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The interesting lore developing behind the Blood Moon skins

midnight oil24·2/10/2017, 7:58:24 PM·12 votes·13,224 views

The New Blood Moon skins are out, but with the text they put with them, an interesting lore is starting to develop, intentionally or not.

First, we saw Shen and Akali, telling the story of a girl being chased by a demon. Akali isn't super important in this story. The one that matters is the Shen, the demon.

Skip forward a few years and we get Blood Moon Kalista. Yes, this is how Ionia sees her, but lets take a look at what Shen was: A demon. Kalista is the first Blood moon demon to appear. This will have big implications.

Blood moon thresh, zilean, and Elise were the next ones to release. Thresh and Zilean are two more examples of Blood Moon Demons beginning to appear. Elise, on the other hand, is likely our first look at a cultist priestess. Only a few characters have been shown not wearing the mask over their full face in the blood moon line: Akali, Elise, and most recently Diana (only in her recall). This indicates that the cult is beginning to move, though it isn't doing much yet.

Then, the next year, two more beings appear: Yasuo and Kennen. Yasuo is probably a priest, as he is shown making the sigil on the ground, which only blood moon humans have been seen to do. Kennen, given how they released at the same time and appear to be linked in their release text, is probably a guardian demon to yasuo.

Then this year, the Blood moon cult finally made its move, and high-ranking members and powerful demons are appearing. The calligrapher, Jhin, is probably a priest. His methods imply that, given Yasuo, priests tend to have heavy links to the spirit world, and oftnen have visually impressive weapons, whether it be a katana or a rifle. Diana, on the other hand, appears to be an assassin priestess for the order, and dresses like someone who would take a life for the cult. Twisted Fate appears. He's literally a southern devil, and is shown to use trickery, though it is possible that he too is a human. Perhaps a human who was taken over by the blood moon? And finally, we have Talon. He's clearly only got killing on the mind, and is apparently the result of the asymmetry between the earth and the heavens.

So the Cult is on the move, while demons walk the land. That's the blood moon lore so far, at least the way I see it.

50 Comments

Sharjo2/10/2017, 8:06:15 PM9 votes

I remember Kindlejack talking about some of the story and thought process behind the Bloodmoon continuity, how TF is it's true leader while Zilean is sort of the cult's face, how Thresh, Kalista, Kennen and Talon are all demons while Akali, Diana and Elise are priestesses, with Shen being a guard for the cult's leaders and Yasuo being a ritualistic executioner.

It's an interesting read and makes me curious about the potential narrative behind other skin lines, or how other champions could fit in to the Bloodmoon universe, so I'll link it here for folks to read:

{quoted}

Well we had a few champions we knew we wanted to do already, and then we had an open slot. So I did some concepts for about 7 different champions that the product owners were happy exploring. I remember TF was on the list with a note "not sold on this one" and I guess I took that as a challenge. We showed the spread of concepts to the whole company and there was just something about the TF one that was unique for Blood Moon and TF himself that caused it to stand out amongst the other concepts.

After that I tried a wide spread of different designs for TF specifically but people kept coming back to that initial sketch and ultimately a lot of it remained. I agree it's not as close to TF's base personality as his other skins, but focuses on his elusiveness, omnipresence and ability to manipulate fate (in this case through divination).

Blood Moon has the rare distinction of being one of the few thematics we keep coming back to, and continues to be a hit with players. Due to this we've had time to talk about what it is (and isn't) to the point where internally we've built up a whole story for the Blood Moon alt fantasy. Each of the BM splashes began to tell some of that story, if very subtly:

I think most recently I've been comparing the Blood Moon cult to the Akatsuki from Naruto - a shadowy cult whose true intentions are obfuscated, steeped in ancient ritual and demonic power. A deadly and heretical force, they perform these rituals on nights of the Blood Moon to summon demons that imbue them with incredible (and often uncontrollable) power. Each member's mask depicts their own demon, which only the most powerful and committed members gain during a trial deep within their stronghold. It is said that there is a shadow realm parallel to our own where a demon awaits for each of us, constantly looking for a way to tear through and consume us. The trial must have something to do with communing and reaching an accord with your own demon to share power in exchange for a night of freedom. There are a number of roles within the cult, visual design-wise they can be broken into a few classifications:

