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Big Bads in League: Should Kog'maw's Daddy ever truly arrive?

ModCaptainMårvelous·8/21/2015, 4:47:18 AM·17 votes·3,029 views

A few days ago, I was chatting with Bioluminescence (Wonderful person, 10/10, great with kids) and our convo drifted to the topic of these god-tier monster characters always looming in the background. Kog'maw's Daddy, The Master Thief C, The Ruined King, etc. Before I actually get into the topic, I wanted to share this little video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DyRxlvM9VM

So what is the point? Well, foremost, the key thing to draw is that Cthulu loses all his terror and threat when you put a health bar on him. So much as giving your player even an inkling of hope makes the villain a thousand times less scary. Nemesis from RE3 worked because you had no idea you could fight him. You either blew everything on this unstoppable juggernaut to kill him...only to have him come back stronger than ever. With a rocket launcher. Don't question it.

Now, with league, this comes to an interesting point: Should these characters be made champions? Kog'maw's dad coming as the harbinger of the apocalypse seems a lot less scary when you take a peek at his base stats and you can fight him toe-to-toe on the rift. The Ruined King isn't so horrifying when you can take him in a duel as a normal run-of-the-mill fellow like Graves. So while I want to leave the question in the air, I wanted to think of the possible ways you -could- incorporate characters like this into league.

#1.) "You can't hurt me, Jack!" - The Not-Dying Animation

http://i.imgur.com/MEdCiU5.jpg Quick! What do Ekko and Zed have in common?

Ok did you say all your snarky answers? Cool.

Ekko and Zed are two of the only champions who don't die in league. When Ekko "dies", he winds his time-device and teleports back to the fountain. Zed doesn't die, he opens a portal and goes to heal. By extent, this makes these two seem far more powerful than they may actually be. You can't ever truly beat Ekko, he'll rewind time. Even pulverizing Zed just means he has to take a breather.

Now let's apply this to another champion concept. Pretend there's a super powerful void creature. Injuring him doesn't bring his actual health lower, you're just chipping away at a shield. When you actually break this shield, he/she/it doesn't die. It simply goes "I grow tired of this" and teleports away. This creature considers your attacks so insignificant that even killing it (in-game) is the equivalent of just bothering it. You cannot kill it, you cannot harm it, the best you can do is hope to drive it back and pray that's enough.

#2.) "IT WAS ME AUSTIN! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG!"- The not-champion.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/56ae1a936e2087354cadbb5019303dca/tumblr_msmds3aadY1qko5wdo1_250.gif

What do I mean by this?

Simple: If you have a character like the Ruined King, one of the possible outcomes is to always leave it in the air if this character is TRULY who they say they are. Gonna be spoiling that thing I wrote so if you had any intention of reading it, just don't worry about removing the cross-out. If you did, copy-paste into the comment box to see what the spoiler is.

#######~~In the novel-fanfic, I used the C character. However, it's pretty clear that he doesn't act like a master thief. His plan is shoddy, his methods of sneaking are "rush headlong and hope for the best" and overall he's more of a brute than a thief. The reveal later is that this guy WASN'T C. He's a mere inheritor to the title and the real C has passed away or otherwise. ~~

Let's be honest in the fact that no matter what fantastic, magnificent character we could make? Players will always have preferences to other interpretations. While it's completely at the lore team's discretion, I think leaving the "Is he/Isn't he?". This way players with different headcanon can still project new ideas versus forcing them to accept this character as the real McCoy.

#3.) "It's a Category V. The largest we've ever seen."- The Baron Approach.

http://i.imgur.com/ISLGYbh.jpg

Baron Nashor is always a name that will strike dread in allies and enemies. Games have been thrown at his pit. Allies have taken so much damage that you get wiped in teamfights. Only a select elite have ever had the distinction of being able to face the baron in a one-on-one and walk away with those floating purple rocks. So while these god-tier beings may not be fit for the rift as playable characters, maybe they'd work as boss monsters?

Imagine a void event that comes with a 5-man Horde mode. Players have to survive 14 waves of grueling void-terrors swarming their base as they try to hold back. On wave 15, however, things go silent. That's when Kog'maw's Pappy finally takes the stage. The final boss, the big kahuna, the largest void monster Runeterra has ever seen. It's a fight for your life as all five players swarm the beast and struggle to bring it down before it smashes the nexus and destroys the only thing stopping the void gate from widening.

This gives these beings an urgency. You'll never play as them because they are above a champion. No mere champion can hope to bring them down alone, this is a fight for everyone. The world is at stake and you need a literal team of Avengers/Justice League to face this threat if they even HOPE to see tomorrow. Sounds a lot more interesting than just another champion, no?

Of course the thing we're neglecting is if these characters should ever see playable/fightable form. Maybe C works best when you never see his/her/it's face? Maybe the Ruined King should stay a specter looming in the distance? Perhaps Kog'maw's Daddy should always be the creeping dread that he may one day arrive when we're not prepared. It's things like this that propel simple characters to iconic legend status. It's horror/suspense like that which makes us fear of what we would do if we truly had to fight it.

As said at the beginning, the moment you give Cthulu hitpoints, you lose all sense of Cthulu truly being a god.

