Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Cho'Gath: Why is he important, and how can we make him matter?

Void Kaiju·3/25/2019, 11:31:57 PM·21 votes·14,482 views

Hello boards people! It is I, your somewhat amicable neighborhood Cho'Gath enthusiast here to prompt some discussion on our poor forgotten void child.

It's been an eternity since cho'gath was anything close to relevant in the lore. Although I know that won't change anytime soon, it sure would be nice if he were present. So today I ask you, lovely boards population and lurking lovers of the void dinosaur, what you think (and provide some thoughts of my own!)

Do you think we should get some vague sense of direction for him in the lore before his eventual VGU? (As in, some idea of a location he's connected to other than the Void, since we know only the Watchers live there so he must be somewhere, or characters who have heard stories/seen him, or some very general understanding of his wants/behavior?)

Where should be be? How should Riot communicate that? What do we want from him? What do we know about him now? Would a color story be too much investment for something slated for rework? How about a new short or long bio? Mention in a different story?

And if a Rioter decides to respond, is there anything currently in the works to help place this poor lad in the world?

If I had to answer personally, I would say for the time being any mention of Cho'Gath is good enough, but I hope Riot doesn't reduce him. He was a leader, intelligent and cruel, and a threat to even the most powerful warriors. Don't make him something an ascended can just handle by themselves. Don't remove his hate or his ambition (instead, emphasize them!). He should be a weapon, tailored by the watchers to threaten even their deadliest foes, yet not entirely under their control. He should look down on humans, spirits, and other "lesser" beings as vermin unfit to scramble across the surface of this his doomed world. He should see the Voidtouched and weaker voidborn as hollow puppets, wastes of energy and space that could belong to him. I'd love for us to get some look at him through an outside story or a short bio update. Something that doesn't restrict the potential for creative development on the part of Riot but at least gives something more for us fans to work with than the mere knowledge he exists.

I'd love to hear what you guys have to say!

24 Comments

ModThe Djinn3/26/2019, 12:05:43 AM13 votes

To me, Cho'Gath is one of the few Void creatures that stands on his own as something I'm not sure I need more lore on. The fact that he basically started the ravenous, all-consuming Void story, fits perfectly into the Kaiju fantasy (all of which are legendary in their own right), and is almost like a mortal Aurelion Sol in terms of his size, presence, and disdain for those around him means that, do me, all Riot really needs to do with Cho'Gath specifically is double down on that fantasy and the characterization. The idea of a monster that isn't necessarily fully conscious in the way we'd consider consciousness, yet what little he has that we can recognize is nothing but disdain for the vermin around him? Intriguing. The problem with the void, in my eyes, is that not every monster can be Cho'Gath.

Glaricion3/26/2019, 12:58:39 AM11 votes

Cho is one of the few champions that Riot basically got perfect right out of the gate. "Your races are a scourge upon the world!" "You'd wish the world you know to end! Yeeeesssss..." He even threatens you throughout his dialogue. https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Cho%27Gath/Quotes

Cho is incredibly intelligent and monstrous, but I don't remember him necessarily being a leader. IMHO Cho and Shaco should be treated the same way, they get mentions here and there, maybe a "OH GOD, WTF" moment in another champ's story, but shouldn't be examined in detail.

Horror is always best when there's significant degrees of uncertainty, it's what makes various sub-genres of psychological/Lovecraftian/etc horror what it is.

AbiwonKenabi3/26/2019, 1:55:47 AM4 votes

I definitely want him to be both intelligent yet monstrous and alien. Like you could have a conversation with you if he feels like it but he could also just eat you in one bloody chomp. The idea that he was just toying with the summoners in the old lore was part of his appeal.

Visually, I want him to evolve a little more as he grows. They could do some really cool stuff with his appearance, but I guess they shouldn't go too overboard since that would make skins difficult to make for him (I'm thinking of Champs like Kayn and Zyra, all the models they need for each skin).

