Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Brainstorming: How Did Xerath's Ascension Really Go Down?

Ironclad Dragon·8/22/2015, 11:22:22 PM·9 votes·2,129 views

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LXNzTn0XLto/maxresdefault.jpg Okay okay, I know a body of people think the Shurima Event was a literary mess, and that they're still waiting on the expanded Shuriman bios. Putting the negativity aside, I want to talk about the turning point of the Shurima, e.g., Xerath's sabotage of Azir's Ascension. We got these neat images with story snippets attached to them narrating what went down. One could take them for face value, but I remain unsated.

See, the snippets strike me as unreliable; not in the sense that they were poorly done, but that they're purposefully "storybook". They skimp out on vital connecting information, such as the exact nature of the "blast" that claimed Shurima. Sources conflict whether the desert "swallowed" Shurima, as claimed by the snippets, or that the people "were obliterated by a wave of unseen energy, reduced to dust and cast to the winds" as described in Azir's lore. Clearly, not everyone perished, because Azir's bloodline survived (as evident in Sivir) and his whole family was at the top of the Dais of Ascension, the very epicenter of the cataclysm. And how did Renekton and Nasus show up so quickly to confront Xerath, if they were indeed "tricked into staying away from the event" by Xerath beforehand? Did they have an artifact capable of teleporting them? Were they just returning to the city? And where did the sarcophagus, in which they sealed Xerath, come from, if they were in pitched battle? See, this is why I think the snippets don't tell the whole story.

Let's not hate on Riot for this, though. Because I'm that kind of person, I invite you all to help fill in those gaps! There are some amazing minds lurking in these threads, and I call upon you now! This is prime material here; heck, I'm tempted to write fanon! Let's get cracking!

10 Comments

A Superb Villain8/23/2015, 12:19:20 AM4 votes

It reads like a storybook because it is a storybook. History is written by the winners, and as we all know, Xerath was incarcerated following his impromptu ascension. Who narrated the event? Nasus. Who would have picked up the pieces following Shurima's fall? Nasus. And who was loyal to Azir? Nasus.

I strongly suspect everything that follows was orchestrated by Nasus. Now, I am not saying Nasus is evil by deliberately demonizing Xerath, and the truth of the matter is he is operating based on an incomplete investigation. Nasus, along with Renekton, was tricked into leaving Azir vulnerable, and since he was not present, and could not have known why Xerath instigated Shurima's destruction, he believes that the Magus Ascendant was simply acting out of his own malice and greed, whereas the truth shows Xerath was contrite following his mistake, and was in fact trying to save Azir by stepping into the Sun Disc's beam.

Everything about the cataclysm that destroyed the Shuriman empire and consumed its capital is tragedy. The only one who knows the truth is Xerath, but since he bears the blame, and not unjustly so, no-one will believe him.

Insofar as Azir's bloodline surviving, there is nothing that says Sivir is his direct descendant. As emperor, it is quite possible Azir had royal relatives responsible for managing distant territories and their survival is likely the reason Sivir exists today.

Sharjo8/22/2015, 11:50:45 PM3 votes

Sure, I can try my hand at filling in the gaps.

How did Azir's lineage survive if his family was present for the event?

I personally think it comes down to Azir's third, unborn child; the one his wife was heavy with. Perhaps the baby was protected by the gods or by sheer chance, or by the actions of a certain Bard travelling Bard universe Bard traversing Bard entity Bard, but either way I think it's safe to say a third party dropped in and saved the day. I feel like that child was far enough along in development to have been born within a few days, and would probably coincide with Azir's new Shurima where everyone's free; it'd be a perfect Shurima for his youngest child to be born in to. My money's still on Bard saving the kid in a timely fashion but that's just me.

How did Nasus and Renekton get back in a timely fashion?