So let's discuss away. Do you think these characters should ever see creation? Maybe they work best from afar? Perhaps there's another approach we could take that so that these characters still have story presence and game presence? (Items? Icons? Lore Events? Gameplay Lines?)

11 Comments

A Superb Villain8/21/2015, 2:45:31 PM4 votes

I believe the issue should be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

For example, I think the Ruined King can, and should, become a champion, as there is nothing that suggests he is wholly on another level in relation to champions. That might change if new lore suggested he was behind the various Harowings that plague Runeterra, but as of now, he could be every bit the broken ruler who has lost his splendor and now sits on a decaying throne, prisoner to his own madness.

On the other hand, characters like Kog'Maw's progenitor should not become champions. These are individuals so incredibly powerful, so mind-bendingly terrifying, that the very notion they can be stopped, let alone killed, is nearly impossible to conceive as it is to comprehend their very existence. If Riot wants to do real terror, following your Horde idea is a good start; let players see and fight the vermin, the grunts, the parasites that just happen to share the Void with real monsters, then have true terror step onto the Rift. They shouldn't even be given a health bar to indicate how much left there is to beat out of the monster, let the fear of not knowing when the beast will finally fall convey just how horrifying fighting these nightmares really is. Leave victory in question and a fight becomes all the more desperate as it plays out, and all the more satisfying when the odds are beaten.

Side-note: What if Riot had decided against having Ekko go back in time? What if he was so thoroughly beaten that when he tries to rewind the Z-drive malfunctions, erasing him from existence?

GreenLore8/21/2015, 10:39:56 AM1 votes

Overall I think its ok for characters like the ruined king or C to become champions eventually,simply because they are never that much outside of our comprehension. They might be powerful or sneaky or whatever,but in the end they remain human in some way. Sure they are mysterious,but keeping a mystery for too long,without giving an answer,will only lead to the assumption that the developers simply never made an answer,which will lead to people losing interest in these mysteries.

However i agree with you about the void. The void is a place that should be out of touch with the rest. A full out invasion of the void should be pretty much unstoppable,so the only way to survive is to avoid such an event.

I think the first 2 options don't quite work though. The first one doesn't really achieve the effect of making the champ look stronger.Like you said,Ekko&Zed just escape(vel'koz too),but it doesn't really make them look stronger,just a bit more sneaky/cowardly.Even if the champ says something like "uh,I don't care about this battle anymore" before vanishing,would make him look simply sneaky/cowardly. The second option only works temporary If we get a champ who claims to be C,and then its revealed that he isn't C,people would start again asking for C to become a champion(even if C died,they would continue to ask for him,I mean people are still asking for Yone,despite the fact that Yone is dead)

The third option however should be able to work. The individual void monsters are powerful,but still beatable.So making kog'maws dad a boss monster would be ok,as long as he is extremely powerful and makes it clear that this isn't the full power of the void,that you didn't deafeat it,but merely survived their attack.

Overall this reminds me of the Eldrazi creatures in magic the gathering.They are nearly unstoppable monsters,where the best thing you can do is preventing them from even entering the game.If you failed at preventing that,then all you could hope was stopping them indirectly and even that wasn't an option for some. My brother played a deck based around them and it was quite terrifying.

Gladston8/22/2015, 11:32:31 AM1 votes

Lets face it : we allready have champions that are as powerfull as Kog's daddy :namely Xerath,Bard,pre Soraka,Azir,Vaigar, and maybe syndra so whats the problem with implementing cathulu ? everyone of this champions could bring horror and dispair to this wrold

cHAncEman12928/22/2015, 6:28:03 PM1 votes

I personally would like to see Kog's dad get the Myrrah treatment from Gears of War 1

Throughout the game you'd always hear her talking but you never saw her. I remember playing just waiting for a reveal but instead was only left would a sense of foreboding with each of her monologues. To this effect I think Kog's Dad would best be served as an Announcer - or perhaps a voice over for a victory/defeat screen tied to a Void event. Heck, how hype would it be that winning or losing with a X number of void creatures on your team triggered a special voice over?

(Void Team Wins) "As the skies blacken, and the ether burns the land. We, the voidborn, have come to collect."

(Void Team Loss) "This cycle is not yet ripe, though darkness is coming. We are harbingers of the Abyss and shall serve this purpose in due time..."

I think this would alert players to his presence while intensifying the mystery.

Ironclad Dragon8/22/2015, 6:33:20 PM1 votes

Category 5? Now I HAVE to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kxczI-8OQ0 This must be the theme.

biologist118/23/2015, 6:09:32 AM1 votes
  1. To be honest we don't have any real info on how strong Kog'Maw's dad is. He could be of a normal void borne strength. When you were a child you may of over exaggerated your dad making him seem like the toughest dude in the town. 2.There are already set nerf and balances in the game/lore. Apparently taking a bite out of someone/something needs a cool down and mana in Cho'gaths case and has a limit on how large he can swell himself and in his lore there is no limit stated. Or a great example is literally they needed to tone down Jax restricting him to a lamp post (This could of been retconed).
Rito Staff8/21/2015, 9:54:10 AM1 votes

But what if you kill Ekko before he rewinds? D:

Dreamspitter8/24/2015, 10:04:34 AM1 votes

Does Baron actually die? He always respawns.