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Modern Medicine in Runeterra

Chembaron Yamada··15 votes·1,885 views

Hello summoners, I recently read a great champion concept: Videl, Taboo Knowledge by ClownFury17, check it out!

It encouraged me to create this thread to talk about a topic that I am pretty interested in. This game got quite some altruistic healers, played mostly in the support position: Bard Janna Kayle Nami Nidalee Rakan Sona Soraka Taric But let's take a closer look.

Bard Magical healing shrines (I wonder how many meeps he has to sacrifice on that altar to generate that effect) Janna Wind deity giving healing hugs to sad people Kayle Winged chick with angelic healing magic (rework soon, though) Nami Water magic for the fish nurse Nidalee Magical healing kitty purrs Rakan Don't know if his healing powers are canon, but if they are, then they are birb magic Sona Magic of da music Soraka Magical space goat nurse Taric Canalising the magic of his space gem buddy

Notice something? They are all about magic. The trope of a medic is fairly common (syringes, bandages, etc.), yet we are clearly lacking it. Anything related to healing other people has a high fantasy theme.

We got some examples of modern medicine from Zaun and Piltover, however, these mostly include replacing ill body parts with hextech and/or chemtech. Orianna Urgot Camille Warwick

But I think it would be interesting to see another side of Piltovers or Zauns medicine. Something that is less.... invasive.... Are there hospitals in Piltover using special hextech devices to treat their patients? Are there doctors investigating solutions for Zaun Gray induced diseases without using screws? Maybe some alchemists working on medicine on plant basis?

Medicine is an interesting topic to investigate, it doesn't always have to be about cyborgs and monsters (don't get me wrong, I still love these). Piltover is lacking a proper support champion anyway, maybe this is something Riot could work with?

And in general, I think that healing could get a bit more spotlight in the lore. A heartwarming story about Soraka, trying everything she can to save an injured soldier can be just as great as reading about Garen charging into battle.

How about you people? Would you enjoy to be told a bit more about healing practices in Runeterra? Tell me in the comments! [slayer-jinx-catface]

42 Comments

Ebonmaw Dragon13 votes

{quoted}

Are there doctors investigating solutions for Zaun Gray induced diseases without using screws?

DrMundo YES, MUNDO CURES YOUR DISEASES WITH A CLEAVER INSTEAD.

You can't be sick if you are dead.

Chembaron Yamada5 votes

Ehhh, let's say this thread focuses on doctors with an actual license. ^^

Raven Redeemed5 votes

Perhaps not, but if I may quote the big man himself: “MUNDO FIX ALL THINGS, MUNDO DO MEDICINE VERY HARD!”

Do you really need a silly license if you can fix all thing and do medicine very hard?

Fairyfleur5 votes

I'd love to see a Piltover champion that could maybe augment allies as part of a passive or just a giant steroid as an ult kind of like Ana's Nano Boost.

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

Augmenting allies would be a theme fitting for Viktor, but well, they aren't reworking him anytime soon. :P

A nano boost like steroid could be interesting. In general overwatch has some interesting medics. Moira is another great example with her damage/healing playstyle.

Also: Hi, Fleur! [slayer-jinx-catface]

Fairyfleur2 votes

It'd also be neat to see a champion that can upgrade your towers, inhibitors, or nexus like you mentioned in that post a while ago. For example, you could make your towers apply a debuff that lowers attack speed, but maybe at the cost of time? Or they could offensively augment towers so that they create an electric field around them that deals damage and slows or maybe a change that allows the tower to shoot multiple targets at once?

Either way though, I just want some sort of Piltover support :(

And: Hi! [sg-miss-fortune]

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

I feel you, when we finally get a Piltover support, I will throw a big party. :< So many great story hooks, concepts and tropes to explore, but nothing in that direction until now. [sg-janna]

SEKAI4 votes

Next champ,

Suit up for the high speed action of a modern combat medic with gameplay features such as: applying band-aids to everybody to heal them, zaps the allies' corpses to revive them, AoE slows by throwing glass urinals filled with piss at the enemies, and stunning the enemies by injecting them with high doses of morphine.

