Kayle & Morgana Rework: Lore

Evening, All. For the past several years. Riot games has made a huge effort to fix and improve the older champions of League of Legends. Personally, I think that the champion updates have gone a long way towards giving this game more character and playability, and have been an overall success.

Now & were my literal first two champions in League of Legends; I loved them then, and they still have a special place in my roster. After seeing how successful the updates of other older champions updates have been, I am quite excited about their eventual rework (I have no illusions about how long it will be before these two have their moment). Gameplay-wise, Graphics-wise, there are improvements that can be made, but this post is focused on the story behind the characters, something I am very interested in generally when it comes to this game. The purpose of this post is to open up a discussion about what we do or do not want to see happen to the epic of "Kayle and Morgana".

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Firstly, lets consider what there is to preserve. In a word...little. Even before the League Universe began to solidify, and much of the old lore of the game was reconnected, 's and 's story was rather short. Inter-dimensional beings, sisters on opposite sides of a civil war, fighting for order and justice vs freedom and individuality. The story has promise, but it was never fully developed. There were a few bits of development, like 's Sinful Succulence Bakery (I treasure that skin ), but not many. The game, in it's earlier stages, didn't have time for individual stories of great depth, so their saga remained short and sweet.

Looking at the League Universe now, which has very good stories that show the characters of the champions more fully, you will notice that there is no mention of either sister outside of their short bios, which have been eddied to at least make some sense in the current context of the game world. No comics, No short stories; the few external stories that were present before have been retconned. What we are left with is a surprisingly small amount of actual story for these characters.

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So what about their characters? Taking directly from their bios, you can get a few basic concepts. is a champion of justice, fighting against evil, but the centuries of killing evil has taken a toll on her spirit. fights against tyranny, and for freedom, but in the process has become tainted by her evil doings. There is actually not much to their characters in their actual lore.

And yet, and have so much character, right? Most of the personality we associate with these two is not actually from their lore; rather, it was extrapolated by the fan base to fill the void that was their characters. For example, it has been inferred that was originally fighting for good causes, before falling into evil methods, when really her story just says that she was evil and rebellious. And from fact that disowned , people came to the conclusion that 's rejection led to falling.

It's not that these are wrong interpretations; they're actually good characterizations that people chose for these sisters. It's just that they aren't actually in the lore. I saw this come up when was updated. People were upset(myself included) that his stoic and determined resolution had been replaced by a brash and hearty character. To which Riot replied, "Well, he didn't actually have that character before. He was just kind of sad and mopey." Which is true; his story and voice lines were really basic; the story we had imagined was just that: imagined.

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So what is it we want to add or preserve? This is where discussion comes in. Here I will include my own opinion:

Story-wise, they should still be sisters, they should still be enemies, and they should still be opposites in personality. I personally don't care it they don't remain literal angels (angels don't really have a place in this universe anyway, as of yet), but they should still be exotic and powerful beings among humans. Oh, and they should still have wings.

Their character is where it gets interesting. One common concept I have heard often is that, contrary to the binary good and evil that is represented in their stories, fights for order, not necessarily good, while fights for chaos, not necessarily evil. To use D&D alignment (which is extremely useful), is lawful neutral, and is chaotic neutral, rather than lawful good and chaotic evil, respectively. Or, taking it to an extreme, is lawful evil, and is chaotic good. Personally. I love this interpretation; it makes both characters more human, and lets you empathize with either of them. would be much more interesting as a fighter for freedom who has made some very questionable choices, but is not really totally evil at heart, and want's to share an ideal of freedom and self expression with the world. , meanwhile, who fought valiantly for the good of the world, has become jaded after centuries of faithful service, and has become a zealot for governmental control.

Let's talk about their location. has always been a Demacian. Full as it is with righteous champions and defenders of good, she doesn't really stick out among their ranks currently. But if she was the bad Demacian? Despite the lore change for Demacia and Noxus that places neither empire in a strickly "good" or "bad" classification, Demacian's are still seen as the good guys, and Noxians as the bad guys. could be the Demacian that took Demacian ideals too far. She resides in Demacia, and is regarded as a champion of the kingdom, for her protecting of the city state. But she doesn't really fight for them, but for order, and makes decisions that negatively affect individuals for the good of the kingdom. Also, being suspicious of magic and otherworldly beings, the Demacian people don't outright reject her, but they do fear and distrust her, and she can see it in the eyes of the people when she is in public, further jading her and turning her against the common people.

Conversely, could be Noxus's first "good" champion. Contrary to 's treatment, in Noxus, if you are useful, you are accepted, so would meet curiosity, and maybe some suspicion, but overall acceptance. However, Noxus is still a corrupt empire, and it goes about conquering nearby peoples, which is very much against her beliefs. So, she becomes a freedom fighter, an she fights to overthrow Noxus. In the process she becomes a symbol of freedom to those who feel oppressed by the Noxian regime.

How do they feel about each other. Once, being family, they loved each other. Over time, though, their ideals began to diverge. Trying to preserve a scrap of their original lore, I'll say that Morgana wanted to reconcile with Kayle, but she had become to dogmatic, and ultimately rejected and tried to kill morgana, who escaped and fled to Noxus, while Kayle remained in Demacia. How they came to live their in the first place depends on their origin story, which I do not, as of yet, know.

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Now I have a few words about their appearance. Before this, I never liked 's base skin, because of the helmet, but for the ideas I am suggesting, the helmet actually makes a lot of sense, since she is hiding her face from the populace, both because they reject her and because she feels superior to them. So as far as her general appearance, I personally don't want any real changes. I do want her graphics quality to match the level of newer champions and updates, but for her appearance as a character, no suggestions. I have skins without helmets if I ever want to play her without one anyway.

Now needs work. Obviously she will need a new model and new animations. But as a character, her appearance is just weird. A long skirt and... a bra? And mascara. I guess new initial design was supposed to be "evil, so also seductive", but I don't feel like that's part of her character. Personally, I don't like sexually explicit characters at all; I understand that Riot makes some of these characters to please the players, but for , it's just not necessary. As she is a fighter who fights for a cause, I would suggest more utilitarian regalia over a dress, anyway. Sort of similar to what Xayah wears; they are fellow freedom fighter's after all.

One thought I personally had on the wings. What if, instead of having a pair of sickly, useless wings, she had one perfectly whole wing, but had lost the other? I think this would be a great expression of her character. She has fought for her cause for a long time, and has made difficult sacrifices. One wing means no natural flight, so it's a significant detriment. Perhaps the loss was caused by in the event that caused them to become enemies. , meanwhile, is whole in body, but is injured in soul.

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Well, now it comes to discussion. Most of what has been said in this post has been my opinion, and I don't pretend to think that my opinion is going to define their update. Ultimately, what I want is for their update to be good. Really good. I struggled initially to accept the changes made to {{champion:}} and , but ultimately, they were really good updates. I want the saga of "Kayle and Morgana" to be even better. So, what I'm hoping for is a discussion of really, really good ideas of how the update can be a success. I welcome critique of my own ideas, ideas of your own, or links to pages that already cover this entire subject that I hilariously failed to notice before posting. Hopefully, the update teams at Riot can benefit from the combined cognition of...however many of us participate. Who knows, maybe no one will, but we can certainly hope.

Here's to the tale of "Kayle and Morgana". May it be retold through the centuries and improved upon each and every telling.

Cheers.