9.4: Lore Notes

Riot·Feb 19, 2019·3 votes·32,974 views

Sejuani and Udyr: Silence for the Damned, by Odin Austin Shafer

Sejuani, Udyr, Freljord

“Udyr had no desire for that unhappy reunion either. Sejuani’s face transformed, softening before she gave a cunning smile. “No,” she grinned. “That’s exactly why I need you with me, old friend.”

Kayle: Updated Bio

Kayle, Morgana, Demacia, Mount Targon

“In times of strife and chaos, there are many who cling to the hope that Kayle might eventually return… and others who pray that such a day will never come.”

Updates to Kayle’s bio align her closer to the events of her birth, as well as better intertwine the relationship between her and her sister, Morgana. Kayle would eventually become an ardent protector of justice in Demacia, and, through that, would fracture her relationship with her sister. Though she has now been absent from Demacia for centuries, icons and statues of her still inspire much of Demacia’s culture and law.

Morgana: Updated Bio

Morgana, Kayle, Demacia, Mount Targon

“As magic begins to rise again, Morgana sees that dawn is nearly upon them.”

With Morgana’s new bio, we have focused her backstory on the consequences of the gifts she and her sister would receive from their mother, which would lead to their troubled relationship. The death of Morgana’s father would cement a deep fracture between the two sisters, and Morgana now bides her time in the shadows of Demacia, waiting for her sister’s return.

136 Comments

StexeFeb 19, 201954 votes

I'm still so confused over the art direction change with Kayle and Morgana.

Kayle went from armored champion (like Samus) to female formfitting stereotypical sexy angel.

And Mogana went from Fallen Angel / Succubus to "ass wings" or something.

Such a weird direction aesthetically.

DArkaisFeb 19, 201917 votes

Kayle is still an Armored Champion? lol And Morg has always been a Sexy Angel lol

StexeFeb 19, 201910 votes

Kayle was heavily armored before. It was difficult to determine her gender, just like Samus. Now, she is in a form fitting sexy armor.

The Fear BonersFeb 19, 201911 votes

Kayle has multiple skins that reveal her face or at least her long hair, and all of her skins and base art have very obvious boobs built into the armor so not sure how that would be "difficult to determine her gender"

JuiciferFeb 20, 20192 votes

NOW she has multiple skins revealing what she is, but if you didnt follow lore long ago and saw "unmasked kayle" in the store you were like "WOW KAYLE IS A GIRL".

voidhunterrrFeb 19, 20197 votes

You keep making this stupid Samus comparison, but you do know zero suit Samus exists right???

JuiciferFeb 20, 20192 votes

Kayle always came off to me as a angel knight.. knights wear armor and deal dmg so why did they change that?

no homo broFeb 19, 201921 votes

If you look at the art, most of the armoured splashes are old, but the newer ones look like the updated splashes (for Kayle). And Morgana is still a fallen angel. Sex sells and Riot has done a good job with champs like Sylas (in terms of trying to equalize) so them going this route is not weird.

playonwardzFeb 20, 20194 votes

The problem with only showing sexy waman isn't that they don't show enough sexy men. It's just not enough variety/ representation.

Commander SkyFeb 20, 20194 votes

As it was stated "sex sells" and it does sell. Riot is selling to the majority fan and player base which in leagues case is mostly male. Even still I've played with quite a few female league players that play "sexy" looking champs not for the kit but just for the look.

Worst Kayle NAFeb 20, 20192 votes

I just feel lied to, personally. Question on reddit: "Will kayle show more skin like Akali?"

Answer from RiotAugust: "Umm... Definitely not... Kayle is an Armored Warrior.... At least not in her base skin -- Because Kayle actually has a lot of skins that aren't armored like PentaKayle"

I wouldn't call a spandex unitard, thigh high boots, bracers and a form-fitting near skin tight breastplate "Armored", but that's just me

Smite SingedFeb 20, 20194 votes

You replied to a comment literally discussing shirtless Sylas, then we have Taric, Braum, Ezreal, Ekko, Jayce, Swain, Lee Sin, and Rakan. I'm sure there are people out there who have a thing for Gragas, but those are the same type of people who have the hots for Shyvanna or Lissandra

AdsolutionFeb 20, 20195 votes

Gragas is explicitly fat and ugly though. Lissandra and Shyvanna are still identically proportioned to almost literally every other human female champ in the game.

AdsolutionFeb 20, 20192 votes

My favourite example is visible age: is there a single female champ that clearly looks over 25, aside from Illaoi? And yet we have Zilean, Ryze, Singed, and so on. Sure, Camille is technically old, but she's augmented herself to retain youthful looks for no real reason other than for an old female character to somehow still be sexy. Almost every single female champ has 100% identical body and especially facial structure to the next. Most of them basically look like essentially the same model in different getups.