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

10/10 would buy.

Digielf4 votes

Yes this theme would also fit great with the missing ''female champion with glasses'', a sexy anime doctor/scientist girl

https://www.fightersgeneration.com/nx7/char/kokonoe-calamity-trigger-artwork.jpg

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

Hell yeah, you are absolutely right. We need more megane, the only female champion with glasses I can think of is Vayne and that are more sunglasses and she doesn't fit the intelligent trope at all.

Such a champ would fill so many niches we are missing. Btw, where is that character from? I don't know her, but she looks great. [sg-jinx]

ChompyWulf3 votes

I'd rather see a new idea than falling into a trope rut.

Going with a sort of hextech alchemist healer idea... The champion uses a sort of tether gun that can have different chemicals pumped thorough it, able to move and channel for a duration, their ultimate a high electricity suction pad. Passive-leftovers from broken chem tethers give a short heal over time to the champ. Chem-Q pumps a healing formula into allies. Chem-W forces a stimulant into an ally, boosting damage and either attack speed or cool down reduction. Chem-E pushes a sedative into an enemy, reducing move speed until they are put into a short Sleep. R-Cup either jolts a recently deceased ally back to life or stuns and does a lot of damage to an enemy.

Digielf2 votes

{quoted}

I'd rather see a new idea than falling into a trope rut.

Going with a sort of hextech alchemist healer idea... The champion uses a sort of tether gun that can have different chemicals pumped thorough it, able to move and channel for a duration, their ultimate a high electricity suction pad. Passive-leftovers from broken chem tethers give a short heal over time to the champ. Chem-Q pumps a healing formula into allies. Chem-W forces a stimulant into an ally, boosting damage and either attack speed or cool down reduction. Chem-E pushes a sedative into an enemy, reducing move speed until they are put into a short Sleep. R-Cup either jolts a recently deceased ally back to life or stuns and does a lot of damage to an enemy.

All of these that you said also fit with the anime girl with glasses champion

ChompyWulf4 votes

Or it could work with any size/shape/gender champion. I'd simply rather see something less brainless for a character art design. Why not make a male healer for a change? Why not have a burly woman in glasses than a twiggly waif?

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

Come on now, there is no need calling the interpretation of a concept from someone else "brainless". A medic champion would be possible with alot of different tropes. You personally prefer a male healer, we get that.

However, you don't have to be so aggressive with your opinion. Personally, I would prefer a "twiggly" female as a medic in this game, simply because it resonates alot more with my personal experiences. Alot of characters I enjoyed in media fall in that category.

Some examples: Tae Takemi from Persona 5 https://personacentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Tae-Takemi.png

Mio Kunosato from Chaos;Child https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_small/18/187968/2639413-4579132604-Kunos.jpg

Tuan Kirie from Harmony (Project Itoh) http://www.otakutale.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Project-Itoh-Harmony-Visual.jpg

And so on. I can see glasses working for such a character as well.

However, that does not mean that you are wrong. The theme is flexible and many opinions on the topic can coexist. No need to belittle someone for not sharing your picture of such a character.

ChompyWulf3 votes

My negativity has less to do with the other person's comments than the disappointing skins from Riot for most of the last year. They have done a lot of skin line expansion and slapping new sparkly skins on the waifu crew while ignoring more unconventional champs or doing little to promote original skins, or in the case of outcry against skins like the walk animations of the Blitz lancer pair, nothing to fix it.

Digielf2 votes

{quoted}

Or it could work with any size/shape/gender champion. I'd simply rather see something less brainless for a character art design. Why not make a male healer for a change? Why not have a burly woman in glasses than a twiggly waif?

