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The History of the History of Runeterra: Stories, Lore, and Legacy

Erractic Eick·6/1/2016, 10:15:42 AM·3 votes·1,846 views

INTRODUCTION

First of all, let it be known that I am an unranked level 30, an idiot, new to the game, and generally do not understand the complexities and subtleties of League. I'm going to give my best shot at trying to make a cohesive argument anyway, but reader beware, and please, if you have something to add, or a question to pose, PLEASE put it in the comments.

Second of all, let it be known that for the most part, Riot is really good at making lore that draws the players in. I'm fairly certain everyone here has at least one champ they enjoy purely because of the design and lore behind them. Riot has an incredible talent for coming up with characters that grab your attention, be it a man whose main purpose in life is to mow down his enemies with a combination of swordplay and ballet skills (Garen), to a nigh omnipotent and absolutely fabulous-looking space dragon/hallucination (Aurelion Sol), to the Runeterran Satan (Teemo), and everyone has a champion that they are captivated by. From listening to the podcasts and reading the Riot staff commentary on some of the boards, what I just described is what League is all about, finding champions that you can connect with (At least, I think. I'm an idiot, remember?).

However, sometimes lore can be a bit too... unclear.

No, not like the recent lore updates for Rammus and Amumu, which leave their exact purpose in Shurima up in the air and add to a sense of legend, or Aatrox, who has manipulated the whole of Runeterran history for the sake of more bloodshed but otherwise remains shrouded in mystery. No, I mean more like when you can't be sure if your main champion's lore exists anymore.

THE PROBLEM OF LEGACY

"But Eick," you say, "how could that be the case?"

"Well, first, it's pronounced 'Ike,' and not 'Eek' or even 'Erick,'" I reply, "and second, from what I understand, the Institute of War no longer officially exists in League's Lore. This means that champions like Alistar, Fiddlesticks, Cho'Gath Kayle, Morgana, Brand, Malphite, Jax, and Nautilus all lack relevant lore in Runeterra's current story."

There may be more champions like this, but I'm pulling this names off the official League Website descriptions since they all have at least some reference to the Institute of War, or the physical place of the League of Legends, or in Fiddlesticks's (Fiddlesticks', Fiddlesticksesesees's?) case, because he has no lore at all. Seriously. Go look.

Now, you may not care for any one of several reasons. Maybe you don't think this affects many people, or maybe you don't think it affects the actual game, or maybe you don't believe this could affect your own champion ever, but you should think again.

If you don't think it matters because you don't think enough people are affected, then you should at least consider that there is a sizable portion of the community that does main, or at least backup one of these champs (If someone could crunch the numbers, I would be eternally grateful; I don't know where to find them...). Some, like Alistar, are even staples for Pro Players.

Furthermore, lore does affect gameplay, because a champion's abilities are derived from their background. This is especially important when champions receive major updates. If Riot told you that, instead of following the lore of Darius during his rework, Darius would tap-dance his opponents to death, people would be confused and furious. Okay, some (including me) might think that was awesome, but mostly confused and furious. Lore sets a precedent for what a champion's kit can and cannot look like, and when lore is wishy-washy, then so is the gameplay affecting the champion. Champion background creates clarity to solve this problem, i.e. Garen is a hero, so his kit will make a villain and reflect his lore of being righteous and all that crap.

Finally, reworks, patches, and events shake up the history of Runeterra and the balance of the actual game of League, so there is always the possibility your champion's lore can become outdated, in which case your champion may sudden;y find itself in the crosshairs for reworks, causing you to suddenly find yourself in the identity crisis of the previous paragraph.

But even if none of these things matter in your mind, this problem should still concern you. Because at its fundamental level, lore is designed to make people fall in love with a champion, and when a champion's story is no longer in tune with the world it is supposed to depict, people don't want to play that champion, which reduces champion diversity, and makes League of Legends a smaller and altogether less enjoyable game.

