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[CONCEPT] Mordekaiser's Rework - Visuals, Lore, Gameplay

Vartius·5/2/2018, 5:42:29 PM·25 votes·11,229 views

I decided to once again take a look at Mordekaiser and make another rework concept. Because I have too much time on my hands... Actually I don't, but let's forget that for a moment. My love for Mordekaiser is just too strong... So I proudly present the most complete rework idea I've done so far. Including vast redesigns, lore direction, and of course: new kit. And that will also be the order I will be going by.

Part I – The Visuals

Classic skin https://i.imgur.com/WBQHQ2p.png

When redesigning Mordekaiser I had certain goals in minds. First of all, I wanted to give him a very regal look. He is meant to feel like a ruler, an overlord, but mostly: a King. The purple of cloth and crown-helmet serve that purpose. Second, I wanted the design to be simple. Why? One of the amazing things about Mordekaiser is that he is almost like a force of nature, rather than a formerly-mortal being. (But, unlike a certain few, from a certain mountain, he is a self-made force of nature. ) The simplicity of his armor and lack of decorations are meant to feel pure and perfect, almost divine. I feel like Mordekaiser would think of himself like that. https://i.imgur.com/5NKDko7.png

When it comes to VFX, it should mostly be black – Black Mist, black flames, etc. Will match the purple of his cloak perfectly. Black Mist would reflect Mordekaiser's connection to it in the lore – He isn't controlled by the Mist, but gains power from it. Black Flames can easily by associated with Necromancy and again relate to his lore – Mordekaiser was burned on a pyre after his death, so flames would represent that. https://i.imgur.com/yTONVcw.png

Others skins I must admit, I didn't make graphics for these (aside from Lord, but I wasn't satisfied with the result), so I will just give a short description of what I think these should be. Let's start with Lord Mordekaiser, since that's the skin I have the best idea on what I want it to be.

Lord skin would represent Mordekaiser at his potential peak. In League Podcast Ep. 25 they talk about Morde and his ultimate goal, aside from just taking over the world – that is: becoming human again... An immortal human, however. I see Lord Mordekaiser as realization of these desires – taking over the world and becoming an immortal human. Achieving godhood basically. It would be the exact opposite of classic Mordekaiser in terms of design. With a mass of decorations, extremely posh and complex. Perhaps even wielding a sword instead of a mace, as a symbol of power – or a kingly scpeter.

Infernal Mordekaiser should keep with the direction of other skins – a ruler. In this case: the ruler of hell. I know Teemo kinda has that, but I don't think it should stop Mordekaiser. Not much to say about this one. Lots of horns, reds and sharp edges.

Dragon Knight Mordekaiser. With this skin, aside from just giving it the obvious dragon thematics, I would focus on the dark knight part. With the direction of my Mordekaiser redesign, he loses that aspect of his old thematics and so Dragon Knight could be the skin retaining some of that vibe. Give it some big pauldrons, a nasty mace, and remove all the cloth, aside from a cape. Keep it in heavy, dragon armor.

Pentakill and KoC skins are honestly pretty perfect as they are, so they should keep their design and just get their models updated. PtK could get some nice fire VFX.

Part II – The Story

Lore For the most part, I really enjoy what his lore is trying to acomplish. It gives Mordekaiser's story a grand scope. I'd only like it to be more fleshed out. Aside from that the lore could show more of his scheming and planning. Morde isn't supposed to be just brute force. I've mentioned that Mordekaiser's goal other than just ruling the world is to become a human again – only immortal this time. And I really love that motivation. It's unique, it makes sense and it's very compeling. It allows for some cool lore events and gives great ground for an awesome story.

What his lore has to keep is the aspect of him achieving it all himself, rather than being bestwoed the power by some sort of deity. There is very little of that in current League lore. Usually the godlike magic is given to the champion from some outer source – with the biggest example being Targon lore, especially that of Pantheon. And if someone isn't given the power, they usually stay normal mortals. Powerful mortals, but still mortals. Mordekaiser could be the exception to this. Someone who started out as a normal, human being and kept pushing towards his goal of godhood. Taking over vast lands during his life, figuring out a way to keep himself from dying, constantly trying to find a way to gain immortality in human form – all of this without the help of gods or aspects. Hard work usually associated with the hero of a story, yet being used to serve selfish means.

