"Where Icathia Once Stood" is amazing

Ho. Ly. CRAP. This is the best short(?) story that Riot has produced in a long time.

In all honesty, I'd stopped hoping for great stories from League lore. Oh, they were never BAD by any means, but... well... in The Principles of Strength, it's obvious who and what you're supposed to sympathize with. For Demacia was good but it didn't have any lasting impact on the characters or the region it took place in. The color stories for each character are fine, but they always felt too short. Bloodlines, The Bird and the Branch, and Shadow & Fortune were all good, but they were also a little too open-ended for my tastes (less "this is the full story" and more "this is the first chapter"). Also years old at this point. And everything since For Demacia has been... well, there's nothing there I dislike (aside from maybe Varus, and even that gave us a really cool song), but almost nothing I could point to and say "I love this" (Nami's color comic is why 'almost').

But this one blew me away. Kohari's mind dissolving into just "my" is horrifying and sad in equal measure. Seeing that Icathia's void rift was a deliberate effort to free themselves from the Shuriman Empire was incredible. Seeing Saijax and Corgrim joke about cooking right before a grim battle with the Ascended. The girl he wanted to come home to. The feeling of clashing blades and choking dust as Kohari fought his way through the Shuriman's first wave. That feeling of elation and hope as they prepare to set out from Icathia (and actually leave). Seeing the Ascended for the first time and the sheer terror they inspire... oh, tis glorious.

Most of all though, I love that nobody here feels like an outright villain (except maybe the mages who used the Void, but we never see them directly, so who knows?). Good vs Evil can tell good stories, but stories of clashing motives and ideas are so much more interesting imo. The Ascended are there to stop a Void incursion, the Icathians are there to free their home, Saijax leaves to save himself from the void, Kohari stays because he can't abandon his home...

Nobody's a story role, there to fulfill a purpose and then be tossed aside, they're all people. And so when Kohari finally died... yeah, it was obvious he was a goner, but I kept hoping he'd make it. And I felt sad to watch him go.

Thank you, Riot. You killed my friend, but I would never have met him without ya.