Valoran Lore for D&D?

President FkBoi·Nov 2, 2014·5 votes·2,359 views

Hey everyone, I've got a group of people I'm DM'ing for for D&D 5e, and we were looking at doing a campaign in Valoran. That being said, I love lore, but I have some questions. I would love for a Riot employee or someone that knows the Lore to chime in and help me out. Basically, I am looking for insight on specific places in the world, what the places are supposed to look and feel like, that sort of thing. Going off of the wiki (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Valoran), there are a lot of distinct and diverse areas in the world, and unfortunately, some of these areas are lacking in lore. If a Riot employee could chime in on there areas specifically (Bubbling Bog, Howling Marsh, Ironspike Mountains, Kaladoun, Mogron Pass, Kumungu, Plague Jungles, Voodoo Lands), that would be great. Also, any distances or scales (distance from Piltover to Zuan, from Demacia to Noxus, etc) would be great as well. Thank you for the help!

11 Comments

brusqueNov 2, 20143 votes

Hey, I write some lore in Valoran for fun and in the process have come up with descriptions for some of these places that are somewhat fleshed out. I've also got my own rough idea of the general distance between places on the continent, so I could probably help out if you are just looking to get some numbers to start a game fast. What kind of information are you looking for?

President FkBoiNov 2, 20142 votes

I would really like descriptions and "feelings" of the areas. It's fairly easy to write/create a set of mountains or a swamp in D&D, but outside of character bios, there is little to be gained. Ideally, I would have each place have a unique identity, with individual cultures and peoples and dangers.

brusqueNov 2, 20141 votes

Here's the thing: it's kind of part of your job as the DM to come up with these descriptions and stuff on your own, right? Valoran has a lot of pre-established tropes and ideas already floating around it, so if I were DMing, I'd use the wiki as my first method for research into the different areas of Valoran. If you aren't inclined to want to look through the Journals of Justice and champion judgments and whatnot after reading through some of this material, that is fine: the wiki does a solid job of collecting what's known about these areas into a single place. Like champions, "areas" or "places" have their own characters, too. It's called culture. You can get a good general sense of these things by reading the wiki.

A major roadblock you're going to hit is that there was recently a big lore retcon that was announced by Riot where the central thematic device, which drove a lot of the old lore and the old characterization of champions and cultures, was uh, completely eliminated. Fans of lore, fans of RPG, et cetera, have been left very confused because right now we're in a state of limbo where there hasn't been an official announcement about what's canon and what's not. The only announcement has been that nothing is canon except for what was released afterwards, namely Shurima and Sion. Oh and there is no Institute of War and no summoners (however, it was recently stated that summoners are not gone. So there's that).

This means:

You're very unlikely to get a response from Riot about the different feelings and areas and distances of places in Valoran because it all hasn't been thought of yet. And if it has been thought of, they probably aren't going to say much because they'd rather release it in a new updated story format.
You'll have to resort to using the Wiki, fan creations, or your own ideas and creative powers as a DM to fill in that world. Unfortunately I don't have the time or word length capacity on these board posts to type out everything that I feel about every single place in Valoran. In my own writing, I have only touched on Noxus, Demacia, and Piltover (briefly). If you're setting your campaign in either of these places, feel free to add me in-game and we can talk more. I'll show you what I have so far.

Sneak DogNov 2, 20142 votes

Bad timing, the core of the lore got recently retconned out and it seems to me that the lore team is once more trying to figure out what to do with the lore.

SecretAgentHulkNov 2, 20141 votes

How is that in any way relevant, especially when the question was specifically about land, culture, etc and not the League?

Legacy of XionNov 2, 20141 votes

Because removing the institute causes this massive empty spot on the map can cause problems...

brusqueNov 2, 20144 votes

It's slightly relevant, but not for this reason. An empty spot on a map doesn't cause problems, it just means you have to fill that spot in with something else.

The retcon is only relevant in that you have to use the "old" lore currently if you want to craft stories in Valoran, especially for D&D stuff, because there is no new canon. That old lore is all based and characterized around the Institute. But the old lore is retconned. So you have to make up your own stuff, basically.

Sneak DogNov 2, 20141 votes

Because it was the main premise of the old lore and the old lore is where you'll have to get most of your information. You'll have to check every piece of information to see if it's still holds up without IoW.

The two main events that are fuzzy right now are the Kalamanda incident and the Noxus-Ionian war which had a great impact on Kalamanda (and Morgron pass I'd imagine) and Ionia respectively. Keep this in mind when determining your setting. The other regions should be fairly unchanged without IoW, but you'll have to do some digging to get some great details about the areas (read champion judgements, they can tell a great deal about their champions' origins).

Legacy of XionNov 2, 20141 votes

I dont DnD but this is one campaign Id learn it for :D

AbyssionKnightNov 3, 20141 votes

This is a cool idea.

What i'd suggest for your DM is to read the Journal of Justice. From the wiki you can also fine all 31 issues of the JoJ. While a lot of the articles are flavour, they provide a better understand of some of the life / events that occured in the old lore, and could be useful for giving him a better understanding of the world, and perhaps even a glimpse into some of the areas he is interested in.

Additionally reading champion lore (including older lore pages) can help, since the old lore generally tended to have a lot of extraneous details that riot has since removed from the bios since they're not necessarily important to the champion bio.

League Judgements can also give some glimpses into various cultures of Valoran, though the perspectives they're given from can be a little biased by the perceptions of the champion.

In the end though, you're going to have to make some things up on your own, since Riot wont come and give you all the juicy details you want. The lore community has been asking various questions for years now, and many are still unanswered.

So look at the JoJ and Judgements, look at older bios, and from those you should get a general idea of where League was headed lore wise, and the flavour of lore in the world. That'll make creating your own filler lore significantly easier, since you'll at least have the right frame of mind to create some.

Good luck, and I hope it goes well!

Platinum YakNov 5, 20141 votes

Unfortunately, a lot of those regions haven't been elaborated upon yet - they've likely been left open for future developments. If Riot does have anything planned for them, you're unlikely to hear about it here first, they'd rather save that stuff for their own events and promotions.

That being the case though, there's nothing that would stop you from making up your idea lore and ideas about those regions based on the few Champions who hail from them. It's your chance to weave your own creative vision in amongst the existing League lore - have fun with it.

You might get a response regarding the size of Valoran, if you ask about its general size compared to, say, a continent here on Earth. Big as Africa, big as Australia, etc.