[Champion Concept] Mehr'nah, the Sentient Dream
"They give me life, as I give them purpose."
Mehr'nah is the essence of our dreams, thoughts, and desires. With no permanent anchor of their own to the physical world, Mehr'nah can only exist through a host. This host can be any living being as long as they are capable of sentient thought.
Mehr'nah often appears as some effeminate humanoid, abnormally tall, slender, and adorned in shining, flowing robes. However, their voice is not consistent - often it ranges from that of a child to that of an adult, and even occasionally to animalistic, guttural sounds. Through the fantastic elation inspired by Mehr'nah's presence, even ordinary creatures have found themselves spurred to do - and capable of - great things.
Gameplay: Mehr'nah is eternally slotted into a support role - as is the very nature of their existence. However, while Mehr'nah is not allowed to function alone, they are not necessarily anchored into botlane - instead, their abilities allow them the ability to have a permanent presence globally, meaning that they can pick and choose who they wish to bond with as their host at any given time in any given place. What Mehr'nah offers in return for their lack of physical presence is a strong - and perhaps overwhelming - spiritual presence that can turn what appears to be just one person into two.
Statistics: Mehr'nah has no physical statistics - they are not targetable by themself and they lack the ability to function alone. Consequentially, Mehr'nah is unaffected by masteries and runes stats.
Abilities:
Passive: Dreamer Mehr'nah begins the game in the death screen rather than spawning normally. Instead, right-clicking on an allied champion spawns Mehr'nah's essence around them, bathing them in their translucent light. Mehr'nah is only visible to their host and themself, but will instead appear as just an aura to anyone else. While Mehr'nah is hosted, they passively increase their host's base stats by 20%/30%/40%/50%, slowly increasing as time goes on up to a maximum of 50%/65%/80%/95%, and their ability power by 5%/10%/15%/20% slowly increasing to 10%/17.5%/25%/32.5%, visually indicated by the strength of the aura (cap is reached after 4/3/2/1 minutes pass during a bond). Additionally, each of Mehr'nah's abilities will originate from the host
Switching bonded targets before their target dies has a 4 second delay and can only be changed once a minute. Should their host die, Mehr'nah cannot bond themself to another target for 30/20/10/0 seconds. Host deaths count as deaths for Mehr'nah, and deaths resulting in such a fashion offer Dreamer's current aura bonus in percent bonus gold (bounty gold is also increased at a third of the amount).
Additionally, Mehr'nah is incapable of utilizing items, and instead of gathering gold, absorbs the essence of living creatures that perish around them (their host must move close enough for Mehr'nah to collect essence). Collecting enough essence confers an empowering spirit that Mehr'nah can use to upgrade their abilities (these essences come in different amount values).
Q: Know Your Wish Type: Targeted Mark Range: 1200 units Cooldown: 12 seconds Duration: 7 seconds Mehr'nah offers a dream to their host, influencing what they desire to do. This sudden urge inspires their teammate to focus their efforts on the marked enemy, increasing their damage to that enemy by 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% of Dreamer's current percent increase (for example, if "Dreamer"'s aura strength is currently at 50%, a first level mark will increase damage by 5%) and granting the host true-sight of the enemy.
Essence of Purpose: The dream Mehr'nah offers now additionally inspires great tenacity in their host to achieve their goal, reducing all damage from the focused target by a third of the damage amplification (3.33%/5%/6.67%/8.33%/10% of Dreamer's current aura bonus).
W: Sate the Longing Type: AoE from Self Radius: 250 units Cooldown: 12/10.5/9/7.5/6 seconds Mehr'nah channels a healing pulse through their host, bathing surrounding allies in a wave of serenity. The host is most affected by this pulse, healing them by 75 + (6 * (current level-1)), increasing by 1% for every 1% of health they are missing. Surrounding allies are healed by up to half as much depending on how close they are to the epicenter (minimum of a fourth of the healing on the edge of the pulse).
Essence of Desire: Allies hit by the wave strive for greater achievements, boosting their movement speed by up to 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% and increasing their spellvamp and lifesteal by .5% for each percent of health they are missing depending on how far they are from the epicenter (minimum of half the effect strength). This effect lasts 3 seconds.
E: Shared Emotions Type: Targeted with Tether Range: 500/ Tether: 700 Cooldown: 10 Duration: 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 seconds Mehr'nah creates an empathic link between their host and a target. While the Tether remains intact, the host shares the target's buffs and bonus effects (excluding debuff effects and auras already in effect that don't stack). If this link is to an ally, the host will absorb 15% of the damage dealt to the ally to their own health (this cannot reduce the host below 15% health and will sever if this occurs; damage reduction is calculated by which of the two has the highest resistance to the damage). If this link is to an enemy, 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% of the damage done to the host is returned to the enemy, and the enemy's movement speed is reduced by 15%/20%/25%/30%/35%, decaying over the duration of the tether.
Essence of Sympathy: When linked to an ally, the ally now gains the host's buffs and bonus effects at half the strength as well (excluding Dreamer) and active debuffs on the ally are halved. When linked to an enemy, the host will now heal for half of the raw damage returned to the enemy.
R: Split the Dream Type: Targeted Area Range: 600 Spawn radius: 300 Cooldown: 120/90/60 Duration: 15 seconds Mehr'nah splits part of themself from their host, halving Dreamer's stat bonus. After a .5 delay Mehr'nah then replicates the host's form in a blazing light at the targeted location, dealing 200/300/400 magic damage in a large area and giving Mehr'nah free movement and access to the host's basic abilities and passive, stats, and items. Stats are reduced to 50%/62.5%/75% of their value, and this copy takes 25% increased damage. Should this replica die, Dreamer's stat boost to the host is kept at the reduced value for 15 seconds before recovering and restarting at the new-link value.
Goals of the Concept: I have always been intrigued by the idea of a "housing" champion - that is, a champion that makes its home in the backpack of another champ. While this isn't entirely new - Mina from Dawngate being an example - this approach I do not believe has been picked up. This is a champ solely reliant upon the existence of their teammates, but rewards their presence in decisive ways. It's a champion meant to focus the aspirations of its teammates - in Mehr'nah's eyes, damage is not the only way to further their team's goals, but rather morale and inspiration.
Mehr'nah is meant to become stronger as the game goes on in order to compensate for the seeming 4 v. 5, this being evident in the near-mitigation of their passive's time-constraints. The reason for this is, as late-game comes around, time becomes considerably more and more of the essence, and so waiting 4 minutes to re-attain maximum power potential is absurd especially if trying to recover from a recent ace.
I'm hoping this concept captures the idea of our dreams - for without consciousness, there can be no dreaming, and without our dreams, we live only partially as we have no meaning. Mehr'nah, then, allows champions to reach their "true potential" by inspiring the host's dreams and aspirations to the fullest, while taking physical form only when we split our dream - and reality cannot be discerned from what lies in the fictitious corners of our mind.
