultimately, I stand by what I've been saying for these last several months: the Darkin should have been demons. I think we got some cool stuff out of the Darkin Saga in LoR, but the whole situation still feels needlessly messy.))

#Outofpower #Varus #Also this is probably the last time I post OOC about this

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elegaria · 3 months

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one thing i will be retaining from retconned league lore is that yes, sona can telepathically communicate with people, but she doesn't do it often, and most certainly not with people she doesn't know or trust.

she typically doesn't find herself in positions where she really needs to verbally communicate with others, as she's quite resourceful on her own, and will typically exhaust all resources or ideas before resorting to poking around to ask someone for things like directions, where to find something in particular, etc.

though sona had her own version of sign language with people from her past, i think she's extended beyond that over the years to learn ionian and whatever the standard universal language in runeterra would be. but, sona knows that the average person won't know sign language at all, so again, speaking to others is a last resort. she might carry pen and paper, if she's able, or at least gesture in request for pen and paper if she doesn't have any on hand. she's very smart, crafty, observant, and typically doesn't find herself in need of help in whatever she's trying to do.

#hc.

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frenchphobic · 2 years

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honestly like if arcane said yeah ekkos 18 like that really puts another strike in the canon status of arcane bc we already had a fair amount of retcons to say viktor jayces and singed’s stories and we’re not even getting into camille’s story which muddled the timeline enough

#like arcane made camille’s timeline really weird #and ekko was created as a teen so if the devs said age him up then that also makes the timeline weird #like at least with the taliyah situation it probably had to do with runeterra not being exactly fleshed out #but shes still largely considered a teen unless they update her character #but here its like oh so whats the truth now #for reference camille is 80 and got hexteched when she was late 20s. jayce is at least 30 maybe #like if they say okay we’re changing the story it would suck bc camille and ekko had the best bios #honestly how much r they gonna retcon the stories of the champions

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shukuchiisms · 2 years

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soraka-in-warhammer40k · 5 years

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Legends of Runeterra might not have any Soraka cards yet, but at least we get this little beauty of hooves and horns!

Meadow Guardian by sixmorevodka

#the similiarities to Soraka are really fascinating tho #i hope this doesnt mean any more silly retconning tho #League of Legends #Legends of Runeterra

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lord-pigeon · 2 years

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As one of the six people that go in-depth with LoL lore I'm calling shenanigans on Heimer bitching about magic or on his age

#so the conflict he was talking about was the rune wars most likely #those were deadass about 900 years before the present day in league #arcane is about what #10 maybe 20 years from present runeterra?#heim said hes 300 #lyin ass bitch #i know the real answer is that arcane just retcons a ton of previous lore but #i wish to meme #are we gonna keep the good viktor/jayce content from og league or is viktor gonna go full social darwinist immediately

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goldlightwriting · 2 months

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My Lore vs Riot's Lore

It's no secret that Riot Games, specifically the corporate entities at the top, have been horrible about the handling of their own IP and fictional universe. Since the Great Retcon that happened nearly a decade ago, myself and other creatives in the League community have taken it upon ourselves to do what they seemingly refuse to.

TBSkyen, Nickyboi and other such creators have put to voice our issues perfectly: that for a company as massively successful as Riot Games, it is difficult to fathom how and why they cannot do in the course of ten years what independent, passionate fans can do in their spare time. I have gone out of my why to create new backstories for characters that have no place in the current lore out of spite. Artists have redesigned Champions whose visuals are woefully behind. And to top it all off, Riot clearly has no consistent vision for where they even want to take things.

Right now they're allegedly trying to make sure the game universe fits with Arcane: something that fundamentally does not and cannot work due to the variety of discrepancies between both properties. They discontinued Riot Forge because they weren't able to instantly dominate the indie market with like four games (big surprise) and actively butcher existing characters and lore for the sake of selling skins.

And that's what it ultimately boils down to. The higher-ups do not care about the world of Runeterra, at least not as much as the Esports scene and the shills who will spend ungodly amounts of money on cosmetics. They leave characters and storylines to rot for years on end unless they're marketable or profitable enough to bother with. Even then, it feels like they can never truly stay consistent.

