Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Yoricks Lore

deathgod5··5 votes·1,402 views

There is only one thing I really like about the old yorick and that is the gothic ass lore that he has.

A terrifying and tragic figure, Yorick is a ghoulish being that exists on the edge of mortality. Some say he was the last of his family line, dying without an heir to continue its legacy, and that he was cursed to continue his family's duty even after death. Wielding the twisted shovel he bore in life, he continues his macabre work, endlessly digging and filling graves upon the haunted Shadow Isles.

I mean it is Gothic as all hell But it is cool as fuck. Now, to me he just sounds like hero architype 0.16; guy who uses evil to be good.

The last survivor of a long-forgotten religious order, Yorick Yorick is both blessed and cursed with power over the dead. Trapped on the Shadow Isles, his only companions are the rotting corpses and shrieking spirits that he gathers to him. Yorick's monstrous actions belie his noble purpose: to free his home from the curse of the Ruination."

I mean they can even combine it, Make it so that he was part of the order and was the gravedigger that died and kept digging.

28 Comments

Warlord Dienekes4 votes

Lol writers seem to be pushing for the dramatic and spectacular with their lore. Which has both positives and negatives. Poppy is no longer an iron diplomat, she's a nigh immortal symbol of Demacian ideals on an eternal search for... herself I guess. Ryze, who was already a bit dramatic for being the protector of an ancient doomsday spell, now actively protects the world from runes and is the greatest wizard of all time. Pantheon isn't just an awesome warrior he's a space alien body hopping parasite demigod thing from a galactic empire. New champions are star dragons that created the universe, actual death, and so on. (There are exceptions, specifically Jhin is just a mass murderer, who happens to also be one of them annoying art students who think their rather trite work is somehow deep)

Personally I think this style of writing gets kind of tiring, since I like low key heroes far more than demigods. But I'm not a writer for Riot, so what ya gonna do?

deathgod52 votes

Yea I do agree with you on this one. Some of the reworked lore is really good(skarner/rammus). but your examples perfectly exemplify what i dislike about some of the new lore. Dramatic, kinda overdone and really just not as snappy.

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

I think Ekko is supposed to be a lowkey hero. We may even get unsung ones in the future, like Poppy.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Ekko can legitimately control time. Currently, yeah he's fairly low key. But I'm willing to bet that much ridiculous magic potential will make some grandeous plot defining magical shenanagans happen that brings him to the utterly fantastic. There's just too much potential there for him not to. Because it's time control. That's legitimately one of the most brokenly powerful abilities in fiction.

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

He controls it in a limited way. I doubt he'll ever get out of Zaun/Piltover.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Maybe, but I think there's far too much potential for a last minute tinker from Heimerdinger or someone for the change of the timestream to stop the great Void expansion or whatever magical shenanigans is used to solve the plot with little to no explanation.

I hope I'm wrong though. I really really do

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

So far the stories have ended with minimal to no deus ex machina.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

You see I don't think they'll do deus ex machinas, I'm sure everything will be set up well in advance.

But I dislike when problems are solved by magic. Especially when the magic is alien and unknowable like most of what we have seen from Riot (how does Ekko's gear work? We don't know) which really hampers my personal enjoyment when it is then used to resolve a plotline. It's not a deus ex machina, not at all. But it always feels cheap, to me.

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

If you dislike problem solving magic, you might be in the wrong genre. At least hope you'll get more Bilgewater, or Zaun/Piltover stories.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

It's not 'problem solving magic' exactly. It's the way it's done.

If you allow me to ramble for a bit. I am a firm believer in Sanderson's 3 laws of magic. Which are: -An authors ability to solve plot with magic is directly proportional to how well said magic is understood by the reader. -Limitations are more interesting than powers -Expand what you have before you add more.

Now the first one is the big important one here. Basically if magic solves the plot but we do not know what the hell is going on it feels cheap. Now for Riot lore my big example is Nasus vs Xerath. We see them both pull some neat spells but since I had no clue how any of it worked it was more or less a much better described showing of two kids going "pew, pew" until one of them admits defeat. For me it was pretty boring.

Now contrast that with Twisted Fate. We don't know how his magic works, but we know a couple rules, basically he needs his cards. Which set up Graves handing him the card as they faced their deaths. It didn't feel cheap it felt like the story following its own rules. Now admittedly I think instant teleportation would probably have gotten TF out of a few problems during that story but that's nitpickery.

