Champion Concept: Vael, The Host of Famine
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Vael is an aggressive diver who finds himself most comfortable in the jungle. Under the cover of pale fog he leaps into the fray to snatch his hapless victims away from their team. Utilizing damage windows that require precise timing, Vael rewards patience and careful ambushes, as being immobilized by the enemy team will cost him dearly.
Once a legendary hunter, now Vael is possessed by the spirits of the legions of beasts he had slain in life. His cunning and intellect entirely committed to feeding the unending hunger that fills him. Through him, the weaker spirits have amalgamated into an entity that rivals the greatest spirits of the Freljord.
_Long ago, mankind's hunger for power left a scar on this world. In return, she created a great hunger to cleanse herself and punish those foolish enough to defile her. If the world shakes like that ever again... the Vael will descend upon us all. _** -A Freljordian elder explaining the Vael**
#Personality The Vael is not ruled by a single mind. It is driven by a clever human mind prodded and twisted by hundreds of starving beast spirits, a body driven by hundreds of screaming voices all with a singular purpose: feed on anything and everything. When there is no enemy nearby the Vael moves quickly and with an eerie calm as it searches out prey. When near its victims it becomes a ravenous force of destruction, teeth bared and claws outstretched in order to dismantle and devour even the bones of its targets. When it stalks its prey it is not a "superpredator" who simply tears through the underbrush towards its targets. Its tactics are more hit and run, brief moments of ferocity with longer calculated calm in between. As it moves the Vael will occasionally claw at its own face as if trying to scrape away the spirits in its head urging it to kill, but otherwise exhibits an eerie stillness. It doesn't emote and interact with its environment like other creatures aside from occasionally consuming plant life.
#Appearance https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/322046292270252044/367676973935362048/IMG_20171011_111649.jpg This is the drawing of him I have been most satisfied with thus far!
#Kit
As mentioned previously, Vael is designed for long moments of stalking his prey before explosive bursts of action and damage, his spells reward careful and well timed play and leave room for his enemies to punish his impatience.
##Passive: Famine Bringer The vast number of beast spirits contained within Vael manifest themselves as a choking fog. Casting spells fills ¼ of the Hunger Bar. Filling the Hunger Bar causes the fog to swirl around Vael, granting +50% movement speed while the bar drains over 10 seconds. Taking champion damage causes the bar to drain twice as fast.
##Q: Ravenous Ambush Leap in target direction, dealing 50-150+ (40%-60%) AD physical damage in an aoe where you land. Recast within 1.5 seconds to leap again, healing for 100 (+25% Bonus AD) health per unit struck. (30% effective for minions/small monsters). Cooldown: 15-10 seconds Range: 500 units/ Recast: 700 units
##W: Feeding Frenzy
The beast spirits within the Vael begin to rage, venting fog around him that slows nearby enemies by 25%. After 1.5 seconds, Vael can recast within 1.5 seconds to deliver a brutal, short-ranged bite in the direction of the cursor, dealing 100-250 (+300% Bonus AD) physical damage. If this spell strikes a champion, it grants an additional 25% of the Hunger Bar.
Bite Range: 150 units
Cooldown: 15-6 seconds
##E: Passive: Insatiable Hunger
Basic attacks grant you +3/5/7/9/11 health regeneration/second. Stacks indefinitely, falls off after not basic attacking for 1.5 seconds.
##E: Active: Rip and Tear
Viciously slash target for 250% AD physical damage, marking them as Prey and stunning them for 1 second. Casting Ravenous Ambush near Prey will bring your target with you. (If multiple units are Prey, casting this spell will cleanse the mark off of all except this spell’s target. Otherwise the target closest to Vael is taken.)
Cooldown: 20-12 seconds
##R: Breath of Famine: Exhale a pale mist that covers a large area and persists for 15 seconds. You are permanently camouflaged while inside this fog and permanently gain Famine Bringer’s movement speed. Units outside of the fog cannot see within the fog, and vice-versa. Vael's cooldowns are reduced by 2 seconds while within the fog. Cooldown: 40 seconds at all ranks. Range: 3000/4000/5000
#Playing Vael
Vael works best with a combination of attack damage and some resists. As a glass cannon he can output tons of damage, but a single crowd control spell will often result in his death. Vael wants to blitz opposing laners, dashing from brush with his Q, marking them with a quick E, and then following up with the Q recast in order to displace them. If he starts charging his W at the right time it can be added in the basic combo for sizeable bonus damage, or used as followup provided his target stays close enough. After level 6 his ultimate allows him to control a large chunk of the map for a short time, and dramatically enhances his ability to weave in and out of combat if enemies choose to fight him within the fog.