My current hypothesis is that something happened in the city when Xerath blew it up. I think the whole incident was actually not intentionally on his part, and he had some kind of break down when he realized the gravity of the situation. Alternatively he had a word with the gods or maybe got caught up in the whole "I see the forces that hold the universe together" thing. He might've actually just wasted time in Shurima as he began using his new found Ascended powers, kinda lost in the grandeur of it all. Or perhaps, going off of my earlier thoughts, he was actually confronted by Bard, and the two had a fight. I could see Xerath being ok with destroying one tiny baby to end the entire lineage of Shurima and bring it all down as a final act of defiance. Either of these three things I could see as being enough reason to delay long enough for Nasus and Renekton to appear, considering they're Ascended and likely can move faster than normal humans by an obscene amount if they push it. Hell they probably wouldn't need to push it that hard.

Where did the sarcophagus come from?

This is actually easy to explain in my opinion; it came from the Tomb of the Emperors. In a civilisation like Shurima that had potent magic and sorcery I can see that they enchanted the sarcophagus's of their deceased to keep their remains safe, and I can also imagine some incredibly potent magic being used for those that serve as the final resting place of Shurima's dead rulers. Also as an extra note; Nasus and Renekton likely fought Xerath for a while before coming to the conclusion sealing him was their best bet. And it also stands to reason the magic protecting the Tomb of the Emperors was FAR more potent than the magic of the sarcophagus, or else Xerath could've blown out of it easily. Unless he wanted to stay locked up, so he could continue to bend and manipulate Renekton.

These are just some musing on my part and they sure as hell ain't confirmed or anything, but hopefully this got some people thinking about some stuffs. Yay for stuffs!

Stars Shaper8/22/2015, 11:46:33 PM2 votes

My theories about what could have happened come from bits that can be related to the lore we know, arts and others.

This is going to be long

Lets start with the ritual and Xerath himself. He wanted this ritual not to be like any other because it would rise him, a slave, to the highest place in the Shurima society and become a paragon of power. For this, and him being already a powerful mage (while Nasus and Renekton might have been just extremely charismatic individuals) the ritual itself and its result would not be ordinary at all. We can see also in the Guardian of the Sand Xerath (that a Rioter confirmed to me that is how would have Xerath look if Ascended while being not in search for revenge and wanted to be part of Shurima as it was) that he wouldn't become a sort of Totem-Beast but stil a being of pure sun and sand energy. Therefore he needed something more than the Sun Disc, and this "more" could be the artifact displayed on Xerath's sarcophagus chest and in the "Perfect Ascension" icon (which I'm using since the event). A little side note: Xerath might have prepared his body and being to sustain the immense power that would come to him for not being destroyed in the ritual, meaning that even when realizing that Azir kept his promised and had also freed everyone, Xerath could not let anyone else but him being struck in the light beam which could have otherwise caused an even greater devastation (but this is just my feeling about the story).

About the fall of Shurima, we don't know anything. The only information we got was from Azir story which ended at the very instant in which Azir died and Shurima was flashed by the ritual that Xerath started. He saw it from the powers that the Ascension granted him and the bond between him, his people and the Sands of Shurima. Again, from the GotS Xerath skin, we might assume that the power that the Ascension Ritual brings is a combination of sunlight and sand meaning that both the "being swallowed by the sands" and "destroyed by the ray of light" could have happened.

Nasus and Renekton had surely felt instantly that the ritual was going wrong from the very beginning of it and Xerath needed them away just for the time to be struck by the ray of light, which is what happened. But then? His (Xerath) mind being in a state of confusion while undertaking the ritual might have disturbed and corrupted the transformation damaging also itself. This, and an intuition (most likely Nasus intuition, Renek isn't really a being of intellect) made aware the Ascended that the artifact used in the ritual could be able to seal what it created, therefore the sracophagus itself isn't anything special if not connected to the artifact Xerath used to become what he is now.

Questions are also what happened in the thousands of years that Xerath and Renekton endured in imprisonment and what and where are they up now, but for this there is nothing which we can use for speculation. Except that Xerath wants to "reforge the world in the fires of revolution" which can mean that he still wants to free every slave or even just destroy and reforge it anew.

UomoAfide8/23/2015, 12:37:49 AM2 votes

I honestly hope the longer version of the Shuriman champions will bring some light on these facts.

GreenLore8/23/2015, 1:15:07 AM1 votes

Shurima was already a desert back during Azirs rule. So the desert swallowing shurima was not its downfall.