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Whether mistaken for a demon or god, many tales have been told of the Darkin Blade... but few know his real name, or the story of his fall.
In ancient times, long before desert sands swallowed the empire, a mighty champion of Shurima was brought before the Sun Disc to become the avatar for a now forgotten celestial ideal. Remade as one of the Ascended, his wings were the golden light of dawn, and his armor sparkled like a constellation of hope from beyond the great veil.
Aatrox was his name. He was at the vanguard of every noble conflict. So true and just was his conduct that other god-warriors would always gather at his side, and ten thousand mortals of Shurima marched behind him. When Setaka, the Ascended warrior-queen, called for his help against the rebellion of Icathia, Aatrox answered without hesitation.
But no one predicted the extent of the horrors that the rebels would unleash—the Void quickly overwhelmed its Icathian masters, and began the grinding annihilation of all life it encountered.
After many years of desperate battle, Aatrox and his brethren finally halted the Void’s perverse advance, and seared the largest rifts shut. But the surviving Ascended, the self-described Sunborn, had been forever changed by what they had encountered. Though Shurima had triumphed, they all had lost something in their victory... even noble Aatrox.
And in time, Shurima fell, as all empires must.
Without any monarch to defend, or the existential threat of the Void to test them, Aatrox and the Sunborn began to clash with one another, and eventually this became a war for the ruins of their world. Mortals fleeing the conflict came to know them instead by a new and scornful name: the darkin.
Fearing that these fallen Ascended were as dangerous to Runeterra’s survival as the Void incursions had been, the Targonians intervened. It is said that the Aspect of Twilight gave mortals the knowledge to trap the darkin, and the newly reborn Aspect of War united many in fighting back against them. Never fearing any foe, Aatrox and his armies were ready, and he realized only too late that they had been deceived. A force greater than a thousand dead suns pulled him inside the sword he had carried into battle countless times, and forever bound his immortal essence to it.
The weapon was a prison, sealing his consciousness in suffocating, eternal darkness, robbing him even of the ability to die. For centuries, he strained against this hellish confinement... until some nameless mortal was foolish enough to try and wield the blade once more. Aatrox seized upon this opportunity, forcing his will and an imitation of his original form onto his bearer, though the process quickly drained all life from the new body.
In the years that followed, Aatrox groomed many more hosts—men and women of exceptional vitality or fortitude. Though his grasp of such magics had been limited in life, he learned to take control of a mortal in the span of single breath, and in battle he discovered he could feast on his victims to build himself ever larger and stronger.
Aatrox traveled the land, searching desperately, endlessly, for a way return to his previous Ascended form… but the riddle of the blade proved unsolvable, and in time he realized he would never be free of it. The flesh he stole and crudely shaped began to feel like a mockery of his former glory—a cage only slightly larger than the sword. Despair and loathing grew in his heart. The heavenly powers that Aatrox had once embodied had been wiped from the world, and all memory.
Raging against this injustice, he arrived at a solution that could only be born of a prisoner’s desperation. If he could not destroy the blade or free himself, then he would embrace oblivion instead.
Now, Aatrox marches toward this merciless goal, bringing war and death wherever he goes. He clings to a blind hope: if he can drive all of creation into a final, apocalyptic battle—where everything, everything else is destroyed—then maybe he and the blade will also cease to exist. | Fighter |
For most of her life, Ahri's origins were a mystery to her, the history of her vastayan tribe all but lost
save for the twin gemstones she has carried her entire life.
Ahri's earliest memories are of running with icefoxes in the northern reaches of Shon-Xan. Though she knew she was not one of them, they clearly saw her as something of a kindred spirit, and came to accept her within the pack.
In that wild, predatory existence, Ahri nonetheless felt a deeper connection to the forests around her. In time, she came to understand that this was the magic of the vastaya that coursed through every fiber of her being, and the realm of spirits that lay beyond. With no one to teach her, instead she learned to call upon this power in her own ways—most often using it to quicken her reflexes in pursuit of prey. If she was careful and close enough, she also found she might soothe a panicked deer, so that it remained serene and calm even as she and her packmates sank their teeth into its flesh.
The world of mortals was as distant and unsettling to Ahri as it was to the icefoxes, but she felt drawn to it for reasons she could not explain. Humans in particular were coarse, gruff creatures… and when a band of huntsmen camped nearby, Ahri watched them from afar as they went about their grim business.
When one of them was wounded by a stray arrow, Ahri could feel his life seeping away. Knowing nothing but the instincts of a predator, she savored the spirit essence leaving his body, and through it gained brief flashes of his memories—the lover he had lost in battle, and the children he had left behind when he came north. Ahri subtly pushed his emotions from fear to sorrow to joy, and comforted him with visions of a sun-soaked meadow as he died.
Afterward, she found that human words now came to her easily, like something from a half-remembered dream, and Ahri knew the time had come to leave the pack behind.
Keeping to the fringes of society, she felt more alive than ever. Her predatory nature remained, but she was caught up in a riot of new experiences, emotions, and customs across Ionia. Mortals, it seemed, also became fascinated by her in return—and she often used this to her advantage, draining their essence while charming them with recollections of beauty, hallucinations of deep longing, and occasionally dreams colored by raw sorrow.
She grew drunk on memories that were not her own, and exhilarated in ending the lives of others even as she felt the grief and woe she brought to her victims. She experienced heartbreak and elation in tantalizing flashes that left her craving more. It was overwhelming, but she sensed her own power fading whenever she tried to stay away, and could not help but partake again and again…
In time, she began to see herself as mortals did: a monster.
Until one day, an artist stumbled upon her, hunched over a man as she drained his life essence from him. Where others would run, he stayed, offering his own life essence in exchange for her heart. For the first time in her life, Ahri let herself fall in love and be loved, wholly and completely.
Their days passed in warmth and laughter, Ahri curbing her hunger by feeding on her lover. She was truly happy... until she lost control, draining her lover completely.
Ahri fell into despair, her grief consuming her as she mourned the loss of the first and only person she's ever truly loved. The first and only person who ever truly loved her. Retreating even further from society, she became consumed with learning more about where she came from, in hopes that it would help her control her abilities.
With her twin sunstones in hand, she set out in search of others like her, a journey that would take her out of Ionia and to Bilgewater. It was on the shores of the Shadow Isles where she finally discovered her ancestors, the Vesani, a vastayan tribe that brought innovation and magic to the Blessed Isles before being wiped out by the Ruination.
Inspired by their memories, Ahri has set off to travel the world in search of other remnants of the Vesani. She hopes to carry their legacy forward, bringing good into the world like they did. No longer burdened by the heavy weight of her regrets, she also hopes to finally leave her stolen memories behind and create new memories of her own making. | Mage |
Ionia has always been a land of wild magic, its vibrant people and powerful spirits seeking to live in harmony… but sometimes this peaceful equilibrium does not come easily. Sometimes it needs to be kept in check.
The Kinkou are the self-appointed keepers of Ionia’s sacred balance. The order’s loyal acolytes walk the spirit and material realms, mediating conflicts between them and, when necessary, intervening by force. Born among their ranks was Akali, daughter of Mayym Jhomen Tethi, the renowned Fist of Shadow. Mayym and her partner Tahno raised their daughter within the Kinkou Order, under the watchful leadership of Great Master Kusho, the Eye of Twilight.
Whenever her parents were called away, other members of the order stepped in as Akali’s surrogate family. Kennen, the Heart of the Tempest, spent many hours with the young girl, teaching her shuriken techniques, and emphasizing speed and agility over strength. Akali was a precocious child, and soaked up the knowledge like a sponge. It became clear to all that she would follow her parents’ path—along with the Great Master’s son and appointed successor Shen, she would lead a new generation dedicated to preserving Ionia’s balance.
But balance can be fleeting. The order found itself divided.
A wayward acolyte named Zed returned, and clashed violently with Kusho, wresting power in a bloody coup. Akali fled into the eastern mountains along with Mayym, Shen, Kennen, and a handful of other acolytes. Sadly, Tahno was not among them.
Zed’s transformation of the Kinkou into the merciless Order of Shadow was almost complete. But, as the new Eye of Twilight, Shen intended to rebuild what had been lost. They would return to the Kinkou’s three fundamental philosophies: the pure impartiality of Watching the Stars, the passage of judgment in Coursing the Sun, and the elimination of imbalance by Pruning the Tree. Even though they were now few, they would train neophytes to restore and grow their numbers once more.
When Akali came of age at fourteen, she formally entered her Kinkou training, determined to succeed her mother as the new Fist of Shadow.
She was a prodigious fighter, and mastered the kama and kunai—a handheld sickle and throwing dagger. Though she did not possess the magical abilities of many of her fellow acolytes, she proved to all she was worthy of the title, in time allowing her mother to step down and help mentor the younger neophytes.
But Akali’s soul was restless, and her eyes were open. Though the Kinkou and the Order of Shadow had come to an uneasy accord in the wake of the Noxian invasion of Ionia, she saw that her homeland continued to suffer. She questioned whether they were truly fulfilling their purpose. Pruning the Tree was meant to eliminate those who threatened the sacred balance... yet Shen would always urge restraint.
He was holding her back. All the mantras and meditations could quiet her spirit, but such platitudes would not defeat their adversaries. Her youthful precociousness turned to outright disobedience. She argued with Shen, she defied him, and she took down Ionia’s enemies her way.
In front of the whole order, she declared the impotence of the Kinkou, all its talk of spiritual balance and patience accomplishing little. Ionians were dying in the material realm, and that was the realm Akali would defend. She was trained as an assassin. She was going to be an assassin. She did not need the order anymore.
Shen let her go without a fight, knowing this was a path that Akali must walk alone. Perhaps that path would bring her back one day, but that would be for her to decide. | Assassin |
Dashing through the shadows of eastern Shurima, a righteous avenger stalks those who have harmed others. His punishment is swift, certain, and exacted by a curious weapon that rights the wrongs of his foes.
Raised on the streets of the city of Marwi, Akshan was introduced to injustice at birth. In a place where local warlords took what they wanted, most people survived by keeping their heads down and minding their own affairs. Try as he might, young Akshan could never manage to let bad deeds go unnoticed and was often quick to intervene when he saw someone being mistreated. This approach made the boy many powerful enemies, and on one fateful occasion, left him beaten within an inch of his life.
But luck was on his side. An old woman named Shadya found the boy unconscious in the street outside her dwelling. Though Marwian custom said she should not get involved, she took young Akshan inside and, against all odds, he pulled through.
As Akshan regained his faculties, he realized his savior was no ordinary woman. Shadya was a member of the Sentinels of Light, an ancient order committed to fighting Harrowings and eradicating agents of the Black Mist. She saw Akshan as a troubled youth, stubborn and defiant, but vulnerable. After butting heads with the boy over her numerous sentinel house rules, Shadya quickly discovered there was much to like about him. He had guts and a conscience—a combination seldom found in Marwi. Seeing the immense potential in the young man, Shadya made a deal with him: she would allow him to stay, free from the grasp of his countless enemies, and, in return, he would dedicate himself to the sentinel order.
Shadya and Akshan formed a fast bond as she taught him everything she knew about surviving as a solo sentinel. Akshan the scrappy street urchin grew into Akshan the full-grown bane of scoundrels. But even as Akshan’s skills grew by the day, he could see his mentor growing more distant, and more troubled.
At last, Shadya told her pupil the reason for her concern: A Harrowing was coming, bigger than any the world had ever seen, bearing an army of wraiths and ghouls from the Shadow Isles. Their only hope of stopping the cataclysm rested with the ancient sentinel weapons that lay buried within Shurima's crypts and tombs. If the world was to be saved from ruination, they needed to collect these weapons, and quickly.
To Shadya’s dismay, she found that the ancient weapons had already been plundered by local warlords. She pleaded with them to relinquish the artifacts for the fight against the inevitable Harrowing, but the warlords refused, determined to unlock the weapons’ mysterious power for themselves.
With time running out, Akshan and Shadya were forced to make do with what they had. As they took stock of their arsenal, Akshan discovered a particularly striking gun hidden away in the base’s vault. Alarmed, his mentor snatched it away and forbade Akshan from ever using it. The weapon, known as the Absolver, was imbued with an ancient enchantment that granted it a strange, unspeakable power—it could take the life of a killer and, by doing so, restore their most recent victims to life.
“It must not be wielded by anyone,” said Shadya. “Such matters of life and death are best left in the hands of fate.”
But Akshan still bristled at sentinel rules, and he had even stronger opinions on fate. He had spent his whole life seeing good people horribly mistreated while bad people did as they pleased without consequence. If fate was real, it definitely needed help—help that the Absolver could provide.
As his interest in the weapon deepened, Akshan continued to pry its history from Shadya and came to a shocking discovery: She had used the gun to save Akshan when she found him unconscious in the street all those years ago. With it, she’d slain the criminal who had nearly killed him, and, in doing so, restored young Akshan to life. He wondered: Why did he alone deserve to be revived by the gun? Surely there were others who were more worthy.
While Akshan questioned the antiquated rules of his order, his mentor continued to press the warlords to turn over their stolen weapons. Tensions between the two parties built until one tragic day Akshan returned home to find Shadya murdered in the street, almost exactly where he had fallen all those years ago.
Akshan knew what he had to do. He made some key alterations to the Absolver and set out into the scorching desert with the forbidden weapon, hungry for vengeance. Though he could not determine which of the warlords had killed his mentor, he knew one way to be certain: he would pick them off one by one until Shadya was returned to Runeterra. | Marksman |
Many civilizations have resisted Noxus, but none as long as the clans of the Great Barrier mountains. Though these fierce minotaurs had protected the overland trade routes to the ancient city of Zaun for centuries, they preferred to avoid Valoran’s wider conflicts.
The noble warrior Alistar was respected among all the clans. Out on the mountain peaks, his roar could scatter even the bravest trespassers, leaving only the foolhardy to face him in combat. Even so, in the moot halls he would always urge his kin to forge greater bonds with other mortal races. Many saw minotaurs as little more than beasts, which soured any interaction and kept them firmly as outsiders.
Then Noxus came, promising something better. Their emissary, the matriarch of House Tewain, proclaimed that the empire was poised to take Basilich, a coastal city to the east. However, she pledged that they would not do this without the support of the great clans of the mountains, and called for parley on neutral ground.
Many of the minotaurs were eager to accept her offer. This was a way to gain the power and recognition they sought, by joining with Noxus.
But Alistar remained skeptical—he had encountered many Noxian scouts in recent years, and knew them to be a duplicitous and cunning people. For this reason, his clan sent him to meet Tewain, along with fifty of their mightiest warriors, to reject any alliance. The other clans could do as they wished, but Alistar would not accept the rule of some distant “Grand General”.
Under the banners of truce, he and his kin were betrayed.
The larger clans had already pledged themselves to Noxus, and their representatives turned against him as soon as he made his position known. The battle was swift and bloody, and Alistar himself crushed Lady Tewain’s skull with his bare hands—but soon enough he and his surviving warriors found themselves bound in chains, headed for the distant Noxian capital, accused of inciting rebellion.
These unfortunate minotaurs found themselves cast into the Reckoning arenas of the capital, as part of a grim gladiatorial festival known as the Fleshing.
Alistar was appalled by the chanting of the bloodthirsty spectators. He implored his clanfolk not to fight back, not to give these Noxians the monstrous display they so craved…
When the festival ended twenty-one days later, Alistar was the only member of his tribe left. Pelted with pebbles and rotten fruit from the crowd, dragged out to face Reckoner after Reckoner, he was driven to fight like a beast—and think like one. He killed and killed until even his memories of home became stained with blood.
Alistar had fallen far by the time he met Ayelia, a servant girl in the arenas. At first he bellowed and charged the bars of his cage, expecting her to fear or goad him like the others, but Ayelia did neither.
She returned every day, and spoke to him with gentle respect, until eventually Alistar answered in kind. Ayelia’s homeland had also been claimed by Noxus, and seeing his suffering had convinced her they should leave this hateful city together. She whispered her plans through the bars, and for the first time in years Alistar found he could think of home without dwelling on the way it had been taken from him.
One night, Ayelia brought Alistar the key to his cell. She had sacrificed much to arrange this escape, and he swore he would repay her tenfold.
They hurried to the river, where a cargo barge awaited them. However, as they boarded, Noxian agents burst from the shadows. Alistar hurled himself into battle, his vision tunneled with rage, and although Ayelia called out to him again and again, he did not hear.
By the time Alistar had slain their attackers, the boat was gone—and Ayelia with it—so he fled south on foot instead. He searched everywhere for the servant girl, but found nothing. Had she been captured? Killed? It seemed there were no clues left to find.
Weeks later, a political coup shook the empire to its dark foundations, and the arena minotaur’s escape was quite forgotten.
Alistar now travels alone, as quietly and anonymously as he can, encouraging resistance in Noxian-held territories and fighting on behalf of the downtrodden and the abused. Only when he has cleared the shame from his heart, repaying every cruelty and every kindness, will Alistar return to the mountains and leave his rage behind.
And in every city he passes through, he asks after Ayelia. | Tank |
A lonely and melancholy soul from ancient Shurima, Amumu roams the world in search of a friend. Cursed by an ancient spell, he is doomed to remain alone forever, as his touch is death and his affection ruin. Those who claim to have seen him describe Amumu as a living cadaver, small in stature and covered in bandages the color of lichen. Amumu has inspired myths, folklore, and legends told and retold for generations – such that it is impossible to separate truth from fiction.
The hardy folk of Shurima agree upon certain things: the wind always blows from the west in the morning; a full belly on a new moon is an ill omen; buried treasure hides under the heaviest of rocks. They do not agree, however, about the tale of Amumu.
One oft-told story links Amumu to the first great ruling family of Shurima who succumbed to a disease that corrupted flesh with hideous speed. The youngest child, Amumu, was quarantined in his chambers and befriended a servant girl who heard his cries through the walls. She regaled the lonely heir with courtly news and stories of her grandmother’s mystic powers.
One morning, the girl brought word that Amumu’s last remaining brother had passed away, making him Emperor of Shurima. Saddened that he had to bear this news alone, she unlocked his door and ran inside to comfort him face to face. Amumu threw his arms around her, but as they touched, he fell back, realizing he had condemned her to the same terrible fate as his family.
Upon the girl’s death, her grandmother placed a twisted blight on the young emperor. In her mind, Amumu had as good as murdered her kin. As the curse took effect, Amumu was trapped in his moment of suffering like a locust ensnared in honeyed amber.
A second tale whispers of another crown prince, one given to bouts of petulance, cruelty, and murderous vanity. In this telling, Amumu was crowned Emperor of Shurima at a young age, and convinced he was blessed by the sun, he forced his subjects to worship him as a god.
Amumu sought the fabled Eye of Angor, an ancient relic entombed in a gilded crypt, said to grant eternal life to whoever looked upon it with an unflinching heart. He hunted the treasure for years with a host of slaves who carried him through labyrinthine catacombs, sacrificing themselves to traps so the emperor could continue without hindrance. Amumu finally reached the cyclopean golden archway, where upon dozens of his stonemasons labored to breach the sealed door.
As the young emperor rushed within, determined to look into the Eye of Angor, his slaves seized their chance and sealed the stone doorway behind him. Some say the child emperor endured in the darkness for years, his loneliness driving him to insanity and causing him to claw at his own skin, which he was forced to wrap in bandages. His life was extended by the power of the Eye as he meditated on his past transgressions, but the gift was a double edged sword, for he was cursed to remain forever alone.