Perhaps this arrogant of me to say, but as far as I'm concerned, the world of Runeterra belongs to us: the fans who are dedicated enough to remain passionate about a world Riot has no interest in. This is by no means a knock against the artists and writers that Riot employs... But the corporate entity holding this world hostage has, in my opinion, no real right to call themselves the owners of these stories and characters that they intentionally leave neglected and abandoned.

Ever since the Rise of the Sentinels event, I have been forging my OWN canon out of a mix of passion and spite. I know not everyone agrees with all the changes I've made, and that's fine. As far as I'm concerned, those people are more than free to develop their own versions of the lore. The point is that, as things stand, I genuinely don't know if Riot's version is ever truly going to be complete. Even then, there are aspects of the existing canon that I just don't like for some reason or another.

Below is what I call the Gold Continuity: a summary of my alterations to the League mythos or headcanons that I've created to fill in the gaps that Riot left behind. So, without further ado...

Regions and Plotpoints

Yordles

-Yordles have indefinite lifespans, but they are NOT immortal. They can be killed and harmed.

-Yordles survive by adapting to their surroundings. A yordle who spends enough time among other races will eventually come to mimic their behaviors.

-Yordles are not cryptids, nor do they have glamour, but they are rarer in some regions than others.

Vastaya

-Vastaya are chimeric beings that resulted in humans mingling with an ancient race of shapeshifters called the Vastaya-Sharei. They are not immortal, nor can they shapeshift (except for the Oovikat), but they do have slightly longer lifespans than humans.

The Shadow Isles

-The Ruination happened because League's equivalent of Pandora's Box (which would later become Thresh's lantern) was opened and unleashed centuries' worth of evil energy to corrupt the Isles.

-The Black Mist is the accumulation of negativity in a person's soul, while the Hallowed Mist is positivity.

-Relicstone, AKA Lightstone, can be used to harness the positivity or negativity in a person's soul. It emits a golden yellow or ghastly green glow depending on the emotion fueling it.

-The Sentinels of Light were originally an order that used Lightstone weapons to combat malevolent spirits and criminals on the Blessed Isles. Members of this order fled with a supply of Lightstone in tow and remade themselves into an organization devoted to fighting the Black Mist.

-The Ruination did not happen all at once; rather, it took several hours for the Black Mist to completely corrupt the Isles. This allowed some Sentinels time to trap Viego in the vaults of Helia.

-The Harrowing is a period of time in which Viego's seal weakens and his power is able to freely extend across Runeterra.

The Darkin

-The Darkin are ancient, demonic weapons of unknown origin that corrupt the minds and bodies of their wielders.

-The Darkin harbor a deep hatred towards the Celestial gods of Targon for unknown reasons.

-Aatrox, the strongest of the Darkin, aims to lead his kin in a war that will destroy Targon.

Targon

-The Celestial gods of Targon are, in fact, powerful cosmic spirits that have become the embodiment of mortal beliefs regarding the workings of the universe.

-Targon once boasted a polytheistic religion that worshiped and respected all the Aspects. However, sects and cults devoted to individual gods rose up over time, dividing Targon's people.

-Aspects bond with mortal vessels to better enact their wills upon Runeterra, offering power and extended life in exchange for servitude. An Aspect can, however, completely overtake their mortal host and transform them if the host's will isn't strong enough.

-The death of an Aspect doesn't necessarily cause the destruction of celestial bodies, but it does have an impact on Runeterra itself; if an Aspect is killed, then its corresponding stars or moons will no longer be visible to the people of Runeterra.

-Aurelion Sol was once revered by a cult of dragon-worshipers on Mount Targon. They offered him praise and gifts whenever he deigned to descend upon their home. The god of war, Pantheon, saw the potential in Aurelion Sol as a weapon and enacted a scheme to enslave him. Aurelion's followers were tricked into forging a giant crown that bound him to Pantheon's will. Thus, the war god could call on the Star Forger as a weapon whenever he pleased.

-The Solari and Lunari once fought together to defend Runeterra from the Void. However, when the Lunari began to meddle with Void powers in an attempt to better understand this, they were deemed heretics. Though the reasons why have been lost, many sun-worshipers still regard the cult of the moon as heresy.

Shurima

-The Ascended waged war on each other after the empire's fall because of the power vacuum that Xerath created. This resulted in a period known as the Godly War.

