Bandle City — Let's talk before Narrative retcons everything

CupcakeTrap·Oct 1, 2014·25 votes·10,005 views

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I have no idea if Bandle City is next in line for the chopping block, or if that's still a ways away. But I have a bad feeling it's coming. Let's get talking now, and see if the Narrative team takes the opportunity to engage with us in a serious way, in the Riot way.

First, I'll summarize Bandle City's current lore as best as I can. Then, I'll highlight some topics for discussion. Finally, we'll share and discuss among ourselves—cupcakes and juice boxes will be provided for all good yordles—and see if maybe Narrative will come participate, or if they're determined to once again slap all this to the side and smack their shrink-wrapped pre-packaged Bandle City lore down on the table without community input.

FOR THE MOTHERSHIP!

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The Basics

Yordles are cute, fuzzy little creatures. (Females are less fuzzy and more smurfy.) They have an exceptionally tight-knit society, and are generally speaking pretty weird. They live mostly in Bandle City. Although one can certainly mix in more serious elements, yordles are pretty much there for comic relief and cuteness: you look to Noxus and Demacia for the gritty hardcore stories, and to Bandle City for a fun break. That said, there is some intriguing depth to them, mostly as concerns the Mothership and their peculiar psychology.

Here are the key points.

Cute. Yordles are cute. They are adorable little fuzzballs. This doesn't mean all Bandle City lore must be super-cutesy, but this is their main role.
Community. Yordles have an extremely strong sense of community. In isolation, yordles will go nuts. This can take various forms: too many solo patrols turned Teemo into a giggling sociopath, while solitary confinement in a Noxian prison turned Veigar into a cackling psycho. (Can I just pause to point out how hilariously awesome this story is? Veigar was deprived of snuggles until he went mad and became a dark mage. #onlyinleague) More generally, yordles are much more communal and social than humans. I imagine most of their decisions are made by consensus rather than politics. They probably don't have a lot of crime, because they're just not wired that way.
Curious. Yordles like to explore and discover. They're a good choice for a storyline that's less gritty/violent. But I imagine they do have a mischevious side that can get them in trouble.
The Mothership. Yordles worship (for lack of a better word) the Mothership, a strange artifact in the center of Bandle City. They have a pervasive cultural concept of "getting it ready", but if asked generally can't explain quite what that means: they just know, on some instinctive level, that it's important and it's supposed to do something. I enjoy the quirkiness this adds to their otherwise somewhat blandly "cute" lore, and the opportunity it provides for some mystery.
Magic/Tech. Yordles appear fairly skilled in both magic and technology. Most of their brightest minds have gone to the Academy in Piltover. (Some yordles, like Rumble, aren't happy about that.)
Trade. I think it's pretty well implied that yordles are quite happily and successfully mercantile. They love to travel and explore, even if at the end of the day they always want to come back home. (Cue that tearjerker Sesame Street song about not wanting to live on the moon.)
Foreign relations. Yordles have some friendly rivalry with Piltover, but are generally on good terms. (Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if there were some kind of League of Legends where Piltover and Bandle City could compete in a fierce but non-lethal way?)

I'm a big fan of Bandle City and yordles. I think the most original element of League of Legends is the League itself, a sort of fantasy Babylon 5, but the runner-up would probably be Bandle City. I especially enjoy the fact that, although they're very cutesy and fun, they also have some depth: it's interesting to imagine an insular society built around extremely strong kinship and benevolence. It's a cuter take on the "hive mind" concept: they're not scary, they're still individuals, but they're also just really snuggly and communal.

Next, I'd like to raise some topics for discussion. I shall attempt to refrain from taking a particular side in the OP, and save that for the comments.

Topic: Appearance

This is more of an art topic, but what should yordles look like? Should they be fuzzy? Should males be fuzzy while females are not (though perhaps with some cat ears or something)? Should we bring back the yordle/megling distinction?

Topic: Champions

Let's run through some Champions whose lore Riot might be planning to change. This is mostly guesswork on my part.

Teemo is such an iconic Champion that he surely warrants first mention. His lore is currently pretty standard: a loyal Bandle City scout and local hero. The main twist is the darkly comedic note that he's spent too much time alone, and as cute and fuzzy as he is on the outside, he's become a remorseless sociopath. (I went for the obvious American Psycho joke here.) This is mostly just a surprise twist, a sort of easter egg (so to speak) for people who read the background. But I'd argue that it does also give him a little depth, and illustrate the fact that yordles can be kind of scary. Further, by showing what can happen to a yordle who's isolated for too long, his lore helps demonstrate yordles' deep need for community.