When a series of devastating earthquakes shattered the foundations of his tomb, the emperor escaped with no knowledge of how much time had passed, seeking to undo the suffering he had caused in life.
Yet another story of Amumu tells of the first and last Yordle ruler of Shurima, who believed in the innate goodness of the human heart. To prove his detractors wrong, he swore an oath to live as a beggar until he made one true friend, convinced his people would rally to help their fellow Shuriman.
Though thousands walked by the disheveled Yordle, not one stopped to offer a helping hand. Amumu’s sadness grew until he eventually died of a broken heart. But his death was not the end, for some swear the Yordle still wanders the desert, forever searching for someone who might restore his faith in humanity.
These stories, despite their differences, are woven with parallels. Whatever the circumstances, Amumu is doomed to exist in a broken state of emptiness, eternally alone and friendless. Fated to forever search for a companion, his presence is cursed and his touch is death. On long winter nights when the fire is never allowed to burn low, the sad mummy can sometimes be heard weeping in the desert, despairing that he’ll never know the solace of friendship.
Whatever Amumu searches for – atonement, kinship, or a single act of kindness – one thing is as certain as the western wind at dawn: he has yet to find it. | Tank |
Boram Darkwill’s last years on the throne were a time of great uncertainty for Noxus, and many with an aptitude for magic left the capital for the relative peace of more distant provinces. Gregori the Gray and his wife, a witch by the name of Amoline, preferred to demonstrate their Noxian strength by taming the borderlands, rather than partaking in the political intrigue of the noble houses.
The young couple claimed a piece of land beyond the Ironspike Mountains to the north, finishing their small home just before winter and the arrival of their first child. During their journey, other colonists’ tales of the great shadow bears that once roamed the territory had captivated Amoline—now heavily pregnant, she passed the time sitting near the fireplace, creating a toy version of the protective creatures. Just as she finished sewing the last button eye on the stuffed bear, the quickening of labor overcame her. Gregori remarked later that his daughter was eager to play with her new toy, for there, on an ember-warmed hearth, Amoline brought Annie into the world.
When Annie was still a toddler, she and her father took ill. As night fell, Annie began to burn with fever, and soon she was so hot, she could no longer be held in her mother’s arms. Amoline grew desperate, deciding at last to fetch icy water from the nearby river. The next morning Gregori awoke, weak and groggy from his sickness. In the crib, a now-healthy Annie played with her stuffed bear, Tibbers, but Amoline was gone.
Naïvely, Annie believed her mother would one day return. Gregori would often find the girl sitting in her mother’s rocking chair near the hearth, hugging Tibbers and staring into a crackling fire, where he was sure there had been nothing but cold ashes. He chalked up these slips of the mind to the burden of parenting a child alone.
Years passed, bringing more colonists to the region. And in time, Gregori met Leanna, a woman seeking a new life outside the capital with her own young daughter, Daisy.
Annie was eager for a playmate, but spoiled by the indulgences of being an only child, so acclimation to her new stepfamily was difficult. Whenever Annie’s fiery temper erupted, it left Leanna uneasy, and quick to take her own daughter’s side. It fell to Gregori to keep an uneasy peace between the three.
Unused to the dangers of the untamed borderlands, Daisy’s playing ended in catastrophe for the family. Leanna, of course, blamed Annie for the loss of her daughter, focusing her rage and grief on her stepdaughter’s most prized possession: Tibbers. Annie was horrified as the last physical memory of her mother was threatened. The girl’s terror grew to an unbridled rage, releasing her latent and powerful pyromancy, and the stuffed bear was brought to life in a maelstrom of protective fire.
When the flames died down and the swirl of ash settled, Annie was left orphaned and alone.
Believing most city adults to be like her stepmother, Annie has kept to the wilder parts of her frontier homeland. On occasion, she will use her disarmingly adorable exterior to be taken in by some pioneer family long enough to be offered new clothes and a hot meal. However, fire and death awaits anyone foolish enough to try parting Annie from the stuffed bear at her side.
Kept safe by Tibbers, she wanders the dark forests of Noxus, oblivious to danger—and the dangers posed to others by her own unchecked power—hoping, one day, to find someone like her to play with. | Mage |
The moon looms over the towering slopes of Mount Targon, distant, yet impossibly close.
Born during a rare lunar convergence, when the physical moon was eclipsed by its reflection in the spirit realm, Aphelios and his twin sister, Alune, were celebrated as children of destiny by those of Targon’s Lunari faith.
Mirroring the celestial event that heralded their birth, the two children knew they had been marked by fate—Aphelios physically gifted like the moon of stone, and Alune magically like its spiritual reflection. Zealously devout, they grew up within a faith of mystery, reflection, and discovery, and embraced darkness not just out of belief, but as the only thing that could keep them safe.
The Solari who ruled Targon considered the Lunari heretics, driving them into hiding until most forgot the Lunari even existed. The Lunari were left to the shadows, dwelling in temples and caves far from the Solaris’ sight.
The pressure to be exemplary weighed heavily upon Aphelios. He practiced tirelessly with mystical moonstone blades, spilling his own blood in training so he could spill that of others to protect the faith. Intense and vulnerable, he bonded deeply with his sister in lieu of any other friendships.
While Aphelios was sent on increasingly dangerous missions to protect the Lunari, Alune trained separately as a seer, using her luminous magic to reveal hidden pathways and truths by the moon’s light. In time, her tasks required her to leave the temple where they were raised.
Without Alune, Aphelios’ faith wavered.
Desperate for purpose, he undertook a ceremonial journey into darkness where Lunari were said to discover their paths—their orbits. He followed the moon’s light to a pool where rare noctum flowers bloomed beneath the water’s surface. Though poisonous, the flowers could be distilled into a liquid that opened him to the night’s power.
Drinking the noctum’s essence, Aphelios felt so much pain that it numbed him to everything else.
Soon after, an ancient temple, the Marus Omegnum, began to come into phase from the spirit realm for the first time in centuries. Lunari from across the mountain gathered, emerging from hiding to witness the balance of power shift as celestial cycles in the heavens turned.
The fortress accepted only one occupant, gifted in magic, each time it appeared. This time it would be Alune, her orbit guiding her to the temple. Aphelios, usually asking for nothing, requested to attend the event.
But as the fortress passed through the veil in a luminous display of magic, a harsher radiance filled the night. Somehow, the Lunari had been discovered even as the celestial cycles turned in their favor.
An army of Solari descended upon them.
All seemed lost, the Solari purging the Lunari heresy with fire and steel. Even Aphelios was beaten, his moonstone blades shattered on the ground, blood spilling from his lips as he reached for the noctum…
But as the battle raged, Alune traveled deeper into the temple—and when she reached its heart, her full potential unlocked. Through the noctum, Aphelios could feel Alune’s power embrace him… and he could hear her voice. With a whisper, she pushed magic into his hands—a replacement for his blades solidifying into moonstone.
Like the moon of stone and its spiritual reflection, Aphelios’s skill and Alune’s magic converged.
Those Solari would not live to see the sun again.
As her power flared, Alune pushed the temple, and herself within, back into the spirit realm where it would remain safe from the Solari. From inside, amplified by the temple’s focusing power, Alune was able to project her magic anywhere, so long as it found a focus—like the poison coursing through Aphelios’ veins.
Only now did they understand their destiny. Aphelios would hollow himself out with pain, but would become a conduit for the moon’s power. Alune would live alone, isolated in her fortress, but she would guide her brother, able to see through his eyes.
Together, they would be the weapon the Lunari needed, bound by pain and sacrifice. Only apart could they be together—their souls brushing across the veil, distant, yet impossibly close, converging into something they could not understand.
To protect the survivors of the attack who retreated back into the shadows of the mountain, Aphelios’ training as an assassin has been given reach by Alune’s magic—his blades now an arsenal of mystical weapons, perfected by Alune over the course of many missions together.
Now that the power balance of Targon is shifting, and the Solari know the Lunari still endure, Aphelios and Alune are needed more than ever. | Marksman |
Ashe hails from the northern Freljord, where brutal tribal raids and inter-clan warfare are as much a part of the landscape as the scream of the frozen winds, and the unyielding cold of the tundra.
The only child of Grena, the matriarchal chieftain of the tiny Avarosan tribe, Ashe was Iceborn: a member of the warrior caste, gifted with an ancestral connection to the magic of her lands, and the rare ability to wield the power of True Ice. Everyone assumed that Ashe would follow her mother as the tribe's next leader. However, this was never a glory Ashe desired. The grim responsibility of her warlike lineage and extraordinary gifts instead left Ashe feeling isolated, burdened, and alone.
Her only respite was when Sejuani, an Iceborn girl from a sister tribe, would stay with them for the summer hunts around the Ornnkaal Rocks. The girls' friendship defined their childhoods, but was cut short just as they reached their teens. Somehow, Grena had offended Sejuani's grandmother, and the fellowship between their tribes ended suddenly.
Soon after, with her youth fading, Ashe's mother began her lifelong quest for the “Throne of Avarosa”, a supposed hoard of treasures and magical items that she hoped would return her people to greatness.
But Grena’s belief in prophecies and legends led her to take risks, which often left her tribe enfeebled. Finally, during a dangerous and unnecessary raid in another tribe's lands, Grena was killed. Her sudden death left young Ashe on the run, while most of her tribe was wiped out.
Alone, pursued, Ashe followed her mother's last map to a deserted glacier where she found the supposed grave of Avarosa, and her magical bow of True Ice. Ashe used the weapon to avenge her mother's death, then turned west.
Whether it was out of duty or loneliness, Ashe gained a reputation by protecting the many scattered hearthbound tribes she encountered. She spurned the custom of taking thralls, and instead chose to adopt these desperate people as full members of her new tribe, and her fame grew quickly. Soon many began to believe that she did not just carry the weapon of Avarosa—Ashe was the legend herself, reborn and destined to reunite the Freljord.
But tall tales would not feed her followers, and their long march south left the tribe on the verge of starvation. So, Ashe leveraged the myths surrounding her, using them to form alliances with the powerful and land-rich southern tribes, promising to unite them into a nation capable of challenging neighboring kingdoms.
These new alliances brought new dangers, and Ashe quickly found herself at the center of a political feud. A Warmother, as Freljordian tribal leaders are known, was expected to wed, and taking a husband from one of the major tribes would anger the others. Ashe could take several husbands, but this would only bring the conflict to a boil within her own household, and the ensuing bloodshed would shatter the alliances she had fought to build.
Her answer was an impoverished vagabond from a mountain clan that had been nearly wiped out—the warrior Tryndamere. He was neither a spirit-walker nor blessed with any elemental powers, but upon his arrival in Ashe’s new capital, Tryndamere had thrown himself into every dueling ring he could find. He fought with abandon, desperate to prove the destitute survivors of his clan were worthy of adoption by one of the stronger tribes. But even for the Freljord, his brutal fighting style and extraordinary vitality were unsettling, and many suspected he was touched by dark magic. Ignoring this, Ashe offered to adopt his people as her own, if he became her first and only bloodsworn.
Tryndamere accepted reluctantly. Though a political marriage, the attraction they felt for each other was palpable, and slowly a true affection blossomed.
Now, Ashe stands at the head of the largest coalition of Freljordian tribes in many generations. Even so, the unity she would bring rests upon an uneasy peace threatened by internal intrigues, foreign powers, the growing violent horde of the Winter's Claw, and a supposed destiny that Ashe must at least pretend to believe… | Marksman |
The appearance of a comet in the night sky is often said to portend upheaval and unrest. Under the auspices of such fiery harbingers, new empires rise, old cultures fall, and even the stars themselves may vanish from the heavens…
The truth is, perhaps, more unsettling.
The almighty being known as Aurelion Sol was already ancient before the rise of the mortal races of Runeterra. Born in the first breath of creation, he and those like him roamed the vast nothingness of a pristine celestial realm, seeking to fill this canvas of incalculable breadth with marvels whose twinkling spectra would bring fulfillment and delight to all who witnessed them.
As he wandered, Aurelion Sol seldom encountered any equals. The eternal Aspects were dispassionate and incurious things, contributing little to existence, content only to compose amusingly self-centered philosophies on the nature of creation.
But then, bathed in the light of a fairly unremarkable sun he had crafted eons earlier, he discovered something. A world. New realms.
He did not know who had created this world, or why—only that it had not been him.
The Aspects, who seemed unusually invested in it, implored him to come closer. There was life here, and magic, and fledgling civilizations that cried out for guidance from beings greater than themselves. Flattered by this new audience to his supreme majesty, Aurelion Sol descended to bask in their adulation, in the form of a vast and terrible dragon from the stars.
The tiny inhabitants of the insignificant land of Targon named him for the golden light of the sun he had gifted them, and the Aspects commanded them to bring forth a suitable offering in return. The mortals climbed to the peak of their tallest mountain, and presented him with a splendorous crown, crafted with careful and cunning magic, and etched with the inscrutable patterns of the celestial realm.
From the moment it touched Aurelion Sol’s brow, he knew this was no gift at all.
The accursed thing clamped in place with unimaginable force, enough that even he could not remove it, and he could feel his knowledge of the sun and its creation being stolen and scrutinized by intelligences vastly inferior to his own. Worse still, the power of the crown hurled him back into the heavens, and prevented him from getting any closer to that world again.
Instead, he was forced to watch as the duplicitous Aspects of Targon set the mortals to work in the construction of a great, gleaming disc. With this, they channeled his celestial power to raise up immortal god-warriors, for some unknown conflict that was apparently still to come.
Outraged, Aurelion Sol could see other stars fading across the firmament for lack of care and maintenance, and he strained to break free of the crown’s control. It was he who had birthed their light into the universe! Why must he be shackled, now, by the Aspects and their lowly pawns? He roared with glee when the Sun Disc failed… only to see a second, more powerful one take its place. Eventually, resigned to his fate, he saw the god-warriors cast down their rivals, then chittering creatures of pure darkness, and eventually each other.
Then, in little more than the blink of a star dragon’s eye, the world was ravaged by a succession of sorcerous catastrophes, and Aurelion Sol finally knew that Targon and the hated Aspects were all but defenseless. As he cautiously circled back, he realized the magic that bound him was weakening. Flecks of gold began to fall from his crown, each one blazing across the skies like a comet.
Driven by the tantalizing possibilities of freedom and revenge, Aurelion Sol now regards Runeterra with simmering, eternal fury. Surely, it is here, upon this world, that the cosmic balance will tip in his favor once more—and with it, the universe itself shall bear witness to the fate of those who dare steal the power of a star forger. | Mage |
Azir was a mortal emperor of Shurima in a far distant age, a proud man who stood at the cusp of immortality. His hubris saw him betrayed and murdered at the moment of his greatest triumph, but now, millennia later, he has been reborn as an Ascended being of immense power. With his buried city risen from the sand, Azir seeks to restore Shurima to its former glory.
Thousands of years ago, the Shuriman empire was a sprawling realm of vassal states conquered by powerful armies led by all but invincible warriors known as the Ascended. Ruled by an ambitious and power hungry emperor, Shurima was the greatest realm of its day; a fertile land blessed by the power of the sun that shone from a great golden disc floating atop the temple at the heart of its capital.
The youngest and least-favored son of the emperor, Azir was never destined for greatness. With so many siblings ahead of him, he would never be emperor. Most likely he would take up a position in the priesthood or as governor of some backwater province. He was a slender, studious boy who spent more time perusing the texts collected in the Great Library of Nasus than training to fight under the stern tutelage of the Ascended hero, Renekton.
Amid the twisting shelves of scrolls, books and tablets, Azir met a young slave boy who visited the library almost every day in search of texts desired by his master. Slaves in Shurima were forbidden to take names, but as the two boys became friends, Azir broke that law and called his new friend Xerath, which means ‘one who shares.’ He appointed Xerath - though he was careful never to endanger him by naming him publicly - as his personal slave and the two boys shared their love of history by learning all they could of Shurima’s past and its long legacy of Ascended heroes.
While traveling with his father, brothers and Renekton on the yearly tour of the empire, the royal caravan stopped at a well-known oasis for the night. Azir and Xerath stole away in the middle of the night to draw the stars and add their own celestial maps to those they had studied in the Great Library. While they drew the patterns of constellations, the royal caravan was attacked by a cabal of assassins sent by the emperor’s enemies. One of the assassins found the two boys out in the desert and was poised to cut Azir’s throat when Xerath intervened, throwing himself upon the assassin’s back. In the ensuing melee, Azir freed his dagger and plunged it into his attacker’s throat.
Azir took up the dead man’s sword and rushed back to the oasis, but by the time he returned, the assassins were already defeated. Renekton had protected the emperor and slain the attackers, but Azir’s brothers were all dead. Azir told his father of Xerath’s courage and asked him to reward the slave boy, but his words fell on deaf ears. In the emperor’s eyes, the boy was a slave and beneath his notice, but Azir swore that one day he and Xerath would be brothers.
The emperor returned to his capital, with the fifteen year old Azir now his heir, and unleashed a merciless campaign of bloodshed against those he believed had sent the assassins. Shurima descended into years of paranoia and murder as the emperor took revenge on any he suspected of treason. Though he was now heir to the throne, Azir’s life yet hung by a thread. His father hated him - wishing he had died instead of his brothers - and the queen was still young enough to bear sons.
Azir trained in combat, for the attack at the oasis had revealed how little he knew of the deadly arts. Renekton took up the task of teaching the growing prince, and under his aegis, Azir learned to wield sword and spear, to command warriors, and to read the ebb and flow of battle. The young heir elevated Xerath, his only trusted confidant, and made him his right hand man. To better counsel him, Azir tasked Xerath with seeking out knowledge wherever he could find it.
Years passed, but the queen was never able to carry a child to term, every conceived infant perishing before it could be born. So long as the queen remained barren, Azir’s life was relatively safe. Some around the court believed a curse was at work and a few even whispered the young heir’s name in connection with this – though Azir claimed innocence and even executed some who dared voice such accusations openly.
Eventually, the queen bore a healthy son, but on the night of his birth a terrible storm engulfed Shurima. The queen’s chambers were struck again and again by powerful bolts of lightning, and in the subsequent blaze, both the queen and her newborn son were killed. It was said the emperor went mad with grief and took his own life upon hearing the news, but tales soon spread of how he and his guards had been found lying in pieces on the palace floor, their bodies little more than charred skeletons.
Azir was shocked by their deaths, but the empire needed a leader, and with Xerath at his side he took control of Shurima as its emperor. Over the next decade, he expanded Shurima’s borders and ruled with a harsh, but just hand. He instituted reforms to better the lives of slaves and privately developed a plan to overturn millennia of tradition and eventually free them all. He kept his plans secret, even from Xerath, and the issue of slavery would prove to be a continual bone of contention between them. The empire had been built on the back of slavery, and many of the great noble houses depended on enforced labor for their vast wealth and power. Such monolithic institutions could not be overturned overnight, and Azir’s plans would be undone were they to become common knowledge. Despite Azir’s desire to name Xerath his brother, he could not do so until all Shurima’s slaves were free.