Now this isn't to say magic always has to be defined. But if it isn't it shouldn't solve the plot. Now great examples of this style writing are your Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Conan, and so on. And in all of those magic is not really defined but it also isn't really used by the protagonists to get them out of major plot events. Now it is sometimes used to solve small things, usually early on as a showcase of power, but once plot comes around it's largely absent. But I'm gonna go for a different example the comic Sandman if you read it. The protagonist is one of the most powerful beings in the universe and it's awesome. And the magic is not defined at all really. Sure Morpheus goes on and on about rules but he never explains them. But you'll notice if magic is used to solve plot it's in the context of a game which has set rules or it's really used just to set up insurmountable problems for Morpheus to deal with usually by having the struggle be internal. Really an excellent series if you haven't read it.

Now personally I have always and likely will always prefer vague magic and mundane heroes who have to deal with those magic using buggers. Because at the heart of it I like the underdog and dealing with problems through limitation rather than power. So seeing a bunch of champions swing wildly in the other direction, particularly my personal favorite champion has been annoying to say the least.

Valaran Nara1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Dienekes,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=pjcbnyAX,comment-id=000000010000,timestamp=2016-08-23T23:44:18.510+0000)

Ekko can legitimately control time. Currently, yeah he's fairly low key. But I'm willing to bet that much ridiculous magic potential will make some grandeous plot defining magical shenanagans happen that brings him to the utterly fantastic. There's just too much potential there for him not to. Because it's time control. That's legitimately one of the most brokenly powerful abilities in fiction.

Ekko doesn't use magic. He uses technology to make it happen, and it is very limited right now. Yes, it would be one of the strongest things ever if it was his own personal power, but it's not. All you have to do is manage to steal the Z-drive from him, and he can't do anything.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

It's an ability that allows the user/caster to break the laws of physics in a fantasy setting. It's magic. Call it a Z-Drive or call it the One Ring it follows the same narrative rules.

Trolosaurus2 votes

I do like it, it makes it seem like he's a very sad and lonely individual who just wants his home back. My only problem is now he's too similar to Varus

deathgod51 votes

Well, to each their own opinion(and i didn't notice the varus thing, well caught).

Whyte Lyon2 votes

Trying not to be an arsehole, just debating the argument. But Riot spent the first few years trying to create "low key" champs and stories. But for the reasons why we got a retcon was because Riot couldn't increase the diversity of champ and story archetypes.

You're only complaining because new and reworked champs are breaking away from the old stuff Riot was doing years ago. But if they remained on that path they were going I can tell you right now people would be complaining about "Too many low key heroes, tell us something crazy and cosmic...waah waaaah waaaaaah."

There literally is no way to please basic fans.

deathgod51 votes

I can see what you mean, but In yoricks case, Its really one of my favorite lores. I don't really care if they rework some champs but in case of this lore I did like the original. But I was curious if other people thought the same of it so I made this post. And as I said some lore reworks are part of my favorites(skarner/rammus). but there are lores that I do miss.

As for me only complaining about breaking away from old design: my favorite champs are the zilean rework, taliyah, soraka rework, braum and cho gath. I do like the new stuff. I have been playing since season 2 and still like many of the choices they make I do agree. Sometimes however I feel good things are lost and I am curious if other people agree with me. That is why I made this post, not just to whine.

Whyte Lyon1 votes

Clearly I'm not you, so I definitely never had the appeal of "I dig grave holes and oh I'm undead too" as an architype to be anything remotely interesting. I mean hell, at least there's more to the character now.

Plus alot of his old lore IMO had no potential or clear direction to take the character, so I really do struggle to understand how it appealed to you in the first place but what ever floats ya boat.

Beyond Legends1 votes

Honestly I find it bizzare for people who would say the old lore was better written in any shape or form. I mean most people whocomplainabout the lore are about the aspect of certain character trait that they envision from themself. Quite frankly I find they to be the edgy teanage fanfic writers instead of riot, who they accuse of this. Quite frankly if they were any competent writers they wouldn't be bitching on here or if their charactization was any good people may gave a shit. But thats my own salt of the issue.

Regarding Yorick, I did find him to be quite dull in many ways. He was part riot special snowflake that was jusy misunderstand tier of characters. I would say that the gothic tragic thing was neat but looks like something out of edgy teenager. The Angst!! The Horror!! So sad!! As you can tell I'm not fond of the old lore. It's too early to judge or compare the two but so far I like the new lore. The charatization is there for an interesting character to write more story with. Old Yorick gelt dead and had no future to him much like old trundle. There lore are maybe neat for 3 part short comic on tumblr, but they really didn't have anywhere to go.

