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The Depressing Status of the Lore in League of Legends

Omnem Occido··14 votes·1,534 views

I am just going to go ahead and say it: the lore in League of Legends is garbage. It's exceptionally bad outside of a few fleshed-out champions like Ashe. A short, three sentence paragraph makes each champion feel hollow on the inside. The best you will get to know them is via their in-game chatter, which is extremely bland for some champs (Rammus, Malphite, etc.) An example of one of the things that really depresses me is that they don't even explain Ekko at all. "The Boy Who Shattered Time" is an empty title without context, and his lore gives absolutely no insight into how he broke time, or the effects breaking time has on the world of Runeterra. The bad thing is, he's not the only one. So many more champions have little to no background, and quite a few of them amount to, "Really good at killing. Unknown origin. Joined League of Legends."

I am not sure if Riot recognizes this, but there are a bunch of really talented people within the League of Legends community that would love to write some lore for champions. They wouldn't even have to pay us. We'd do it for free, so long as we got the credit for it.

14 Comments

Agent20909 votes

I've pretty much been a silent observer during the last year. Watching as the more new lore that comes out leaves more questions and frustrations than answers, then when people post their concerns on the boards, it either gets ignored or a red comes in a says something along the lines of "we know we need to do better" and gives out some empty promises here and there.

Honestly, I think I'm done caring about the lore. I can't bring myself to get my hopes up that we'll get anything substantial any time soon. We get some lore that leaves many questions, then a post from a red saying "more to come in the future! We deliberately left out pretty much everything about everything in the characters' stories so we can reveal it later! Isn't that great!?"

So really, I'm no longer interested in the lore. I'll just make up my own in my head at this point. At least then I'll actually get something.

Legacy of Xion6 votes

Don't forget the Narrative Team literally goes and tells us EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INFORMATION in Q&As and NOT IN THE LORE RELEASED. Then they go and give us a tidbit of Azir in a thread now, and everyone is just sick of this.

Headcanon is literally the only way to get a cohesive story out of the shambles Narrative left the lore in.

Take my advice: use the old lore, and headcanon new characters in. It makes more sense then Voidspawn roaming the land and devouring everything in a'ight with no defense.

The Anagram King2 votes

Some of it is quite nice. AND some of it is quite creative.

...some. :P

I feel like, if I were part of a megacorporation, I would not want to be taking up fan creations unless there was a very tight system through which to do so. Plagiarism is a big deal from a legal standpoint, whilst continuity is a huge issue from a lore standpoint. Can you imagine the amount of poorly-written pieces that would be thrown at Riot upon announcing that they would take fan creations?

THEIR PLAYER BASE IS COMPRISED MOSTLY OF CHILDREN.

Even getting past that and reaching a point at which you've separated the well-written pieces from the poorly written ones, you then have to wade through the quality of the stories in general. There is so little chance that you're not going to have to hire an editing team and a whole list of readers and writers.

And, let's face it - if you're at the point that you're hiring an entire group of writers to read other people's fanfics, chances are you can just write your own fanfics instead.

I mean, I don't have any experience with a million dollar corporation with a crazy high fanbase or anything - but if I wanted to take on fanfics, I'd be doing it recreationally. I probably wouldn't be putting out calls for it.

Smaller groups with a smaller fanbase would likely be more open to the idea.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

The largest part of the playerbase is 18-30. So nope, no children.

Darrosh Jewfist1 votes

I'm not sure how Ashe is a fleshed out champion.

DWT123452 votes

I think he's referring to the freljord story arc.

Story arc sounds so much cooler than "lore event"

Darrosh Jewfist2 votes

Oh.

Mhm. You make me think of something when you mentioned Story Arc.

Has any champion experienced an actual story arc? Like, a beginning, a conflict, and a resolution to that conflict? It seems every single champion gets a beginning and maybe a conflict but no resolution to it - or it's kind of swept under the rug I guess.

Syndra comes to mind - kills elders and lives in a floating fortress - all within a span of a few paragraphs.

Sneak Dog4 votes

There was the old Trundle lore. It finished and then Trundle got removed.

GreenLore2 votes

Syndra killed her master(I dunno if he was an elder or not),but she plans to take that a step further.

Arguably you could say this about Xerath/Azir. We've got the fall of shurima and now the reawakening.Both times these storys aren't that big and the reawakening is still in the starting phase,but they could be seen as 2 different story arcs.

Some other story arcs are also still considered canon,like the kalamanda incident(after all this was referenced in the sion promo where,they talked about the "charade",obviously referencing impersonating J4) and the Ionia invasion.

Darrosh Jewfist4 votes

The way I view an arc is that it's... well... an arc.

There's a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action.

I feel Azir/Xer'ath are still in the beginning... barely even rising action since we aren't even sure HOW they're expected to fight each other. Azir's sand people army versus... Iono, a crazy alligator and a coffin of pure energy?