Through these years, Xerath protected Azir from his political rivals and guided the expansion of the empire. Azir married and fathered numerous children, some by wedlock, others by ill-advised liaisons with slaves and harem girls. Xerath stoked the emperor’s grand vision of an empire greater than any the world had ever known. But to stand as ruler over the entire world, Xerath convinced Azir that he would need to be all but invincible, a god amongst men – an Ascended being.
As the kingdom reached the zenith of its power, Azir announced he would undertake the Ascension ritual, that the time was right for him to take his place alongside Nasus and Renekton and their glorious forebears. Many questioned this decision; the Ascension ritual was highly dangerous and intended only for those near the end of their lives, those who had devoted their lives to Shurima and whose service was to be honored with Ascension. It was for the Sun Priests to decree who would be blessed with Ascension, not the hubris of an emperor to bestow it upon himself. Azir would not be dissuaded from his rash course of action, for his arrogance had grown along with his empire, and he ordered them to comply on pain of death.
The day of the ritual finally came and Azir marched toward the Dais of Ascension, flanked by thousands of his warriors and tens of thousands of his subjects. The brothers Renekton and Nasus were absent, having been dispatched by Xerath to deal with an emergent threat, but still Azir would not turn from what he saw as his great destiny. He climbed to the great golden disc atop the temple at the heart of the city and in the moments before the sun priests began the ritual, he turned to Xerath and finally freed him. And not just him, but all slaves…
Xerath was stunned into speechlessness, but Azir was not yet done. He embraced Xerath and named him his eternal brother, as he had promised he would all those years ago. Azir turned as the priests began the ritual to bring down the awesome power of the sun. Azir was unaware that Xerath had studied more than just history and philosophy in his quest for knowledge. He had learned the dark arts of sorcery, all the while nursing a desire for freedom that had grown like a cancer into a burning hatred.
At the height of the ritual, the former slave unleashed his powers and Azir was blasted from his place on the dais. Without the protection of the runic circle, Azir was consumed by the sun’s fire as Xerath took his place. The light filled Xerath with power, and he roared as his mortal body began to transform.
But the magic of the ritual was not intended for Xerath, and such awesomely powerful celestial energies could not be diverted without dire consequence. The power of the Ascension ritual exploded outward, devastating Shurima and laying waste to the city. Its people burned to ash and its towering palaces fell to ruin as the desert sands rose up to swallow the city. The sun disc sank from the sky and what had taken centuries to build was brought to ruin in an instant by one man’s ambition and another’s misplaced hate. All that remained of Azir’s city were sunken ruins and echoes of its people’s screams on the night winds.
Azir saw none of this. For him, all was nothingness. His last memories were of pain and fire; he knew nothing of what befell him atop the temple, nor what became of his empire. He remained lost in timeless oblivion until, thousands of years after Shurima’s doom, the blood of his last descendant spilled onto the temple ruins and resurrected him. Azir was reborn, but was yet incomplete; his body little more than animate dust given form, held together by the last vestiges of his indomitable will.
Gradually resuming his corporeal form, Azir stumbled through the ruins and came across the corpse of a woman with a treacherous knife wound in her back. He did not know her, but saw in her features the distant echo of his bloodline. All thoughts of empires and power were forgotten as he lifted this daughter of Shurima and bore her to what had once been the Oasis of the Dawn. The oasis was empty and dry, but with every step Azir took, clear water began filling the rocky basin. Azir immersed the woman’s body in the restorative waters of the oasis and as the blood washed away, only a faint scar remained where the blade had pierced her.
And with that act of selflessness, Azir was lifted up in a column of fire as the magic of Shurima renewed him, remaking him as the Ascended being he was meant to become. The sun’s immortal radiance poured into him, crafting his magnificent, hawk-armored form and granting him the power to command the very sand itself. Azir lifted his arms and his ruined city shrugged off the dust of centuries spent beneath the desert to rise anew. The sun disc lifted into the sky once more, and healing waters flowed between temples heaving themselves back into the light at the emperor’s command.
Azir climbed the steps of the newly-risen sun temple, weaving the desert winds to recreate the city’s last moments. Ghosts formed of sand relived his city’s last moments from long ago, and Azir watched in horror as Xerath’s treachery unfolded. He wept as he saw his family murdered, his empire fall and his power stolen. Only now, millennia too late, did he finally understand the depths of hatred harbored by his former friend and ally. With the power and prescience of an Ascended being, Azir sensed Xerath somewhere abroad in the world and summoned an army of sand warriors to march alongside their reborn emperor. As the sun blazed from the golden disc above him, Azir swore a mighty oath.
I will reclaim my lands and take back what was mine! | Mage |
It is said that most inhabitants of the celestial realm see their home as a wondrous and vivid tapestry, woven with prismatic threads of purest starlight. However, for one prodigious entity, the intangible and everlasting beauty of this dimension is not seen, but heard—for Bard, a troubadour as enigmatic as he is eternal, the wondrous firmament is a symphony of mystic, ambrosial music.
In the beginning, Bard had drifted without purpose or perspective through a silent cosmos, but with a deep sense of anticipation that something miraculous would eventually come to fill it. Fate did not disappoint, and with the forging of the first stars, the silence was broken and the first rapturous notes of creation rang in Bard’s ear.
He traveled the swirling harmonies between the stars, along with the tiniest wisps of residual inspiration and thought left over from their birth. These semitonal, incomplete motes of energy—or meeps—were drawn to him whenever he added his own voice to the cosmic opus, forever ringing in one perfect accord.
This was not his masterpiece, yet he gloried in it all the same.
But after a measureless interval, a dissonance began to creep in. It was so small at first, Bard might have missed it, but the ever-doting meeps drew his attention to a failed dynamic shift here, an unexpected syncopation there, and even the growing absence of sound where, before, sound had been.
Bard scoured the celestial realm for clues, until he discovered the source. It was the most curious of things—a world with a song all of its own.
Driven by unknown magic, the music produced by Runeterra was as primitive, unevolved, and chaotic as the mortal beings that lived there… and yet it had an inherent beauty, like the rolling thunder of a storm, or the melodious knocking of wooden chimes in the wind that precedes it. Bard would have merely appreciated it for what it was, but unfortunately this particular song had gone far beyond a mere counterpoint to the celestial whole, and was becoming destructive. Something had to be done.
Touching down in the First Lands of Ionia, Bard and his attendant meeps crossed into the material realm. All at once, his ears became like eyes, and he fashioned himself a simple body from the trinkets and fabrics of a traveling shawm-player’s wagon, including a beguiling mask—circular, with three holes in the face.
He walked the world for an age, confusing and delighting those he encountered along the way, and found the state of things far more complex than he had first imagined. Many objects of wild and unpredictable power seemed to have made their way erroneously into Runeterra, and were disrupting the natural cosmic order of things. Casting his gaze back to the heavens, Bard deduced that some other power within the celestial realm was at work here… though to what end, he could not guess.
Regardless, he has taken to the role of caretaker, retrieving anything out of place and returning it to where it can do no further harm. Though this may be only the first step in bringing the universe back in tune, it may also be the only way this world can be saved from what lies beyond it.
And Bard is not blind to the future. He can see a great conflict approaching—one fought not in any single realm, but in all—and awaits the time when he must finally pick a side. | Support |
Fascinated by the world of existence and eager to create one for herself, Bel’Veth is like a dark cancer that has metastasized within the heart of the Void, through which all of Runeterra will be consumed and rebuilt in her own twisted image. She hungers for new experiences, memories, and concepts in vast amounts, devouring whole cities and their populations before repurposing the information into a sprawling alien landscape known as the Lavender Sea. Yet even the Void is not safe from her voracity as she spreads within it like a primordial ocean, forcing all before her to submit to her world of want... or be destroyed.
Though Bel’Veth is new to Runeterra, her birth is untold millennia in the making—the end result of an allergic reaction between the Void and a nascent reality. The once-pristine dimension of peaceful nothingness was irrevocably shattered when existence came into being, and forcefully individualized Void entities lashed out for eons in an attempt to defend themselves from the shock and pain. Erasing everything they consumed, they were named by virtue of what they left behind—a void. But the beings within were changed each time they touched the world, mutating from their once-perfect forms into hedonistic, violent animals.
So too did the Void change with them. After every battle, every incursion, something more sinister grew deep within a hidden womb inside the darkest recesses of the Voidborn tunnels... Buildings, sunlight, proto-humanoid limbs reaching toward nothing... A jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit... The Void had taken a new, hideous shape. In time, fueled both by humans opening rifts for war and the Watchers attempting to invade the Freljord, this blasphemous pocket of un-creation grew to embrace the opposites of the Old Void: desire, want, and need.
Soon enough, it craved a leader. Someone—or something—who could write a horrific new chapter in the worlds above and below. A leader who could interface with these “humans,” tell them of what was to come, and harvest their emotions and memories as they fought a bitter, fruitless war until the last fires of civilization died and a new era spawned.
This leader is Bel’Veth. A terrifying empress born from the combined memories, experiences, and emotions of an entire devoured port city and its outlying ocean—Bel’Veth’s mind contains millions of years of perfectly preserved knowledge, giving her near-omniscience as she prepares to destroy both Runeterra and the domain of her progenitors, the Watchers.
To those lucky enough to be of strategic value to her, she does not lie, ask questions, nor obfuscate the truth—she simply states the nature of things, for with victory all but assured thanks to the very nature of the Void itself, there is no need to say anything more. And to those who displease her, they will find her human form to be merely adaptational—nerve endings, muscles, and eyestalks—as she unfurls her titanic wings to reveal her true, monstrous figure.
Ironically, the ancient Shurimans had a word for such a concept. Loosely translated to “God of Oblivion,” it was a tribal myth of a remorseless deity who would erase all things without hatred, replacing them with itself. They named the city of Belveth after it, though the true meaning was lost after many hundreds of years.
Lost to all, perhaps, save for the creature that city has become. | Fighter |
Zaun is a place of wondrous experimentation and vibrant, colorful life where anything can be achieved—but not without a cost. For all its boundless creativity, there is also waste, destruction, and suffering in the undercity, so pervasive that even the tools created to alleviate it cannot escape its corrosive grasp.
Designed to remove the toxic waste claiming whole neighborhoods of Zaun, lumbering mechanical golems toiled in violently hazardous locations. One such golem worked alongside its fellows, fulfilling its programming to reclaim Zaun for the people. But the caustic reality of their mission soon wore away at its robust form, and before long it was rendered inoperative and discarded as useless.
Useless to all but one person. The inventor Viktor discovered the abandoned golem and, seeing the potential still within the inert chassis, inspiration struck. Viktor began a series of experiments, seeking to improve the automaton by introducing a new element that would elevate it far beyond the original scope of its creation.
Hextech.
Implanting a priceless hextech crystal sourced from the deserts of Shurima into the chassis of the forsaken golem, Viktor waited with baited breath as the machine rumbled to life.
Viktor named the golem Blitzcrank after the fizzing arcs of lightning that danced around their frame, an unexpected side effect of the hextech crystal, and sent them down into the most toxic regions of Zaun. Not only did Blitzcrank prove as capable as any of their steam-powered brethren, but they accomplished their tasks with vastly improved speed and efficiency, and as the days turned into weeks, Viktor began to watch something miraculous unfold…
His creation was learning.
Blitzcrank innovated, interpreting and extrapolating on their daily directives. As a result, they did far more to serve the people of Zaun, and even began to interact with them on a regular basis. Seeing his golem progress to the cusp of self-awareness, Viktor sought to replicate his achievement, but found only frustration and failure, as the key to Blitzcrank’s blossoming consciousness eluded him.
Not all of Blitzcrank’s growth was cause for celebration. Concepts like moderation and nuance escaped them, and Blitzcrank would pursue any effort with the entirety of their being, or none at all. They would occasionally overdo or misinterpret the requests of Zaunites, such as smashing down the front of a tenement to admit a single resident who had lost their key.
Or even tearing an entire factory apart.
Dispatched by Viktor to clear a neighborhood of toxic chemicals, Blitzcrank traced the caustic runoff to its source. Reasoning that the most efficient means to prevent further pollution was to eliminate the source of said pollution, Blitzcrank proceeded to destroy the factory, their lightning-wreathed fists not stopping until it was reduced to a mound of rubble and twisted iron.
Enraged, the chem-baron who owned the ruined factory descended upon Viktor, demanding that he destroy the golem or pay a steeper price in blood. Viktor was devastated, having come to view Blitzcrank as a living being rather than simply a tool to do his bidding. He concocted a scheme to smuggle his creation to safety, ready to accept the dangers and consequences of doing so—but as he returned to his laboratory to set his plan in motion, he discovered that Blitzcrank was already gone.
Blitzcrank’s evolution beyond the constraints of their original programming had yet to cease. Having grown into full self-sufficiency, they resolved to take up their mission independent from their creator. Rumors abound that the golem has even begun to upgrade their own form as they labor tirelessly to assist and protect Zaunites without pausing for instruction.
They now patrol the undercity, deciding for themselves how best to shepherd Zaun down the path to becoming the greatest city Valoran has ever seen. | Tank |
The son of a Freljordian healer, Kegan Rodhe was born an outsider. The little magic and herbcraft his mother possessed allowed them both to survive on the fringes of a small coastal community named Rygann’s Reach. Friends were few and far between. Even as a young boy, he knew his father was an enemy reaver, and that he—and Kegan by extension—was the reason his mother was shunned. The villagers called him “the reaver-bastard”. Kegan allowed his loneliness and resentment to smolder, often turning violent.
After enduring years of seemingly endless winter, his mother’s frail body finally gave in. As Kegan spread her funeral ashes, he thought of the people she had spent her life healing. None had come to pay their respects. He knew they wished him to disappear into the cold air as well.
He would oblige them, but not before he took his revenge. He burned down the village and fled into the night, leaving himself with scars that would never heal.
Kegan wandered the frozen tundra of the Freljord. He told himself that he was searching for his father, but he knew deep down he was looking for a friend... or, at the very least, a kind face. Finding neither, he holed himself up in a cave, and waited to die.
It was not death that came to him, but another outsider.
The mysterious mage named Ryze saw potential in this half-frozen young man, and took him on as an apprentice. Teacher and student struggled as Kegan’s nascent, wild magic frustrated them both, and Ryze’s requests for patience and humility often fell on deaf ears.
Unfortunately, instructing Kegan would always come second to Ryze’s original mission. He had long sought to collect and hide away a power that could be Runeterra’s unmaking—the legendary World Runes. After tracking down one such fragment, Kegan faced the same desperate temptation that had driven so many before him to madness. The Runes were the source of all magic in the world and, against his master’s warnings, he chose to seize that power for himself.
Ryze was forced to watch in failure as his apprentice was burned away by the raw magic, Kegan’s soul utterly consumed. The creature that was born in that moment was no longer the bitter young man Ryze had rescued from the snows, nor the Freljordian mage he had come to know as his friend.
Rather, this vengeful being of fire and fury that now walked the mortal realm would eventually become known as Brand.
Cursing his former master, and every other living thing that would ever come between him and the Runes, Brand lashed out with magical flames, and Ryze barely escaped with his life.
Over the centuries since that day, Brand has lived an anarchic, wildfire existence, taking and never giving anything back to the world. At times, he blazes across the heavens like a comet. At others, he sinks into the cold earth and slumbers, waiting for the unmistakable scent of magic that will lead him to another World Rune… and should he find one, there are precious few in Runeterra with the power to stop him. | Mage |
Even as a child, Braum was much larger than other Freljordian youngsters, but his mother taught him never to use his size to intimidate or bully. She came from a proud line of herders, and believed true courage lay in using one’s power not to dominate, but to protect those in need.
When Braum was still a boy, ice giants devastated a neighboring tribe. That tribe had long preyed upon the herds of Braum’s people, but his mother didn’t hesitate to head out across the tundra to help the survivors, bearing furs, foodstuffs, and healing supplies. At first, Braum didn’t understand why she would aid their rivals—but after her actions saved many lives, they became lifelong allies. He finally understood what his mother meant when she said all the Freljord’s people were a family, and from that day forth, he pledged to bring that family together.
As Braum grew, it was clear he was one of the revered Iceborn, though even among their number, his strength and ability to endure the elements were legendary. He became a local hero, rescuing children who had slipped into icy ravines, saving travelers stranded in blizzards, and protecting families from ravaging wildclaws. Whenever he appeared, people knew help had arrived. He was a figure of hope, known for his liveliness and laughter, and the easy way he made friends.
Eventually, Braum realized he was needed beyond the valleys and tundra where he’d been raised. Bidding his mother a tearful farewell, he set out to travel the Freljord.
Over the years, countless stories spread of Braum’s mighty feats and good deeds. While most had at least a kernel of truth, they grew increasingly far-fetched and mythic—such as the legend of how he chopped down an entire forest in a single night using only his bare hands, or how during a volcanic eruption, he saved an isolated farmstead by picking it up and carrying it to higher ground.
A more recent tale spoke of how Braum found his immense ram-headed shield. As the story went, it was an enchanted vault door, forged in ancient times and set into a mountain. Braum heard cries from within, but he couldn’t break the door down. Undeterred, he punched his way through the mountain’s bare rock, rescuing a troll boy who was trapped inside. He ripped the unbreakable door off its hinges, and has borne it ever since.
As with many legends about him, Braum laughed uproariously when he first heard this particular tale—but far from refuting such stories, he embraces them. Why let the truth get in the way of inspiring others to acts of generosity and kindness?
No matter how he actually found his shield, soon afterward Braum made his way to the sacred site of Rakelstake, where many tribes had gathered to hear the words of the Avarosan warmother, Ashe—said to be the reincarnation of Avarosa herself. There, he witnessed the barbarian Tryndamere, desperate to prove his worth, savagely beating any who would face him.
As Braum watched, he saw that Tryndamere was growing increasingly unhinged. During one duel, he was so lost in his fury that it seemed certain he would kill his opponent, despite having already prevailed. Deciding things had gone far enough, Braum planted himself in front of the downed fighter, shield raised, and Tryndamere hacked and smashed against the impenetrable bulwark. When the barbarian’s rage finally subsided, Braum’s good humor won him over, and before long the pair were laughing and drinking to each other’s health. Some even say that it was Braum who first introduced Tryndamere to Ashe. The barbarian would later marry her, becoming her only bloodsworn.
Braum doesn’t hold any particular tribal allegiance, for he views all within the Freljord as brothers and sisters. Even so, he sees in Ashe someone who can end the centuries-old feuding among the Freljord’s tribes, and the Avarosans have informally adopted him into their number. Braum’s dream, as he often tells adoring children, is that someday the Freljord will be united in one big family… and then he can retire to become a humble poro herder.
Though Braum counts no one as his enemy, he has had a few run-ins with the Frostguard since he started carrying his shield. He doesn’t understand why they have a grudge against him, nor why they seem so interested in what he now bears… | Support |
Near the end of his reign, Grand General Boram Darkwill entrusted the Black Rose and its many hemomancers with creating a new kind of living weapon. Unlike their previous experiments on the deceased, this would be a being born from and fueled by blood—one driven to hunt down targets without requiring the sustenance of food and water.
And so Briar was born.
Her creators wanted an assassin, but all she wanted was to eat, eat, EAT! When her first mission ended in a frenzied, gory failure, the Black Rose decided that Briar was too dangerous to use, but too powerful to be destroyed. In order to control her, they devised a special pillory—locked by a hemolith gemstone—to restrain her and focus her mind. Once shackled with the pillory, Briar, along with the rest of the Black Rose’s living weapons, was quickly deployed during Jericho Swain’s coup against Darkwill.
