@Riot: Nautilus' Helmet -What Lurks Beneath?

Dreamspitter·3/11/2015, 2:15:10 AM·30 votes·10,992 views

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EW0BCgy9k_4/VPp6h7YtO6I/AAAAAAAAlTU/Kl20ZprCxQs/s1600/natu2.jpg

Recently a number of champion concept arts were revealed. This one struck me in particular, it was from Nautilus development showing what COULD be beneath his helmet. Based on Nami and Fizz lore, it sort of looks like the Void MIGHT have some influence under the seas. That and the ocean is very Lovecraftian.

The ocean ate the last of the land and poured into the smoking gulf, thereby giving up all it had ever conquered. From the new-flooded lands it flowed again, uncovering death and decay; and from its ancient and immemorial bed it trickled loathsomely, uncovering nighted secrets of the years when Time was young and the gods unborn. -The Crawling Chaos (1921)

"All will drown." Nautilus

Sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea have grown clear and phosphorescent, to grant me glimpses of the ways beneath. And these glimpses have been as often of the ways that were and the ways that might be, as of the ways that are; for ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. -The White Ship (1919)

"Beware the depths." Nautilus

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, green, gray, white or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. All my days have I watched it and listened to it, and I know it well. -The White Ship (1919)

"Do you hear them calling?" Nautilus

"The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination..." —Lovecraft in a letter to Frank Belknap Long (1931)

"Peer into the darkness..." Nautilus

So when I saw the concept art revealed, I wonder if we might ever see what lurks beneath Nautilus helmet. His current lore says he could no longer tell where he began, and it ended but...does that put him in the category of the Thousand Sons of Warhammer 40,000 or....something more disturbing? It also begs the question, is Nautilus affected by the void, or affected by the Shadow Isles? Especially after the last Harrowing gave a sighting of him as a mention. That doesn't make him involved, but it lends some speculation.

Still, though I know he just got a skin I would like to see a full Void Nautilus. I imagine an Ultimate skin, where as Nautilus levels his armor becomes ever more engulfed by barnacles and coral, the metal corrodes, lamprey nests hatch inside of him, and things scuttle out of one open cavity to be eaten by things hiding in another. Eventually the armored suit shudders and falls apart...to reveal something that should not be. A titanic form so vast, that what we can see is only the tip of an iceberg that extends far beyond the boundaries of our reality, and threatens to sink our little ship called "sanity".

44 Comments

Sharjo3/11/2015, 2:50:43 AM24 votes

Personally I'm hesitant to put the Void to Nautilus's lore, mainly because I feel like the ocean's dangers can be entirely their own thing. Have you seen the kind of stuff that lurks in the real world deep oceans? It's terrifying!

A Superb Villain3/11/2015, 3:44:23 AM9 votes

It is one thing to be confronted with unspeakable horrors from the darkest depths, it is another to be infested with them. I find it adds another layer of horror to Nautilus' character that he is struggling with this incomprehensible thing slowly eating away at his mind and body. Nautilus is what he fears the most, but he does not break under the strain of realization.

"Forward, forward." Nautilus

That, and I am a sucker (hah) for eldritch horror.

Konidias3/11/2015, 4:56:54 PM5 votes

NAUTILUS IS LITERALLY JUST AN OCTOPUS IN A DIVING SUIT.

HE IS STRAIGHT UP OCTO DAD.

Lyvandil3/11/2015, 3:50:07 AM5 votes

One thing were all letting get out of hand is Nautilus was never seen to be going around messing with anyone. The only people he has any transgressions with are the crew of the ship who let him get pulled down to the dark depths of Davy Jones Locker. This whole view of him being in a bad mood all the time seems to be something created by the masses to make him as though on the spectrum on good and evil he is evil. Which I totally disagree with.

Lyvandil3/11/2015, 2:33:11 AM4 votes

Well it's interesting you should bring that up. Mainly due to the fact that Nautilus defended Bilgewater from the Black Mist. While Miss Fortune and Gangplank protected Bilgewater further up the Island. If such is the case is there something that even the Void fears.

terkmc3/11/2015, 3:50:45 AM3 votes

I'd prefer for Nautilus to be his own separate side, seeing that he is probably the most badass champion the League. His lore emphasize his determination and loneliness, pushing on alone in complete darkness and silence through sheer force of will, his entire existence hinging on his own personal vengeance. He seems like the third party sleeping giant kind, he have his own goal, doesnt care about the whole Noxus vs Demacia, Void Shadow Isle Valoran Shurima conflict, but he will crush anything that gets in his way.

The ocean itself can and should be its own separate side, in contrast with Shadow Isle evil, Void destruction, the Ocean could be one serving under enigmatic Old Gods, with thing that isnt outright evil but simply feels wrong, overwhelming brute force that sweep everything off its feet and a focus on madness and incomprehensibility.

Inb4 Cthulhu face underneath Naut helmet

CupcakeTrap3/11/2015, 5:23:40 PM3 votes

Although it does not directly address what Nautilus might look like inside his armor, Renekton Bot wrote a very good Nautilus backstory that adds some more detail about his past generally, and the incident that transformed him into the Titan of the Depths.