Because that's definately not what the majority want and it would not benefit Riot marketing-wise either, anime/pretty styled champions always sell a lot more than the other types and they'll have to take advantage of what the game is missing based on that to get profits more efficiently

ChompyWulf1 votes

Most of the community doesn't know what it wants, or even if they voice it Riot often ignores them. Clearly just trying to do what they think will make the majority happy will cause larger and larger minority fans to leave and their company will be in trouble.

Mystery Ghost3 votes

{quoted}

Or it could work with any size/shape/gender champion. I'd simply rather see something less brainless for a character art design. Why not make a male healer for a change? Why not have a burly woman in glasses than a twiggly waif?

Dude you realize that your examples are exacly the BRAINLESS thing that you are talking about? Who would want to buy outdated ugly looking losers instead of beautiful styled anime inspired ones like RakanRakan and XayahXayah. This is why champions like them always have higher priority on skins than others its becuase they bring a lot more money to Riot. And this is why nowadays almost all games are leaning towards this direction.

Even World of Warships followed this marketing route http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/552990/header_alt_assets_0.jpg?t=1516280646

ChompyWulf1 votes

Lol, you reference Wargaming who has lost enough players they have begun merging servers? Only capitulating to the most popular champs will alienate more and more of their fanbase. They continue doing that, the game will die.

Ermidor1 votes

Ah, yes. Everyone knows anime invented putting bird features on humans.

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

It's a well known fact that Greek mythology took the idea for harpies from Papi from Monsutā Musume no Iru Nichijō. https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sigmapedia/images/5/51/Papi_Harpy_%282%29.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20150720204045

These sneaky sneaks.

ampheon2 votes

I am upset you mentioned Bard but forgot Nami

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

My apologies (I knew something was missing.... I didn't mention Alistar on purpose, since I am pretty sure that his healing is not canon, but something felt wrong). I will add her. ^^

Häxel4 votes

Why shouldn#t Alistars Heal be canon? A victory roar of a cow makes every human feel the nature and gives a relieving feel :D Also what about Janna healing winds, Nidalee and Kayle tribe/god healing? The ones that i would say are not realy canon are Fiora (duellvictory?), Kindred (Symbol of the Death heals people?) and Zilean (his going back in time isn't realy a heal and in lore jsut he goes back in time and not others). Also like you said not sure about Rakan , even if he as a Vastaya could maybe use a bit of magic.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Uff. Like you covered here already, all these champs still base their healing on magic and that was the main point I wanted to communicate here. ^^

We don't have a champion healing with hextech equipment, something that fits the medic champion trope and isn't healing because "magic". And in my opinion, something like that should be added into the game.

I agree with your points about the additional magical healers and not-canon-healers, though. I will add the canon healers into the list, thanks for pointing it out.

Ebonmaw Dragon3 votes

{quoted}

Kindred (Symbol of the Death heals people?)

Symbol of the death heals people because is not their time to die, yet.

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

However, translated in canon that would mean that the person just didn't die because of their own regenerative power.

ampheon1 votes

I believe they would died because they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and Kindred swoops in to save the day to prevent their death, since she basically know who's supposed to die and when based on their fate.

Jerry SeinfeId2 votes

Medicine in runeterra will always involve magic. There's just no reason not to implement it. There's no such thing as regular technology because it's just ridiculous to not mix it with magic: Hextech.

Most medicine will most likely be based on chemtech. Look at Singed, his whole body is modified using chemtech. but he's not running around with 50 tubes going into his body.

now outside of Zaun/piltover it'll probably be a bit behind on development and still be based on classic alchemy and healing magic. Demacia most likely being a leading developer of classic alchemy because they refuse classic magic.

while i wouldn't mind seeing more about healing in runeterra, it's gonna be alot harder to make interesting. especially if we want to completely remove combat from the story. Soraka's lore update (which she's gonna need at some point) would most likely be the best moment for this. Otherwise i'd look at demacia, bandle city, shurima or the jungle areas.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

You are right, hextech is technically magic. But what I mean is: the game is just using high fantasy archetypes for healing. Celestial magic, holy magic, water magic, etc.

