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What the lore-power curve feels like right now.

ModCaptainMårvelous·3/4/2016, 6:47:30 AM·173 votes·18,243 views

Early 2015

Welcome to the League champion spotlight, featuring Bard. Bard is a celestial caretaker who only intervenes when necessary with cosmic power and unstoppable magical force.

Mid 2015

This is Kindred. The aspect of death itself, Kindred is a literal force of nature and bows to no mortal. Oh. There's also Tahm Kench, who's a demon that can do whatever he needs through demon magic and eating.

Late 2015

Welcome to the Illaoi Spotlight. Illaoi drags a god along to the rift to smite people. She beats people to death by tearing out their souls.

Early 2016

Behold Aurelion Sol. He's a universe-sized dragon who conjures stars and suns and stuff then destroys them. He's essentially Galactus if Galactus was scaly and voiced by Cucumber Bandersnatch

Mid 2016

Welcome to the League of Legends champion spotlight. Featuring God, the God. God is God and can't be stopped.

Late 2016

Champion Reveal: Rioter, the guy who programmed God into the game and can actually unprogram god out of existence.

Early 2017

We're proud to announce Rioter's Boss, the guy who will fire Rioter and has way more power than him.

I know you guys are flexing your muscles but does anyone else feel lore power creep is getting kinda....huge?

133 Comments

RiotBioluminescence3/4/2016, 3:40:26 PM135 votes

Mid 2017

The teaser video starts... there's a low beat, powerful, intimidating.

Exterior - we are high hiiiigh above the planet Runeterra (freeze-frame for cloud-wreathed map of the world; Boards go mental, Bio sighs in relief). A crackling of incredible power accompanies the introduction of discordant strings. A portal shimmers once, twice, and then EXPLODES open in the vacuum above the planet. String crescendo!

Zoom into the hazy portal. Interior - a bedroom (much like the one in the Warriors 2014 music video) illuminated by the 'Victory' screen. A shadowy silhouette is backlit by the glowing monitor - we cannot tell details, but it is human. Zoom to the screen. The cursor, accompanied by the increasingly intense drum beat, moves with uncanny speed to the X button in the top right of the window.

And clicks.

The music abruptly changes - the ominous strings have returned, quieter now and magical. The lighting in the room is different - the screen is black (artistic license). Birds tweet outside and we think dawn might be breaking.

The figure turns to us, slowly, confidently. Too dark in the shadows to see, their eyes nonetheless glint as we fade to black.

Introducing: The Player. Without which, there is no game. The ultimate power.

Game Over.

IGotScuttleCrabs3/4/2016, 2:11:07 PM31 votes

Mid 2017

Champion reveal Tencent. Tencent the owner of games. Tencent the corp that manhandles Riot Boss by the balls.

Very Epic Guy3/4/2016, 12:45:26 PM25 votes

"Cucumber Bandersnatch"

Wish I could upvote more than once...

ModKnightsKemplar3/4/2016, 3:28:26 PM17 votes

This actually annoys me to no end. I liked Champions like Garen. And Swain. It might actually cause me to stop playing this game to have champs like Aurelion Sol, Bard, and Kindred in it.

Since the retcon, the narrative has been doing an AMAZING job with many aspects of LoL. But these new crazy powerful champs are exactly what I was afraid of when they wrote the Institute of War out of the lore. I was already annoyed by champs like Brand, Fiddlesticks, and Jax, whose power was "held in check" by the summoners, basically. Now it's just stupid. Normal champs don't belong in the game anymore, and it's ruining the charming appeal this game used to have.

Gentzer3/4/2016, 3:11:08 PM16 votes

You forgetting Jhin already? Although you do point out a pattern, at least Jhin has the decency to be mortal.

Blackstone013/4/2016, 2:42:35 PM14 votes

I like it within limits. Not "Creates and destroys stars in his hand, is an intergalactic dragon, and then dies cause a fish hit him with a splash of water."

DeathBurst3/4/2016, 5:03:15 PM12 votes

I don't have anything against gods or cosmic entities, but my suspension of disbelief is a little strained when there is such a huge gap in power between different champions lore-wise, but they are all more-or-less balanced gameplay-wise.

UomoAfide3/4/2016, 11:45:46 AM12 votes

Basically, this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfTfXLLJlzM

Placentas3/4/2016, 7:16:17 AM10 votes

I'm fine with the lore power creep creeping higher and higher. Great post though.