-The entirety of the Ascended Host (save for Nasus and Renekton) died during Twilight of the Gods.

Characters

Twitch

Twitch was a rat captured and experimented on by human scientists. He was injected with an experimental drug meant to bolster his physical and mental abilities. After a time, the mutated rat escaped confinement and fled to the sewers. There, he began to build his own personal kingdom amidst the filth and refuge, ambushing anyone foolish enough to enter his territory without permission. Twitch hopes to one day overthrow the surface dwellers and claim revenge on them.

Kog'Maw

Kog'Maw is a doomsday weapon created by the Void. He builds energy within himself by consuming things, and releases that energy in a violent explosion when his body takes severe damage. Kog'Maw's purpose is to build enough energy that he can one day tear apart reality itself in a violent explosion, creating an opening for the Void to invade Runeterra once more.

Shaco

Shaco is a Demon of Delirium, who drives people mad with his twisted games. He appears before the sad and depressed to lure them in with his playful antics, only to leave them surrounded by bodies and covered in blood. Those who fall under Shaco's spell are completely unaware of the atrocities they commit until the Demon Jester has left their side.

Corki

Corki is the leader of a the Screaming Yipsnakes, who defend Bandle City from airborn threats. He pilots a special flying machine that he co-developed with Professor Heimerdinger in Piltover. Corki has grown a touch senile in recent years, but remains as skilled and devoted to his cause as ever.

Shyvana

Shyvana is the last descendant of an ancient tribe of dragon-worshipers from the Kumungu Jungle. Long ago, this tribe made offerings to element dragons in exchange for their blood; by consuming dragon blood, these people were able to become half-dragons. However, the dragon Yvva saw this as an affront, and single-handedly brought an end to the entire tribe... Or so she thought. Shyvana alone survived the onslaught and spent years wandering the world. Eventually, she arrived in Demacia, where she would unite with Prince Jarvan IV to bring an end to her tribe's killer.

Akshan

Akshan is a Shuriman rogue devoted to his own personal brand of justice. He steals from and even sometimes assassinates scoundrels who misuse their wealth and power while fighting for those of less-fortunate means. Some even say he carries an ancient relic capable of draining and restoring life essence, sacrificing one soul to resurrect another...

Zyra

Zyra is an ancient Ixtali witch possessed by a deadly carnivorous plant. The Zyr flowers once threatened to consume all of Kumungu, but their spread was halted by the mages of Ixaocan. A lone sorceress thought it wrong to exterminate an entire species, however, and saved a single Zyr sapling. That sapling, however, would go on to infect her and create the being now known as Zyra. Zyra now seeks to resume her plan of conquering the jungle and spreading her seeds to all living things, more dangerous than ever with a human intellect to bolster her wicked intent.

Thresh

Thresh was once a monk of the Blessed Isles, charged with safeguarding a lantern filled with the evils of humanity. Thresh began to grow resentful of this duty and the order, and extended exposure to the lantern began to corrupt his mind. Thresh longed to release the evils of the lantern, but was unable to as it could never be opened by those with impure intent. When Viego arrived, Thresh saw his opportunity and manipulated the king into opening the lantern, convincing the king that its power could revive Isolde.

Vex

Vex was a yordle serving in the Brotherhood of Dusk on the Blessed Isles. She was once a cheerful, upbeat spirit who excelled in soothing the souls of the departed. However, when the Ruination came, the evils of the lantern inverted her cheerful demeanor into one of nihilism and despair. Vex now seeks to spread gloom and misery wherever she goes, though her shadow reflects the once-kind soul that she still harbors deep inside her...

Viego

Viego was the king of Camavor, though he was never intended to inherit the throne. He spent much of his time and attention doting on his beloved wife, and fell to madness after her demise. He went to the Blessed Isles, birthplace of his Blade of Kings, in the hopes of finding a way to resurrect her. There, he was promised the power to do so by Thresh; all Viego needed to do was take the power stored within an ancient lantern. Viego became a vessel for the Black Mist, which snuffed out the last of the genuine good in his heart and turned him into the Ruined King.