SpecterVonBaren3/26/2019, 7:07:50 AM4 votes

I like to think of Cho as basically being the Void's equivalent of Darius, Garen or Irelia. To me he is the lead of the Void's invasion, their iconic "warrior". He is viscous, monstrous and apathetic to the pleas of those he kills but he is also incredibly intelligent. He doesn't seem like a Void creature that just operates on a one track instinct like KogMaw and Khazix do but instead is like Velkoz he still follows what he was designed for but he does it willingly because he actually loathes and hates the creatures and beings of the non Void world.

The most I could see is perhaps going into WHY he hates and detests non Void beings. We don't need to know when he started feeling that way or anything but maybe have an entire short story purely from his perspective and have it written completely in his own alien understanding of things. How something with a disgusting sack of flesh hanging from a weak inner frame of bone is vile to him, how the hypocritical "love" and "affection" is given to someone but can just as easily be taken away for the most inane reasons (To him). Give him an AM speech basically.

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."

THAT, is the kind of thing we should see from a story about Cho. He should be the one Void creature not driven by some kind of baser practical desire like food, dominance, knowledge or improvement, but instead driven by an emotion and we should see just how much that emotion drives him but without being something that causes him to just be a raging monster with no thoughts. He's like the one Graboid from Tremors with the missing tongue, he can rip you apart viciously but he learns, he knows, he's smart.

Hovering Hentai3/26/2019, 1:04:48 PM2 votes

My personal theories are as such:

  1. Cho'Gath is currently hiding in the ocean, similar to how Velkoz does for long periods of time. Maybe he's waiting or maybe he's in a sort of hibernation state. When he comes out it's going to be a sort of Kaiju theme where this massive Godzilla beast erupts from under the waves and heads towards the nearest civilization.

  2. Cho'Gath is trapped in the void and can't get through any rifts because of his massive size and any rift large enough to accomodate him, such as the Freljord or Icathian one is sealed. However we now from Rek'Sai's lore that the Xer'Sai are building a massve void construct which could be a gate large enough to let him come through.

Zoli Ben3/26/2019, 10:28:03 AM2 votes

Chogath is one of the characters been hardstuck at VGU list for ages, he has massive potential but Riot is chosing worser or more popular appealing targets. Pantheon Volibear Nocturne Fiddlesticks DrMundo likely taking the priority after Mordekaiser in that order, but depends on how they chose.

QMighty3/26/2019, 4:21:09 PM2 votes

When he eventually gets VGU'd I'd like to see an evolution of lore like they did with Akali and have it be that he already existed in his current form before the VGU. My idea is that he'd have been on Runeterra for a long time, wandering and purposeless other than eating things and hating the world. Then the Watchers see his potential and make him the leader/grand general of the invasion on Runeterra (which was his fantasy before the retcon IIRC) and he gets new powers and whatnot, hence the changes that'll happen with the VGU.

nosafterburn3/27/2019, 11:44:18 AM1 votes

I see Chogath as the one who kills Setaka (The Greatest Of Them All) and the reason most of the Demi-gods (like Seal Sister) and other powerful magical beings are missing (like be the reason why Taric and Targon are out hunting the Void). He is big, bad and got his disdain and hatred from the energy and magic of those god-like beings for not being able to stop him and them having all those emotions when dying; feelings like fear, hate, rage, and sadness. That is how Chogath came to be the intelligent "monster" that is today.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Brotha3/26/2019, 5:15:46 PM1 votes

I want a Chogath creepy pasta akin to Rek'Sais comic.

Popeks3/27/2019, 10:34:20 AM1 votes

Like honestly they should give him like a sion level rework in my opinion. The gameplay of turn on righteous glory, turn on stoneplate and r the enemy carry for 2k true damage as a 12k wall is just unfun. His lore is older than most of the champion roster at this point and needs to be completely remade in my opinion.

Meta Noir3/27/2019, 11:33:24 AM1 votes

Sorry for this just a bit superficial comment, but I think a very simple, yet insanely important thing got completely left out of the thread so far.

