A Quest for Clarity: The Lore Writer League Needs
Dear League of Legends Community and Creators,
Playing League for around three years, I had the privilege of watching the game expand and grow, and with a propensity to storytelling, I was keen on observing the changes made to the lore. Humbly, I thought that there was some work to be done. As a fantasy novelist, I've wanted to get my hands on some of Riot's literary projects for awhile now. This is something of a proposition. Maybe with the community's support, I could get a chance at helping League achieve a higher potential with the writings attached to every character.
Lore is just one big novel, all of its chapters splintered into stories that we call characters.
Beginning with the summoner concept that was soon discarded (yet lingering details remained?) I found that there were more than a few plot holes leaking within the League of Legends lore. Plot holes that were momentarily patched up, or were at least planned to be, but were subsequently left dribbling after the attempts.
So many of their characters, such as Shaco, have background stories that simply are, "Nobody really knows ... but he's dangerous and mysterious and stay away from this crazy dude." And other times, we get stories which exaggerate character attributes so much that they don't feel lifelike; they are screaming with archetypal stereotypes. (See the recent Star Guardian shorts.) Even a champion as recent as Bard is given little else than a foggy caricature of a demigod. Understandably, not every champion will have concrete details behind their origin. Granted, this is a fantasy realm. But being the nerds that we are, I'd say that we can relish a good story, more often than not. It may be tedious to give each champion a compelling tale, but I think the effort is worth it.
We don't have to know where each one come from if mystery is the aim. But at the very least, we can give those champions a short story capturing an average night in their life. Imagine what kind of ruckus Shaco would cause if he stepped onto the ports of Bilgewater. I'd be willing to write stories like that.
Just like the game itself, fiction needs meticulous balance and care. These aren't just champions, they are characters. What makes them lovable is their struggle and the quirks which perhaps hurt or helped them throughout their journeys. We need to showcase this. We shouldn't be content waving a wand over champions like Shaco or Bard's character pages.
Right now, League of Legends is making incredible strides with looking sleek, professional, and it's earning its reputation as the #1 played game with these overhauls of runes, design, and streamlined mechanisms.
It's time that we got the lore up to those standards. Some characters have little to no history. Some of their stories make vague pointers that do little but fill up paragraph space. Some of them have contrasting details and attributes. Some of them have crisscrossing motives or muddied leaps of faith to justify their personality. And some of them are stunning works of originality.
With a few hundred thousand keystrokes, we can make the older characters' stories (the one you see on their champion page) as thrilling and dynamic as the more recent champions we've seen. We can incorporate more dialogue, more subtlety, more drama, flare, and nuanced writing. With some nods to the past, with some innocent memories, a sprinkle of violence, some death, we can give their tales more life.
Being a creator of multiple fantasy worlds, I know how to make cultures and histories arise from individual stories that manifest from gritty details. Because it's not just about Vayne or Taric or Jinx or Zed, it's about their entire world and the strings that get tangled along the journey of its creation. And through these tangles, more characters enter from the backdrop, and thusly, we find brothers, sisters, parents, ancient enemies and sworn allies caught on opposing sides after decades passed ...
We get an endless web of possibility. Untangling it is the thrilling quest for clarity.
I know how to pull someone into a character's intentions while giving them a broader picture of their origin. From one warrior's subtle mannerisms in training, we can derive how a whole group of Noxians might behave on a battlefront. Through the observation of one mistake made in a skirmish, we glean how a character values saving others in place of themselves, and how that teaching stretched back to a lineage of good-natured healers.
It's not just my passion, it's my job to create compelling characters.
As I'm finishing up my fourth novel and preparing it for publication this December, I am starting to look for new projects to invest my full attention and interest in. After years of writing in my own world, it would be refreshing to instead work within the boundaries of another. I'd be willing to offer my full time, attention, and expertise in helping hack away at this massive undertaking that is cleaning up the seams of Runeterra's lore. I would even be write some of League's first full-length novels to give the players a deeper look into some characters' lives, much like the ones Blizzard offers for its World of Warcraft franchise.
Take a gander at the fiction offered on my website to get a feel for my writing style within a high fantasy setting.
Warmest regards, Harlequin Grim