I am evil! STOP LAUGHING! I'm a Veigar main, so it's hard for me to be neutral here. But Veigar's current lore provides another example of a yordle "gone bad". What's entertaining about the Teemo/Veigar contrast, IMO, is that Teemo is outwardly heroic and cutesy, while Veigar is a maniacal villain, but inside Teemo is a remorseless killer and Veigar still yearns for affection and friendship. Not sure what kind of rework I'd expect for Veigar, but I'm biased here.

I have a hunch that they'll try to cut out her "ambassador" theme. Increasingly, Riot seems to want to isolate the various states (or at least reduce them to pairs, like Demacia-Noxus). Maybe they'll make her the ambassador to Piltover.

I have a strong hunch that they'll make him no longer a yordle. Seems a bit of a shame. Thoughts?

I imagine they might try to spice her lore up a bit. She's currently pretty "standard", arguably a better "poster-yordle" than Teemo.

Are they going to keep his "yordle supremacy" angle? I kind of hope they do. Obviously, you want to be careful not to end up in Unfortunate Implications Land, but it can easily be recast less as xenophobic hatred and more as simply yordles being inherently insular, combined with some factional rivalry with Piltover. Rumble's story helps raise the question of how yordles should interact with the outside world.

Topic: The Mothership

I think there's a lot of room to play around with this. However, and again I'm trying to be neutral in the OP, I have a strong suspicion that Riot will retcon the Mothership out of existence. It's too "weird", too "quirky", and they have expressed dismay for "from outer space" origin stories. On the other hand, one might say, i.e. I might say, i.e. I do say, that it meshes nicely with the weirdness and insularity of yordles, and there's no need to ever reveal the ultimate truth. It can simply be a mystery that Champions and Summoners (glare) can investigate.

Topic: Stories

What kinds of stories would be fun to see for Bandle City? Here are a few ideas.

Rivalry with Piltover. Maybe show Bandle City and Piltover each trying to one-up each other in some kind of scientific contest. Zaun could also enter the mix. (And now it's starting to sound like Hextech Revolution.)
The Atlanteans. It's hinted that yordles might be distant kin of the Atlanteans. This could be explored, as a pathway to the Atlanteans/Marai subplot with the moonstone and such. Maybe they find that the Atlanteans are hiding somewhere else. Maybe the Marai and Atlanteans flee to Bandle City (perhaps just off the coast, where the Mothership's aura still keeps the monsters away) for sanctuary. I feel that yordles are well-suited to exploration and mystery plots.
Refuel the Mothership. This happened in Hextech Revolution, and I was pretty entertained. The yordles might eventually refuel/repair their Mothership and fly to the moon. What a glorious day for yordlekind that would be!
War/crisis. While I think Bandle City is better as a source of lighter plots, you certainly could have a disaster or invasion of some kind. For example, in Factions, sneaky little yordles accidentally freed a Shuriman lich queen (driven mad by the Void) from her tomb, triggering an undead invasion. (This was actually just a combination of Summoners from Bandle City voting to take a risk on an illegal expedition into a tomb the Council had sealed off, plus a really bad die roll for result.) It might be fun showing yordles banding together against a common threat.

Story Examples

Here's a selection of Factions lore dealing with Bandle City, as an example of possible Bandle City stories. It's mostly from the previous arc, as that was the first one to really involve Bandle City as a playable faction. (They were playable in Discord, but just didn't get up to much.)

Hextech Revolution Update 2: Opening Moves — Curious little yordles accidentally free a lich queen in Shurima. Includes lots of comedic invocations of the Mothership's power.
The Summoner's Herald, Vol. I, Issue 1 — The cover story is about Nefara attacking Bandle City. I love 333lom's artwork.
Hextech Revolution Update 7: A Scientist's Decision — Shows Merricurry, a yordle scientist, having taken up residence in Zaun. She's a pretty tough-minded yordle, but even she starts to freak out as she realizes how very un-yordle-y many Zaunites are.
Hextech Revolution Update 10: The Terror of the Void — Features Poppy being badass as she fights Cho'gath in Shurima.
Special Report from The Summoner's Herald Concerning the Launch of the Mothership — An in-universe news article that discusses the Mothership, the possible origins of yordles, and so on.
Hextech Revolution Epilogue — The fourth and final section focuses on Bandle City. It's a Rumble POV piece, and goes into some of his thoughts about yordles and the rest of Valoran. It also features Riot Paddo (in his in-universe incarnation as Summoner Paddo of the Riotous Fists Clan) serving cupcakes to bouncing yordles as they get smashed on juice boxes. (Draft.)