How Magic and the Universe Works. Maybe.

So magic is a weird thing. It has a lot of origin points and comes from a wide array of places. Some of it comes from the world, some from space, some from other realities, but how does it work? Hopefully I can try and explain, in a manner that makes some sense, how I've come to understand how magic and the fundamental laws of the universe work in League of Legends, at least from the standpoint of how magic functions.

So first off let's remember what the whole picture looks like. There are multiple planes of existence and each of them intersect with the main one: Runterra's universe. They are as follows:

• Runterra's Universe: the principle plane of existence in this whole thing.
• The Void: a plane filled with darkness and all consuming, highly intelligent and dangerous organisms.
• The Glade: the origin plane of the Fae; a place filled with strange and peculiar magic.
• Soraka's Grove: Soraka's original home which is directly tied in with cosmic power.
• Bard's home: An as of yet unexplored area of the universe populated with celestial entities.

In this whole conversation we could consider the homes of Kayle, Morgana, Malphite and Taric as a additional planes, but their existence is a bit tenuous with this new canon so I'ma leave them out of the equation at this time.

All of these planes have magic which takes various forms. This magic is completely natural. Runeterra is the most complex that we've seen thus far, with a whole mess of natural magic to call upon. This magic is mostly tied in with the natural world itself, so it's mostly elemental in origin; ice, fire, water, wind, lightning, earth and life are examples of this and they all have some magical properties. Runeterra is populated with beings who are naturally magical. Here are some examples:

• Anivia is Freljord's natural embodiment and literally living ice magic.
• Janna is a naturally magical human with a special connection to wind magic.
• Skarner is of a race of beings who are naturally tied in to crystal magic.

This appears in all kinds of different forms from Darkin to Demons but magic doesn't permeate everything, far from it. For humans in particular, magic can be hard to come by, and if you're not like Janna or Zilean you need to be more creative when it comes to getting your magic, and this usually requires using some kind of foci, a mediator, or a transformation:

• Having a physical means of connecting with the magic can allow a person to use magic, as seen with Yasuo who, despite not being naturally magical, can draw upon the wind's power through his mastery of the windblade technique.
• Having a foci can bridges the gap between the user and the magic. This can be anything really, but some notable examples are wands, tomes, cards, true ice tools and demon ravens. Looking at you Swain.
• Being magically empowered in some way. This is doesn't always require a foci and sometimes can just happen, for example the Ascended all had the Sun Disc as their means of empowerment, allowing them to access magic, but Volibear got his lightning powers straight from the source of that magic; the scared storm his people revere.

This occurs with the other planes too, for instance when we look at the Void we see humans once again need help to access void magic but creatures from the void are more inclined to be naturally magical: Vel'Koz can opens rifts to the Void and has lasers made of void energy, all of which are natural abilities for him, where as Malzahar and Kassadin needed to be void empowered before they could even so much as float. The Fae, Soraka and Bard are all examples of beings with naturally occurring magical powers.

There's a slight problem with reality though; it's restrictive. Some magic just can't be easily obtained or utilised in one plane or another, and that can make people sad. However, there is a work around for this, and it is important for understanding how the universe works:

The Magical Friction.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Bard_0.jpg

This friction is a phenomenon that occurs in all worlds and is directly tied in with how realities interact with one another. To explain this in the way I understand it, imagine that the five planes we talked about before intersect with one another, or at the very least Runeterra intersect with the other four. Where the boundaries of reality meet the friction occurs. This notably occurs in Icathia, the Yordle Lands (Which are horribly named) and Ionia, which are located in the area where the Void, the Glade and Soraka's Grove intersect with Runeterra respectively. The friction likely isn't specifically tied to these places (since Icathia/southern Shurima isn't the only place voidborn have popped up) but this is where it occurs at its strongest, and is where the lines between reality blur. As a result of this portals and breaches in reality are likely to occur, allowing entities from both planes to cross in to the other.

The friction allows for the blending of realities, and in a magical sense allows for one kind of magic to appear in another reality despite it not naturally occurring in that plane. Kassadin and Malzahar are prime examples of this effect, but Lulu and the Ascended are also in this group, but how does their connection work?

Well for Lulu her connection is simple; she learned to use magic in the Glade and can now interact with the friction to draw upon that power whenever she wants.

The Ascended are similar, but rather than going somewhere they were given their powers by another plane. I don't know where their powers originate from, but it's clear the Sun Disc doesn't actually draw energy from the sun to make Ascended, but instead uses the sun's rays as a catalyst to interact with the friction, thus drawing power from where ever it's connected to make them.

The effects of the Friction likely have long term effects, as evidence by the fact that beings from other realities can exist in Runeterra. Why is this you ask? Well if we consider that magic and living beings can move transcend realities to move from one plane to another via the friction then it stands to reason that when the friction is present it has a sort of naturally leakage effect where magic and energy from each plane bleeds in to other planes it intersects with.

This likely has an affect on landscapes, as seen with Baron Nashor's corruption of Summoner's Rift, but also has a biological effect, allowing for creatures from each plane to adapt to the energies of one plane over the course of time, thus allowing them to naturally cross over with no complications. This is already seen with the Void, where voidborn are able to inhabit Runeterra with no issues but humans are not so lucky when they come in contact with the void, and are horribly mutated, driven insane, or both. In this example voidborn likely populate the part of the Void that connects via the friction to Runeterra, and are thus naturally exposed to its energies over time, a time which is likely thousands of years. The opposite isn't true because the voidborn in Runeterra have pretty much driven out any Runeterran life from the areas they inhabit, meaning the native life won't have a chance to adapt to void energies and will have a bad time. This might also draw back to life on Runeterra not all being naturally magical, but we also see particularly non-void powered up voidborn like Kog'Maw have no problems in Runterra, so I dunno about that.

Over time the affect the friction has on the planes involved might lead to some pretty big and catastrophic effects. I'm going really far in to the theoretical here, but if the magical friction became such a powerful effect for two planes it might end up blending the two together in to one, which is a frightening, reality destroying prospect if we look at how our universe works. On the one hand, this could be how new realities can potentially form, but on the other, this could be mutually assured destruction. We don't know how much of the magical friction is nature doing it's thing or work by outside forces, and if the friction isn't supposed to be meddled with too much then we could see some pretty catastrophic events occur if there's ever a point where the flood gates to the void open and millions of the little monsters flood through; we wouldn't need to worry about the void invasion, we'd need to worry about reality itself collapsing in on itself and obliterating all life!

Yikes.

But anyway those are my musings. I have no idea how much of this is right or wrong, but I figured I'd talk about it since Bard's unique existence has got me thinking a lot recently.

Also as a side note: Bard travels between planes that intersect with Runeterra, meaning he's potentially visited the Void and the Glade before. I feel like that's pretty cool.