She was given a handler to help direct her, but when released from her pillory, Briar immediately devoured him and everyone near her—everyone but her target, Swain, who escaped while the living weapon fed upon friend and foe.
After an arduous capture, Swain’s guards managed to trigger Briar’s pillory and restore her restraint, enabling them to transfer her to their holding facility.
Alone in her cell, Briar could focus on nothing except her hunger. Though she couldn't die from starvation, the absence of fresh blood weakened her day by day.
At first, she thought the chorus of crazed wails echoing around her room were her own starving thoughts... until she realized the sounds were drifting in from unseen neighbors. Did Swain’s forces manage to capture other living weapons during the coup? Was she locked up with them now, each having failed their mission? Their purpose?
The voices cried out for blood—a sentiment Briar could relate to. But what she couldn’t stand wasn’t how often they did it, nor how loud they were, but that it was ALL they talked about. Their unrelenting hemomania was the most boring thing she had ever experienced.
As hungry as Briar was—and she was hungry—her thoughts stayed focused on the pitiful sounds of the others. What if she managed to break out of the pillory? Would her frenzy make her even more unhinged than her neighbors? Would she become as single-minded and boring as them? The idea was too horrifying to dwell on, so she instead resigned herself to listless solitude.
Years passed, and the time alone allowed Briar to reflect on herself and consider the possibilities of the world outside her cell. Entertainment consisted of eavesdropping on the guards’ conversations, devising new ways to pester them for raw meat, and agonizing over whether she should race her pet spiders or eat them.
By chance while she was toying with her pillory one day, she inadvertently loosened the hemolith, which settled into a position just short of unlocking the restraint. Briar froze as thoughts of her hemomaniacal neighbors filled her head—is that what she’d become? But then she realized something: Being under control was just as dangerous as being out of control. She wanted to strike the balance.
Having discovered the hemolith’s mechanism, Briar devised a plan.
By this point, the guards were so used to her calls for attention that when she lured one close to her cell, nobody noticed he was missing until it was too late. The guard’s blood surged within her, lighting a fire that had been waiting to spread.
Briar was finally free.
Now the living weapon gleefully roams the streets of Noxus, pillory locked back in place—until she wants to unlock it. As she acclimates to the world outside, with the Black Rose monitoring the unexpected development, Briar eagerly learns all she can, making new friends and discoveries in a world she is starving to experience. | Fighter |
Born to a wealthy and influential family of hextech artificers, Caitlyn swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed citizens of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.
Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong. Though the family’s engineering skills had made them wealthy, her mother always warned of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.
All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.
Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.
Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. None knew the identity of the individual who hired them—only a proxy with the initial C. Even so, the trail eventually led Caitlyn to a secret hextech laboratory where her mother and father were being forced to work for a rival merchant clan, and she rescued them. The Piltover Wardens, acting upon her information, later arrested the clan leader behind the kidnapping, though no trace could be found of the mysterious “C”.
Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed in her. She now recognized ambition and greed were as deadly as a cornered beast, lurking just beneath Piltover’s gleaming veneer. She had seen people in need of help, and knew she could help them. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to learn the family trade.
She established herself as an investigator of sorts, utilizing her hunting skills to act as a finder of lost people and retriever of stolen property. For her twenty-first birthday, Caitlyn’s parents presented her with a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field, and so went with Caitlyn whenever she took a case.
She turned a tidy profit in a profession that taught her, first-hand, both the allure and danger of untested hextech and chemtech development. In just a few years, she made a name for herself as someone who could help with matters mundane and… more esoteric. After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.
She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C”, the only person still unaccounted for following the attack on her family home.
Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Piltover Wardens, maintaining order in the City of Progress. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail. | Marksman |
The youngest child of General Du Couteau, Cassiopeia was born to a life of possibility and privilege among the Noxian noble houses. From an early age, she displayed a keen mind and sharp wit, and while her sister Katarina flourished under their father’s tutelage, it was their mother Soreana in whose footsteps Cassiopeia would follow.
A hero of Noxus’ expansion into Shurima, General Du Couteau eventually sent for his family, installing them close to the governor of the coastal city of Urzeris. Surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar land, Cassiopeia remained close to her mother, learning much of politics, diplomacy, and subtle influence. As she grew, Cassiopeia could not help but glimpse other, hidden concerns within Soreana, beyond those of the empire…
One day, quite unexpectedly, Soreana collapsed in the family residence—her hairbrush had been laced with caustic venoms by an unknown hand, leaving her close to death. General du Couteau was well versed in the ways of an assassin, and so he had all the household staff removed, leaving his wife and daughters alone in an empty house.
Still little more than a child, Cassiopeia never left her mother’s bedside. While Soreana’s recovery took many months, the bond between them became stronger than ever before.
When the general was recalled to Noxus to prepare for the long-awaited invasion of Ionia, he took Katarina with him, but Cassiopeia remained in Urzeris. Seemingly relieved, Soreana confided in her daughter that she belonged to a clandestine and secretive cabal, known by some as “the Black Rose”. Having guided the empire for centuries, they had finally managed to spread their influence into Shurima.
Now free of her husband’s watchful eye, Soreana’s real work could begin.
In time, and under her mother’s tutelage, Cassiopeia blossomed into a young woman of tremendous beauty, cunning and intelligence, if somewhat lacking in empathy. She saw those around her as tools to be used to achieve her goals, and then cast aside just as quickly.
Though she had barely reached the cusp of womanhood, she was initiated into the Black Rose by hunting down and eliminating those who had sought the death of her mother. She surprised even Soreana with her speed and efficiency, and left no trace of her activities—or her proxies—behind. Only then was Cassiopeia made privy to the cabal’s broader plan for Shurima. Using her family’s tremendous resources, she undertook a number of expeditions into the deep desert, raiding ancient ruins with the help of a local mercenary named Sivir.
Her efforts were made all the more urgent when word reached Urzeris from the capital. Grand General Boram Darkwill had been deposed by Jericho Swain, and a number of noble houses had chosen to honor this coup… including Du Couteau.
Outraged and disgusted by her husband’s betrayal, and fearing that all members of the Black Rose were now in jeopardy, Soreana became desperate. She dispatched Cassiopeia to seek out the godlike power that had been the key to Shurima’s supremacy in ages past. Cassiopeia swore she would return with a weapon ready for the looming secret war, or not at all.
Fulfilling this oath would leave her changed forever. Upon unearthing a long lost tomb of the mythical Ascended, she knew this was the threshold to the power she sought, and intended to dispatch all witnesses from her expedition before claiming it. The guide Sivir was the first to fall to Cassiopeia’s blade, but then an ancient stone tomb guardian reared up, and buried its fangs into her flesh.
Overcome by its arcane toxins, she was carried back through the desert by her hired soldiers, screaming as her body twisted into something new and unspeakable…
Cassiopeia locked herself in the disused crypt of the Urzeris residence, and endured the untold agonies of this transformation. Gone was the brilliant and beautiful daughter of Soreana Du Couteau, replaced by a monstrous, slithering creature that skulked in the shadows, spitting poison, and crushing stone as easily as glass.
For weeks she wept and howled, grieving her lost life… until the day she could weep no more. She dragged herself up from the depths of despair, determined to accept—maybe even someday embrace?—her fate. It was not the Ascension she had hoped for, but Cassiopeia had unearthed the magic of dead Shuriman gods. She would turn it to the schemes of the Black Rose just as she and her mother had planned, and she could feel this power growing within her, day by day.
Though into what, even she cannot guess. | Mage |
There is a place between dimensions, between worlds. To some it is known as the Outside, to others it is the Unknown. To those that truly know, however, it is called the Void. Despite its name, the Void is not an empty place, but rather the home of unspeakable things - horrors not meant for minds of men. Cho'Gath is a creature born of the Void, a thing whose true nature is so awful most will not speak its name. Its fellows have been poking at the walls that divide dimensions for a crack, a way into Runeterra, where they can visit their own personal paradise of horror upon the world. They are called the Voidborn, creatures so ancient and terrible that they have been removed from history altogether. It is rumored that the Voidborn command vast armies of unspeakable creatures on other worlds, that they were once driven from Runeterra by powerful magic lost to antiquity.
If such tales are true, then the rumors that follow must be equally true - that one day, the Voidborn will return. Even now, something dark stirs in Icathia. Cho'Gath, an alien creature of malice and violence, causes all but the most stalwart to cringe in fear. Cho'Gath even appears to feed on its predations, growing and swelling as it gorges itself. Worse yet, the creature is intelligent, perhaps greatly so, hinting at the sentient horror of the Void. | Tank |
When Heimerdinger and his yordle colleagues migrated to Piltover, they embraced science as a way of life, and they immediately made several groundbreaking contributions to the techmaturgical community. What yordles lack in stature, they make up for with industriousness. Corki, the Daring Bombardier, gained his title by test-piloting one of these contributions - the original design for the Reconnaissance Operations Front-Line Copter, an aerial assault vehicle which has become the backbone of the Bandle City Expeditionary Force (BCEF). Together with his squadron - the Screaming Yipsnakes - Corki soars over Valoran, surveying the landscape and conducting aerial acrobatics for the benefit of onlookers below.
Corki is the most renowned of the Screaming Yipsnakes for remaining cool under fire and exhibiting bravery to the point of madness. He served several tours of duty, often volunteering for missions that would take him behind enemy lines, either gathering intelligence or delivering messages through hot zones. He thrived on danger, and enjoyed nothing more than a good dogfight in the morning. More than just an ace pilot, Corki also made several modifications to his copter, outfitting it with an arsenal of weapons which some speculate were more for show than functionality. When open hostilities ceased, Corki was forced into a retirement, which he felt ''cut the engines and clipped the wings.’’ He tried to make do with stunt flying and canyon running, but it was never the same without the refreshing smell of gunpowder streaking through the air around him. | Marksman |
Darius and his brother Draven grew up as orphans in the port city of Basilich. Darius struggled to provide for them both, constantly fighting with gangs of older urchins and anyone else who threatened his little brother—even the city guard. Every day on the streets was a battle for survival, and Darius earned more scars by his twelfth summer than some soldiers do in a lifetime.
After Basilich was seized by the expanding Noxian empire, the victorious commander Cyrus saw the strength in these defiant brothers, and they found a home within the ranks of his warhost. Over the years, they fought in many grueling campaigns of conquest from one end of the known world to the other, as well as crushing a number of rebellions against the throne.
Within the empire, anyone could rise to power, no matter their birth, culture, or background, and none embraced this ideal more fervently than Darius. From humble beginnings, he rose steadily through the ranks, always putting duty before all else, and garnering great respect for his aggression, discipline, and refusal to ever take a backward step. On the bloodsoaked fields of Dalamor Plain, he even beheaded a Noxian general after the coward ordered a retreat. Roaring in defiance and hefting his bloodied axe overhead, Darius rallied the scattered warbands and won a great and unexpected victory against a far more numerous foe.
He was rewarded with a senior command of his own, attracting many thousands of eager recruits from across the empire. Darius turned the majority away, accepting only the strongest, the most disciplined and iron-willed. Such was his fearsome notoriety, even in the lands beyond Noxus, that it was not uncommon for entire cities to surrender at the first sight of his banners.
After a grinding victory against the cloud-fortresses of the Varju, a proud warrior people who had resisted decades of Noxian aggression, Darius was named the Hand of Noxus by Emperor Boram Darkwill himself. Those who knew Darius best knew he craved neither power nor adulation—he wished merely to see Noxus triumph over all—so Darkwill ordered him and his warhosts far north into the Freljord, to finally bring the barbarian tribes to heel.
The campaign dragged on for years, ending in a bitter, icy stalemate. Darius narrowly survived assassination attempts, ambushes, and even capture by the vicious Winter’s Claw. He was growing weary of endless wars of attrition, and returned to Noxus to demand a reconsolidation of the military.
He marched his veterans into the capital, only to find that the emperor was dead, killed in a coup led by Jericho Swain. The act had been supported by many allies, including Darius’s own brother, Draven.
This was a difficult position. As Hand, many of the noble houses would expect Darius to avenge Darkwill, but he had known and greatly respected the disgraced general Swain, and had spoken against his discharge after the botched offensive in Ionia some years earlier. The oaths of the Hand were to Noxus, not any particular ruler, and Swain was a man who spoke honestly of his new vision for the empire. Darius realized this was a leader he was prepared to follow... but Swain had other ideas.
With the establishment of the Trifarix, three individuals would rule Noxus together, each embodying one principle of strength: Vision, Might, and Guile. Darius gladly accepted his place on this council, and pledged to raise a new, elite force—the Trifarian Legion, the most loyal and prestigious warriors the empire could produce—and lead the armies of Noxus into a glorious new age of conquest. | Fighter |
In the wards of Zaun’s infamous asylum, a single monstrous figure roams the halls. His methods are bold, his bonesaw is sharp, and his patients are terrified. For this man is no doctor at all, except in the fancy of his own mind.
Though his true name has been lost to both time and memory, Dr. Mundo was once an enforcer for one of Zaun's most powerful chem-barons. Known for his boisterous affability, he was remarkably good-natured for a man who made his living off physical intimidation. He was always quick with a familiar nickname and a friendly clap on the back, and often blissfully unaware of the toes he was stepping on. It wasn’t long before he had stepped firmly on the toes of his boss.
Determined to make an example of his underling, the chem-baron had him committed to Osweld Asylum—a place well known for its inhumane treatment and questionable cures. The baron watched with satisfaction as his enforcer was placed in restraints and dragged away to the padded confines of the asylum’s most secure cell.
As months went by, the enforcer suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of his supposed caregivers. Experimental treatments were rendered without concern for the patient's well-being. Nerves were prodded, lobes were severed, and unproved medicines were administered in large quantities. The enforcer began to change, his large frame gaining more muscle by the day. His brain, however, suffered a far worse fate. As he lost all memory of his past life, the enforcer struggled to make sense of the cruel world around him. He looked down at his old restraining jacket—it almost resembled the white coats of the medical professionals that surrounded him.
Misreading the words on his own uniform, he began to assume a new name and new profession for himself.
I must be a doctor, too. Why else would I be in this wretched asylum? he reasoned. And all these other people... must be my patients.
At last, the day came when the chem-baron arrived to discharge his enforcer from the asylum. To his surprise, there was no one to greet him in the lobby. The halls were empty and dead silent, save for the faint, incoherent babbling of a deranged patient in a room at the end of the hallway.
The baron entered the room to a horrifying sight: Scattered across the floor were countless bodies—staff and patients alike, dismembered beyond recognition. Standing above them, a hulking, purple monstrosity blathered unintelligibly as a large blue tongue lolled out the side of its gaping mouth. Muscles bulged grotesquely beneath its undersized garments, and its fist tightened around the handle of a surgical saw. The baron turned pale as his gaze found the face of the monster—and recognized it as his old enforcer.
The enforcer, who recalled nothing of his old boss, saw only another patient in desperate need of treatment. The purple thing lumbered toward the chem-baron, wagging his bonesaw in anticipation. The baron drew his chem-tech pistol and fired. The shot tore through the looming mass in front of him, staggering the monster...
But only for a brief moment.
The hole in the creature's flesh quickly closed as new slabs of muscle rapidly regrew over the wound. The monster paused, eyed the baron quizzically, and uttered, “You sick. Need help!”
Mimicking what he had seen performed countless times by the asylum's former practitioners, the enforcer threw the man on a nearby gurney, strapped his arms into the restraints, and prepared his instruments for surgery. The chem-baron turned pale as he realized the grim fate that awaited him.
The ensuing surgery—like so many before and after it—was not successful. The burgeoning doctor added the remains of his latest patient to the pile on the floor. Though he was saddened he could not save them, he knew he had done all he could. Besides, he would have other chances. Zaun was full of sick people just waiting to be cured. With a smile returning to his face, he left the hospital and set out into the streets to find more patients. | Fighter |
Born with genius-level intellect, Ekko constructed simple machines before he could crawl. His parents, Inna and Wyeth, vowed to provide a good future for their son—Zaun, with all its pollution and crime, would only stifle Ekko, whom they felt deserved the wealth and opportunities of Piltover. Throughout his youth he watched his parents age beyond their years, toiling for too many hours under dangerous conditions in suffocating factories. They earned meager wages while greedy factory owners, and sneering Piltovan buyers, profited immensely from their labor.
It would all be worth it, they reasoned, if it meant their son could one day rise to the city above.
Ekko saw things differently. Beyond Zaun’s flaws, he saw a dynamic place overflowing with energy and potential. Zaunites’ industry, resourcefulness, and resilience stirred a hotbed of pure innovation. They had built a thriving culture from catastrophe, and flourished where others would have perished. That spirit captivated Ekko, and spurred him to a youth of wild invention and innovation.
He wasn’t alone. He befriended scrappy orphans, inquisitive runaways, and eager upstarts. Zaunites tended to eschew formal education in favor of apprenticeships, but these “Lost Children of Zaun” looked to the labyrinthine streets to be their mentor. They wasted time in glorious, youthful fashion—foot races through the border markets, or daring climbs from the Sump to the Promenade. They ran wild and free, answering to no one.
One night, on a solo trek into the rubble of a recently demolished laboratory, Ekko made an astonishing find: a shard of blue-green crystal that glittered with magical energy. Every child of Zaun heard tales of hextech, said to power weapons and heroes alike. Such a thing had the potential to change the world, and now he held a broken one. He scrambled to find more pieces, but the crunching footfalls of teched-up enforcers told him he wasn’t the only one looking. Ekko barely escaped, and returned to his home.
He experimented madly with the crystal. During one less-than-scientific attempt, the gem exploded into a vortex of shimmering dust, triggering eddies of temporal distortion. Ekko opened his eyes to see several splintered realities—and several “echo” versions of himself—staring back in sheer panic amid the fractured continua.
He’d really done it this time.
After some tense coordination between Ekko and his paradoxes, they managed to contain and repair the hole he had torn in the fabric of reality. Eventually, he harnessed the shattered crystal’s temporal powers into a device that would allow him to manipulate small increments of time… at least in theory.
On his name day, his friends badgered him into climbing the ancient clocktower known as Old Hungry, so Ekko brought the untested device along with him.
The Lost Children climbed, stopping occasionally to paint an obscene caricature or two of prominent Pilties. They were near the top when a handhold gave way, sending one of Ekko’s friends tumbling to certain doom. Instinctively—as if he’d done it a thousand times before—Ekko activated his device. The world shattered around him, and he was wrenched backward through swirling particles of time.
Then Ekko was back, watching his friend reach again for the same rotting plank. The plank broke, the boy fell… but Ekko was ready this time, diving to the edge and grabbing him by the shirt. Ekko tried to swing him to safety, but his friend became caught in the tower’s clockwork gears, and—
Stop. Rewind.
Several attempts later, Ekko finally saved his friend’s life. But to his crew, Ekko’s supernatural reflexes had saved their friend before anyone even realized the danger. He told them about the crystal and made them swear to secrecy. Instead, they dared each other to new heights of foolishness, knowing Ekko had the means to pluck them out of danger.
With each trial, and so much error, the time-warping device—which Ekko dubbed the Zero Drive—grew more and more stable. The only limit was how many do-overs his body could take before exhaustion set in.