Personality When it comes to Mordekaiser's personality it was hard for me to decide whether he should act more human, or detached – like a, previously mentioned, force of nature. In the end, I think the best option is a combination of the two. His current personality should be the latter – a detached force of nature – however, he should still be keeping the same motivations and reasons he had in life. It would explain his drive to become human again, since his ultimate goal would include things he wanted in life, all the human pleasures, and as such make it reasonable that he's not satisfied with current form.

I wouldn't make fear of death a part of his motivations. It's too often associated with the quest to immortality, so proposing a different stance, instantly makes it more interesting. I would even say that Mordekaiser should be accepting of death if he were to fail in his quest and be vanquished forever. What reasoning would I propose for him then? How about a mindset that dictates: If he has the means to gain power, control and eternal life – he has the right to do so. Or even should do so. But also if he, despite all his efforts, fails in his quest and dies... So be it.

Part III – The Gameplay

Main direction Most Mordekaiser mains can't really agree on what they expect from the rework when talking about gameplay. Some want a full redo, others just tweaks. Some really want the ghost mechanic to stay, while others feel it should go. But even with so many different voices on what Mordekaiser should be, nearly all can agree on one thing – Damage. Tons of it. So when thinking of a kit I wanted to focus on that. I decided to make Mordekaiser a battlemage, with ramping up damage output. His ramp up potential, however, would be balanced around the singular fights, rather than state of the game – preventing a situation where he is useless early and far too broken late. His gameplay would be focused around what it always was: positioning, macro-plays, choosing fights and just knowing the champ in general. I won't be going into numbers much, since it's not what most people care about.

Abilities

Passive: Mordekaiser gains special boosts when hitting enemies, with basic attacks or abilities, certain ammount of times. Tier 1 boost – 7 hits – Mordekaiser's Qs slow enemies down. Tier 2 boost – 16 hits – Mordekaiser gains % damage reduction. Tier 3 boost – 28 hits – Mordekaiser gains bonus movement speed and % slow resistance. Final Tier boost – 43 hits – Mordekaiser becomes immune to any CCs. (This one is most likely impossible to achieve without ulti)

These boosts disappear after leaving combat with enemy champions. Hitting mutliple champions with AoE abilities still counts as one hit.

The goal with this ability: as someone who will need to ramp his damage up, Mordekaiser will be weak to kiting. This passive will give him boosts that help dealing with it during teamfights, as long as he manages to hit his opponents.

Q: Upon activation Mordekaiser enchants his mace with Black Mist (or black flames). He can then recast the ability up to 10 times. Recasting the ability causes Mordekaiser to swing his weapon in a wide arch creating waves of Black Mist (or black flames) that swoop the area in a cone. Each time Mordekaiser hits an enemy champion with that ability, the recasts become stronger, dealing more damage. (Around 12% increase with each hit)

There is ~1 second cd between recasts and a ~8 sec CD after using up all of them.

This ability is more or less a combination of his old Q and E. However, where old Q was hard to hit, but if you managed to do so it's damage ramped up pretty quickly, new Q is far easier to hit, but takes time to ramp up. Combining the ramping up part of Q with the range of E assures Mordekaiser doesn't suffer from the same issues as before and rewards the player for hiting multiple times with the ability, rather than just stack it up on something else and then flash.

W: Mordekaiser surrounds himself with Black Mist (or black flames) and deals DoT in the are around him. Can proc passive hit once per second.

Yeah, this is basically the old W... The old, old W. What can I say – it's a perfectly fine ability and it fits in nicely with the ramp up, sustained damage, gameplay I'm going for.