Kalista

Kalista was once a royal guard of Camavor whose father was slain by insurgents in her youth. For this reason, Kalista grew up with a deep-seated hatred for traitors and rebels of all kinds. She believed that loyalty to the crown was absolute, even as Viego's actions slowly drove the country to ruin. Only when he ordered his soldiers to kill the monks of the Blessed Isles did Kalista realized that Viego himself had betrayed his country did she choose to stand against him and all his supporters. When the Black Mist swept over the Isles, Kalista was transformed in her dying moments, becoming a mindless agent of vengeance whose obsession with punishing betrayers has consumed her completely...

Vladimir

Viego's uncle and a formerly influential politician in Camavor. Vladimir sought to gain his nephew's favor by uncovering the secrets of blood magic so that he might resurrect Isolde; to that end, he traveled across the sea to the land of Noxus. There, he became exceedingly proficient in the art of hemomancy... Enough to be invited into the Black Rose. Upon learning of his homeland's fall to ruin, Vladimir accepted the offer and has spent centuries keeping himself young and influential through mastery of his craft.

Elise

Elise is the head of House Kythera: one of the oldest and most influential noble houses in Noxus. Unbeknownst to most, House Kythera reveres an archaic deity from the Noxii Tribes of old: the spider god, Vilemaw. In exchange for human sacrifices, descendants of House Kythera are granted power and lasting life by their deity. Elise has forged an alias with the Black Rose to ensure a steady supply of offerings for her deity, in exchange for using her power and influence to aid the Pale Lady...

Syndra

Syndra is the living antithesis of Karma, though she had, at one point, been the spirit's vessel. Syndra was chosen by Karma at an early age, and immediately took to the power she was granted by Ionia's ancient protector. In fact, her latent magical potential made her the most powerful incarnation of Karma anyone had ever seen. Though the monks of the Lasting Altar tried to teach her restraint, Syndra ignored them all, believing herself to be destined for greater things. Syndra's obsession for power ultimately led the monks to try and extract Karma by force, but rather than removing Syndra's magic entirely, it merely took on a dark and twisted form. Syndra was sealed deep below the Lasting Altar for decades, but now she is free and seeks to reclaim that which was taken from her.

Jarvan IV

The heir to Demacia's throne, Prince Jarvan IV was a prodigy warrior and seemed well-suited to the role of kingship. His skill and pride, however, led him to one day make the most foolish decision of his life. When world a powerful fire dragon ravaging the Demacian countryside reached his ears, Jarvan led a battalion of soldiers against the beast despite his father's orders not to do so. The result was the tragic death of every soldier under Jarvan's command, and his own shameful retreat into the forest. Jarvan would have died from his injuries were it not for Shyvana, who found him and eventually aided him in defeating the fire dragon Yvva for good.

Warwick

A vastayan warrior captured during the Noxian Invasion of Ionia. Though initially set to be brought back to Noxus for sport, the mad scientist Singed arranged for him to be brought to Zaun instead, as payment for the Mad Chemist's assistance in the war. There, Warwick was experimented on as Singed tried to uncover the chimeric properties of the vastaya, even forcibly augmenting his new experiment in a variety of ways. Eventually, though, Warwick managed to escape the lab. Though his mind has been broken by Singed's cruel experiments, a semblance of nobility still remains within Warwick, even as he prowls the undercity for prey...

Lillia

Lillia is dream spirit who once traveled the spirit realm to ward off nightmares. Despite her shy and timid nature, Lillia is quite effective in her task, keeping night terrors at bay with her mystical bough. After an encounter with a particularly fierce nightmare long ago, Lillia was forced to enter a state of dormancy for many years... But now, as dark dreams have begun to spread throughout Runeterra once again, Lillia has awakened to resume her duties and bring peaceful slumber to the mortals of the world.

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia was transformed into a Baccai by Xerath when she released him from the tomb. Though she initially viewed this as a curse, Cassiopeia soon took to the myriad of powers she gained from the Magus's 'gift.' She now works alongside the Black Rose in Noxus to maintain a foothold in Bel'Zhun, keeping an eye on the Ascended on behalf of her new patron.

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And that's everything for now. This is Runeterra as I imagine it, completely unfettered by any requirements or existing canon. I may go back and add to this in the future, but for now I think that's plenty to chew on.

#Runeterra Rewrites #Gold Continuity #League of Legends #Legends of Runeterra #Riot Games

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