Ekko’s time-bending antics have made him a person of interest to some of Zaun and Piltover’s most inventive, most powerful, and most dangerous individuals. But his only interest is in his friends, his family, and his city. He dreams of the day when his hometown rises up to dwarf the so-called City of Progress, when Piltover’s golden veneer will be overshadowed by the towering ingenuity and relentless spunk of a Zaun born not from generations of privilege, but from sheer daring. He may not have a plan yet, but he’s got all the time in the world.
After all, if Ekko’s Z-Drive can change the past, how hard can it be to change the future? | Assassin |
Within the dark seams of Runeterra, the demon Evelynn searches for her next victim. She lures in prey with the voluptuous façade of a human female, but once a person succumbs to her charms, Evelynn’s true form is unleashed. She then subjects her victim to unspeakable torment, gratifying herself with their pain. To the demon, these liaisons are innocent flings. To the rest of Runeterra, they are ghoulish tales of lust gone awry and horrific reminders of the cost of wanton desire.
Evelynn was not always a skilled huntress. She began eons ago, as something primordial, shapeless, and barely sentient. This nascent wisp of shadow existed, numb and unroused by any stimulation, for centuries. It might have remained so, had the world not been upended by conflict. The Rune Wars, as they would come to be known, brought an era of mass suffering the world had never known.
As people across Runeterra began to experience a vast array of pain, anguish, and loss, the shadow stirred. The nothingness it had known for so long had been replaced by the manic vibrations of an agonized world. The creature quivered with excitement.
As the Rune Wars escalated, the world’s torment grew so intense that the shadow felt as if it might burst. It drank in all of Runeterra’s pain, which it experienced as boundless pleasure. The sensation nourished the creature, and over time, it transformed into something more. It became a demon, a ravenous spiritual parasite that fed on the basest of human emotions.
When the wars finally ended, the world’s suffering waned, and the demon found itself growing desperate. The only pleasure it had ever known was born of other creatures’ misery. Without their pain, it felt nothing, just as it had in its earliest days.
If the world would not provide the suffering the demon needed to thrive, it would have to make its own. It needed to inflict pain on other beings so that it could experience that elation again.
At first, catching prey was a challenge for the demon. It could move undetected in its shadow form, but to touch a human, the creature needed to manifest as something tangible. It made several attempts to fashion a physical body from its shadow-flesh, but each result was more monstrous than the last, scaring off her prey.
The demon realized it needed a shape that was pleasing to humans, one that would not only lure them right into its claws, but would offer them ecstasy born of their own desires, so that their pain would be that much sweeter.
From the shadows, it began to study those it sought to prey upon. It tailored its flesh to their liking, learned to say what they wanted to hear, and to walk in a manner they found alluring.
In a matter of weeks, the demon had perfected her physique, leading dozens of enamored victims to be tortured to death at her hands. Though she relishes the exquisite pain of each of her victims, she always finds herself wanting more. Each human’s desires are so small, and they always expire too soon. Their pain, too fleeting to give her anything more than tiny morsels of pleasure, is just enough to tide her over to the next feeding.
She yearns for the day she can plunge the world into utter chaos, and she can return to an existence of pure, rapturous ecstasy. | Assassin |
Born and raised in a wealthy neighborhood of Piltover, Ezreal was always a curious child. His parents were renowned archaeologists, so he became used to their long absences from the family home, often fantasizing about joining them on their travels. He loved hearing tales of high adventure, and shared their desire to fill in the blank spaces on every map.
He was often left in the care of his uncle, the esteemed Professor Lymere. The professor did not enjoy having to wrangle such a rash and unruly child, and assigned the strictest tutors to teach him subjects including advanced cartography, hextech mechanics, and the ancient histories of Runeterra. But the boy had a knack for simply absorbing information, and found studying a waste of time. He passed assessments easily, with little or no preparation, infuriating his uncle and giving himself more time to roam the university grounds. Ezreal took great pleasure in evading the campus wardens, navigating the tunnels beneath the lecture halls as easily as the library rooftops. He even practiced lockpicking, sneaking into his teachers’ offices and rearranging their belongings for his own amusement.
Whenever Ezreal’s parents returned to Piltover, his father in particular would tell him all they had seen, and their plans for future expeditions—none more ambitious and secretive than the search for the lost tomb of Ne’Zuk, a Shuriman tyrant who was said to be able to jump instantly from one place to another. If Ezreal’s father could learn whatever sorcery Ne’Zuk had possessed, he joked that wherever he was traveling, he would simply drop into Piltover for dinner with his son each night.
As the boy grew older, the time between his parents’ visits grew longer until, one year, they did not return at all. Professor Lymere tearfully admitted that they had most likely perished, somewhere out in the desert.
But Ezreal could not accept that. They had been too careful in their preparations. They must still be out there, somewhere…
Abandoning his reluctant studies, the budding explorer would strike out on his own. He knew, if he was ever to find his mother and father, he had to start with the final resting place of Ne’Zuk. He spent weeks secretly gathering supplies from the university—celestial diagrams, translations of runic sigils, guides on the burial rites of Shurima, and a pair of protective goggles. Leaving a note of farewell for his uncle, he snuck onto a supply ship bound for Nashramae.
Following his mother’s meticulous field notes, he crossed the Great Sai with merchant caravans heading south. For many months, he delved into cavernous ruins beneath the shifting sands, relishing the freedom of the unknown, facing unspeakable horrors that guarded hidden chambers. With each step, Ezreal imagined himself following his parents’ path, drawing ever closer to solving the mystery of their disappearance.
Finally, he managed what they evidently had not. Beneath the newer mausoleum of some unnamed emperor, he uncovered the tomb of Ne’Zuk.
The great sarcophagus lay empty, save for a gleaming bronze gauntlet, with a bright, crystalline matrix at its center. As soon as Ezreal laid his hands upon it, the tomb itself seemed to turn upon him, with cunningly wrought traps and wards laid down thousands of years ago. With scarcely a thought, he donned the gauntlet and blasted his way through, even teleporting the last hundred yards back to the hidden entrance before the whole structure collapsed in a plume of sand and masonry dust.
Breathing hard, Ezreal looked down at the gauntlet as it hummed along with his heartbeat. He could feel it siphoning and amplifying his own essence. This, he realized, was a fearsome weapon of a previous age. A weapon fit for a god-warrior of Shurima, and the perfect tool for an explorer.
Soon after returning to Piltover, Ezreal found himself bounding from adventure to adventure. From lost cities to mystical temples, his nose for treasure-seeking led him to places most university professors could only read about on maps, and his reputation began to grow. Naturally, to Ezreal’s mind, these tales rarely conveyed the true scope and scale of his exploits… but they did give him an idea. If he could make a name for himself as the greatest adventurer in the world, then his parents would surely return, and seek him out in person.
From the untamed borders of Noxus and Demacia, to the seedy depths of Zaun, and the frozen wilderness of the Freljord—Ezreal chases fame and glory, uncovering long-lost artifacts and solving the riddles of history. While some may dispute the details of his anecdotes, or call his methods into question, he never answers his critics.
After all, they’re clearly just jealous. | Marksman |
Long, long ago, in a tower by the edge of the sea, a foolish young mage summoned something into the world that he was not prepared to control. What stepped before the boy was something older than recorded history. Something darker than a yawning, starless night. Something the world had desperately tried to forget—and in an instant, the mage, the creature, and the tower itself were lost to all of time.
At least, that’s what the stories say.
In the Freljord, children frighten each other around the fire with tales of a monster that raises itself from untended graves in the ice, its body a shambling mass of helmets, bucklers, furs, and wood. In Bilgewater, drunken sailors trade accounts of something standing alone on a tiny, distant atoll from which no one has ever returned. An old Targonian legend speaks of how a child of twilight stole the only joy from a ragged, whispering horror, while veteran Noxian soldiers prefer the fable of a lonely farmhand who was blamed for a poor harvest and fed to the crows, later returning to the world as a demon.
Demacia. Ixtal. Piltover. Ionia. Shurima. In every corner of Runeterra, these myths persist—reshaped, respun, and passed down by countless generations of storytellers. Stories of a thing that looks almost human and stalks places thick with fear.
But these are simply fables to frighten young children. No one would ever be afraid of a silly old monster called Fiddlesticks…
Until now.
Something has awoken in the Demacian hinterlands, drawn by the climate of rising fear and paranoia. Rural protectorates, separated from the capital by hundreds of miles of farmland, are emptying in mere days. Travelers vanish from the old footpaths. Guard patrols fail to report back from the edges of the kingdom. And wild-eyed survivors claw at their faces from the safety of roadside taverns, wailing of crows that aren’t crows, sounds that aren’t sounds, and a lopsided horror in the shape of a scarecrow that croaks in the stolen voices of the dead.
Most blame rogue mages. Such accusations are common in these days of rebellion.
Yet the truth is far worse. Something has returned, just as it had in the fictitious tale of the young mage in his seaside tower. An evil gone from the world for numberless centuries—long enough that the warnings of a nascent humanity passed into rumor, then myth, then legend… until all that remained were simple fables. An entity so utterly alien that it defies almost all contemporary knowledge of magic. So impossibly ancient that it has always been. So universally feared that even animals grow nervous when someone speaks its name.
In the wake of this revival, another tale, nearly lost to memory, has seen a resurgence throughout the hinterlands. A legend of a great evil that has no form, no thoughts, and no understanding of the world it inhabits, instead building itself into the crude shape of those that fear it. The terror of all living things, given life in that first terrible scream of creation. A demon before demons were known.
At least, that’s what the stories say.
But Fiddlesticks is real. | Mage |
As the youngest daughter of the noble Laurent family, Fiora seemed destined for a life as a political pawn, to be married off in Demacia’s grand game of alliances. This did not sit well, and from an early age she deliberately defied every expectation placed upon her. Her mother had the finest craftsmen of Demacia fashion the most lifelike dolls for her to play with—but Fiora gave them to her maids, and took up her eldest brother's rapier, forcing him to give her lessons in secret. Her father obtained a set of dressmaking mannequins for her personal seamstress to craft wondrous gowns—but Fiora merely used them to practice her lunges and ripostes.
Despite her years of quiet resistance, a politically advantageous marriage was eventually arranged with an outlying branch of the Crownguard family, after her eighteenth birthday. Plans were set for a summer wedding. It would take place in the capital, and King Jarvan III himself was to attend.
On that day, as the invited guests began to arrive, Fiora stood up and declared that she would sooner die than allow someone else to decide the course of her life. Her betrothed was publicly shamed by this outburst, and his family demanded satisfaction in the old manner—a duel to the death.
Fiora immediately agreed, but her father Sebastien implored the king to intervene. Jarvan had done much to end such feuding among the nobility, but in this case his hands were tied. Fiora had already accepted.
There was only one option left. Sebastien invoked his right to fight in her place.
High Marshal Tianna Crownguard likewise named a champion to fight for her kinsman, selecting a veteran warrior from the Dauntless Vanguard. Sebastien’s defeat seemed almost certain. The Laurent name would be ruined, and Fiora exiled in disgrace. Presented with so stark a choice, he made a decision that could damn his family for years to come…
The night before the duel, he attempted to slip his opponent a draught that would dull his senses and slow his reactions—but he was caught in the act, and arrested.
The law was clear. Sebastien Laurent had broken the most fundamental code of honor. He would be humiliated upon the executioner’s scaffold, hanged like a common criminal. On the eve of his death, Fiora visited his cell, but what passed between them remains a secret known only to her.
The next day, Fiora approached the king’s dais in full view of the crowd. She knelt before him, and offered up her blade—with his blessing, she would claim the Laurent name from her father, and justice would be served. The duel was blindingly swift, a dance of blades so exquisite that those present would never forget what they witnessed. Fiora’s father was a fine swordsman in his own right, but he was no match for his daughter. They said farewell in every clash of steel, but in the end Fiora tearfully buried her rapier in her father’s heart.
Solemnly, King Jarvan ruled that Sebastien had paid for his crimes in full. Fiora would be his successor. The quarrel between the families was resolved, and that would be an end to it.
Even so, such scandals are not easily forgotten. Fiora took to her new duties at court with her customary clarity and directness, but found that rumors and gossip continued to follow her at every turn. She had usurped her brothers’ claims to the family name. What could this arrogant child bring to the Great City of Demacia but more strife and bloodshed, if she would not take a husband?
Rather than demand more justice at the edge of her sword, Fiora instead turned to her wider family—cousins and more distant relatives, with many renowned swordmasters among them—and silenced her critics by granting noble status to all in her household. Together, they were dedicated to the refinement of bladecraft within the kingdom. Dueling was an ancient art, but need not always end in death.
And if any care to disagree with that notion, Fiora will be only too happy to test the strength of their conviction in combat herself. | Fighter |
In ages past, the oceans of Runeterra were home to civilizations far older than those of the land. In the depths of what is now the Guardian’s Sea, a great city once stood—it was here that the yordle Fizz made his home. He lived alongside the artisans and warriors of that proud, noble race. Even though he was not one of them, they treated him as an equal, and his playful nature and tall tales of adventures in the open sea made him welcome at any gathering.
But the world was changing. The oceans were growing warmer, emboldening fierce predators to rise up from the deepest trenches. Other settlements had fallen silent, but the rulers of the great city could still not agree on how to deal with the threat. Fizz pledged to roam the seas in search of survivors, or anyone who knew what had happened.
Then, one dark day, the gigalodons came.
These huge dragon-sharks stunned their prey with fell shrieking, and the avenues of the great city were soon clouded red. Thousands died in a matter of hours, the immense bulk of their killers crushing towers and temples in a monstrous feeding frenzy. Scenting blood in the water, Fizz raced back, determined to join the fight and save the city.
He was too late. There was nothing left of the city to save. When the debris finally settled, not a single living creature remained, nor any stone upon another, and the ravenous shoal had moved on. Alone in the cold depths, Fizz sank into mournful despair. As his yordle magic began to fade, he let himself be carried by the currents, drifting in a catatonic torpor, dreaming away the millennia…
It was only chance that reawakened him. A handful of copper coins fell from above, scattered to the seabed in the wake of a huge, wooden fish that swam upon the surface. This was no gigalodon, but Fizz was alarmed nonetheless—he knew little of the world overhead, but surely no fish could survive up there? He ventured up and peered into the salty air for the first time.
There were people, people who lived outside of the water and sailed in wooden fish of all sizes. Fizz found the thought both frightening and exciting, but the curious gifts they cast into the water made it clear that they wanted to be his friends. In time, following their movements to and fro across the oceans, he came to the port city of Bilgewater.
To the inhabitants of that lawless place, this strange and slippery creature quickly became something of a legend—the Tidal Trickster, a spirit of the ocean itself. It is said that he can summon great beasts to do his bidding, hole a ship’s hull with his stone trident, and breathe air or water as it suits him. Many a misbehaving child has been warned on a moonless night: “Go quickly to sleep, or the Trickster will come and feed you to the fishes…”
Fizz is good-natured, but mischievous even for a yordle, and delights in confounding the people of Bilgewater. The most seasoned fishermen know, just as the ocean may rise and fall, the Tidal Trickster is as likely to lead them into windless doldrums as to an easy catch that would fill their nets. Even so, Fizz does not take kindly to the greedy or selfish, and more than one haughty sea captain hoping to make a quick pile of silver has found that her mysterious guide has led her crew not to safety, but to shipwreck. | Assassin |
Galio’s legend begins in the aftermath of the Rune Wars, when countless refugees fled from the destructive power of magic. In the west of Valoran, a band of these displaced people were hounded by a vicious band of dark mages—exhausted from days without rest, the refugees hid among the shadows of an ancient, petrified forest, and their pursuers suddenly found their magic to be ineffective.
It seemed the fossilized trees were a natural magic-dampener, and any sorcery used within them would simply fail. No longer helpless, the refugees turned their swords on the dark mages and drove them from the land.
Some decided that this sanctuary from magic was a gift from the gods, others saw it as a fair reward for their terrible journey, but all agreed this should be their new home.
As years passed, the settlers crafted items of protection from the enchanted wood. Eventually, they found it could be mixed with ash and lime to make petricite—a material with a powerful resistance to magic. It would be the foundation for their new civilization, forming the walls of the new kingdom of Demacia.
For years, these petricite barriers were all the Demacians needed to feel secure from the threat of magic within the borders of their homeland. In the rare event that they needed to settle a conflict abroad, their military proved fierce and formidable… but when their enemies employed sorcery, Demacia’s roaming army had little recourse. Somehow, they needed to take the security of their magic-dampening walls into battle.
The sculptor Durand was commissioned to fashion some manner of petricite shield for the military, and two years later the artist unveiled his masterpiece. While it was not what many were expecting, the winged statue Galio would become vital to the defense of the nation, and serve as a symbol of Demacia across Valoran.
Using a system of pulleys, steel sledges, and countless oxen, they would pull the great stone figure to the battlefield. Many would-be invaders simply froze at the sight of the awe-inspiring silhouette looming before them—the titan who “ate magic” inspired a kingdom, and terrified those who opposed it.
However, no one thought to consider what exposing the statue to such unpredictable energies might do…
Demacia had been mired in battle with enemy forces in the Greenfang Mountains. A skilled order of warmages, known as the Arcane Fist, bombarded the Demacians with crackling bolts of raw, mystical power for thirteen days. Those who had survived this long felt their morale dwindling, and huddled close to Galio. Just when their spirits could be brought no lower, a slow, deafening rumble shook the vale, as if two mountains were grinding against each other. As a great shadow grew above them, the Demacian soldiers steeled themselves for death.
A deep voice bellowed from above. To the Demacians’ astonishment, the sound came from the colossus at their backs—Galio was moving, and speaking, entirely on his own. Somehow, the accumulation of absorbed magic had given him life. He threw himself in front of the Demacians, shielding them from attack after attack, absorbing each fresh bolt into his massive, stone frame.
Then Galio turned, bounded up the mountainside, and crushed every last one of the Arcane Fist into the craggy soil.
The Demacians cheered. They were eager to thank the petricite sentinel that had saved them… but as quickly as he’d come to life, their fearsome protector had ceased moving, returning to his pedestal, just as before. Back in the Great City, this bizarre tale was told in hushed tones by the few who had survived the Battle of the Greenfangs, and was usually received with silent incredulity. That day passed into legend—perhaps a mere allegory of ancient days to help people through hard times.
Certainly, no one would have believed that the colossus continued to see all that transpired around him. Even while immobile, Galio retained consciousness, longing to experience the sensations of battle once again.
He watched mortals pass beneath him, paying him tribute year after year. It puzzled him to see them disappear one by one as time rolled on. Galio wondered where they went when they vanished. Perhaps they were sent away to be mended, as he often was when he returned from war?
As the years slipped by, Galio began to realize the sorrowful answer to his question—unlike himself, the people of Demacia could not be repainted, or have their damage easily repaired. Mortals were frail, ephemeral creatures, and he now understood just how badly they needed his protection. Fighting had been his passion, but the people were now his purpose.
Even so, Galio has been called to battle only a handful of times in all the centuries since. Demacia has begun to look inward, with magic becoming rarer in his world than it once was, and so the petricite colossus remains dormant, observing the world through the murk of his waking dreams. The statue’s greatest hope is to be blessed by a magic so powerful that he will never be forced to sleep again.