E: Mordekaiser summons a blast from under the feet of a targeted enemy. After a brief cast (0.25 sec) during which he deals AoE damage around himself, targeted enemy is damaged and snared for a short duration (~0.5 sec)

It was hard for me to describe this ability: black mist, or whatever, first gathers around Mordekaiser, to then get shot from under the feet of the enemy he targeted.

R: Mordekaiser curses the ground around himself in 1000 range radius (Like Trundle's). Area fills with Black Mist, powering up Mordekaiser. While in it's range Mordekaiser gains infinite recasts on his Q (But the damage increase caps at 10 anyway), generates shield from the ability damage he deals to enemy champions and curses enemies he hits. Killing cursed champions causes them to become ghosts with 40% of original statistics. These ghosts target enemy champions with the least HP left. These ghosts cannot leave the cursed area. Enemy champions become slowed when approaching the areas boundaries. The slow starts at 20% (around 800 units range from the centre) and increases to 80% near the edge. The Black Mist vanishes:

  • After 20 seconds
  • When Mordekaiser dies
  • When Mordekaiser leaves the area

This is the raid boss ultimate, basically. It, once again, relates back to lore and how Black Mist powers Mordekaiser up. The shield gain is pretty much his old passive. It's what causes Mordekaiser to become a very serious threat in teamfights, especially if he manages to ramp up his Q, which he can then use at full power until ultimate ends. It may seem like it's far more powerful than it would actually turn out. It just makes Mordekaiser from Eh in teamfights to Good. The ghost part is mostly there as a slight bonus and a 'old times sake'.

And that's it! For now. I will probably come back with like a new rework concept next week, cause I'm just like that. Hopefully you will all like the ideas I've presented.

The Guy Who's Far Too Obsessed With Mordekaiser, aka Vartius out.

28 Comments

EBOSHY S PRAVOY5/2/2018, 5:59:49 PM5 votes

Sauron , go back to the Middleearth!

Metallikaiser5/2/2018, 9:16:11 PM3 votes

Dont know what to tell you bb. I like the idea you were going for in lore, I love your skin descriptions, and I love the art you have shown for a new base skin, I really REALLY like it. But, this gameplay just seems awful. I dont mind this 2 just being dot around you, but losing out on morde's sustain seems awful, you completely stripped him of his identity as someone who can resist poke, the e just seems confusing, adding a second uninteractable dot to punish someone for standing near Morde and giving CC that I dont think is needed. The new Q is really cool, but does Morde not smack people physically with his mace anymore? Because thats what it seems like, and that would absolutely kill Morde to me. The passive is neat, it just seems kind of awkward, and I would rather the first boost be healing then soft cc. The ult, well its interesting, I appreciate having a team fighting ult instead of a dueling one, and the whole it makes you a raid boss thing is kind of cool, but the ghosts just feel like a tacked on win more aspect without the satisfaction of current ghost dragon, it also seems like it takes away damage from Mordes total kit to gain a zone threatening ult which just doesnt seem all too satisfying to me. Im sorry, but your gameplay suggestion just doesnt work for me.

KoKoboto5/2/2018, 10:39:30 PM2 votes

I don't like the gameplay changes to his E and R. Mordekaiser is already straight forward and this rework makes him even more straight forward and rather boring. He just becomes an AoE guy. I don't like the design because the robes make him look like he wouldn't be in a fight. Robes like that on a person like Mordekaiser wouldn't even exist because he's melee.

Sad Tyrant5/3/2018, 5:22:07 AM1 votes

personally really don't like the purple cape, or at least, how much of the Armour it covers, I would say more of a mantle or more like Assassin Creed 2's Ezio's cloak whiles it covering only one side.

I would keep the old ult minus the Dragon Feature

GreenLore5/3/2018, 10:51:47 AM1 votes

Tbh,I'm not a big fan of the basic shape of his upper torso.

It makes him feel more like a mage and physically a bit less imposing,he should keep the basic top-heavy shape with broad shoulders.