As for the Void and Lovecraft, while I realize this may be an unpopular opinion, I believe it's a mistake to overdo the Lovecraft angle when developing the Void. I adore Lovecraft. He's a fantastic author, and the Cthulhu mythos is truly remarkable. But I just don't think it's a great fit for the League universe. Sure, some of Lovecraft's ideas about cosmic horror can work well to complement the Void's theme, but overall, the Void's Champions are simply too "human" to be good fits for Lovecraft. And that's fine. I prefer the Void as a malevolent alien force than as some bold statement about the inhumanity of the cosmos. If I had to choose a fictional inspiration for the Void, I'd rather go with the Shadows from Babylon 5, or Chaos from Warhammer, than Lovecraft.

I think the Void can draw some elements from Lovecraft, sure. The Colour Out Of Space provides some good flavor for stories about Void contamination and the ways it can mutate Runeterra. However, to me, a copy-paste of Lovecraft seems wrong for the League setting. Not all extradimensional monsters have to be "Lovecraftian".

The Void Champions seem a lot more like Chaos demons from Warhammer than Lovecraft's Old Ones. Honestly, though his quasi-benevolent nature complicates matters, I think Bard is perhaps the most "Lovecraftian" Champion, in that he behaves according to motivations that are nigh impossible for mortals to understand.

Perhaps the problem is this: it's very hard to do Lovecraft in half-measures. League is a pastiche of references, and that's wonderful. A lot of these different references blend together very nicely. Noxus can be a little Rome, a little Klingon, a little Arthurian Black Knight. Zaun can be a little X-Men and a little Shadowrun. But Lovecraft just does not transplant well; it's simply too strange. As I've mentioned before, I think it's a lot like that awful Clone Wars animated series they did for Star Wars. (Not the newer CG one, which was actually rather good; the old Cartoon Network shorts.) They grabbed the artist who did Samurai Jack and had him use that style for Star Wars, and it was horrible. Samurai Jack is a great show, largely because it's so fundamentally unconventional. The music, artwork, and stories have this surreal, even trippy quality. They blend together to make a truly unusual creative work. Trying to carve out one piece of that whole (the artwork) and slap it into a different work was a very poor idea; it just won't blend. Similarly, Lovecraft is wonderful in part because he's so unconventional. But that also makes it very hard to transplant any particular subcomponent into a more conventional setting. Trying to grab some random bits of Lovecraft and throw them into the fantasy smoothie that is Runeterra is very likely to result in "Did you just punch out Cthulhu?" and other such discordant notes.

SaltyToplaneGoat3/11/2015, 3:22:27 AM2 votes

I think Nautilus is more connected to the Harrowing than to the Void.

If we watch the Harrowing map it only states "Massive Armored Giant swinging an anchor seen in the fight". We don't know what side he is on. Or if he even IS on any side of if he didn't just wreck anything that crossed his path out of a bad mood. We just know that Nami and Fizz don't like him. Don't care much about Fizz but Nami's people seem to know a lot about the "black mist" (or however we should call the verswion of it that spreads underwater) - they even had their moonstone to defend themself against it.

Nami might know something... ^^

GenoXx3/12/2015, 3:29:47 AM2 votes

Ya know how come everytime something dark and mysterious comes up in Runeterra you guys are quick to say it's the void? Why can't it be a new force under the sea.....under the seaaaa.

TwoD3/12/2015, 12:48:55 AM2 votes

Can we please stop it with the Void this Void that crap, not everything has to be related in this game.

The Loveless3/11/2015, 1:36:18 PM2 votes

Scrapped concept art

HigeR3/12/2015, 6:47:37 PM1 votes

as far as I see it, the depth of the ocean are just something else. Like, the void has nothing to do with the shadow isles, why forcing it to interact with the ocean when the ocean itself is pretty scary on its own? there must be crazy creatures in the depth of the ocean of which we know 3, irl, the depth of the ocean hasn't been fully explored, I can't imagine the runeterra sea being absolutely mapped throughout.

libraryseraph 3/11/2015, 3:53:11 AM1 votes

I like the idea that Naut has no body, tbh If you managed to damage him enough to crack his shell open, all that would come out would be stagnant seawater and sandy black sludge

spooncats3/11/2015, 4:11:23 AM1 votes

Perhaps Nautilus is just Velkoz in a suit of armor ;3

GreenLore3/11/2015, 11:03:36 AM1 votes

I doubt the void has anything to do with that(although I think an aquatic void creature wouldn't be out of place),I mean the void never corruted anybody who didn't went to icathia. Nautilus was consumed by some dark substance,which sounds a lot like the harrowing mist(the undead travel alongside the mist,but they probably didn't check the bottom of the ocean,so naut was left down there).

Killstrado3/11/2015, 11:25:32 AM1 votes

Titanic form, tip of the iceberg.....I see what you did there