Champion concept: Istafal, The Reflective Fabulist
Just wanted to share a champion concept designed around mirrors, which seemed like an interesting idea. I have had a piece of lore written for a while, but had struggled to come up with a minimally satisfying kit, only finding one recently. You can find the lore piece here: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/uYT7jbBr-a-broken-mirror Given the character description has spoilers, I recommend reading the short-story first. While this proposition is far from final, I do think sharing could provide interesting insights and solutions on how to work the character's kit, and maybe inspire future iterations in an actual champion.
Istafal is the travelling ringmaster of the Wonder Hall, a twisted ritual chamber parading as a circus. He is a mysterious and manipulative entity that thrives in fabrication and feeds on stories and tales, attracting the gullible and sacrificing them to the vilest demons of Runeterra all in the hopes of elevating the tale of his establishment beyond all others.
Passive: Glass tricks (worked in from Trickster's Glass)
Once every short while, Istafal can select one allied champion (globally) and takes on their appearance for 30 seconds. The disguise includes the target's current health, mana and emotes. The disguise is broken upon casting a spell or attacking, or upon his or the disguise's health being dropped to 0.
Q: Broken Truth
Istafal breaks a Plain Mirror. Doing so will damage nearby enemies and create a Broken Mirror. Broken Mirrors do not reflect abilities. Instead, they will store copies of them, and can be made to cast them from another Broken Mirror of Istafal’s choice by recasting the ability. Broken mirrors have a fixed orientation. Istafal can have up to ten Broken Mirrors on the map at all times.
Broken mirrors block ally and enemy abilities, but the recasted abilities are always applied to the enemy team. Enemies can pass through the mirrors to disperse them, but are slowed for a short period after doing so. Allies can do the same to receive a temporary shield. When Istafal passes through a broken mirror, he consumes it, dealing magic damage in an area and healing for a portion of the damage dealt.
W: Mirror, mirror
Istafal summons an untargetable Plain Mirror. The Plain Mirror reflects all enemy abilities, making them travel an equal distance in the opposite direction, and returning their damage. It negates ranged basic attacks. The damage types are inversed (physical becomes magical and vice versa).
Walking through the Plain Mirror resets Broken Truth’s cooldown. Allies and enemies that click on the mirror will be moved to Istafal or to a random Plain Mirror if there are any. This effect can only be triggered every thirty seconds.
At ranks 3 and 5 Istafal unlocks extra mirrors, meaning at rank 5 he can have up to three Plain Mirrors up at one time. If the maximum number is reached, until a plain mirror is broken recasting this ability will only change the orientation of the mirrors.
E: Fabulist's Vantage
Istafal channels for one second, becoming untargetable for the first half of the channel. He can then choose to either remain in place and counter the first ability directed at him or move to a mirror of his choice. Taking damage during the channel interrupts this ability.
R: Enter the Wonder Hall
Istafal consumes all his broken mirrors to summon a gate that grounds enemies facing it and slowly pulls all enemies close to it for the next four seconds. Enemies that enter the gate are feared for a significant amount of time and take heavy magic damage. The speed at which enemies are pulled depends on how many broken mirrors were consumed. If enemies receive damage while they are being pulled inside they stop being affected.
Notice I did not put any cooldowns, damage values, mana costs, damage scaling or anything of the sort on purpose. Previous experiences have shown me that it is better to discuss with people and make sure the champion has a solid kit before starting to think about values and the such. For that same reason, I decided to base some of it on a mechanic that was already tinkered with by Riot in the form of the Trickster’s Glass (the active ability was the main inspiration for Istafal’s passive, fitting the mind trick theme, and would work similarly to Kindred’s, only it would be applied to the ally team).
I'd also like to note that I’d like this to be a growing project, and that I am already thinking of the possibility of asking a friend for splash arts or making and acting voice lines to further develop the character (if you think I don't deliver and this is all me talking, go check out this now scrapped previous champion concept so you can marvel at how much of a tryhard I am: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/WURZMEGw-boram-the-forlorn-tyrant ).
Thanks for reading, and please provide input! Let's see how this goes.