**Leaders ** Zilean - serves as the face of the cult, leading members in rituals to summon demons on the night of the blood moon. His splash depicts him on the boarder of a city using artifacts to draw power from his loyal followers. He will then use this blood magic to force a blood moon to occur with his time manipulation of the lunar cycle. TF - is the true leader, remaining in the shadows and behind the scenes but forever present in the actions of the cult. It is said that he is the one to have first passed the trial of masks and can walk the shadow realm at will. His splash shows his power of prediction as he leads cult members in a divining ritual to foresee a future event. Another idea for the splash we felt was too ambitious was to show him kidnapping an adolescent Diana and walking through his portal after murdering her parents. This would have then matched an alternate version of Diana's splash where she was being inducted into the cult with TF lowering her mask and Elise giving her tattoos with her magic spider legs. Pretty dark >:) Jhin - is an ink-mage and master of all ceremonies. As is befitting Jhin, he all about the details - calligraphy, incantations, number of candles, observation of time, location... he holds a lot of the knowledge about who these demons are and how to summon and direct them. Of course he's also a master assassin, equally as deadly as he is zealous.

Guardians Shen - serves as personal bodyguard to the leaders of the cult. The most indomitable disciple in mind and body, his devotion and loyalty can never be shaken. His splash depicts Zilean watching over him as he performs the trial of masks within the mask room. Yasuo - is the ceremonial executioner, a swordsman whose bloodthirst can never be quenched. If you look carefully at his splash you'll see that you are looking at him from the perspective of a kneeling cultist in the inner ring. You'll also notice that his swift blade has snuffed out your candle... and your life. In service of the ritual taking place.

Priestesses Priestesses walk their own path. Chosen of the Blood Moon, they carry tremendous power but choose to travel far from the cult finding their own truth in the whispers of their demons. At times they return to the fold, exchanging learnings with the leaders before slipping away once more. Elise - has become intertwined with her demon spirit, wholly embracing it and sharing one form. She has traveled beyond all known civilisation and now exists in whispered tales. Diana - chosen of the moon, the favoured daughter of night seems destined to be a peerless assassin of the cult. Her mind is open the the old ways of the Blood Moon, lost even to Jhin. What truths does she know, what role will she play, what future did Fate see for her? When I look at her splash I really want to know! Akali - you know it, I know it, BM Akali is outdated now and doesn't fit in. Hopefully we'll get a chance to update her some time in the future, although I'm very aware people love that skin so we would only use a light touch and add some story to the splash.

Demons When the blood moon waxes and the ritual of summoning is complete some members of the cult are completely overcome by the demonic power, transforming into true terrors bent on carrying out the will of the Blood Moon. Thresh - demon. In the splash thresh spins his lantern, drawing lesser demons to empower him. Kalista - demon. Her splash has her in hot pursuit of a fleeing noble on the streets of a town, none can escape such vengeance. Kennen - demon. His splash depicts him parting an army and zooming up a palace gate on his way to assassinate the target within. Talon - demon. His splash isn't on PBE yet but it's done by Alex Flores and I know some of you are fans of his work :P

Phew that took a few hours to write down properly. Rereading you still had a question about the masks: Elise was designed with her face exposed, perhaps at the time because she was a beautiful champ and artists weren't sure if her face being covered would disappoint players. Or could have been just an aesthetic choice by the artist at the time? I wasn't at Riot then. For Diana we felt like she would definitely wear a mask that covered her face as that fits her character, but as I said earlier we had an idea for the splash of TF 'masking' her lowering the mask onto her face thus hinting at her natural moon symbol. However once we saw the thumbnails this one stood out as being hugely impactful - creating a juxtaposition between her serenity and the grotesquely violent mask. Personally I think it's so captivating because it's thought-provoking - she's either removing the mask and returning to a human form, or about to don the mask and release the demon.

Thanks for asking!

Ambient Snow2/11/2017, 5:49:25 PM1 votes

I'm still waiting for my blood moon Eve

Sancre2/13/2017, 10:40:18 PM1 votes

So you are telling me that in some shadow dimension, there is a demonic cosmic dragon that is even more powerful than the one we already know, and is always waiting to consume it?

Ok thats quite scary