The Ionian invasion also doesn't feel like an arc, primarily because it's always mentioned rather than described and detailed.

THe Kalamanda incident does fit a story arc, however because they removed the League -and thus the whole Zilean/League imposed ceasefire- I'm not sure if there's a resolution/climax portion anymore.

This lore is a mess.

Shénzhì1 votes

I think there is more to Ascendants. What would be the purpose of Ascending if not to just live as an immortal and safeguard Shurima? There has to be more than just being immortal and sharing things in common with any random tree in the mud.

So I figured the celestial beings Grove being omniscient and almighty through-out the cosmos are like Gods. This Godhood is the ultimate discovery for mortals to ascend to immortals and then to 'gods' or 'celestial beings'. Maybe this second stage is the ultimate secret withheld by Xerath.

The idea of reincarnation comes to mind as opposed to reanimation.

  • Reincarnation may suggest rebirth into something new (and possibly also having to die). For Ascendants, it more specifically means 'become a greater, immortal being'.
  • Reanimation may be more simple and abrupt that allows the body to achieve an illusion of immortality, I suppose - Persistent characteristics which categorizes Undead as immortal.
    • In LoL's Shadow Isles there is a curse. This magical parasite must facilitate the re-coupling of empty vessels with pre-existing ephemeral Soul energy at the moment of death. Parasitic in assuming its host and manipulating a weak host. Coincidentally, Mordekaiser's ultimate does this nicely (maybe he is the curse!).

Bard and the Grove and other ancient beings may be troubled by Shurima's conquest to reach the cosmos. The conflict involving Nasus and Renekton may have fought direct challenge from the stars. After Nasus' and Renekton's Ascension, the unknown aggressive party may have manipulated Shurima's demise after being unsuccessful directly ... with Xerath.

If Ascendants can achieve immortality why can they not achieve godhood among the stars? Wasn't that the Azir's ultimate gesture to embrace Runeterra under the Sun Disc? Ascendants really do sound like Ascendants with this. Their ultimate goal to be one with the cosmos and govern it as their own? Whoa..

Shénzhì1 votes

{quoted}

I think he's referring to the freljord story arc.

Story arc sounds so much cooler than "lore event"

Story Arc. A prelude. Yep. I think I already covered an ancient time Story Arc, almost. You'd be surprised how everything connects with some slight tiny adjustments.

Ancient Times & Champions (before time) Omniscient Celestials created benevolent Angels to counter unexplained malevolence (assumed to be Void's first appearance in cosmos). During ancient times Runeterra and galaxies may not have ever existed. What an ancient cataclysmic event involving Malphite's monolith transcended the cosmos with Continuum, since 'ancient times' refersso much It's interesting that the Void can mutate a being. Maybe Aatrox was an angel previously? ;)

'Ancient times' seems to refer to a 'time before time'. What if an ancient cataclysmic event involving Malphite's monolith transcended the cosmos with Continuum. The creation of time could inhibit free movement, right? This could inhibit the ancient unexplained evil that Angels fought, too.

Runeterran Times & Champions (prehistoric time) A developing world with a more recent and relevant history. Freljord and Shurima events come to mind. Iceborn created and destroyed may have inspired Shurima of Godhood, and the Ascendants were identified. A class of mortal beings that can level-with the Godhood of greater beings like Angels and Celestials.

Runeterran Times & Champions (present time) Multi-cultural world of powerful mortal minds, conflicting interests and ideas divided with centuries of war; millenniums of Rune magic abuse. The League of Legends was created during Runeterran times.

Everything seems to collect into the idea of the Fields of Justice, the League of Legends, to determine the fate of the cosmos. A mythical sporting ground to rite out redundancy and totality over all things. Even the most ancient and Godly beings, the Celestials, participate.

Omnem Occido1 votes

Look at her lore. It's a page long. "Fleshed-out" as compared to others.

GreenLore1 votes

Uhm League of legends isn't canon anymore,so no they didn't join the league.

Overall the narrative is approaching champs with a more episodic style.You know giving us different lore pieces that tell us different things about the champ,so that we get to know the champ step by step(the short lore in the client is only supposed to be a short summary,like the one on the back of a book). In Ekkos case,we got the video seconds and the comic about how he tried to save his friend Ajuna,which shows us what kind of person Ekko is,gives us a good indication of how his Z-Drive works within the lore,shows us what the street life of Zaun looks like,tells us about the kid on the mural and why Ekko has such a hate for Piltover.

However while this approach sounds nice on paper,the lore team currently fails to deliver on this.Many champs didn't even get their first lore-piece(like Rammus & Skarner ) and some pieces are really hard to find(the fall of Shurima,that told how Xerath ascended and got imprisoned was only released on Facebook and some full-lores have been only released on the boards).Not to mention that they don't follow up on these lore pieces,thus giving us next to no information about the champ,which can easily feel unsatisfying.

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