Wrathful Chicken5/3/2018, 11:09:11 AM1 votes

I'm creating an epic for The Ruined King, which inevitably needed me to define the almighty Mordekaiser Mordekaiser's lore. I'd like to know what you think of how I defined his lore, which is mostly interpretation and not canon.

Mordekaiser is obviously a warmonger, but I believe he is not a warmonger out of desire. He is a warmonger out of necessity. A core belief being that you cannot survive in the world if you are weak, and you cannot protect anyone else if you are not strong. He expanded his kingdom through this method to the size of essentially an empire.

His greatest enemy is justice itself. It was justice that caused many individuals to band together to usurp him. Yet, it was not originally born out of Mordekaiser's heinous acts. Rather it was the jealousy of others that feared how Mordekaiser held such enormous strength on his own.

Due to many attempts at his life, Mordekaiser was pushed to kill those who threatened him. Yet this led people to believe he was abusing his powers and rallied many individuals to try and defeat him. His reputation turned south when innocent individuals ended up risking their lives to kill him in an act of vengeance.

Mordekaiser laughed when he died the very first time because of the travesty of their war against Mordekaiser. He could only laugh at how blind they were, believing that his death was truly the right thing, a "just" cause. Thus he swore that if he were to return, he would kill them for their mindless aggression. Most importantly, Mordekaiser wanted to destroy this travesty, altogether.

Those closest to Mordekaiser were so stricken at his death that they sought methods to give honor to his name and desire. Why does a man who simply wanted to become strong killed for his desires? Is he not an inspiration for others to become strong themselves? The method they decided upon was to simply bring him back to life, since he did promise that he himself would return to kill them. While it may have been an unbelievable statement at the time, they made it a reality through necromancy. Mordekaiser gifted them with undeath. While they didn't necessarily want to be in such a state, it was reasonable to sustain Mordekaiser's life.

Thus began Mordekaiser's campaign against justice. However, Mordekaiser was much more cruel now as he believes that he was not terrifying enough to prevent an uprising. So he felt the need to be more ruthless by killing anyone who would not follow him. If they would not follow him willingly, he would enslave them to do his bidding.

His belief during this time was that people need to submit to strength and then his subjects will naturally be humbled by the splendor of his successful campaign. Yet, the means of enslaving individuals only brought frustration and sadness. In their disbelief, a flame a rebellion, the very thing Mordekaiser wanted to snuff out in the first place.

Thus it came as a surprise to him when his Immortal Bastion was besieged by numerous warbands. He understood that there were those who would not submit, but it was quite jarring to see so many. An enormous amount of wasted lives just to defeat Mordekaiser. Yet when he resurrected, he realized that centuries have passed. His efforts in all those lifetimes, and his Immortal Bastion a mockery laid intact in the middle of the enemy kingdom of Noxus, the warbands that defeated him in the first place.

Fortunately for Mordekaiser, he was reborn in a land of the undead, so he essentially gained a free empire to rule. However, he was well aware that he would need to reevaluate his approach to conquest. Both military wise and strategically as he was in the middle of an island and he would need to somehow change from his previous tactics in order to find success.

To those who did not submit to the Immortal Bastion, lies the infamy spurred by Noxus. However, to those who did, lied an inspirational form of strength. A king to those who were stuck in the Dark Ages. Villages that were weak would be pillaged relentlessly. Yet Mordekaiser, in his conquest of strength, came to these weak nations and accepted them and murdered the strong that would not accept Mordekaiser's regime. Those who would tolerate Mordekaiser's strength would become his economical forefront while the strong who would not would become his undead army.

The Ruined King is an individual who intervened in the fall one of the nations from Mordekaiser's Iron Empire. The Ruined King is a magnanimous individual who is stubbornly straightforward. This nature reminded the crumbling nation of Mordekaiser and thus they crowned him the new king since Mordekaiser was gone. Eventually, The Ruined King would cause the cataclysm to give birth to The Shadow Isles, which directly causes the birth of Demacia out of fear of magic.

