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The Institute of War, Heart of Runeterra - A comprehensive essay in defense of the "Old Lore"

AzurDawn·5/3/2017, 10:57:20 PM·7 votes·1,515 views
The Institute of War, Heart of Runeterra.pdf

Almost three years ago, the lore of League of Legend suffered a major retcon that cleared out the foundations of its existence. Additionally, one week ago, another announcement was released reinforcing the direction they took. However, I still believe this direction, even when it was the correct step towards the world of League of Legends, sacrificed too many valuable resources already built, a thought I'm sure lots of fans share with me, making it, in the end, an truly regrettable change.

This essay pretends to cast light on both the benefits the Institute of War had and the hindrances it created, making clear a different Institute of War could exist without the imposing barriers it previously had, creating a better Runeterra overall.

As everything else I could mention here is already mentioned in the essay, I have nothing to say but to encourage you to read it if you are interested in this topic, in narrative in videogames or in the lore of League of Legends in general. Previous knowledge about League of Legends' lore is practically innecessary, as the essay has been written from an analytical point of view that resorts to lore in counted ocassions, and in those, everything is explained to the reader.

And once you have read it, as I mention in the conclusions, I can't stress enough how much I'm dying to hear from you. Show me where I failed to see a problem, show me disadvantages I've not considered, show me where I've been dead wrong. Tell me in what points do you agree with me, and in what do you think I'm utterly wrong. Let's make an interesting, deep discussion! :)

Regarding the guideline stating not to post concepts: I think the main reason why the guideline exists is not broken: the content of the post is correctly sorted out in the correct board, as this topic mainly consists of a discussion about the current and past state of League of Legends' story, and the annexes are, as their own name indicate, additional attached elements important for the full understanding of the essay that would create a more chaotic boards in case they were separately posted in both Story, Art, & Sound and Concepts & Creations. Anyway, if this reasoning is not enough for keeping the essay up, a second version of the essay without any of the annexes is available here, in case the current link should be deleted and a version without these concepts was needed to replace it. However, I think the annexes are vital to the full understanding of how the universe of League of Legends with the Institute of War would actually work, especially the second one.

18 Comments

Beyond Legends5/3/2017, 11:29:47 PM5 votes

Are we really going go through this again? It's been 3 years and people don't care nor have the bloody time to fucking read 35 fucking pages of your personal opinion.

Even Riot admited it that during the earlier day riot had said the whole summoner was an lazy idea.

GreenLore5/4/2017, 9:50:19 AM4 votes

Overall I haven't read everything in the essay,I mostly focused on chapter 3 and a bit of chapter2,so here are the points where I disagree with you(correct me if I overlooked something): 1.The IoW as a means to move the plot forward You say that the IoW is a good tool for advancing the plot forward,but I disagree with that.The Ionia-vs-Noxus match is a perfect example of this,as they resolved this major conflict that affected the lives of thousands of people through a simple league match.Thats like resolving the conflict between the orcs and the other races in Lord of the rings through a soccer match.Its anticlimatic and kind of a solution for everything.

** 2.How would the League enforce its rules?** You say that they wouldn't meddle with politics that much,but they'd still need to be extremely powerful to enforce their rules,otherwise Noxus could just be like "well we lost the match,but we don't think it was fair,so we still won't pull back from Ionia".Making the summoners too powerful would meddle with the fantasys of certain champs or even whole nations.I mean how can champs like Xerath or Syndra feel like the powerful beings they are if the summoners can easily overpower them?Or what would prevent certain factions from abusing the powers of their summoners?

** 3.What about the shadow isles?** They are a twisted nation that pretty much wants to spread death and destruction everywhere and most of its inhabitants seem to have lost their sanity.But they aren't mythological beings either.Same goes for Renekton who would likely butcher anyone who even comes close to him.

** 4.What about plots that involve a champion who is hiding?** Gangplank is currently believed to be dead,which would honestly be hard to pull off if he was still present in the League-matches.Similar,what would happen if a champ dies?Would they just be removed from the game?And then there is the plot between Leona and Diana,where it would actually resolve a lot if the 2 just had a chance to talk to each other,which they easily could do in a league match.

** 5.Why wouldn't they just kill the voidborn?** If they have the ability to capture them over and over again and realize that they are a threat to the whole world,then it would make sense for them to also attempt to kill them.And given that void champs are far from unkillable and the fact that the league should have the means to enforce their law,it shouldn't be difficult for them to kill voidborn,even if they can't keep them captured.Also this would more or less "reset" the location of the voidborn again and again.

** 6.What about the summoning powers outside of League matches?** I mean lets face it,summoning abilities would be kinda op outside of league matches.And if the summoners have abilities that would allow them to enforce their laws,then that means that these abilities could likely be used to some extend by other factions as well.

** 7.Wouldn't their "rebalancing" of the champions make it look unfair?** I mean they are handing out a price after all for the champion who performed better than anyone else,so I can't imagine that champions would be ok with being nerfed.After all the summoners can easily decide who will perform well and who wouldn't just by buffing/nerfing certain champions.

GenoXx5/4/2017, 3:56:24 AM3 votes

Dude, the Iow was limiting creativity and world building. I honestly don't get how some people can't understand that...... Still

Splision5/4/2017, 12:17:24 AM2 votes

I'm not going to lie, I skimmed over most of it, but that's on me for being lazy. It has nothing to do with how good or bad your essay was. Either way I respect you for presenting your opinion in a mature and logical manner, and for that I think you deserve to have more people reading your essay.

6FlagsFunnelCake5/4/2017, 1:23:51 AM1 votes

I really liked your essay, it made lots of very interesting points regarding the Summoners and the Institute of War, and I really liked some of your more modern takes on them, especially the concept of "Runterra's Blessing." Many of your statements about changing the Institute of War are almost completely paralleled with my personal ideas for a way to modernize the Institute into new League lore, a very interesting read!!!

Edit: Personally, I like to think a few things;

  1. Nothing in-game is to scale, and barely anything gameplay wise is 'canon.' I believe that Summoners Rift is that vast maze of forestry and ancient ruins we see in A New Dawn cinematic, since every human-character in-game is actually almost as tall as a tree. Along with that, I think making it so that the Summoners shrink down the Champions such as Galio or Malphite to a human-size doesn't do them justice for their characters, same goes for the yordles as well. Along with that, we do see that Nautilus retains his ginormous size in the cinematic as well. Gameplay wise, I like to think that Summoners leave an 'imprint' of sorts on the Champions when controlling them, magically enhancing their abilities (a way to explain how Vayne can go invisible when she ults, or how Garen summons a giant sword). Other than that though, many aspects of the gameplay are not related to the lore and mostly follow 'video-game-logic,' such as MissFortune's guns or how Quinn has Valor in the most convenient places and needs no quiver.

  2. Some motivations of the Champions are more personal with the League, some of them even a reference to their SUPER old lore. A few examples:

Nasus joined as both a Champion and official Curator after an encounter with Renekton, whom the Summoners imprisoned in a stone room for his madness (Old lore reference) and are currently studying for a cure as a deal with Nasus to make him join the League. Criminals like Yasuo Jinx and Jhin join as 'punishment' in a sense, as they also show potential with their abilities to become Champions I have so many others who I am currently writing small fun stories on how they joined the League (my current favorite is Ivern's, who I wrote up to have wandered the Rift for a while while Summoners weren't looking, befriending the jungle monsters and believing them to be actual animals despite being illusions of sorts casted by the Summoners), but that's a whole other post for another time. Either way, I am deeply in love with this essay!!!