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What if the Institute of War is yet to be created?

333lom·9/10/2015, 3:41:35 PM·10 votes·1,128 views

Yeah, I know the chances for this are ~ 0, but it got me thinking.

The state in which Runeterra is now, it's pretty similar to the periods of Rune Wars or between them. Riot said Summoners still exist in some way now. We know from the old lore that Summoners existed even before IoW, as war mages who worked as mercenaries usually. If Valoran is not stabilized now by any supranational entity, there's danger of grand-scale wars.

One more thing is interesting, because if there is no League of Legends, why is the game still called that way? Perhaps it will be created in the future, but that moment is at some unidentified moment in time in the future; until then, a lot of lore could be thought out.

The new IoW could be formed to behave just as we wanted to perceive the old IoW: not as an all-powerful organization that keeps Champions in the Building forever, and controlling them like puppets, but as barely stitched-together institution that organizes matches whenever two nations decide they want to settle a small dispute on the Fields. IoW would still try to prevent large-scale wars, but not with all-powerful magic, but by desperately trying to appeal to reason, using examples of past Rune Wars; using tricks or quick fixes, attempting shady executions of most war-wanting individuals. Of course, the chances of their failure is great. But there's still more drama and suspense in: "will there be another Rune War? Because the last one nearly ripped the entire planet apart, we must prevent it", than when nobody cares about anyone, "Let's go to war!! Yeaaaarrr", and everyone just jumps in random wars for which we don't know how dangerous they might be.

9 Comments

SchaakaKon9/10/2015, 4:43:28 PM2 votes

Riot did hire that Warhammer novelist guy, so they clearly want to fix this lore issue. Many people used to say that the IoW was a cheesy storyline but i myself did like it and would love to see it again.

Braums lore still hits me that its unique presentation (Braum is told as a past legend) might actually be the new dirrection.

This is my guess as the new lore: Runeterra is a post apocalyptic world from the runewars, fertile with rampant magics. Beings like Brand and Maokai were created from the offensive magics that each nation would artillery at each other, turning nature into vengeful spirits against mages and humankind. Each nation/city state can easily tap into the excess of magic and can cause world irradication. The indestructable scroll on Ryzes back is the last recipe to useing rune magic, which he protects from others. To prevent world ending wars, the Instatue of War was created. Now this is all old pre-retconed lore which still works with a new retcon dirrection: Each city state is in a setting of cyber punk instead of fantasy that even Demacia possesses great technological advances. But in a world with such accessable magics, even a persons personal chi or will can give them magical abilities (how Garen can go toe to toe with Rumble or Caitlyn, imagine Runeterra closer to DBZ instead of our own reality). Demacia prefers sword and armor over guns because with training it works. With this high mixture of magic and technology the IoW can create simulacrums of legends from the past and present to fight in controlled arenas. A thought is that a summoner can use time magic (that seems readily available if kids are using it) to bring the memories and skill of a past legendary swordsman into the body of an innert golem made from a concoction of technology and magic to fight in these areas (because thr kids now'a'days and their smart phones dont know how to wiggle a sword proper like - kinda vibe). These Project skins may not be far off the mark.

Ralanr9/10/2015, 5:09:41 PM2 votes

Personally I like to think that Runeterra is on the precipice of a second Rune War.

The institute could be something created in response, like the United Nations. Course that would be after the war already started.

I think Azir's sudden appearance is almost enough to tip it all down into another Rune War. Freljord is still in a civil war, Noxus is occupying Ionia and fighting Demacia, Zuan acts as mercenaries and Piltover can't keep out forever. Something is going on with the shadow isles. Bandal City might work with Demacia on the war front.

See where I'm going?

Tsuchinoko X9/10/2015, 7:01:41 PM1 votes

No please, no more institute of war.

No need to bring back any of it into the new lore. Let people be people, let nations be nations

Tesla Effect9/10/2015, 9:00:55 PM1 votes

First I would laugh, then I would cry, then I would applaud.

Dan Squared9/11/2015, 7:21:31 AM1 votes

I would be 100% down with the story eventually getting to the point where the IoW / League is created...right now we are kind of limbo with the lore, and Riot is taking the opportunity to flesh out the various regions. We have a lot more information on shurima, bilgewater, freljord, ect.

I'd say once all the city-states and regions are sufficiently fleshed out we could move on to more overall plot, of which the end result could be almost a cold war-esque stand off between Demacia and Noxus. Cooler heads in the end prevail and the League is created.

But as said, instead of having summoners be able to effortlessly dive into most champions heads, summon them at will, and direct their actions...we could streamline it so that we still get the character interaction and political machinations that we had before, but without the characters losing their agency due to summoners being near all knowing and all powerful