The 12 Days of Karthus - Day 2: The History
Hello again Yall, D2Vincent here for the second day of the 12 days of Karthus, a 12-day celebration all about the one and only Deathsinger of the Rift! Today's post is going to be all about the history of his character, and his gameplay as well.
Let's start when he was originally released shall we? On June 12th, 2009 Riot Games released Karthus upon the world, and his first bit of lore didn't start him in the Shadow isles, but a dark, dank place known as the Howling Marsh.
The vast quantities of physical magic that were consumed and destroyed during Valoran's numerous Rune Wars have scarred much of Valoran. Many locations far from civilization have been morphed into hazardous and dangerous locales.
The Howling Marsh is one of these places, and the self-appointed overlord of this land is the lich known as Karthus. It is thought that Karthus was a mage who, in life, was foolish enough to enter the fetid waters seeking his fortune, and that he was forever transformed by whatever dark magic permeates the swamp.
Karthus now rules over his swampy dominion with an iron (albeit skeletal) fist. Visitors are not welcome, and those who are not scared away by the lich's terrible power most likely end up as one of the undead themselves... skeletons and zombies in Karthus' growing army of eternal servants. On the darkest of nights, Karthus is said to sing the tales of those who have succumbed to the swamp, past and present.
Karthus' tenure in the League of Legends is one of the more unusual ones in the history of the League. First, it is highly unusual that a lich who was known for isolation and hatred of life would even be a willing part of an organization which promoted the preservation of life. Next, Karthus specifically eschews the accrual of power and influence gained through service to the League; he is essentially an unpaid volunteer.
This behavior is completely different than what his life outside of the League would have onlookers believe. Karthus has never spoken about his intentions in being a champion of the League, and in fact becomes quite agitated when asked about it. In the interests of not aggravating a lich, most sensible people subsequently drop the issue.
I've always found this lore to be quite weird, but considering this was before the entire story of League was Retconned, It's not too bad. The Icing on the cake however, was how he LOOKED:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZSqdlnGq8rA/hqdefault.jpg
and Here Karthus is in all his skeletal spoopy glory!
The problem however, was that his old splash caused problems over in China where skeleton imagery was considered Taboo and such. Which is why they had to censor his face and bones
http://www.contegrator.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Karthus-Classic.jpg
This was also the same for his other skins.
Now at release, he also had a few things that are totally different than he is now including:
- At very first, Karthus was able to ult while DEAD (not in passive either)
- Karthus's W's slow was 80% at all ranks
- Toggling E on costed twice as much mana
- Ult could be cleansed
- Passive was originally 10 seconds
- Karthus could out-range Baron
- Karthus's abilities costed mana in Passive
- at one point, Karthus got a 20% Death timer reduction due to his Passive (was removed a patch later)
After all these changes, bug-fixes, and all that. In came Patch 4.9, which updated Karthus to the lich he is today! At some point his lore was changed as well to bring him into the realm of the Shadow Isles.
I believe this concludes todays episode of the 12 days of Karthus. Tomorrow We're gonna have some fun as we look at the many skin concepts that many other people (myself included) have come up for Karthus :D