Even Darius and Draven have distinctly different facial structure despite being brothers. Jayce has completely different facial structure too. So does Lee Sin. So does Gragas, so does Yorick, so does Taric. And then you look at the non-human characters.

Even the non-human female characters like Shyvanna and Lissandra are basically just the same skinnytits model, again, in costumes.

KaelidanFeb 19, 201931 votes

I agree with you on selling out with this art style. She lost most of her armor and they reduced her wings.... Animals with wings have each of their wings the size of their entire body. Aesthetically it looks weird now.

MiasmaDanceFeb 19, 201933 votes

I can't speak for the armor but I know the reason for the wings is so they can make the rest of her body proportional again. Old Kayle had a really small body compared to other champions because otherwise her wings would have been TOO big and dominate the map. So that's probably why they went the seraph route.

Camille FerrðsFeb 19, 201915 votes

Also, she's going to get six wings, and they all have to fit on her body.

Hotspot HotshotFeb 19, 20198 votes

THEN WHAT ARE BEES HMM?

sharkratFeb 20, 201914 votes

A being that physically should not fly but does somehow

ForgottenLuckFeb 19, 201922 votes

in all honestly, Morganna really didn't change that much, she kinda always was meant to be a kind of always the "Sexy fallen angel" the only thing RIOT really did was make Kayle fit more in lines with her sister a bit

chainekFeb 19, 20197 votes

They're based off Seraphs, hence wing placement. Gotta fit six of em somewhere. Also they literally gave morg MORE clothes on the base skin (while this isn't the only parameter for over sexualized, it definitely helps!)

StexeFeb 19, 20193 votes

Last time I checked Seraphs don't have wings coming out from above their ass.

StrongholdeFeb 19, 20197 votes

if you want to poke holes, Seraphs tend to cover their face with wings as well. I dont mind the multi winged approach, and if the goal was to bring Kayle back up to proportional size then having smaller wings is a tiny price to pay as you can still tell they are there

Vali OdynsonFeb 19, 20193 votes

They both had 6 wings kayle has the lower set aswell but morgs middle wings are missing due to her fall presumably

FlameHalbrdOkidoFeb 20, 20196 votes

They reduced Kayle's armor because she isn't a tank. Her VU brings her up to current visual standards. She's a damage dealer thus less armor to sell that purpose, she was nvr about the armor anyways she was about dealing damage. It cool and that's the look she shipped with but that much armor is visually misleading. Also people should probably stop relating Kayle to Samus as her boob shaped chest plate gave away her gender. Honestly she hasn't really been sexualized THAT much, maybe a little, but the focus is more on her power angel themes hence the 4-6 glowing wings and light armor, and I think the 6 wings makes her not stereotypical. Morg is missing her main wings since she lost them when she became "grounded" hence giving the appearance that her main wings are on her butt

HigeFeb 20, 20199 votes

please tell me when did anyone see kayle and thought she was a tank? like I understand the argument but she never looked tanky to anyone

FlameHalbrdOkidoFeb 20, 20193 votes

{quoted}

please tell me when did anyone see kayle and thought she was a tank? like I understand the argument but she never looked tanky to anyone

It's more of a principle thing, for gameplay, lots of heavy armor is what tanks wear. WE don't think she looks tanky cause we kno she's not a tank, but to new comers she does, I've asked a few peeps who didn't play the game.

HigeFeb 20, 20196 votes

I have played this game since beta and at NO point during any of her iterations I could have thought she was a tank, design flexibility is far more important than visual readability, specially if you have hit a great spot as in kayle where heavy armor didn't hint for her being a tank in the slightest mostly because of how slender her figure was If what you say rings true then Leona needs to wear a TON more armor because the only thing about her design that screams: IM A TANK is her shield

Lintu PuckFeb 20, 201915 votes

because if a character looks burly or heavily armored that gives the visual cue of the character being tanky. Kayle is not a tank, she is DPS, so instead of being Samus with pair of big ol wings, we instead have Zero Suit Samus with 6 smaller wings.

as for Morgana her wings are bound, and due to this we don't really see her mid-wings, thus leaving the hip wings the most prominent visual pair on her model.

StexeFeb 20, 20196 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lintu Puck,realm=NA,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=O1QfF7qw,comment-id=00020009,timestamp=2019-02-20T00:14:13.415+0000)

because if a character looks burly or heavily armored that gives the visual cue of the character being tanky. Kayle is not a tank, she is DPS, so instead of being Samus with pair of big ol wings, we instead have Zero Suit Samus with 6 smaller wings.

as for Morgana her wings are bound, and due to this we don't really see her mid-wings, thus leaving the hip wings the most prominent visual pair on her model.

True. That is the best justification I've heard so far. But I don't think it needs to be THAT form fitting.

