Recreating Malzahar Part 2 (The Lore of the Prophet)

Hi all,

So my recent post (https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/4HYwLIQz-to-those-that-wrote-the-lore-for-malzahar?) has lead me to reread the Lore of the Void and it's associated characters with the aim of creating a Lore accurate, yet gameplay ready, version of my favourate champion: Malzahar.

Over the course of this I felt it would be a good idea to detail this Lore in few separate posts, not only to promote interest in the rework I'm going to propose, but also to share Lore that some may not yet have seen. I will be making links here and there to Malzahar specifically including his gameplay, and will include links to the source material I am using if you want to get a bit more detail. I hope you can enjoy this as much as I have writing it and if I miss anything PLEASE let me know; it'll mean there's more for me to read, and upvote to keep this in the recent for more people to read xD

The first part of this series detailed the Lore of the Void and can be found here: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/YvmbAmzn-recreating-malzahar-part-1-the-lore-of-the-void

So now I'm moving onto the man himself in the Lore of the Prophet.

So Malzahar started out as the son of a peasant in Shurima. Orphaned at a young age he was left to fend for himself on the streets where he survived reading fortunes for scraps of bread or coins. He gained a reputation for his predictions being accurate, and as his audience grew, he even started doing tricks like throwing daggers at a woman on a spinning wheel (interesting point: This trick went wrong once which is why he has his dagger).

He gained patrons, his fame grew, and became pretty damn rich, described as being dressed not in dirtied sandals, but jeweled slippers. (1)

But what could Malzahar actually see? Well we know he saw the future with a good amount of accuracy, his success speaks to this, but we also know he was unable to see everything; his mistake with the women on the spinning wheel attests to this. We also know he was limited to the future of OTHERS, as the Lore states Malzahar could never see his own destiny. His future was hidden.(1) which may explain the mistake with the woman on the wheel: their fates were tied if only in that moment.

In any case, Malzahar finally became disillusioned with the world, finding those he was serving were bound up in a never-ending cycle of pain, often of their own making (1) and how corrupt the world might yet become(1) decided to leave his wealth and home behind.

He roamed for years, visiting the home of Rek'sai's smaller kin on the Plains of Sai and the ruins of Old Sharima, enjoying some time away from people, just him and his own thoughts.

Then starts the visions.

Feverish visions began to plague his waking hours, along with otherworldly whispers of war and strife, and endless suffering.(1)

This could be the Void calling out to him, it could be another evidence of Malefic Visions. Personally I see it as BOTH. Remember Malzahar cannot see his OWN future, and he's away from people so he's not going to be seeing there. So the only other option if these Visions coming from the Void itself. In the Lore of the Void we discovered that the Void itself uses malefic visions; to disorientate prey, and as a simple byproduct of proximity to it, and we know the void also call to people, to serve or as food. In this description of the void calling to Malazhar, I think we see it using the malefic visions in this way, further evidence of it's consciousness.

In any case, Malzahar has these visions and continued to wonder, until he reached Icathia. There he found the Portal to the Void, and saw:

_ an end to all the suffering he had witnessed in his mortal lifetime. He realized the future he had believed hidden from him all this time was in fact a vision of his true calling: to accelerate the world toward inevitable oblivion. (1)_

And so he became the void's Prophet and eagerly went back into the world seeking to spread word of the holy nothingness that would gladly embrace them, the willing and non-believers alike.(1)

What what actually HAPPENED to Malzahar? The Lore speaks of him being no longer just a man, but something greater.(1), and _ its strange and unknowable energies saturated his mind completely(1)_ but what does this mean for the Seer?

Well first off, the Old Lore states: His once shifting visions of the future were replaced with the immutable promise of Valoran beset by creatures of the Void.(2) so we know his abilities as a Seer are now focused wholey on the Void and IT'S future. We know that he gains the ability to open Portals, as he shows several times in his Lore, most clearly when he found his first followers:

Among the nomads of the deep desert, he found his first disciples. Before their astonished eyes, he used his new Void-given powers to rend the very earth itself(1)

And the ability to Summon Voidborn:

summoning chittering, nightmarish creatures to carry away any who dared to deny him(1)

But this also shows a "charm" side to his abilities, as some CHOSE to follow him. In the Lore of the Void we learnt that the Void can call out of prey, so could it be that he also gained this ability? Well the passage continues with:

_ Within a matter of months, strange rumors began to travel with the merchant caravans; rumors of men and women gladly sacrificing themselves to unseen powers(1)_

which would suggest that he did indeed have some power to compel others into his way of thinking, even to the point of sacrificing themselves to feed the Void. And as we know the only way to combat the Void is to starve it, it only makes sense that feeding it will make it grow which would explain the passage: powerful quakes opening up the bedrock of Shurima in new fault lines hundreds of miles long(1)

Finally we have his Dagger. Remember that one from the Woman on the Wheel. Could that have been changed in any way by Malzahar's interaction at Icathia? Well in an interesting tit-bit in the Old Lore we see Kassadin attempt to attack Mazlahar in the markets of Zaun:

The blast that Kassadin sent toward the Prophet seemed to pull itself to the dagger instead. When it hit, the dagger glowed and cut a hole open into the air. (3)

This suggests his Dagger itself may be linked to the Void, and may be the conduit into which he channels his void-given powers to open portals. Remember the Void is described as being combated through the starvation of organic or magical sustenance (4) hinting that maybe magic is just as good a sustenance as flesh.

Either way, this defensive, and reactive attribute in his dagger could show the though behind his current passive, if in a lack-luster sort of way.

In any case, Mazlahar is now roaming the land, opening portals to the void, gathering followers to his cult and getting people to sacrifice themselves to feed the void.

In the next segment I will be looking at Malzahar the Champion: His current abilities and their link to the Lore we've discussed, and outlining the basics of the abilities of my Lore accurate Recreation.

Sources: (1) Malzahar - https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/story/champion/malzahar/ (2) Malzahar's Old Lore - http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Malzahar/History (3) Malzahar vs Kassadin at Zaun - http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/The_Journal_of_Justice:_Volume_1,_Issue_14 (4) The Void - https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_GB/region/void/