Riot Is doing a reboot and it's going to piss of some die hard fans no matter what they do. They are incapable of seeing past their own vision. They hide and cower when their own vision of the lore are critized. It's quite pathetic that they would claim that old targon made any real sense. I don't think these people ever move out their homes or had any meaningfull interaction with people. They don't understand what grey character are despite they constant suppose need for one.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I don't think I've ever hid or cowered when the old lore of Targon is criticized. Hell I've criticized it myself (rite of Kor, it is literally the dumbest thing. Look killing half of the population for the basic survival of a tribe is idiotic. When a tribe gets too populous for their location they move, create separate tribes or colonies. And even if that was for some reason impossible, from the time we are born to at about 12-13 a human does not produce economic benefit while from that point on we do contribute. So killing them when they're teenagers already is killing them when they can start aiding the society while up until that point they would be a drain on resources. Kill them as babies if you need to. Really holy crap is it stupid).

That said. New Targon lore still sucks, is poorly plotted, cliche ridden, with obvious mistakes in synergy and character changes literally no one asked for.

That said not cowering but I have ignored you when you said something along the lines of just go and die or leave lol and that I'm a little bitch or whatever poorly spelled insult you've spewed.

Beyond Legends1 votes

Quite frankly you are wrong. Alot of people asked for the change. There was polls on how they treat the targon characters. Just because you missed it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Also learn the difference between a trope and cliche is.

Also I did not threaten you. Learn what a threat is before opening you dillusional mouth. Searious why the fuck are you even here all you do is bitch moan and spewl nonsense just because you don't like something.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

You're right I did change it to insult rather than threat before you posted actually. Which is basically all that you do. Little in the way of actual criticism or defense or literary discussion. Just insults about being a fanfic writer who lives with his parents or something. Despite none of that being true.

Beyond Legends1 votes

Oh really? Comming from the person who been spreading false information about Noxus not having a formation? So insulting a company for being bad and their writers are incompetent writers is ok, but when it's otherway around isn't? Civil never got through your thick skull might as well take a hammer to it.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

The formation comes from Riot's own post about letting their soldier pick whatever weapon they want, and them throwing a grenade at Kled in his video all while people are wielding axes, spears, grenades apparently, and crossbows all right next to each other.

That is not how formations work. That is the opposite of how formations work, which is why I say that Noxus has no formations, or if they do ones that make no sense. Especially because of the grenades. Do you wanna know why we don't hear about grenades during the Napoleonic era? Cuz they sucked. Do you wanna know why formations died out as a means of warfare? They started making actually useful grenades.*

But the biggest problem is, I don't think you understand the difference between an insult and a criticism. An insult would be calling me something, I don't know, perhaps a weasel sniffing ass, or whatever new insult you got. A criticism is, you created something, I think what you created was bad, here's why. Followed by an explanation, if it's a good criticism.

Now I won't say I've never insulted Riot, I probably have somewhere, I can get passionate. But most of it has been criticism. They really do not know how medieval and ancient armies worked, or how societies develop. They also have pushed their stories in a more epic and high magic route which I dislike for numerous reasons involving how the action and stakes within the story itself is inscrutable. Now you can try to argue whether or not my points are good, or you can try cussing at me for not liking the same fiction you like. Either way works, I suppose.

*there is more to it than that. The availability of accurate cannons, multi-shot rifles (which is another thing we know that Runeterrans have) all brought about the end of formations. But even when they existed, crossbows next to halberdiers next to axes? A sure way to mess yourself up.

deathgod52 votes

It might be so that it is very edgy and gothic, but I like the yorick lore. I like curse horror and tales told like old tales and yorick had both for me. (btw was their an old targon lore, because i actually like that upgrade) and not every piece of lore is bad.

I think skarner and rammus upgrades were amazing amumu barely changed. nasus, renekton, azir and xerath are improved overall and i like them. leona and diana had great upgrades aurelian is awesome. I find pantheons old lore better because I think rebooting him as an alien is kinda dumb. poppies changes just created another hero, I did kinda like the bitter old poppy so I kinda feel like it was a loss of a character. I like the new character, I like the old one.

Dont confuse this for I want the old lore back. I just like yoricks lore and feel sad they change it. if you disagree with me that's fine because that's a personal preferance for that champ.

Beyond Legends1 votes

The thing with Pantheon is that they simply left things to the imagination. I mean the targonian doesn't seem to care for the rakkor so why does Pantheon go out of his way to protect them? This shows that Atreus still has some sort of control but all that got left in subtext and people reacted poorly.

Meep Man1 votes

I disagree, because he might be a gravedigger for the religion, we don't have the full lore yet.

deathgod51 votes

yea that is actually quite true, maybe I should wait before releasing a post like this

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