Valaran Nara3/4/2016, 7:22:25 AM10 votes

Well, while Illaoi carries her god with her, most of her strength is her resolve which she channels using Nagakaborous as an item to channel her strength.

Then you have Shen who fights demons, teleports, and actually go back and forth in the demon world. Maybe it is Lore creep, but, strength wise, I feel Illaoi and Shen would be on similar power levels if Shen's not stronger.

I say this because Illaoi is still mortal and uses spiritualism to fight off undead spirits. Her strength is powerful enough to fight her designated enemy, but in a head to head fight with Leona (hell Bard would just turn her in another direction), I don't think she'll be able to win.

Biff Manly3/4/2016, 7:07:30 PM8 votes

This is Graves. He's basically a trucker but with a shotgun instead of a truck. He is currently more powerful than several godlike entities.

OurLestrade3/4/2016, 4:12:39 PM8 votes

Do admit, having everyone be Jesus does ruin the whole uniqueness and impact. It's like legendaries in Pokemon: There's just too many.

2EF8ooP8gx3/4/2016, 8:05:52 PM8 votes

YES! By all means include powerful beings that give the feeling of being cool, but Is there even a point to giving a lore or background to the new champion anymore since there is almost no relevance at all to the game except for how they end up becoming a champion???

Headbiter3/5/2016, 3:05:14 AM6 votes

To the recurring point of "But whut about Jhin?":

What about Jhin? We're talking about a game with a central theme of direct, violent conflict. Sure, there has always been a difference in power between individual champions, but even lore-wise, there was always a chance for even the comparably weaker champions to secure a victory against comparably stronger ones. Worst case scenario, several characters needed to team up against one.

Now we have the spirit of vengeance, death and Dragon-Galactus. So yeah, fuck Jhin and his pea shooter, I can fart planets. Just in case anyone ever wondered why the creative limitation imposed by the IoW was a good thing.

hi im alphonse3/5/2016, 3:01:15 AM5 votes

Yeah I dont have a good feeling about it either, I'd hate to see my favorite champs Darius Gangplank Jhin become insignificant to the lore of the game because of all the godly entities. It would be like DBZ where any normal human past a certain point was pretty much worthless. I dont want to be SOL on liking the story just because I dont like cosmic horror storys where normal humans are just toys to the "real" characters of godly power

Fasmodey3/4/2016, 12:51:23 PM4 votes

Then you would cry if you saw Dota heroes' characters. At least a lot of champions in Lore are actually the weak ones.

The most powerful ones are:

Azir Bard Nasus Renekton Kindred Xerath

They're the most unstoppable (doesn't mean they're not unstoppable but it's harder than the most champions) champions in story. Ofc there are other strong beings too but if we're searching something Aurelion Sol level, we're going to see nothing and those things in above are the closest entities to him.

If you ask me, I'm actually surprised with that much powerful entity in LoL. As I know they said they don't like to make nearly god beings. But anyway, I'm happy. There must be much more godlike beings in the LoL universe.

Dataless3/4/2016, 8:09:20 PM4 votes

In my mind the separation is a necessary evil, no matter how frustrating it may be to fans. Kindred is death and cannot die, if that translated into gameplay at all they would be impossible to balance and win every game. (just one example out of many, many examples). Having Summoners to "contain and control" these beings of immense power was a cool bit of narrative, sure, but it was also extremely limiting and boring.

I'm not happy with lore as it is now, I find it laughable and don't believe Riot will be able to fix the mess they've made anytime soon. It is what it is shrugs

Blue Moon Wolf3/4/2016, 10:47:25 PM4 votes

I know what you mean, champs like MonkeyKing XinZhao Talon Gragas Graves all seem so weak compared to champs like Bard Azir and http://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/char_163435.jpg Worst part is some of those weak champs lore wise kick the crap out of the champs who are extremely powerful in the lore in actual gameplay. I don't think we would ever see graves take on Aurelion Sol and win considering he could just create a sun and smash graves with it.

YuGiHo3/4/2016, 3:29:53 PM2 votes

We need more children in league, normal children. maybe with a slingshot or a stick

Dataless3/4/2016, 7:45:34 PM1 votes

Good thing lore has nothing to do with gameplay. Not saying that's a good thing, but complaining about "power creep" and inconsistency of lore vs gameplay is a failed argument in and of itself.