While hextech is technically magical, it still represents the steampunk and cyberpunk tropes. Which we are missing when it comes to healing.

Syringes, bandages, elixirs. These classic healing tools are missing and I would like to see Riots take on it. They can surely base it on hextech or Chemtech. For example, I would enjoy to see a hextech syringe as some kind of weapon in the game.

So I just mean: while we got alot of goddesses, druids, Elementalist and stuff like that, the classic medic using medical equipment is missing.

Jerry SeinfeId1 votes

maybe i wasn't exactly clear.

What i'm trying to say is that there's always gonna be a magic element. Chemtech or generic alchemy medicing will most likely have something magical about them.

as seen in hextech magic in this case is used as an amplifier. It's clearly possible to make complex mechanic devices without magic but Hextech is superior in every way. Most likely chemtech syringes would use extracts from diverse magical plants.

Support Boyyy1 votes

I mean, even though Janna is more active in Zaun, she is worshipped/believed in, in both Piltover and Zaun. Sooo, she can kinda count as Piltover support. Also, I'd really like to see a dude healer, the only ones we have our Rakan, and his personality makes it impossible for me to play him without throwing up, and Taric, but I don't play tanks and he's just as flamboyant as Rakan. I'd just like a male support healer that plays in similar style to Janna or Soraka, in that they're ranged mage who relies on abilities to help their allies.

Border Knight1 votes

Ayyy, i always wanted a more scientific approach to heals, and since noxius lacked a support... So much that i actually created a champion concept.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Mind to share the link here? Would like to read it. ^^

Border Knight1 votes

Odd, i tought i created the link directly to the page There ya go buddy https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/A4O6JgBh-grendel-the-bloody-medic-champion-concept

Eli Big Gay1 votes

Ooo, a Piltovian/Zaunite science-based healer could be cool.

Tesla Effect1 votes

If you had such things as healing magic, regular medicine would not be as advance as real life medicine.

ChuShoe1 votes

piltover and zaun most likely rely on Hextech/Chemtech augmentations to help with medical problems, accompanied with surgeries and regular medicine.

But places like Ionia and Bandle City probably rely heavily on magic to cure ailments and fix problems.

Noxus probably uses a mixture of the two, and Demacia I've always felt is way behind on everything, ESPECIALLY advancements in the arcane arts, their population seeming incredibly dirty and sick to me unless you were a noble (oh and barbers + bloodletting yay).

Now the freljord, I've always viewed as vikings and ancient Germanic Tribes; old Scottish and Irish barbarian societies, worshipers of the old gods/demigods. Instead of one language spoken throughout the region, it's multiple broken dialects of an older language that is most likely written with specific symbols (such as runes and heiroglyphs) instead of languages written with individual letters that have sounds attached to them. Therefore, I've always assumed that their medicines are likely blessings, some magics, potions, and herbs. Stuff like that. Aside from that, the landscape has shaped the people, so they either don't get sick/injured, and if they do death is always an option (especially for Olaf).

All sorts of stuff lives in bilgewater, who even knows what their stuff is like

Shurima is Shurima. Birb guy probably knows, I don't.

Ifneth1 votes

Yeesh, if the Boards were right, then League would have collapsed years ago...

Anyway, it would be really cool to see a heartwarming story about one of the healers, or maybe about all of them. Bard could give a hiker who broke his leg a shrine; Nami, restore a swimmer who got bitten by a shark; Soraka, a sick child.

Hello I am Bird1 votes

I like to think that, albeit not explained very well, Heimerdinger's passive somewhat covers this base.

I'd still like to see a full out support that does this though.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Not anymore. They changed his passive that he gets movement speed near towers and his turrets, no health regen anymore.

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