ABSOLUTE CHAOS

Additionally, there is another concern we should all share, beyond the outdated champions and their lore. The way League lore is organized, it exists in paragraphs and sentences in boards and podcasts and videos and such, but not definitively in any one place. That means that depending on where you look, a champion might have a paragraph of lore, or several dozen pages. Some champion you thought you knew might be infinitely more complex than you ever imagined, but you would never know due to the immense mountains of other content posted on the home page of the main website. The next best option available would be the League of Legends Wikia, yet lately they've been making format changes and consequently losing all the information they had previously.

Take for instance the lore of Tahm Kench. If you only visited his champion summary page on the website, currently you would find a vague three sentence description of him. However, if you go to the Youtube channel for League of Legends, you would find a four minute video of a story that almost made me willing to suffer the enormous time cost of acquiring 6300 IP solely from losses to acquire him. Almost.

It's information like that a that fleshes out the League world and attracts new players to the game. These tales capture the attention of younger generations looking for their next source of stories, of endless hours of amusement. SURELY we stand to benefit from new blood in the game and a better defined world!

A SUMMONER'S PLEA

"Okay, okay, okay," you say, "I get your concern, but what is your point?"

Well, to simply put it, I'd like to ask Riot, if it's not too great of an imposition on them, to create a definitive lore for the champions I mentioned earlier, and put it on their website. If it already exists, that's fantastic, but then I'd have to request they put all that up-to-date information in one place, a sort of archive for the lore surrounding all of Runeterra, from the city states to the champion events to the explanation of what-exactly- is a yordle. As it stands, it's just too complicated to go sifting through every notification to look for the most recent iteration of Runeterra's history for two sentence tidbits about the mother of Miss Fortune.

I understand what an immense task this would be, as well, and I know how much time and manpower this would take, but to finally find some clarity in the aforementioned champions, and also to learn more about the champions that are up to date along with the entire story of Runeterra, I'd be willing to volunteer my time to sift through all the boards to help make this archive a reality.

Finally, I'm sure there are those of you who know more about this than I do, so please pass the message on, or inform me of what's really true or not, or correct everything I just said if I'm wrong, because I'm ignorant and I'd like to change that.

Thanks for reading.

5 Comments

MavenSong6/1/2016, 12:12:14 PM2 votes

First off, great post A+ on that... no S cause those are impossible to get.

Jokes aside, I agree im the fact some champions have been left rather scarce on current lore, fid being a very large offender of this, but it is mainly because champions like fid dont really have a place currently in any story arcs. They are however going from place to place fitting them in however. With events like Targon, taric finally has a place to call home per say, Granted he had a rework to back it up. But they are updating and fitting old characters into newer lore slowely.

With shurima we now have a better understanding of amumu and rammus... and even SKARNER (props to riot on this one) that we didnt have before. They wernt really impacted by the retcon much so it was rather easy to retell the story but with it was well done to where there were no ties to the old lore.

In time ones like fid and nocturne will get thier dues. It will take time though. I still feel like there were certain golden oprotunities missed though for lore updating or for a cool side story. Sona (who I main) I really wish could have had some ties with Jhin when he was released.

That said though Her lore now, it works ok and it sorta fits if you take out the IoW, but she isnt a part if any ongoing story herself. She is a famous musician and that's it. No story or anything. But it still kind of works.

They also added some interesting charecters in stories too which is really cool, like Lucian and Olaf in Shadow and Fortune. So even some very unlikey characters can appear in a story

Onto the accessibility of the lore, I can agree some of should be included. If / when they ever make some hub for lore it should include teasers and such because they really braodcast what that champion is. Tahm you brought up is a good example. Yes there is the story of the gambler. You read it and youre like "oh cool, he tricked the guy. But when you see the teaser for it where you can plainly hear Tahm tell it, it feels like it brings out a new side. "OH, that dude realllllyyy fucked up".

Regardless things will come in due time im sure. We just have to see what rito has planned.

Erractic Eick6/1/2016, 10:26:28 AM1 votes

I should also mention that if you too would be interested in helping to create a definitive lore page and help sift through stuff for Riot, we should probably make a comment thread.[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Beyond Legends6/1/2016, 4:18:42 PM1 votes

tl:dr we want more lore, faster retcon andvl easier to access stuff.

Rito: still working on it.