#Bio
The great pine forests that blanket the eastern border of the Freljord are an ancient place, home to spirits of all forms. A choking fog drifts through the heart of this forest, growing larger with each passing year. The locals warn travellers never to enter this fog, as everything within is subject to the insatiable appetite of the Vael. Driven by the hunger of an army of beastial spirits that writhe beneath its skin, the Vael consumes anything that crosses its path. Some say not even its victims souls escapes its jaws.
They say the Vael is the ancient incarnation of the rage of the forest, a monster churned out of the world to avenge the land after the great devastation of the Rune Wars. But the creature’s true history predates even that. It is a creature of two distinct parts: a skilled hunter and an amalgam of hundreds of raging beast spirits.
Ages prior to the outbreak of the Rune wars, these spirits were free to rage through the countryside in Valoran, forcing themselves into the body of a human in order to twist them into a monstrous vehicle through which the spirits could attempt to sate their hunger. Human life outside of these cities was one of perpetual terror, would you fall victim to one of these beasts, or would you become one and kill those closest to you? The world was their buffet, free to feast on flesh and crops until their host body bloated and died. Few had the physical prowess to defeat these host bodies, and even if they managed to succeed in slaying the beast, the spirit would simply find a new host, modifying the body differently in order to compensate for their previous form’s weaknesses.
It was in response to this seemingly unstoppable threat that the beast hunters first emerged. Groups of trained warriors who roamed the countryside with a single purpose: the complete eradication of beasts. As the number of beasts they killed increased, the futility of their attempts gradually whipped them into a frenzy. They stopped investigating and started to simply kill any who were accused of being host to a beast. The elderly, sick, and dying were rounded up and executed to prevent the spirits from finding a new host to possess. As the years passed the beast hunters gradually stopped being a symbol of hope and instead twisted into a symbol of terror.
Vael was the name of a hunter born to a small family in the east of Freljord. He gained notoriety as the first to trap and perform experiments on a beast. He prodded for weaknesses, combined its blood with various alchemical reagents and tried to discern what exactly the nature of the creature was. However, even his own village became sickened by the cruelty of his tests, as they didn’t stop even when the victim had briefly returned to their human form. The villagers killed the beast and exiled Vael, leaving him with little to drive him other than his hatred of the beasts. When he did eventually meet with a group of beast hunters he fit right in.
They were a well oiled machine, moving from town to town purging any tainted by the influence of beast spirits. But the number of monsters never seemed to go down, they were merely able to bring brief respite. With each kill Vael was able to learn a bit more, gradually designing a plan that would reduce their numbers drastically. But it was a plan that would require him to make the ultimate sacrifice. Killing the body merely freed the spirit to find another vessel, all he needed to do was ensure that he was that vessel. Gradually he would trap every spirit in his own body, and when the time came that there were none left in the world he would be trapped underground where none of the ravening beasts inside of him would ever see the light of day again.
And so it came to pass that Vael, the Beast Doctor, infamous for his cruelty, became the subject of him most wicked experiment yet. Through the use of a series of magical glyphs inscribed on his skin he trapped the spirits within himself as they absconded from their dying hosts. After the third he had to be brought from town to town in chains. After the seventh his compatriots had to cover his eyes to prevent the hunger from overtaking him at the sight of another human being. Those who recognized him from before this endeavor didn’t see him as a martyr, they saw him as finally becoming the monster he always had been. He was met with stones and rotting vegetables in the towns that recognized him, he served as the perfect outlet for the people to take out their hatred of both the beasts that plagued them and the hunters who had no problem killing innocents if it made their hunt easier.
Gradually the number of beasts appearing dwindled, what had previously been only days between hunts grew into weeks, then months. In his constant battle with the monsters trying to claw their way out from inside of him, Vael’s mind had begun to cloud. The task was the only thing that allowed him to keep his focus, the only thing left driving him to cling to sanity. After seven months without news of a new beast appearing, he lost his grip and the hundreds of monsters raging inside of him writhed to the surface. Vael’s chains shattered as if they had been made from dry bread, his allies bodies provided even less of a challenge. Their experience had never prepared them for something like this, it possessed Vael’s cruel intelligence but was controlled by no single mind, merely inheriting the combined hunger and strength of hundreds of monsters.
They sated his hunger for only the briefest moment, but it was enough for Vael to direct himself north, back to the Eastern Freljord, and after another set of victims he was able to push himself into an ancient mine and collapse the entrance, trapping the monster inside as he lost himself for a final time. Darkness and rubble would be the Vael’s only company for decades until the world was shaken by the folly of man and a single beam of light shone down through the stone.
#Lore
Coming Soon!