Only then will Galio be able to truly serve his purpose: to stand and fight as Demacia’s protector, forevermore. | Tank |
As unpredictable as he is brutal, the dethroned reaver king known as Gangplank is feared far and wide. Where he goes, death and ruin follow, and such is his infamy and reputation that the merest sight of his black sails on the horizon causes panic among even the hardiest crew.
Having grown rich preying upon the trade routes of the Twelve Seas, Gangplank has made himself many powerful enemies. In Ionia, he incurred the wrath of the deadly Order of Shadow after ransacking the Temple of the Jagged Knife, and it is said that the Grand General of Noxus himself has sworn to see Gangplank torn asunder after the pirate stole the Leviathan, Swain’s personal warship and the pride of the Noxian fleet.
While Gangplank has incurred the wrath of many, none have yet been able to bring him to justice, despite assassins, bounty hunters, and entire armadas being sent after him. He takes grim pleasure in the ever-increasing rewards posted for his head, and makes sure to nail them to the Bounty Board in Bilgewater for all to see whenever he returns to port, his ships heavy with loot.
In recent times, Gangplank has been brought down by the machinations of the bounty hunter Miss Fortune. His ship was destroyed with all of Bilgewater watching, killing his crew and shattering his aura of invincibility. Now that they have seen he is vulnerable, the gangs of Bilgewater have risen up, fighting amongst themselves to claim dominion over the port city.
Despite receiving horrific injuries in the explosion, Gangplank survived. Sporting a multitude of fresh scars, and with a newly crafted metal arm to replace his amputated limb, he is now determined to rebuild his strength, reclaim what he sees as rightfully his – and to ruthlessly punish all those who turned against him. | Fighter |
Born into the noble Crownguard family, along with his younger sister Lux, Garen knew from an early age that he would be expected to defend the throne of Demacia with his life. His father, Pieter, was a decorated military officer, while his aunt Tianna was Sword-Captain of the elite Dauntless Vanguard—and both were recognized and greatly respected by King Jarvan III. It was assumed that Garen would eventually come to serve the king’s son in the same manner.
The kingdom of Demacia had risen from the ashes of the Rune Wars, and the centuries afterward were plagued with further conflict and strife. One of Garen’s uncles, a ranger-knight in the Demacian military, told young Garen and Lux his tales of venturing outside the kingdom’s walls to protect its people from the dangers of the world beyond.
He warned them that, one day, something would undoubtedly end this time of relative peace—whether it be rogue mages, creatures of the abyss, or some other unimaginable horror yet to come.
As if to confirm those fears, their uncle was killed in the line of duty by a mage, before Garen turned eleven. Garen saw the pain this brought to his family, and the fear in his young sister’s eyes. He knew then, for certain, that magic was the first and greatest peril that Demacia faced, and he vowed never to let it within their walls. Only by following their founding ideals, and by displaying their unshakeable pride, could the kingdom be kept safe.
At the age of twelve, Garen left the Crownguard home in High Silvermere to join the military. As a squire, his days and nights were consumed by training and the study of war, honing his body and mind into a weapon as strong and true as Demacian steel. It was then that he first met young Jarvan IV—the prince who, as king, he would one day serve—among the other recruits, and the two became inseparable.
In the years that followed, Garen earned his place in the shieldwall as a warrior of Demacia, and quickly gained a fearsome reputation on the battlefield. By the time he was eighteen, he had served with honor in campaigns along the Freljordian borders, played a key role in purging fetid cultists from the Silent Forest, and fought alongside the valiant defenders of Whiterock.
King Jarvan III himself summoned Garen’s battalion back to the Great City of Demacia, honoring them before the royal court in the Hall of Valor. Tianna Crownguard, recently elevated to the role of High Marshal, singled out her nephew in particular, and recommended him for the trials necessary to join the ranks of the Dauntless Vanguard.
Garen returned home in preparation, and was greeted warmly by Lux and his parents, as well as the common people living on his family’s estate. Though he was pleased to see his sister growing into an intelligent, capable young woman, something about her had changed. He had noticed it whenever he visited, but now Garen wrestled with a real and gnawing suspicion that Lux possessed magical powers… though he never let himself entertain the idea for long. The thought of a Crownguard being capable of the same forbidden sorceries that had slain their uncle was too unbearable to confront.
Naturally, through courage and skill, Garen won his place among the Vanguard. With his proud family and his good friend the prince looking on, he took his oaths before the throne.
Lux and her mother spent much more time in the capital, in service to the king as well as the humble order of the Illuminators—yet Garen tried to keep his distance as much as possible. Though he loved his sister more than anything else in the world, some small part of him had a hard time getting close to her, and he tried not to think about what he would be forced to do if his suspicions were ever confirmed. Instead, he threw himself into his new duties, fighting and training twice as hard as he had before.
When the new Sword-Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard fell in battle, Garen found himself put forward for command by his fellow warriors, and the nomination was unopposed.
To this day, he stands resolute in the defense of his homeland, against all foes. Far more than Demacia's most formidable soldier, he is the very embodiment of all the greatest and most noble ideals upon which it was founded. | Fighter |
The only thing more important to Gragas than fighting is drinking. His unquenchable thirst for stronger ale has led him in search of the most potent and unconventional ingredients to toss in his still. Impulsive and unpredictable, this rowdy carouser loves cracking kegs as much as cracking heads. Thanks to his strange brews and temperamental nature, drinking with Gragas is always a risky proposition.
Gragas has an eternal love of good drink, but his massive constitution prevented him from reaching a divine state of intoxication. One night, when he had drained all the kegs and was left wanting, Gragas was struck by a thought rather than the usual barstool: why couldn't he brew himself something that would finally get him truly drunk? It was then that he vowed to create the ultimate ale.
Gragas' quest eventually brought him to the Freljord, where the promise of acquiring the purest arctic water for his recipe led him into uncharted glacial wastes. While lost in an unyielding blizzard, Gragas stumbled upon a great howling abyss. There he found it: a flawless shard of ice unlike anything he had ever seen. Not only did this unmelting shard imbue his lager with incredible properties, but it also had a handy side effect - it kept the mixture chilled at the perfect serving temperature.
Under the spell of his new concoction, Gragas headed for civilization, eager to share the fermented fruits of his labor. As fate would have it, the first gathering to catch Gragas' bleary eyes would shape the future of the Freljord. He blundered into a deteriorating negotiation between two tribes discussing an alliance with Ashe. Though Ashe welcomed a break in the tension, the other warriors bristled at the intrusion and hurled insults at the drunken oaf. True to his nature, Gragas replied with a diplomatic headbutt, setting off a brawl matched only in the legends of the Freljord.
When the fallen from that great melee finally awoke, Ashe proposed a friendly drink as an alternative to fighting. With their tempers doused in suds, the two tribes, formerly on the brink of war, bonded over a common love of Gragas' brew. Although strife was averted and Gragas hailed a hero, he still had not achieved his dream of drunken blissfulness. So once more, he set off to wander the tundra in search of ingredients for Runeterra's perfect pint. | Fighter |
Raised in the wharf alleys of Bilgewater, Malcolm Graves quickly learned how to fight and how to steal, skills that would serve him very well in all the years ahead. He could always find work hauling contraband up from the smugglers’ skiffs that came into the bay each night—with a tidy side-gig as hired muscle for various other unsavory local characters, as they went about their business in the port.
But the alleys were small-time, and he craved more excitement than they could offer. Still little more than a youth, Graves stole a blunderbuss and smuggled himself aboard a ship headed out of Bilgewater to the Shuriman mainland, where he stole, lied, and gambled his way from place to place along the coast.
Across the table of a high-stakes—and highly illegal—card game in Mudtown, Graves met a man who would change the course of his life, and his career: the trickster now known to many as Twisted Fate.
Each immediately saw in the other the same reckless passion for danger and adventure, and together they formed a most lucrative partnership. Between Graves’ raw brawn and Twisted Fate’s ability to talk his way out of (and occasionally back into) almost any situation, they were an unusually effective team from the outset. Their mutual sense of roguish honor grew into genuine trust, and together they stole from the rich, swindled the foolish, handpicked skilled crews for specific jobs, and sold out their rivals whenever they could.
Though at times Twisted Fate would blow all their shares and leave them with nothing to show for it, Graves knew that the thrill of some new escapade was always just around the corner…
On the southern borderlands of Valoran, they set two renowned noble houses of Noxus at each other’s throats as cover for the rescue of a kidnapped heir. That they pocketed the reward money, only to ransom the vile young man to the highest bidder, should really have come as no surprise to their original employer. In Piltover, they still hold the distinction of being the only thieves ever to crack the supposedly impenetrable Clockwork Vault. Not only did the pair empty the vault of all its treasures, they also tricked the guards into loading the loot onto their hijacked schooner, for a quick getaway through the Sun Gates.
In almost every case, only once they and their accomplices were safely over the horizon were their crimes even discovered—usually along with one of Twisted Fate’s trademark calling cards left where it would be easily found.
But, eventually, their luck ran out.
During a heist that rapidly turned from complex to completely botched, Graves was taken by the local enforcers, while Twisted Fate merely turned tail and abandoned him.
Thrown into the infamous prison known as the Locker, Graves endured years of torture and solitary confinement, during which time he nursed his bitter anger toward his old partner. A lesser man would surely have been broken by all this, but not Malcolm Graves. He was determined to have his revenge.
When he finally clawed his way to freedom, with the prison warden’s brand new shotgun slung over his shoulder, Graves began his long-overdue pursuit of Twisted Fate.
The search led him back home to Bilgewater, where he found that the wily old cardsharp had acquired a few new bounties on his head—and Graves would be only too happy to claim them. However, just as he got Twisted Fate in his sights, they were forced to put aside their differences in order to escape almost certain death in the ongoing conflict between the reaver king Gangplank and his rival ship captains.
Once again, Graves found himself escaping his hometown… only this time, he had his old friend in tow. While both of them might have liked to pick up their partnership where they left off all those years ago, such resentment couldn't simply be forgotten overnight, and it would be a while before Graves could bring himself to trust Twisted Fate again.
Still, he feels Bilgewater calling to him once more. Maybe this time around, the pair of them will find their stride and be able to pull off the ultimate heist… | Marksman |
Within the long-lost kingdom of Camavor, there once lived a village of people far from the throne. It was here, in the rural colonies, where a humble seamstress made her beloved doll, Gwen.
What Gwen can remember of her past, she remembers with love. The seamstress and the doll spent their days crafting, scissors resting in Gwen’s still hands as her maker stitched nearby with needle and thread. At night, the two could be found crouched under the dinner table, the seamstress challenging Gwen to makeshift duels, the clash of silverware against scissors echoing in their candlelit kitchen.
In time, the games stopped and the light faded. Gwen could not understand why, but whenever she struggled to recall details, she felt a twinge of pain, tied to a man whose name and face escaped her. As her memories washed away with the ocean tide, Gwen lay still for centuries, quiet and forgotten.
Then one night, her eyes opened. Gwen awoke for the very first time on a shadowy beach far from her home. By magic unbeknownst to her, she had been transformed into a living girl who could move her hands and feet—all on her own!
Gwen took to life with joy. She skipped across the sand, amazed by how far her eyes could see, how wondrous every pebble was to her touch, and how incredible the wind felt on her back. Along the coast, scattered debris left abandoned for a millennium caught her attention. Lying beside broken chests were oddly familiar tools.
Scissors. Needles. Thread.
Gwen recognized them immediately. These were her maker’s tools. When her fingers touched them, a burst of mist glinting with light flowed from her hands. To her, it felt safe and warm, like the soothing embrace of a hallowed past.
But Gwen was not the only one drawn to this magic.
Lurking in the isles, a different mist swarmed. Black in color, it coiled and twisted, forming into fearsome wraiths. Something within Gwen’s newfound presence attracted them—something they hungered for with obsession.
As the wraiths came for her, Gwen was undeterred. She thrust her scissors at them. To her delight, more of her mist filled the air, enchanting the size and strength of her tools and turning them from mere steel into spectral magic.
But the wraiths were relentless. They swelled in number, fueled by the ever-growing Black Mist. Gwen began to feel a tragic, strangely familiar pain. Surrounded by wraiths, suppressed memories surfaced. She recalled images of her maker, sick and wounded, lying in anguish. Near her was a man whose face finally returned to Gwen.
Viego.
Remembering his name brought Gwen to her knees. Wistfully, she reflected on the bygone moments spent with her maker—a happier, simpler time—and stole one final glance at her scissors...8<-8<-8<-8<-
It was then Gwen realized something amazing. Her maker, victim to that man’s twisted vanity, was not fully gone. The seamstress’ tools, the very tools that first sewed and stitched Gwen together, were now in her hands. Gwen believed this was no accident. She knew, deep down, her maker was still with her, still fighting.
This was a gift Gwen would not take for granted.
Grasping needles and thread, she spun clouds of Hallowed Mist to push back the swarming wraiths. Her scissors slashed hard and fast, reminiscent of those blissful nights when her maker imagined grand battles beneath their kitchen table. Soon, the wraiths were no more.
Though triumphant, Gwen recognized this was only the beginning. She could sense these wraiths and Viego were linked, both responsible for the spread of immense pain. With no time to lose, she resolved to track the Black Mist and stop it at any cost. Gwen expected this endeavor to be strenuous, yet she reveled in every second of being alive—for who knew how long this blessing would last?
Having been given a unique chance at life, Gwen chooses to be an indomitable, positive force against all odds. She journeys across Runeterra, determined to restore joy to those who are hurt and suffering. To Gwen, each moment is precious, and each step driven with purpose. | Fighter |
Born into an empire long since gone to dust and forgotten, Hecarim was a lieutenant of the Iron Order—a brotherhood sworn to defend their king’s lands.
As Hecarim won victory after victory from the back of his mighty warhorse, the commander of the Iron Order saw in him a potential successor… but also a growing darkness. His obsessive hunger for glory was eroding his honor, and over time the knight-commander came to realize this young lieutenant must never lead them.
When he was told this, Hecarim was furious. Even so, he bit back his anger, and continued in his duties.
When they next rode to war, the commander found himself surrounded by enemies, and cut off from his fellow knights. Hecarim, seeing his chance, turned away and left him to die. At battle’s end, the Iron Order, oblivious to what Hecarim had done, knelt on the bloody ground and swore allegiance to him.
Hecarim rode to the capital to take his formal oaths, and met with Kalista, the king’s most trusted general. She recognized his prowess and leadership, and when the queen was wounded by an assassin’s poisoned blade, Kalista was comforted to know the Iron Order would remain with the king while she sought a cure.
Gripped by paranoia, and seeing new threats in every shadow, the king raged at those he believed were trying to separate him from his dying wife, and dispatched Hecarim to quell dissent throughout the kingdom. The Iron Order earned a dreadful reputation as ruthless enforcers of the king’s will. Towns and villages burned. Hundreds were put to the sword.
With grim inevitability, when the queen died, Hecarim chose to sour the king’s grief into hatred, seeking sanction to lead the Iron Order into foreign lands. He would avenge her death, while earning yet more dark renown for himself.
But before they could ride out, Kalista returned. She had found what she sought upon the distant Blessed Isles—and yet it was now too late. The king would not believe this, and had Kalista imprisoned as a traitor. Intrigued by what he had heard, Hecarim visited her cell, and they spoke of the pale mists that protected the islands from all invaders… and also of the inhabitants’ immense wealth, including the legendary Waters of Life.
Knowing only Kalista could lead them there, Hecarim eventually persuaded her to guide the king’s fleet through the veil that concealed the Blessed Isles from mortal sight.
They landed at the city of Helia with the queen’s body in solemn procession. The Iron Order led the way, only to be met by the city’s masters, who now refused to help. Enraged, the king ordered Kalista to kill them, but she refused, and Hecarim smiled as he made the decision that would damn him for eternity. He drove a spear through Kalista’s back, and ordered his knights to ransack the city, looting its vaults of arcane treasures.
Amid the chaos, a lowly custodian agreed to grant the king access to the Waters of Life—but not even this could distract Hecarim from the revelry of bloodshed, and so it was that the Ruination of the Blessed Isles would take him almost completely by surprise.
A blastwave of magical force tore across Helia, shattering every last building and leaving the fragments suspended in searing un-light. In its wake came the Black Mist, a billowing hurricane that dragged every living creature it touched into its shrieking, roiling embrace. Hecarim tried to rally the Iron Order, hoping to make it back to their ships, but the mist claimed them one by one as they fled.
Alone, and defiant to the end, the knight-commander was taken by the shadows. He and his mighty steed were fused into a monstrous, spectral abomination that reflected the darkness in Hecarim’s heart—a brazen creature of fury and spite, at one with the Black Mist and yet utterly enslaved by it.
Bound forevermore to these Shadow Isles, Hecarim has spent centuries in a sinister mockery of his former life, cursed to patrol the nightmarish lands he once intended to conquer. Whenever the Black Mist reaches out beyond their shores, he and the otherworldly host of the Iron Order ride out to slaughter the living, in memory of glories long passed. | Fighter |
In northwest Ionia, the island of Koyehn once stood beautiful and serene. Among its golden sands, seasonal bazaar, and quaint mill town sat the Temple of Koyehn, an ancient and renowned conservatory for the arts.
Lukai Hwei was born to inherit this temple.
Kind and precocious, Hwei spent his childhood putting to canvas his wild daydreams, which exaggerated the world around him into surreal, fantastical sights. He knew these visions differed from reality, but through them, he saw life itself as art. So connected was Hwei to the shades of the world that even his eye color shifted in hue to reflect his mind and mood.
Hwei expressed this vibrant imagination through paint magic, a medium that influenced the emotions of its audience. As such, it required strict control and discipline, lest it overpower both mental perceptions and bodily sensations. Among its current practitioners, those unable or unwilling to control their art endangered themselves and the community—and were banished from Koyehn.
Despite these precepts, young Hwei indulged his imagination. In a demonstration for the temple masters, he recreated Koyehn’s sea. As paint flowed around the canvas, however, his control ebbed. Emotion crashed through him, wild and fathomless as an ocean, and he surrendered himself to its beauty. His vision turned black, his last memory the awestruck masters, drowning.
Hwei awoke days later, surrounded by his masters—alive, but infuriated. They would not exile the temple’s heir, but they stressed his responsibilities. Hwei was horrified—but fascinated—by the depths of his power, and he craved to see more.
Thus, by day, he upheld Koyehn’s conventions. But alone at night, he pushed the boundaries, driven to explore the extent of his power. In time, this practice focused the intensity of Hwei’s imagination, allowing him to manifest a palette that flowed with magical paint.
Well into adulthood, Hwei mastered his craft. And with passion and humility, he prepared to inherit his birthright, surrounded by the respect and affection of his peers. But part of his mind remained forever shrouded at nightfall.
And so it remained, until the temple received a visiting artist: Khada Jhin.
Over a gilded summer, Hwei accompanied Jhin, guiding him around Koyehn. They often exchanged their creative perspectives, and, respecting their differences, Hwei recognized Jhin’s virtuosity and valued their time together.
But the night before Jhin’s departure, the man challenged Hwei. Jhin sensed that the pieces Hwei showed others were forced façades—and he wanted to see a real performance. Hwei tried to deny it, but his eyes betrayed him. Flooded by the years spent creating meaningless art, his imagination begged catharsis.