Make his ingame model BIG right of the start, a bit bigger than Sion even and let him grow bigger from there on! To balance this out for lategame, just don't let him get bigger than his current maximum growth level.

It is really offputting to see THE Kaiju of League of Legends being a little worm at the start of the game and I think probably almost everyone will agree on that.

On another note I'd like to point out, that I love the idea suggested here, that Cho'Gath would fit amazing as the Darius/Garen/(Irelia) of the Void and in the very far future I would love a big story in an Endgame-esque giant scenario (not just the large fragment I talk about in the next lines, but all nations working together with designated mixed teams to stop the Void/Watchers from swallowing Runeterra) in which those 2/3 have to work together to stop Cho by just as rough example gathering Galio, Sion & Malphite trying to bring him down (I always envisioned Malphite as the more natural magical/runic targonian version of Galio and I really hope Riot chooses this theme for the future - it even could have been the main inspiration for Durand, when he sculptored Galio).

I am also aware, that they need to find ways to activate/control them - an anti-magic guardian (the Void is no magical threat), a berserker and a mountain/earth avatar would need to be summoned all under different requirements.

Sorry, I dove a little deep here, while going a bit off-topic, but I think it still fits well to mention it for the future of Cho, also in wishful thinking, that the foundations-, overall story- & VGU writer-team may see potential in this for someday far ahead.

JonnyBoyy3/27/2019, 11:37:28 AM1 votes

As I think about cho'gath's new lore upon his initial VGU in the future, i view him as an eldritch monster that is intelligent yet monstrous like vel'koz. However, unlike vel'koz, whose primary focus is on intelligence, Cho'gath's focus should be on the power of survival (eat, eat, eat/ consumes all to live and to prosper) an un-ending cycle of hunger to thrive and to consume (not adapt/evolve because it might overlap to K6's territory).

My take on him atm is that he entered runetera years ago, when the Great Void War happened ( We still dont know what happened in that time/era but we all know that it happened in the past/maybe many millennia's ago ) if you want a link its here although it has been rewrote into "The corrupting creatures of the Void." hmmm i smell something fishy rito haha what are you hiding. To make it fair, the whole short story got an upgrade/was edited unlike before. Maybe the Great Void War was the time when the watchers entered freljord/runetera and they brought other void creatures with them as well but in diff parts of runetera, its like the first invasion of the void to runetera. Many rifts were opened and other runeterian people fought against them like lissandra and also the targonians but not knowingly, they worked in unison making it a war. With the war, Orig Targonians with their puppets(like leona/pant) seal each rifts one by one with the help of ASol and liss freezing the watchers. Now where should we put cho in this? simple, he was one of the voidborn that survived the targonians, he entered from another continent not known from the 3 (valoran,shuriman and ionia). He consumed/devoured all of that continents resources and life forms because he was too powerful and no other powerful being that lives there can stop him and the void unlike the targonians/lissandra. When the Orig targonians heard about that continent, they immediately sent their puppets there but its too late, the whole continent has now been infested but they still went war with cho'gath and the other void creatures. All the puppets except one that escaped died however they still defeated cho by sealing him into a container but has a time limit like the watchers. Millennia's went on and the container is now breaking, specially that theres no person that keeps the container sealed like the watchers in freljord. Now, its a matter of time when cho can roam again in runetera after his hibernating session.

With this, we can assume that cho'gath can compete with the watchers and maybe he is one of the void alphas/Original voidborn. Making him very powerful.

Also, he got his name from his shuriman version myth. The escaped puppet told their story vs cho to his tribe in targon until it became into a myth, story got spread and popularized in shurima and through runetera scaring the people through his tale.

PS: If this is going to be the route of cho, i hope we would get to see his land in the map. Yay new continent and faction!

Can I hear your thoughts about this?

RyzeTheSmurfMage3/26/2019, 7:15:37 AM1 votes

Don't make him something an ascended can just handle by themselves.

Considering how powerfull Azir and Xerath are...