GalacticPainFeb 20, 20192 votes

I mean, Morgana literally turned into Albedo from Overlord

NixtarmaFeb 19, 201911 votes

This feels like a sensible way to tie them in to the game world. Demacia still has very little redeeming features, though.

FutanariloverFeb 19, 20199 votes

wait, kalye and morgana are no longer from a race of angels from another world? That's what sold me on kayle when I first thought to pick her up.

Heki GazouFeb 19, 20199 votes

That background is a relic at this point. Originally the idea was that many of the characters in the game were summoned from other worlds in order to fight on behalf of various factions within the League. Nowadays, that idea has been almost, if not fully, abandoned as the world has become more fleshed out and unified.

RiotRiot AshekandiFeb 19, 201917 votes

I personally think the narrative we are positioning with this update makes them more compelling, and gives them a bigger sense of purpose in regard to their "origins" and their animosity towards each other, but I do recognize it's a bit different from the original!

This update, in addition to other recent updates, hopefully will give you a better picture of the culture of the people of Demacia.

FutanariloverFeb 19, 20193 votes

but is kayle an angel or a human that ascended to a celestial being?

Merciless BeautyFeb 20, 20193 votes

Have Riot ever considered using Kayle and Morgana in a Versus event, where Morgana is the good one and Kayle is the bad one? I think it would be an interesting thing to have a skin for Morgana that is more angelic and one for Kayle that gives her some grit...

LeagueOfFeed365Feb 19, 20197 votes

How about just a little love for Fiddlesticks for once simple buff hasnt got touched in forever!!

Agent CorgiFeb 19, 20199 votes

I just want Middlesticks to be a thing again, miss playing him at mid. :( [cass-cry]

ZenophobiaFeb 19, 20191 votes

It still is a thing lol. Especially nowadays with the serious reduction of vision and wards in the game.

Holy BondzFeb 19, 20192 votes

Lol what? Wards are at an all time high, now that we get them free. If you're a junlger, just assume the brush is always warded.

StrongholdeFeb 19, 20194 votes

I seem to remember Riot taking away vision smite, reducing trinket totem duration, reducing the number of scuttle crab spawns, and reducing the total number of pinks you can carry each back, all in the last year. compare today to 8yrs ago then yes, there are more but compare now to 3 years ago and you are mistaken since we have had counter-vision buffed over time

Holy BondzFeb 19, 20197 votes

Please let kayle keep the ability to ignore Yasuo's windwall with her range. We need more counter picks against the all mighty windwall.

DMcKluskFeb 19, 20193 votes

Love it when a Yas throws a wall and he's confused because he's getting burned from heaven? or planet heaven? or whatever? Sounds like a good drawing... Yasuo

VashetleeFeb 19, 20195 votes

I am a bit sad about the Morgana update....cause its really not a rework just an added buff to her ult. I would have loved to have the bound aspect run through all her skills rather then just two. 10 yrs without a rework is a bit long to go without a change on this champ. when you have champs that are just as old get hit with 2 complete reworks and even her own sister get a complete rework. But Morg stays the same BUT...with a movement speed on her ult......where they do that at?

Heki GazouFeb 19, 201922 votes

I mean if it ain't broke don't fix it, aye? Buff to her ult, new visual updates, new lore...id say thats a pretty good update.

AppleStarzFeb 19, 201930 votes

It has been said before: Morgana is probably the best-aging champion from beta that League has. Her kit has always been, and probably always will be, very successful. People love her as a champion, and she is still seeing lots of gameplay. There is no real reason to rework her kit. Reworks aren't done just for the sake of a rework. Reworks are done for kits that are deemed problematic and too difficult to balance.

MagearnaFeb 19, 20196 votes

100% agree. As a Morg main for idk how long now, she's aged really well. The only thing that I would change about her kit (if any) is her W and even that doesn't need to be changed just for the sake of change. She's in a really good spot.

Merciless BeautyFeb 20, 20192 votes

Riot mentioned Morgana Q having a janky hitbox and they gave her some QoL changes to make using her ultimate feel better. Other than that, not many changes.

Merciless BeautyFeb 20, 20192 votes

When I look at the rework I'm not seeing much change to Morgana's kit. Of all the champions of League, she has aged remarkably well and hasn't had a ton of issues from a gameplay perspective. I remember reading that Riot wanted to fix her hitbox on her Q - Dark Binding because it was a tad janky. (I respect that change) and the change to her R - Soul Shackles is meant to give her a way to stick to champions and more reliably get the stun, rather than run at them, cast ult, and have them just run away or straight up murder Morgana for daring to cast her ult - unless she has Zhonya's Hourglass. I see the movespeed change as a nice touch to let Morgana kite champs running at her and her ADC rather than having binding be the only means of stopping a bad all-in.

To make it clear that I'm not an outsider looking in, I play Morgana Support when I get autofilled, since she is one of the easiest basic champions to play well.