The Ruined King will eventually rise again and go to the Shadow Isles, humbled with the desire for redemption. Yet, his strength is incredibly valued by Mordekaiser as he actively sends ghosts to seek him out. Individuals like Kalista and Mordekaiser reach out to The Ruined King to rebel against Mordekaiser, but The Ruined King is not swayed until he faces off against Hecarim.

Hecarim's parents submitted to Mordekaiser and witnesses his subjugation of the bandits who pillaged the kingdom. When Mordekaiser died, his parents were killed for being supporters to the heinous Mordekaiser. Hecarim followed The Ruined King because he was essentially portrayed as an ideal version of Mordekaiser, and even had the excessive strength to match. Yet his belief in The Ruined King waned when he showed weakness after the queen died. Thus when Hecarim found himself in the domain of Mordekaiser, it was like a dream come true.

Yet even he knew that Mordekaiser was struggling to make his impact on the world. Just like how The Ruined King seemed hopeless to save his wife, Mordekaiser seemed hopeless on his methods to create an effective revolution. Yet, being the straightforward individual he is, The Ruined King knew exactly what was wrong. He confronted Mordekaiser with an entire rebel army alongside him and squared off against Mordekaiser in epic combat inevitably leading to the The Ruined King's delayed death and the complete obliteration of Mordekaiser's castle.

It was then that The Ruined King explained to him that Mordekaiser lacked purpose. All that Mordekaiser wanted was fleeting, and relevant to time when he was essentially timeless. He had all the strength in the world, but nothing important to strive for. Yet with the nature of Zara's power and the state of The Shadow Isles, that purpose was clear. The purpose he gave Mordekaiser was Life. A conquest to bring life to an undead nation. While it seemed like a preposterous prospect, The Ruined King's monumental sword was plunged into the dead soils and ascended everything around it into a state of flourishing life. This was The Ruined King's final resting place.

When everyone learned of what The Ruined King had done, they had turned to Mordekaiser and followed him in devotion to the cause. Great rebels like Kalista, Yorick, and Maokai and his own army joined seamlessly while all the low level ghouls were drawn to the life of the sword. Mordekaiser was confused about how his enemies spurred by justice would so easily join his side, until Hecarim explained that it was a justice inspired by Mordekaiser's very own regime. While people could not agree with his ideals of strength and weakness, some found great value in what came out of Mordekaiser's pursuit of it.

Now Mordekaiser rebuilds a castle for his inevitable resurrection of The Ruined King so that he may rule over the Shadow Isles while Mordekaiser personally rides out to give Runeterra a Harrowing to remember. Eventually his campaign will bring enough mana from pillaged World Runes to open the gate of heaven, the domain where Kayle Kayle and Morgana Morgana reside.

Mordepool5/3/2018, 12:18:03 PM1 votes

Rework concept # 219.

Testlolla5/5/2018, 4:55:04 AM1 votes

Love this rework concept, just some little question.

  • It's hard for me to understand what his E ability is doing... Like Brand's w?
  • I'm not worried about the damage of his ult, it's just the slow... the slow of his ult feels too overpowered. 80% of the boundaries, and consistent slow. Ignore the damaged part, the ult itself basically nunu's ult but you can move. I think to reduce the slow will be better, or maybe **only applied slow when your q or ghost hits the champion, and how much it slows depends on how close the champion is to the boundaries. **, In this case, you may want to change the passive slow of the q (7 hits) to something like nock back the enemies.
  • I hope the range of his q won't be as large as his old e, to the fact that he can recast it I hope it couldn't easily hit multiple targets because target selection is an important part of his gameplay.
  • by the way, will the boost takes up item block? I hope it won't. Maybe instead of boots, we can call it armor of the black flame, since it didn't just give movement speed and it sounds COOLER. (it will be even cooler if it is shown in the visual gameplay that extra armor appears with a black flame on him. by the way, this will explain why he still has armor after the battle in the lore. )
FlameHalbrdOkido5/5/2018, 10:26:05 PM1 votes

nice work, do u worry that with the staying in place like that they he will still get kited or is this intended?