So Hwei painted. Decades of practice guided his brush. The night came alive, colored by the brilliant infinity of his mind. Emotions washed over him, harmonious and visceral, and Hwei welcomed them. Sharing these forbidden visions for another exhilarated him and illuminated the powers of his art: connection, inspiration, and unfettered creation.
Jhin witnessed all. Afterward, with eyes alight and tone inscrutable, he said farewell, stating he would be moving on tomorrow “to watch the lotuses bloom.”
At dawn, Hwei and his fellow artists awoke to a series of tragedies.
First: four historic paintings, destroyed.
Second: an arrangement of four bodies—the masters that Hwei had almost killed in his youth.
Third: the fiery eruption of the temple’s four lowest floors.
Amid the flames, Hwei imagined the air electric with color. Everything that lived within him bled outward.
It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It was... art. Realizing its dark potential—of destruction, devastation, and torment—Hwei felt the same horror and fascination he had in his youth.
The temple quickly collapsed into ruins, with Hwei emerging as its only survivor.
Exhausted and guilt-ridden, he mourned. Yet his imagination overflowed, reliving every moment of the disaster.
During the day, Hwei and the villagers from the mill town held burials. At night, he revisited the ashen-gray wreckage and painted, his palette taking the shape of Koyehn’s crest—the same worn over his heart.
On one such night, Hwei found the remnants of a trap beneath the rubble—one petaled like a lotus flower.
Realizing who’d wreaked this havoc, a cascade of emotions engulfed Hwei. Fear. Sorrow. Betrayal... Awe.
A question burned within him: why?
But did he want the answer? Or would it be safer to suppress this need? He could stay here with his people—as the heir—help them rebuild... or...
Bearing little more than his paintbrush and palette, Hwei left his island, and his people, behind.
In the time since, Hwei has learned that the answers he seeks arise through revealing the full extent of his art to others. He tracks down nefarious individuals in Ionia’s darkest corners, unleashing scenes of suffering upon them to understand his own well of pain. Yet he also reaches out to Ionia’s victims—fellow witnesses—to create shared tranquility and reflection.
Both the relentless artist rising from the ashes and the kindhearted man from a once-peaceful isle, Hwei faces the conflicting hues of Ionia—and his own imagination. As he spirals deeper into the shadows, he lights a path, mind brimming with possibility.
Which shade of himself will triumph, however, is yet to be seen. | Mage |
Even as a small child, Xan Irelia was fascinated by the grace and beauty of human movement. Under her grandmother’s tutelage, she learned the traditional silk dances of her province—though she was dubious of their supposedly mystical connection to the Spirit of Ionia, Irelia’s love for the dances was real. Seeking to master the art, she eventually left home to study with some of Ionia’s most respected performers at the Placidium of Navori.
Irelia’s people were peaceful and sought harmony with their neighbors, but rumors of foreign invaders sighted off the coast unsettled many at the Placidium. Irelia returned to her village to find it already occupied, with steel-helmed soldiers from distant Noxus shoving unarmed civilians through the streets with the butts of their spears. The Noxian Admiral Duqal had seized the Xan home to quarter his fleet officers.
Irelia’s brothers and her father Lito had evidently protested; her entire family now lay in unmarked graves, in the gardens.
Ravaged by grief, the young girl saw Duqal’s men hauling valuables from the house. Among the loot was a large metal crest, depicting the Xan family emblem. Irelia raced to it, wrenching it from Noxian hands. The admiral himself hurled her to the ground, and had his warriors shatter the crest with a heavy iron maul, before ordering them to dig a fresh grave for this upstart child.
As they surrounded her, Irelia averted her eyes, looking to the pieces of the Xan crest scattered on the ground. From deep within her soul, she felt a strange rhythm begin to beat. The shards of metal began to twitch, to twist, moving seemingly on their own, and Irelia felt the serene joy of the ancient dances once more...
With a sweep of her arm, she sent the pieces flying like ragged blades, cutting clean through two of the Noxians. As Duqal and his officers reeled in shock, Irelia snatched up the shards of her crest, and fled the village.
In the quiet forests beyond, Irelia mourned her family, and thought back to her grandmother’s teachings. She realized that the techniques she had learned were more than mere dances—they were a powerful expression of something far greater.
The Noxian occupation soon began to test the fragile peace of the First Lands. It was said that even the religious leader Karma had been forced to strike back at the invaders with deadly magic, though her followers had now withdrawn to the Lasting Altar and would not condone any further violence. Across Navori, dissenting voices began to band together. A resistance was forming, one that would not rest until Ionia was free once more. Irelia joined their ranks, performing her cherished dances for them in the woodland camps, to preserve some vestige of their vanishing culture.
She was barely fourteen years old when she found herself back at the Placidium. Her band of resistance fighters joined the militia who had sworn to guard the monasteries and wild, sacred gardens.
But Noxus knew only too well what this place represented. A particularly cunning general named Jericho Swain captured the Placidium and took its defenders hostage, hoping to lure the inevitable reinforcements into a trap.
It was in this moment that Irelia rose to meet her destiny. Freed from her bonds, she unleashed the full potential of her ancient blade dance, lashing out with graceful zeal. A dozen of Swain’s veterans fell, sowing chaos in their ranks as the other captives joined her, before she struck down the general himself—the sight of this rebellious girl hefting his severed arm over her head would be the turning point of the war.
This victory, the Great Stand at Navori, ensured that everyone in Ionia knew the name of Xan Irelia, and looked to her for leadership. Reluctantly, she led the growing resistance for almost three years of grueling battle before her triumph at Dalu Bay. There, she finally cornered the defeated Admiral Duqal, and exacted the vengeance she had sought for so long.
Though the war has long since ended, Ionia has been permanently changed by it. The First Lands are now divided, with rival factions fighting each other almost as bitterly as they did the Noxians. Many continue to look to Irelia for answers but, while others might welcome such power, Irelia remains uneasy with it.
At heart, she still yearns only to dance alone. | Fighter |
Ivern the Cruel was renowned as a fierce warrior, in the latter days of the ancient Vorrijaard. His clan followed the most warlike of the old gods, and would not kneel before the upstart “Three Sisters” like so many others had.
However, the dark sorcery that strengthened their armies was undeniable. Ivern and his kin plotted long and hard to overthrow these hated Iceborn, eventually setting sail into the east—in search of the land where the sun first rose, from where it was said that all magic flowed into the world. If Ivern could seize such power for his own, then he could surely break any foe.
As his fleet sailed over the horizon, they passed out of memory and into myth, for they were never seen in their homeland again.
In truth, Ivern the Cruel landed on the shores of Ionia. After cleaving through a dozen coastal settlements, he and his warriors discovered a sacred grove known as Omikayalan, “the Heart of the World”. And there, in that strange and verdant garden, they met the fiercest resistance. Chimeric beings—half human, half beast—came at them again and again beneath the twisted branches.
Undeterred, Ivern pressed on, until the battered remnants of his expedition reached what the Ionians held so sacred: the legendary God-Willow.
Ivern was transfixed, even as the fighting raged around him. It was a truly colossal tree, dripping with long gossamer leaves that shimmered with golden-green light. It was magic like nothing he had ever felt before, and it was clear these inhuman creatures would die to protect it. Seeking to shatter their resolve, he took up his war axe, and roared with hatred as he struck at the God-Willow over and over again.
The great tree fell. In a riot of life-energy, Ivern the Cruel was instantly undone.
Detached, drifting, he saw the battle was over. The flesh of the fallen fed carrion birds and insects alike, or decayed under bursts of colorful mushrooms. Bones rotted into fertile soil, and seeds within it budded and sprouted into trees bearing fruit of their own. Leaves and petals pulsed like colorful hearts. From the death that surrounded him, life exploded forth in ways too numerous to believe.
Never had Ivern beheld such beauty. Life, in all its forms, was tangled together like an impossible knot that didn’t want to be untied. He wept, and those dewdrop tears fell upon his changed body. He was taller than he remembered, his limbs rough with bark and leaves. The magic of an entirely different world coursed through him. He did not know why, or how, but he was all that now remained of the God-Willow.
With that realization, he heard the bawling of hills, the howling of trees, and the dripping tears of moss. He reflected on the mistakes he’d made, the cruelty he’d visited on others. Remorse washed over Ivern, and he cried out for forgiveness.
When he finally moved, so much time had passed that the world felt… new? The violence and sadness of his former self were mere echoes in his heart. He found he could dig his toes deep into the soil, and commune with the roots, rocks, and rivers. Even the dirt itself had opinions!
Ivern wandered far—across Ionia, and beyond—and the strange magic of Omikayalan followed in his wake. He developed close kinships with creatures great and small, observing their foibles, delighting in their little habits, and occasionally offering a helping hand. He shortened the inchworm’s path, played tricks with mischievous bramblebacks, hugged thorny elmarks, and laughed with wizened elder-fungus.
In one instance, he found a wounded stone golem. Knowing the poor thing’s spirit was fading, he fashioned her a new heart from a river pebble, and the golem became Ivern’s devoted life-friend. He named her Daisy, after the flowers that mysteriously sprouted from her stone body.
Sometimes, Ivern encountered mortals, and many of them were at least somewhat peaceful. They called him Bramblefoot, or Green Father, or the Old Woodsman, and told tales of his strange benevolence. But he was filled with sadness to see how they still took more than they gave, how they could be so cruel and so careless, and he retreated from their company.
If he bore the God-Willow’s legacy, he needed to cultivate humanity—help them watch, listen, and grow. Being mortal once himself, Ivern knew this would be difficult, so he smiled and challenged himself to complete this task before the final sunset.
He knew he would have time. | Support |
Since ancient times, there have been those who prayed to the winds. From sailors seeking good weather to the downtrodden calling on winds of change, mortals have placed their hope in the tempests and gales that sweep across Runeterra.
Surprisingly, the wind sometimes would seem to answer. Seafarers might spot a bright blue bird just before a healthy tailwind billowed their sails. Others could swear they’d heard a whistling in the air right before a storm, as if to warn them of its approach. As word of these omens spread, sightings of the bird grew more common. Some even swore they had seen the bird transform into a woman. With tapered ears and flowing hair, this mysterious maiden was said to float above the water and direct the wind with a flick of her staff.
The faithful called this wind spirit Jan’ahrem, an ancient Shuriman word meaning “guardian,” for she always seemed to appear in moments of great need. As time went on, she came to be known more simply as Janna.
Her name spread across the Shuriman continent’s coasts, and the seafaring people of Oshra Va’Zaun were her most fervent believers. They depended on calm seas for the trade ships that traveled through their city’s port. Statues and shrines were raised in gratitude for Janna’s benevolence. After the Shuriman empire enveloped the city, these displays of devotion continued… for a time.
When the emperor issued decrees suppressing “false idols,” Janna’s statues were torn down. Yet despite the growing worship of the Ascended god-warriors, many still offered quiet prayers to Janna, for what could god-warriors do to protect ships from storms? These mortals often wore amulets with the image of a bluebird—smaller, more personal tokens in Janna’s honor.
Through all of this, Janna continued to aid the vulnerable who called upon her. In a region rife with upheaval, she remained constant. Those with an eye toward history might appreciate the irony of “winds of change” being the only thing that did not.
After the great empire fell, once verdant lands became a desert as the remaining Ascended brought war and chaos—yet Janna shielded the city, now known as Zaun, from the turmoil.
Over the centuries, Janna watched as Zaun’s ambitions grew. While the city was still a robust trade port, its denizens aspired for more. They dreamed of cutting a canal through the isthmus on which they lived, opening a path that would unite the seas surrounding Valoran and Shurima. The city poured great effort, wealth, and time into the construction. Prayers to Janna waned as mortal dreams focused on mortal machinations.
However, the canal’s excavation made great portions of Zaun unstable. On one cataclysmic day, entire districts on the River Pilt collapsed below the western sea level, and thousands suddenly found themselves fighting for their lives against the clashing currents.
As these unfortunate souls faced their doom, they prayed for salvation. They called out the name of their ancient protector:
Janna.
Though these mortals had seemingly forgotten her until now, Janna did not hesitate to help them. An immense gale swept over the city as she took corporeal form. Impossible walls of air held flooding waters at bay as people fled the drowned ruins of their homes. Ferocious gusts of wind cut through the suffocating smoke from fires caused by the destruction. Yet while she saved many, thousands still perished that day—but all who survived witnessed Janna’s benevolence. Never again would the city’s people forget their savior.
To this day, through the rise of Piltover and the ongoing struggles of modern Zaun, Janna’s faithful wear bluebird medallions and show reverence to the winds. And through it all, Janna stands steadfast by the humble and the meek. Zaunites all know that whether they fight for breath amid the toxic clouds of the Zaun Gray, stand against the brutality of violent chem-barons, or fend off other threats, Janna will not abandon them. | Support |
Jayce is a brilliant inventor who has pledged his life to the defense of Piltover and its unyielding pursuit of progress. With his transforming hextech hammer in hand, Jayce uses his strength, courage, and considerable intelligence to protect his hometown. While revered throughout the city as a hero, he hasn’t taken well to the attention it brings. Still, Jayce’s heart is in the right place, and even those who envy his natural skills are grateful for his protection in the City of Progress.
A native son of Piltover, Jayce was raised to believe in the principles that made the city great: Invention. Discovery. Not going to Zaun if you could help it. With a knack for understanding machinery, Jayce earned the honor of being the youngest apprenta to ever be offered patronage by Clan Giopara, one of Piltover’s most respected ruling clans. Utterly unsurprised, Jayce took the offer, and spent most of his early years constructing potential hextech devices and designing transformable multi-tools for Piltover’s working class: a wrench that transformed into a prybar, a pickaxe that could morph into a shovel, a hammer that could turn into a demolition beam, if only it had a sufficiently powerful battery. Everything Jayce touched put his contemporaries to shame.
Most things came easy to Jayce, and he could never understand why his peers had so much trouble with what, to him, were simple concepts. As a result, nearly everyone who worked alongside Jayce found him arrogant, dismissive, and unwilling to slow his pace to help his colleagues catch up. As time went on, his patience became shorter, while at the same time, a chasm grew between decorum, charm, and Jayce’s natural demeanor.
Only one person ever managed to match Jayce’s intelligence while also maintaining a healthy indifference to his superior attitude.
His name was Viktor.
The two met at a mandatory Progress Day party, and immediately bonded over how little either of them wanted to be there. They started working together shortly after. Viktor expanded Jayce’s intellectual horizons and challenged many of his assumptions. While Jayce sought to improve humanity via versatile technology, Viktor sought to solve problems inherent to humanity itself, such as physical decay or illogical prejudices. They constantly argued with one another, but their conflicts never got personal – though their methods were different, the two colleagues knew their ultimate goals were very much the same. More than that, they both knew what it was like to be ostracized by their colleagues: Viktor because of his unconventional thinking, Jayce because of his rudeness.
Together, Jayce and Viktor invented a mechanized construction suit for Piltover’s dockworkers – something hearty enough to enhance the wearer’s strength, but light enough that its wearer wouldn’t immediately drown upon falling overboard. However, the two reached an impasse when Viktor’s design for the next version of the suit included a chemtech implant that would increase the wearer’s strength output by tenfold, while also preventing them from getting tired, panicking, or disobeying instructions from their superiors. While Viktor considered this feature a brilliant means of reducing the frequency of construction accidents, Jayce found its indifference toward free will immoral. The two nearly came to blows over the design and ultimately, after Jayce warned the academy of Viktor’s invention, Viktor was stripped of his honors and ostracized from Piltover’s scientific community.
Viktor was the closest thing Jayce had ever really had to a friend, and distraught over their falling-out, went back to working on his own. He grew more insular. His patience toward others grew even thinner.
As Jayce studied in solitude, Clan Giopara’s explorers discovered a raw, blue crystal deep within the Shuriman desert. Though Jayce volunteered to experiment on it (specifically by suggesting the clan’s other scholars wouldn’t be smart enough to get anything out of it), his lack of tact in doing so prompted Clan Giopara to give it to their better-mannered scholars as a form of punishment. Yet, after many months, the scholars reached a unanimous conclusion: the crystal was worthless. A power-drained hunk of rock. The disappointed clan leaders finally handed the crystal over to Jayce, assuming that even he, with his remarkable intelligence, wouldn’t be able to learn anything from it.
Something inside the crystal called to Jayce. No, more than that – it sang to him. He couldn’t explain why, but he knew the Shuriman gem still held mysteries yet to be discovered.
He spent many months running every variety of test on the crystal. He braced it into a cogwheel centrifuge; he superheated it and deep-froze it; he tinkered, and observed, and hypothesized, and beat his head against his copper pantograph. Quite simply, Jayce wasn’t used to working hard: this damned crystal was the first thing that had ever resisted his considerable mental aptitude. For the first time, he realized how his peers must have felt, trying so hard to solve a problem, only to bump against your own limitations. It felt frustrating. It felt unfair.
And it probably felt much, much worse if you were working alongside an arrogant inventor who dismissed your every effort.
Jayce realized that despite how dismissive he’d been toward his fellow scholars, none of them ever gave up. None of them ever stopped seeking the very things that defined Piltover: Progress. Discovery. If they wouldn’t give up, Jayce decided, he wouldn’t either.
And maybe he’d try to be nicer.
Maybe.
Jayce approached the problem from a completely different angle. Rather than trying to experiment on the crystal as a whole, he wondered, why not run more invasive experiments on a smaller shard? Jayce chiseled off a piece of the crystal and suspended it in a liquid alloy. As he sent a voltaic current through the liquid metal, Jayce’s eardrums nearly shattered from the booming baritone note that blasted from the shard. Heat radiated from the crystal and, with a flash, it glowed bright enough to nearly blind him. This was unexpected. This was potentially dangerous. But this was progress. Jayce couldn’t erase the smile from his face as he worked well through the night, into the dawn.
The next day, Jayce was surprised to find his old friend Viktor on his doorstep. Alerted by the massive power spike from the crystal shard, Viktor had a simple proposition.
Since his expulsion from the Piltovan scientific community, Viktor had commenced work on a secret project in Zaun. He’d finally learned how to achieve his dream – how to eradicate disease, hunger, hatred. If Jayce joined him, the two would accomplish more than anyone from Piltover or Zaun could have dreamed of: they’d save humanity from itself.
Jayce had heard a monologue like this before from Viktor. He never liked where it led.
Viktor told Jayce that he only needed one thing for his Glorious Evolution – a power source like Jayce’s crystal. Jayce disagreed, informing Viktor that what he truly needed was a moral compass. Viktor, who had long grown tired of Jayce’s rudeness, leapt upon him, grabbed the crystal and knocked Jayce unconscious with it. When Jayce awoke hours later, he noticed that though the Shuriman crystal was gone Viktor hadn’t seemed to notice or care about the smaller shard.
Jayce knew whatever Viktor was planning, he would only resort to these measures if he were close to completion. Even though he didn’t know what Viktor’s Glorious Evolution consisted of, it probably didn’t have a lot of respect for the free will of others. Without wasting a second, Jayce retrieved the suspended shard and installed it into a massive, transforming hammer – a demolitions invention he’d abandoned years ago for lack of a strong enough battery to power it. Though he had no idea where Viktor might have taken the crystal, he could feel the hextech hammer vibrate, pulling him not north, south, east or west, but down, toward the undercity of Zaun.
