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@Jaredan- Is Bilgwater's story the new norm?

Luxxum··8 votes·3,791 views

Let me explain: The bilgewater storyline was great. By the book, the story, the characters, and the environment were fantastic. However, the problem is that "by the book" has, as far as I know, never really been league. League has always had a somewhat lighthearted, and sometimes derpy story, never taking itself too seriously. The bilgwater stories don't reflect this. They are deathly serious, and there is nothing in any of the characters which has this lighthearted feel. MF is no longer a bounty hunter who is also a politician trying to keep bilgewater in the right direction, she is now revenge-crazed and wants to murder what must amount to an eighth of bilgewater's population, and is willing to let the city burn to do it.

The serious feel makes sense in this location, but I'm worried that Lore team will try to make this the norm. I really can't imagine bandle or piltover being portrayed in this light. I have some trust in lore team restored after the recent lore additions, but I am worried they will take this direction too far. Dark and grim are great in certain situations, but please don't take it too far.

10 Comments

RiotRiotJaredan11 votes

The theme and tone fit well for Bilgewater, but League has various tones. We want to be mindful of that, and will tell stories that reflect the Champs and places they inhabit.

CupcakeTrap3 votes

{quoted}

The theme and tone fit well for Bilgewater, but League has various tones. We want to be mindful of that, and will tell stories that reflect the Champs and places they inhabit.

That's good to hear. I greatly enjoyed Burning Tides, not least because it was so thoroughly backwards-compatible with prior lore, but…it did seem to be pushing the "darker and grittier" angle even further. As someone noted on the Factions forum, Revengeplank's VO has a little too much "I'm gonna [VERB] their [BODY PART]!" I've tried to make it make sense in my head by making up something about how, without the League, Gangplank would never have had need to put on a charade of buffoonery to trick others into underestimating him as just another scummy backwater Champion-for-hire. Still, it was a bit jarring to see Gangplank portrayed so very grimly.

As I see it, one thing that makes Runeterra so special is that it's such a vivid and exciting place, where the bounds of possibility extend so much further than they do IRL. I think it's important that League keeps some of that "throw all the action figures in the sandbox" feeling, and that it avoids becoming "medieval Europe with a dragon thrown in here and there." I suppose the word I'm looking for is "abundance". I see Runeterra as a place of abundance, of over-abundance, where the threat is probably not "dying starving and forgotten" but instead "getting blown up by the insane excess that's bubbling up everywhere you go." A setting like Westeros from Game of Thrones is defined by scarcity and misery, which provides a very dark contrast for the occasional flashes of light. That's not a bad aesthetic, but I don't think it can or should be League's aesthetic.

This wasn't entirely lacking in Burning Tides, of course. You've got a teleporting card-throwing mage fighting a guy with a giant shotgun, and a pirate king being blown up by a nymphomaniac pistoleer and then fitted with a robot arm. Of these things, I heartily approve.

I know you're a tabletop fan, so let me close with:

http://i.imgur.com/Ht4nLpA.jpg

Solideus5 votes

"getting blown up by the insane excess that's bubbling up everywhere you go."

I think Bilgewater's hunting and trading of giants sea creatures, with shark-rats running between their legs, is a great example of Runeterra delivering on that. Even Shurima, in it's dreariest places, have the Xer'Sai. I agree "Scarcity and misery" isn't really Valoran's thing for the most part. It's a dangerous but colorful place.

Siachi9 votes

Just don't go making Bandle City into some film noir, gothic urban city filled with crime and cynicism. =|

Doesn't have to be full-on cutesy sugar bowl either, but SOMEWHERE in Runeterra needs to have the "Least LIkely Place to Have Your Organs Stolen and Sold on the Black Market" award.

Solideus7 votes

Film noir Bandle city might not be as cute and cuddly, but it would be hilarious.

Weesiwel1 votes

What about when champions from Bilgewater neet champions from Bandle for instance? There is a risk that assigning tones to regions and champiosn make them incompatible with other champions and really that's bad. It is highly likely that in any natural story progession (which I hope happens) that champions of various tones will end up in areas with other tones and meet champions of other tones.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Is the Shurima story regarding Xerath and Azir done now? Is it in line with what you did with Bilgewater by your point of view? (For me it isn't, just saying).

RiotRiotJaredan3 votes

No, their story is not done. There's much more to explore there (in addition to Sivir, Renekton and Nasus).

Stars Shaper1 votes

You don't know how happy I am knowing this ç_ç

Xerath has always been the champion whose lore most entrigued me.

The HeraId1 votes

If you thought that was grim dark, that was fairly lighthearted to what I normally read:

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grimdark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

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