What lore "counts?"

Melchy·Oct 11, 2014·1 votes·834 views

This is not a new-lore bashing or anything of the sort. I'm actually really excited about seeing Riot move forward and get excited about the stories they can tell. However, I'm a little confused about what in the league universe now "counts." Is there a certain date where old lore ends and new begins? Is it just Shurima and Reborn? Most importantly, are there any plans to consolidate the new lore? It's hard to keep a solid grasp on everything when it comes from many different sources. I don't wanna feel like I could have missed anything.

8 Comments

DG AshabelOct 12, 20143 votes

From what we've been told, it's the Freljord event from last year, the Shurima event and Reborn.

The basic criteria are: if it's a noisy marketing campaign used to sell champions, skins and extra game modes, then it counts. If it's an attempt to tell a story for the sake of telling one, then it doesn't.

SharjoOct 12, 20143 votes

I personally think that everything from mid 2012 onwards is canon. This includes Jayce ruining Viktor's day, Darius and Draven being awesome, Varus murdering Noxians, Diana murdering the Solari elders, Rengar and Kha'Zix's rivalry, Nami's quest,, Vi's partnership with Caitlyn, Zed and the Order of Shadows, Syndra being a cocky bint, all the Shadow Isles related stuff and everything in 2013 and 2014. That's just me. It's pretty much safe to say that everything that's followed since the announcement of the Institute not being a thing anymore is totally canon, and considering they've actually said they were sitting on that decision for a while, it's reasonable to assume there was a lot of stuff made before hand with the idea that the institute wasn't canon in mind.

To help discern stuff, try and look at champions and see what would really change if the institute was never canon. If the answer is bugger all, then I'd say it's a safe bet that it'll remain that way, but these things get blurrier the further back you go, which is why I put my limit at mid 2012. Then it enters the realm of champions who may get changed, some more severely than others depending on the circumstances. For instance despite coming out at similar times, Nautilus is likely to get a lot more redone about him than Ziggs, since the League actually had a major effect on Nautilus, where as Ziggs's lore could have the institute removed and it would be just as good, minus a sentence or two.

MelchyOct 12, 20141 votes

That's a cool way to see it. That's more what I was hoping for, but the shorter bios of the champions so far had me worried. Do you think they will ever release what is cannon and what isn't? or just keep on adding new stuff till the institute is forgotten lol

SharjoOct 12, 20141 votes

They'll just keep adding stuff because everything they add now's totally canon. What they release now will directly affect what came before, and tell you what old lore is actually canon. Also the short bios are for the client. They're designed for the revamped client, and they'll have links to longer lore on the website.

GreenLoreOct 12, 20141 votes

Overall they said you can basically take most lores still as canon,just remove the "and so they joined the league of legends"-line(if they even have one,starting with Darius they stopped mentioning the league entirely) Of course there are lores who are more dependent on the League,such as Jax or Fiddlesticks and those are the ones who are not canon anymore

The Sion event also showed that seemingly the kalamanda conflict is still canon(just that there was no league involved with it). The noxus-ionia-war is definetly still canon,we just don't know how the ionians managed to keep their land.

DiahaneOct 12, 20141 votes

Overall they said you can basically take most lores still as canon,just remove the "and so they joined the league of legends"-line(if they even have one,starting with Darius they stopped mentioning the league entirely) Of course there are lores who are more dependent on the League,such as or and those are the ones who are not canon anymore

The Sion event also showed that seemingly the kalamanda conflict is still canon(just that there was no league involved with it). The noxus-ionia-war is definetly still canon,we just don't know how the ionians managed to keep their land.

Nor how Noxians managed not getting crushed by Demacia while they were busy dispatching soldiers and resources, plus suffering losses elsewhere.

GreenLoreOct 12, 20141 votes

guess they are simply that badass. We should not forget that they allied with Zaun for that war,so they were able to send less soldiers than usual.

DiahaneOct 14, 20141 votes

guess they are simply that badass. We should not forget that they allied with Zaun for that war,so they were able to send less soldiers than usual.

That's a way less satisfactory explanation than the old one with the IoW around. This tells a lot about old versus new lore =P

Besides, the Ionia war in the new lore conflicts with the Kalamanda arc in the fact that with no IoW there should still be war there, or something like that. But the whole Kalamanda plot revolved around Swain being the only Noxian commander not only on that field but on a field in general. That was what got him the boost for his rise to power.