The shard, eager to be reunited with the crystal from which it was chiseled, eventually led Jayce to a warehouse in the depths of the sump. Within the cavernous building, Jayce found something horrifying. Dozens of corpses, their skulls sawed open and hollowed out, their brains transplanted into an army of immobile metal soldiers, hooked up to the now-pulsing crystal.
This was the first step in Viktor’s Glorious Evolution.
Jayce’s stride grew less confident as he approached Viktor. He and Viktor had not always seen eye to eye, but this was something else entirely. For the first time, it occurred to Jayce that he might have to kill his old friend.
He called out to Viktor, flinching as the army of robots stood to attention. Jayce asked him to look around – to see what he was doing. Whatever this was – this Evolution – wasn’t the progress they fought for in their youths. He even, to Viktor’s surprise, apologized for acting like such a jerk.
Viktor sighed. He had only two words in response: “Kill him.”
The automatons sprinted toward Jayce, breaking free of the wires connecting them to the crystal and introducing Jayce to another new emotion: panic. He gripped the hammer tight, realizing he’d never actually used it before. When the first golem was within reach, he swung as hard as he could, feeling the shard’s energy surge through his muscles, accelerating the hammer’s movement until Jayce was worried it might fly out of his hands.
It slammed into the automaton, all but exploding it into a hail of metal. Despite the obliteration of their comrade, the other machines didn’t even pause as they rushed at Jayce, trying to pummel him into unconsciousness.
Jayce analyzed the formation of the mechanical wave coming at him and attempted to quickly calculate how to take out the largest number of them with the fewest amount of swings. It was pointless; they were on him before he could swing even once. As he fell to the ground under a storm of their blows, Jayce saw Viktor looking on, not with triumph, but with sadness. He’d outsmarted Jayce and ensured humanity’s future, but he knew that future came at a cost: he couldn’t let his old friend live. Jayce vanished under a sea of swinging metal limbs.
That’s when Jayce, for the first time in his life, decided to stop thinking and just break stuff.
No longer caring for his own safety, Jayce used every last bit of strength he had to break free from Viktor’s automatons. He sprinted to the glowing crystal, and struck it with all of the hextech-enhanced force his hammer could muster, crushing the mystical object.
Viktor cried out in horror as the crystal shattered to fragments, the shockwave blasting them all backward as the army of automatons collapsed lifelessly to the floor. The very foundations of the warehouse shook, and Jayce barely managed to escape before the entire building toppled.
Viktor’s body was never found.
Upon his return to Piltover, Jayce informed his clan masters of Viktor’s nefarious plans. Soon, Jayce found himself a topic of discussion in both Zaun and Piltover alike. Hailed for his quick thinking in a time of crisis, Jayce became a beloved figure (at least, amongst those who hadn’t met him), earning himself a nickname: the Defender of Tomorrow.
Jayce cared little for the adoration of his fellow Piltovans, but took the nickname to heart. He knew that Viktor was still out there, plotting his revenge. One day – maybe someday soon – an awful lot of trouble was headed for Piltover.
And Jayce would be waiting. | Fighter |
One can travel to nearly any village across Ionia and hear the tale of the Capture of the Golden Demon. Depicted in a variety of plays and epic poems, the cruel spirit’s banishment is still celebrated to this day.
But at the heart of every myth there lies a kernel of truth, and the truth of the Golden Demon is one far different than the fiction.
For years, Ionia’s southern mountains were plagued by the infamous creature. Throughout the province of Zhyun, and even as far as Shon-Xan and Galrin, a monster slaughtered scores of travelers and sometimes whole farmsteads, leaving behind twisted displays of corpses. Armed militias searched the forests, towns hired demon hunters, Wuju masters patrolled the roads—but nothing slowed the beast’s grisly work.
In desperation, the Council of Zhyun sent an envoy to beg Great Master Kusho of the Kinkou Order for help. Charged with maintaining the balance between the spirit and material realms, Kusho was adept in the banishment of demons. Leaving in secret lest the cunning creature be alerted to their intent, Kusho, his teenage son, Shen, and young apprentice, Zed, traveled to the province. They tended to countless families shattered by the killings, dissected the horrific crime scenes, and looked for connections between the murders. Soon, Kusho realized they were far from the first to hunt this killer, and his conviction grew that this was the work of something beyond the demonic.
For the next four years, the Golden Demon remained beyond their reach, and the long investigation left the three men changed. The famous red mane of Kusho turned white; Shen, known for his wit and humor, became somber; and Zed, the brightest star of Kusho’s temple, began to struggle with his studies. It was almost as though the demon knew they were seeking it, and delighted in the torment sown by their failure.
Upon finally finding a pattern to the killings, the Great Master is quoted as saying: “Good and evil are not truths. They are born from men, and each sees the shades differently.” Kusho sought to hand off the investigation, believing now that they sought not a demon, but a wicked human or vastaya, taking them beyond the Kinkou’s mandate. Shen and Zed, unwilling to turn back after all they had sacrificed to bring the killer within reach, convinced him to continue the hunt.
On the eve of the Spirit Blossom Festival in Jyom Pass, Kusho disguised himself as a renowned calligrapher to blend in with the other guest artists. Then he waited. Shen and Zed laid a carefully prepared trap, and at long last, they found themselves face to face with their hated quarry. Kusho was proven right—the famed “Golden Demon” was a mere stagehand in Zhyun’s traveling theaters and opera houses, working under the name Khada Jhin.
After they caught Jhin, young Zed made to kill the cowering man, but Kusho held him back. He reminded his students that they had already broken their remit, and that killing Jhin would only worsen matters. Kusho worried that knowledge of Jhin’s humanity would undermine the harmony and trust that defined Ionian culture, or could even encourage others to commit similar crimes. Despite Jhin’s actions, the legendary master decided the killer should be taken alive and locked away within the monastery prison at Tuula.
Shen disagreed, but submitted to the emotionless logic of his father’s judgment. Zed, disturbed and haunted by the horrors he had witnessed, was unable to understand or accept this mercy, and it is said a resentment began to bloom in his heart.
Imprisoned in Tuula, Jhin kept his secrets, revealing little of himself as many years went by. The monks guarding him noted he was a bright student who excelled in many subjects, including smithing, poetry, and dance. Regardless, they could find nothing to cure him of his morbid fascinations. Meanwhile, outside the monastery’s walls, Ionia fell into turmoil as the Noxian empire invaded, and war awoke the tranquil nation’s appetite for bloodshed.
Jhin was freed from Tuula sometime after the war with Noxus, possibly put to use by one of the many radical elements vying for power of the First Lands near the conflict’s end. He now has access to the Kashuri armories’ new weapons, though how he came to possess such implements of destruction, and what connection he has to Kashuri, is still a mystery.
Whoever his shadowy patrons might be, they have endowed Jhin with nearly unlimited funds, and seem unconcerned by the growing scale of his “performances”. Recently, he attacked members of Zed’s Yanlei order, and mass murders and assassinations bearing his signature “flair” have occurred not only across Ionia’s many regions, but also in distant Piltover and Zaun.
It seems that all of Runeterra might be but a canvas for the atrocity that is Khada Jhin’s art, and only he knows where the next brushstroke will fall. | Marksman |
K’Sante grew up immersed in his homeland’s history. At dinner, his father told tales of their ancestors who used bravery and strength to resist the tyranny of the Ascended. His mother recounted the fearsome beasts these Nazuman founders slayed as they traversed south through Shurima, eventually discovering an area rich in the rarest of desert treasures—roaring waterfalls, forested cliffs, and plentiful fauna. Far from the reach of the prideful Ascended, this was where the free republic of Nazumah laid its roots. K’Sante absorbed every word, vowing to become Nazumah’s greatest warrior-hunter—one who could live up to the heroes from these stories and lead his people for generations to come.
For two decades, K’Sante trained under various martial teachers. However, it was his parents who taught him to respect Nazumah’s enemies—ruthless predators and imperialist warlords who coveted the city-state’s resources. Remaining a free republic would require more than brute strength, they reminded him. During his training, K’Sante studied with Nazuman scholars, learning how the materials reaped from formidable marks were used to craft advanced weaponry and infrastructure that enabled their homeland to thrive for five centuries.
On his early hunts, K’Sante forged many friendships, but his closest was with a young man from Marrowmark named Tope. Where K’Sante was a blazing force in close combat, Tope specialized in ranged assault. Their chemistry was unmatched as they bested rockbear herds, shakkal raiding parties, and even Xer’Sai stampedes. And as their teamwork grew stronger, so too did their bond.
One starlit evening, K’Sante confessed to Tope, admitting his feelings went beyond camaraderie. When he learned that Tope felt the same way, the two lovingly embraced and shared their first kiss. Together, in that moment under the stars, all seemed right.
But all was not.
Two Ascended, Emperor Azir and Magus Xerath, ravaged the continent in a war for dominance over Shurima, both deploying monstrous abominations among their forces. Nazuman scouts soon sighted one such creature—a colossal predator shaped like a lion and a cobra that had wandered astray and was now terrorizing the nearby savanna. When the city-state’s leaders asked who could quell the beast, K’Sante and Tope pledged their might.
On their first attempt, the beast deflected their every attack with powers neither man had seen before. They discovered that its armor, stretching from head to tail, regenerated from nonlethal blows. The men failed to draw blood and were forced to flee from the cobra-lion’s lair with empty hands, leaving it to run wild.
And so they tried again and again.
K’Sante’s frustration burned. To become Nazumah’s greatest, he had to slay this beast. Nothing else mattered. He trained dawn to dusk, convinced Tope would understand.
Tope, meanwhile, studied the beast. He presented K’Sante with strategies, watching his partner nod along in between assaults on their countless practice dummies. Quietly, Tope questioned if the two of them were strong enough.
Their biggest success was an encounter where they managed to claim a piece of the cobra-lion’s armor. Tope hailed this as progress and thought that if they sought more help, they could make even more headway.
But K’Sante seethed. He’d begun to see the cobra-lion as his undertaking alone, and anything short of slaying the beast was a failure. The heroes he idolized when growing up never failed in battle. So K’Sante couldn’t either, especially not by accepting more support in what had become his battle to prove himself. He’d tried Tope’s ideas—which weren’t working—and, now, Tope believed they weren’t strong enough? K’Sante wouldn’t accept it. He began to wonder if Tope was holding him back and soon dismissed Tope’s strategies as futile.
Hurt, Tope insisted that tactless training was no better—K'Sante's once admirable determination had turned into a self-serving, single-minded drive.
As their pain and anger flared, further encounters with the cobra-lion resulted in further infighting, and the words they exchanged became fewer and fewer until there were none at all. Finally, it seemed the only thing they could agree on was to go their separate ways.
Over the next year, K’Sante kept training, stubborn and alone. His progress was measurable, but progress wasn’t victory. He eventually had the crushing realization that strength alone could not fell the creature. He needed help.
K’Sante gathered the courage to visit Tope’s home, only to learn his former partner had returned to Marrowmark. He was instead greeted by Tope’s aunt. On K’Sante’s way out, she handed him Tope’s journal, explaining that her nephew had left it to assist K’Sante in his fight against his greatest monster.
K’Sante poured over Tope’s journal. Gradually, he noticed the patterns in their mistakes, and when he arrived at the cobra-lion notes, K’Sante was stunned. Tope claimed that the beast was a Baccai—a failed Ascended being. He theorized that Xerath, known for his vile misuse of magic, had forced Shuriman fauna to fuse via the Ascension ritual. Engrossed, K’Sante read the journal from front to back, discovering Tope’s theories about how to slay the Baccai—so many ideas K’Sante had never considered himself. And by that evening, he’d formulated a plan to practice Tope’s methods on lesser monsters.
As his skills grew, K’Sante recalled his parents’ teachings, realizing pride had led him astray. He’d never respected Tope’s ideas enough to try them in earnest. Truthfully, K’Sante had respected his foe more than his partner. In time, he accepted his shortcomings and steadily moved on, thankful for what they had shared, but also grateful to walk his own path with a newfound perspective.
Beneath a scarlet sky, K’Sante approached the cobra-lion once more. He calculated every maneuver, dodging when the beast struck, and striking when the beast slipped. Sunrise became sundown. His weapons were shattered, and his body bloodied, but his spirit was unyielding. When the creature tired at long last, K’Sante found his opportunity—inspired by Tope’s theories—and cornered his foe against a Nazuman waterfall where the natural waters weakened the cobra-lion’s armor, allowing K’Sante to finally land a fatal blow.
Exhausted, K’Sante stood tall—proud not of what he had accomplished, but of the journey he had taken.
K’Sante was celebrated by Nazumah upon his return. Following tradition, he donated the creature’s body to the scholars for study, keeping only a couple slabs of its armor to refine the design of his signature ntofo weapons. They were now engineered to retain the armor’s regenerative properties so that when their heavy outer layer shattered, K’Sante could still wield them as sharp blades until they reformed. For a finishing detail, he carved onto each ntofo something Tope had drawn within his journal—a symbol representing the cobra-lion. Though their time together had ended, K’Sante knew his success was not achieved alone.
Today, K’Sante is hailed as the Pride of Nazumah. But if he is ever to become its greatest leader, he’s learned he must never again let ego cloud his judgment. His home’s future—with the Ascended threat looming—is uncertain. But K’Sante knows that should Azir or Xerath dare march southward, he stands ready to fight. | Tank |
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the fearless hunter of the Void known as Kai’Sa is how unremarkably her life began. She did not descend from tribal warriors hardened by generations of battle, nor was she summoned from distant lands to fight the unknowable menace lurking beneath Shurima. Rather, she was just an ordinary girl, born to loving parents who called the unforgiving southern deserts their home. This was where she would spend her days playing with friends, and her nights dreaming about her place in the world.
In her tenth summer, the young girl Kaisa’s destiny would be changed forever. Had she been older, she might have noticed more of the unusual events that had begun to unfold in the villages—every day, her mother urged her stay home, for fear of strangers wandering the land, demanding tribute to dark powers below. Kaisa and her friends did not believe it, until one evening they came upon a pen of sacrificial goats bought from nomad herdsmen. Using the knife her father had given her on her eighth birthday, she cut their tethers and set the animals free into a nearby canyon. It seemed like a harmless prank, until the unthinkable happened. The ground began to quake, flashes of light scorched the sky, and the children ran for their lives.
The Void had been awakened. A great rift split the bedrock, swallowing up Kaisa’s village and everyone in it, leaving nothing behind but sand pierced with twisted columns as black as night.
Kaisa regained consciousness to find herself trapped underground. She was filled with crippling fear, but there was still hope; she could hear the faint cries of other survivors. They called out to each other feebly, repeating their names one by one like a mantra. Sadly, by the third day, hers was the only voice left. Her friends and family were all gone. She was alone in the darkness.
It was only when all seemed lost that she saw the light.
She followed it down.
Along the way, she found meager sustenance. Amid the debris left by the collapse were ragged waterskins, rotting peaches—anything to keep starvation at bay. But, eventually, Kaisa’s hunger was replaced by fear once again. She found herself in a vast cavern, illuminated by an otherworldly purplish glow, and she could see she was no longer alone.
Skittering creatures swarmed in the depths. The first that came for Kaisa was no bigger than her, and she clutched her knife in both hands, ready to defend herself. The voidling horror knocked her to the ground, but she drove the blade into its pulsing heart, and the two of them tumbled deeper into the abyss.
The creature was seemingly dead, but its unnatural skin had taken hold upon the flesh of her arm. The dark shell tingled, but was hard as steel to the touch. In a panic, Kaisa broke her knife trying to remove it. But when the larger beasts came, she used it as a shield to make her escape.
Soon enough, she realized the shell was becoming part of her. As her daily struggle to survive drew out into years, this second skin grew with her, and so too did her resolve.
Now she had more than hope, she had a plan. Fight hard. Stay alive. Find a way back.
She was transformed, from frightened girl to fearless survivor, from prey to predator. For almost a decade, she has lived between two worlds in an attempt to keep them apart—the Void hungers to consume not only the scattered villages of Shurima, but the whole of Runeterra. She will not allow that to happen.
Though she has slain countless Void-constructs, she understands that many of the people she protects would see her as a monster herself. Indeed, her name has begun to pass into legend, an echo of the ancient horrors of doomed Icathia.
No longer Kaisa… but Kai’Sa. | Marksman |
Karma is the living embodiment of an ancient Ionian soul, who serves as a spiritual beacon to each generation of her people. Her most recent incarnation came in the form of a 12-year-old girl named Darha. Raised in the northern highlands of Shon-Xan, she was headstrong and independent, always dreaming of a life beyond her provincial village.
But Darha began to suffer strange, fitful visions. The images were curious—they felt like memories, yet the girl was certain they had not happened to her. At first, the problem was easy enough to conceal, but the visions grew in intensity until Darha was convinced she was descending into madness.
Just when it seemed she would be confined to the healing huts forever, a group of monks visited her village. They had come from a place known as the Lasting Altar, where the divine leader Karma had passed away some months earlier. The monks were in search of the old man’s next incarnation, believing him to be among the villagers. They applied a series of tests to everyone they met, but eventually prepared to leave empty handed.
As they passed the healing huts, Darha threw herself out of her cot and ran to stop them. She wept, telling them of her visions, and that she had known the monks’ voices from the babble in her head.
They recognized the signs immediately. This was their Karma. The visions were past lives rushing to fill a new vessel.
In that moment, Darha’s life changed forever. She bid farewell to all she’d ever known, and journeyed to the Lasting Altar to learn from the monks. Over the years, they taught her to connect with her ancient soul, and to commune with thousands of previous incarnations, each espousing the wisdom of ages past. Karma had always advocated peace and harmony, teaching that any act of evil would bring about its own repercussions, and so required no response.
But Darha questioned these principles, even as she became Karma. Some of her followers were confused. How could she be invested with the Spirit of Ionia, the First Lands’ most sacred manifestation, and yet disagree with their most self-evident philosophies?
Indeed, these beliefs were truly tested when Noxus invaded Ionia. Many thousands were killed as the enemy warbands advanced inland, and Karma was forced to face the harsh realities of war. She could feel the immense destructive potential that swelled in her soul, and wondered what the point of this power could be, if it was not to be used.
The voices of the past urged her to remain at the Lasting Altar, to comfort her people and allow this conflict to pass. And yet, a far deeper truth compelled her to act...
Karma agonized over this, until she could stand it no longer. She confronted a Noxian commander on the deck of his own war frigate, and unleashed her divine fury. This was no single, measured attack—she obliterated the entire vessel and its crew in a heartbeat.
Though many Ionians rejoiced at this apparent victory, the monks believed she had made a huge mistake. She had upset the spiritual harmony of their homeland, disgracing all who had borne the name of Karma before her, and tarnished her own undying soul along with those of her followers. Even if it meant a life of solitary meditation and penance, they implored her to do no further injury.
Karma silenced them with a raised hand. Though she could still hear the voices in her head, it was the Spirit of Ionia in her heart that guided her… and the First Lands were stirring to defend themselves. She did not know if she had been chosen for her courage and strength of will, but Karma knew that sometimes harmony came only at a great cost. Their world was changing, and true wisdom lay not in resisting that fact, but accepting it.
Though the war with Noxus is now long over, there are still many in Ionia who have become only too glad to meet violence with violence, even against their own neighbors. Karma has pledged to guide as many of them as she can to a more enlightened path—to peace when possible, to action when necessary. | Mage |
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