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How Arcane magic works on Runeterra #emotional?!

RITO ANNAOOP·2/1/2020, 5:51:05 PM·1 votes·3,452 views

While I was reading about few champions (lore and abilities) I was left confused by what magic they are exactly using, because like Phenomenal Evil Power (Veigar) isn't type of magic in my eyes LMAO. So I went searching for what are all the types of magic on Runeterra but there is no official list of Runeterra magics and how they work. Probably just because Riot dont wanna settle everything like Chronicles did for Warcraft universe and they wanna make everything feel more alive and for debate.

Anyways, the champions I was most confused about were Syndra Syndra, Veigar Veigar, Leblanc LeBlanc, Sona Sona, Ahri Ahri and also little bit Ryze Ryze. This week I had connected dots and I realized that all of them could be using same magic, that is Arcane.

I dont know if Arcane is somewhere explained but I think of it like power of the mind that can do anything you can imagine in exchange for mana, about which we dont know much neither but its probably just a fancy word for casters mind stamina.

When you look at the Sorcery Rune Page you can see that all of the runes have BLUE look to them with PURPLE outer glow and the more aggresive the rune is the more its PURPLE. So this led me to believe that arcane magic changes its color based on person feelings/emotions. My theory is also further supported by Syndra, Veigar and Ryze lore.

Syndra Syndra lore:

Syndra could no longer control her emotions. All her anger erupted from deep within her, in the form of darkly shining magical orbs, heavy with the weight of her anguish.

Ryze Ryze lore:

Armed with immense arcane power and a boundless constitution, he tirelessly hunts for World Runes... (basicly he is good guy)

Veigar Veigar lore:

As a free-spirited inhabitant of Bandle City, he longed to push beyond the limitations of yordle magic, and turned instead to arcane texts...

...Veigar was forced to turn his magic to darker purposes ... yordle’s magic and appearance started to twist in response.

This magic can be also seen in game and on ability arts.

Syndra Syndra magic: https://imgur.com/a/PFTygUB

Ryze Ryze magic: https://imgur.com/a/nkqvqn8

Veigar Veigar magic: https://imgur.com/a/lf2wlqs

We know that Syndra is purely angry and somewhat evil and this can be seen in her splashart, her magic is DARK with PURPLE glow around it. And in game its RED on rank 5. On the other side we know that Ryze is trying do his best to save Runeterra and tries to be as good as he can be even if he doubts himself sometimes. His magic is BLUE and WHITE in centre which is probably the purest as arcane can be. But lets talk about Veigar, his magic is not completely DARK instead it is PURPLE with some BLUE sparkles (in ultimate and E) he was good guy turned mostly bad and mad. And as we learned from last Veigar story he is not that completely evil, he is only trying to be and wants to be.

Another champions: Leblanc LeBlanc: If arcane magic changes color based on your emotions and feelings why not by intensions ("what you think"). LeBlanc whole theme is about decieving people and doing shady stuff like for example wiping peoples memory. So her arcane magic turned to PINK color based on using her magic to trick people and keeping secrets. But its not dark because she is doing it for greater good (keeping Mordekaiser secret) and thats why are her abilities golden/yellow maybe...

Ahri Ahri:

Innately connected to the latent power of Runeterra, Ahri is a vastaya who can reshape magic into Orb of Deception orbs of raw energy. She revels in toying with her prey by manipulating their emotions before devouring their Essence Theft life essence. Despite her predatory nature, Ahri retains a sense of empathy as she receives flashes of memory from each soul she consumes.

This is in Ahri bio. By latent power of Runeterra is ment Arcane (from World Rune) at least I think. She manipulates emotions of her pray which is another think Arcane can do. And she retains a sense of empathy so she isn't that evil and that's why her magic is BLUE.

Sona Sona: I think she uses her emotions to cast spells and she uses her harp as something she can channel her feelings/magic (Arcane) with. That's why every spell has different color.

Xerath Xerath: His body is pure BLUE/WHITE arcane thanks to his Ascension (Celestial Magic) that keeps his Arcane pure even tho he is not good.

Side note Ryze: I think Ryze is only using Rune Magic to keep his magic at bay. I don't know if by Rune Magic is ment the World Runes or Scroll Runes, if they were thinking of Scroll Runes its probably another kind of Arcane magic that is bound in words (runes) to not go overboard.

8 Comments

RyzeTheSmurfMage2/1/2020, 6:20:18 PM2 votes

Arcane is not a type of magic. It is a fancy term of refering to ancient, powerful magic and shit like that. Ryze uses runic. Veigar uses celestial. LB is unknown what she uses. Syndra seems to use spiritual. Ahri also uses spiritual. Sona has like no canon lore atm so we don't know.

GreenLore2/2/2020, 1:28:37 AM2 votes

Actually a rioter on twitter once classified magic into 3 broad categories: Elemental, spiritual and celestial magic.

Now granted, this does not make this system officially canon, it might change(or it could have been changed already), but it does give us insight how Riot views magic in the new lore.

Some types of magic combine multiple of these at once, like Ascended use a combination of elemental and celestial magic, which makes sense since Azir is a sandmancer who got his power from the celestial realm.

So by this logic I'd say that: Syndra might be spirit magic since it drains the spiritual magic of ionia around her and seems to be truly linked to her emotions(which is a spiritual thing). But overall we don't know enough about her powers to be sure.

Ryze uses rune magic which was outright said to be a combo of celestial and elemental magic.

Veigar likely uses celestial magic(though I might be biased because its space-themed), maybe with elemental mixed into that too.

Leblanc Again its hard to say because we have so little information about her magic. I'd say manipulating minds to create illusions would be spirit magic, but if she creates an optical illusion then that would be closer to elemental magic. Maybe its even a combo of both.

Ahri Vastaya are the ancestors of humans who transcended into spirits and then merged with humans, so I guess all of them are linked to spirit magic by birth. The fact that they can manipulate their physical bodies though might count as elemental magic though.

Sona in her case its pretty much impossible to tell since she doesn't have a single piece of canon lore. Though I'd guess its spirit-magic.

Xerath is an ascended, so even if he is a special case he should at least cover celestial and elemental magic, though I think he was actually a mage capable of spirit magic before his ascension as it said that he summoned elemental spirits to cause a storm to kill Azirs baby brother.

Source for this magic system: https://twitter.com/LaurieGoulding/status/1137415463535693824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1137415463535693824&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fboards.na.leagueoflegends.com%2Fen%2Fc%2Fstory-art%2FJMeN6J37-how-every-champion-in-league-could-fit-into-the-new-magic-system%3Fshow%3Dflat

Ebonmaw Dragon2/1/2020, 6:30:25 PM1 votes

I think that you are wrong about Ahri... i think that when the lore says "Innately connected to the latent power of Runeterra" it literally means that, she, as a Vastaya, is connected to the magic of Runeterra, specifically Ionia.

And Veigar uses Celestial Magic, Yordle Magic (Spiritual magic) and Dark Sorcery aside from knowing Arcane magic.

And you forgot to mention Xerath, whose lore straight up says that he is "a being of arcane energy"

Ezreal as well uses Arcane magic and KogMaw uses "Bio-Arcane"... In fact im pretty sure that tons of champs have relation to Arcane... maybe arcane magic just reffers to "ancient magic in general" or something